June 24

For Father’s Day we went to Kennywood so we would have more time there without rain. There were wonderful parts, but there were also many moments of whining and upset. Almost as soon as we got there, Sarah started saying she wanted to go home. For Amy, none of the food options were ever right. Then by the time it was actually time to go Sarah didn’t want to leave because she had found a new favorite ride where she got to “drive” a car. 

One night after dinner Amy wanted to write our exciting news on the newspaper so she could read it. She wrote, “Sarah bear tried her sweet potato.” It is too bad that such wonderful news didn't completely obscure the other news items printed on the page.

Monday did not go as planned. Sarah and I took Amy to her camp and then got in the car to go to Sarah’s camp. The car wouldn’t start. It was raining. Carl was out of town. I called my mechanic and he thought it was the starter. I called roadside assistance. I arranged for a tow to occur later in the day when I could be there. I removed Sarah’s car seat so it could go in an Uber. We got a ride to her camp and then I continued to my work. After teaching, a friend gave me a ride home to swap the large car seat for my two small booster seats. Then she drove me to Sarah’s camp. Sarah and I ubered back to where our car was. Our wonderful sitter J met us there. We waited. When Amy’s camp was done the sitter took the girls home to get a snack and prepare for ballet class. I thought I would be able to meet them at ballet. Nope. The sitter took them to ballet and home from ballet and did dinner and bedtime. I waited for over 3 hours for the tow truck, only learning at the very end that I didn’t need to be there with the car!! (If I had known that I would have had them put in the tow request immediately.) My client picked me up on her way to my office. I walked home after our appointment. The rest of the week was similarly packed with transportation, work, camp, afternoon appointments, and sitters helping. Tuesday my car was fixed except that after I picked it up it seemed that the AC was broken and I couldn’t easily get it fixed until Friday. That meant a lot of hot, uncomfortable car rides. Sarah’s camp is 30 minutes away and usually some of that is sitting in traffic. On Monday I felt amazed at myself for handling everything so well. By Thursday evening when Carl returned from his work trip I felt like I was beyond the end of my rope. While I had planned to greet him with a loving, welcoming hug, instead I met him with grumpiness and slumpyness. It it good that my students don’t see me slumped against the fridge with the worst posture in the world. Luckily, having Carl home and having the schedule be a bit less packed and having an amazing Jenny-Rise session and the girls having another wonderful swim lesson and going out to dinner with Carl meant that I felt much better on Friday than I had by Thursday afternoon.

Despite reaching my limit, the week had many many wonderful things in it. While I walked home from my office on Monday night I had an epiphany of the Alexander sort where I end up saying, “Oh, it’s…” and say exactly what I have been teaching for years and in theory understanding for years. I really got it about the means whereby. That means that instead of focusing on the end goal, it is more effective if I just focus on how I want to use myself in each moment and then the end will take care of itself. For months I have been having hip pain and dysfunction at various times, especially when walking. I was worried about it for my walk home because it is a 30 minute walk. I didn’t have to walk but I really wanted to. So I told myself not to think at all about where I was going and instead to free my neck and encourage my shoulder blades to be in a position to support that neck freedom and to let my knees release forward. That is all I did for thirty minutes and I easily, comfortably walked home. I did it again the next day. I feel like there is some bigger and more profound lesson here about any task that feels challenging and how I just need to take the first step and then another step. That has helped a bit with dealing with some of the mess that is my house, but it clearly wasn’t something I was able to maintain all week long. Still, not maintaining it doesn’t detract from having the epiphany and amazing moments to begin with. 

At Sarah’s swim lesson she actually got the back of her head wet because her teacher helped her be that horizontal!!! That is a first. That is amazing!!!!!!!! I also got to witness the teacher working with a new student where the parents were more wanting the teacher to push past the child’s tears and proceed anyway. I am so grateful that the teacher is so open to following what the parents want so that with Sarah there was never any pushing or forcing. Now I see that it isn’t just the teacher but it is also how I present us all and how I want people to be with Sarah. What always feels slightly sad and embarrassing is that I do force Sarah to do things even when she is screaming. I don’t want other people to do that, but I do it. I know each moment and thing is different, but still. 

During my Jenny-Rise time yesterday I could feel how helpful it would be to let go of my notions of how things are supposed to be and what I think is right in any given moment. Some of my attachment to how I think things should be leads to tension in my head, neck, and jaw. When I took that thought to my right hip and leg it was a different story. While my head and neck thought letting go was an interesting idea to consider, my hip and leg said “What do you mean?! I don’t know how to exist other than how I am. I absolutely cannot let go or the world as I know it may fall apart.” What I love is having the time, safe space, and fascial encouragement to be with myself in that way and notice these things. I also see that if I remember the means whereby then I don’t actually have to figure out anything more than just how to let go a little bit in any given moment. So easy sometimes and so seemingly impossible at others!

The girls LOVED their camps!!

This week seems like it was a month long.

June 17

Last week I forgot to write about a couple of things. In her time with Sc, Sarah was making a list of what they needed for a pretend recipe and she said, “and finally, eggs!” I love that “and finally…”

G recently wrote, “Sarah’s output, particularly over the past month, has been…more authentic sounding. It’s hard to put that into other words. Sarah’s communication, and particularly as we think about her word choices but also her prosody…or the melody, intonation, dynamics, and the “music” of her speech…had been, in the past, practiced-sounding.  Like an actor not quite ready for opening night from an emotional standpoint but with most of the words memorized. Recently, however, our interactions feel…improvisational, relaxed, connected.  Less “classical music” and more “jazz,” which is the nature of communication and relationships since things are generally fairly unpredictable and..well, messy. Sarah does well with the messy.  Has fun with the messy. Is comfortable and fluent with the messy.” That is so true!! I have been noticing the same increase in fluency but didn’t know how to describe it. This is so exactly it. 

Yesterday Sonia and A. helped me take the girls to Kennywood. I am not a rollercoaster person at all so I brought my reinforcements to take the girls on certain rides. We went to Kiddieland and the girls did several rides including a tiny rollercoaster. They loved it all and then the skies opened and we got drenched, soggily making our way back to the car. There was one ride that Sarah was too tall for and my heart felt a bit broken even though Sarah handled it fine. Later, when Amy saw a picture of herself on that ride she said, “Mom, that’s the ride that broke our hearts."

The girls had their swim lesson yesterday and once again Sarah did the best she has ever done. She was swimming with a floaty ring! She didn’t want to get out! She can almost do the teacher-assisted floating. With Amy, B. holds her head while she floats. With Sarah he has her lean back against his shoulder as if she is going to sleep and then he makes himself increasingly horizontal. He is a brilliant, patient, and creative teacher. He has never pushed Sarah to do something. As we left he commented on how far she has come and that it was literally step by step, gesturing to the steps that she played on for the first handful of lessons. I love that I happened upon such a wonderful teacher and swim-lesson format. 

Amy is now done with Kindergarten! How did that happen?! She can read so well. A few days ago we were at my office after using the pool there and Amy picked up a book by Shakti Gawain and started reading it. She said there were only a couple words that she didn’t know. She said we should try to get a copy of the book because it was very informative! I don’t know how much of that was true and how much she really took in, but it was adorable. 

The girls start camp on Monday. It will be their first camp experience ever. For two weeks Sarah will go to a day-camp run by her school and Amy will go to an arts day-camp. 

Earlier this week I had a lot of uncertainty about a decision that I felt I had to make. I hate uncertainty and I was making myself rather miserable about it. A friend suggested that maybe I was asking myself the wrong question. That was incredibly helpful. I realized that I had been trying to determine the right answer when maybe there is no such thing. The easier question was just “what do I want?” and then the answer was easily forthcoming.

I did a bunch of Alexander teaching this week and I loved it as much as ever. I love being able to tell that I am a better teacher than I used to be. It is so amazing to actually help students feel more comfortable by doing something that seems like a little bit of nothing and yet can be so profound.

This is an amazing article about how the way we see people may affect how they are around us. It is about the transformative power of being present without putting our expectations or stories about others onto them.

http://equussantafe.com/blog/2017/6/11/empowering-others-by-how-you-see-them

June 10

Last weekend we were hanging out with Sonia and A. for dinner. We were talking and laughing about some tv shows that I have a propensity to like (swashbuckling, a couple of centuries in the past) and somehow that got mixed with me saying that it was the equivalent of asking if I liked chocolate. Sarah picked up on part of this, thinking that it was the question, “do you like chocolate?” that had me laughing so much. Now she asks it thinking I will laugh. Monday night after dinner she asked me and I didn’t laugh. After a few more tries with asking she paused and then commanded, “laugh!” Carl and I then legitimately burst out laughing. 

Sarah has been wearing a blue shirt with little white hearts almost non-stop. Every day. Every night. Since she is done with school and it is staying relatively clean I have been allowing this. Monday night as she changed her shorts for pajama bottoms I asked if she would change her shirt too. She said no. I asked if she would let me wash it the next day. She said no. I asked when she would let me wash it. She replied, “after we go to Idlewild.” Well-played Sarah, well-played. We have no immediate plans to go to Idlewild because it is really a whole-day affair and we don’t have any of those available for a while. I did manage to wash the shirt one day when she changed it to take Amy to school. I popped it in the wash immediately and she didn’t even ask about it for the rest of the day.

Carl went to get his notebook for work and found that it wasn’t in his bag. He asked Sarah if she had seen it. She informed him she was using it to trace her handprint.

Errands that I normally do by myself have been quite easy to do with Sarah. I always attributed difficulty with errands with both kids to difficulty with Sarah but that isn't the case. It is just having two that want different things or go at different speeds. While I have needed to do a few things with Sarah in tow, I extend a huge thank you to A. for hanging out with her a ton this week to allow me to work, attend class, and go to my Jenny-Rise session. Carl also worked from home one afternoon so I could still teach even when my sitter was sick. It does take a village.

My SR session this week was fun and connected and flowed easily. We built a marble run and played with that for a while. It is surprisingly compelling. We did a bit of sad/grumpy bear, which is her change to our previous sad/grumpy cat play. I sang or attempted to sing while Sarah told me no with lots of giggles. I pretended to be a dentist's chair for some of the time, moving up and down, forward and back, while she was on my lap. Then I sang all of "snuggle puppy" while she snuggled fully against me. We did a few foot rubs with and without socks. We ended with me reading a book to her. She even waited in the middle of our reading for me to tell Amy and M. their time was done. 

Amy had a KinderGarden party to welcome the incoming class of kindergarteners to her school. It was amazing to remember how a year ago we attended this party and Amy didn’t want to say anything even though we were paired with our friends and neighbors. This year Amy didn’t even come find me when she could have. Instead, she stopped at the blanket of some other friends and neighbors and talked easily with them. How is she so grown up??

Sarah had an Anat Baniel Method lesson yesterday and the practitioner M. said Sarah was more relaxed in her body than she has been sometimes in the past. I don’t know if this is because of being on summer break or because she was in an office that didn’t have a view of buses driving past. She has another lesson today in the office with bus views so that will be a good basis for comparison.

As happens every once in a while, Sarah had a party in the night for a couple of hours. Even when it is annoying I remind myself how amazing it is that here we are with her reading out loud in the night when she can't sleep. Reading and speaking used to seem so elusive. I know I write about this often with probably the same edge of stunned amazement, and to everyone else it may seem like we crossed that finish line ages ago so why does it seem so new? I think that the early early years were so intensively hard and filled with fearful doubting and hopeful believing that my cells are still coming to ungrips with the fact that they can relax and celebrate that we made it to the top of so many mountains, even if there is still a range in our viewfinder. It also helps to have a celebratory perspective when it is 2:30am and I would prefer to be asleep.

June 3

Sarah just finished first grade! I know her age peers are already moving onto 5th grade or something that sounds impossibly far away. But here we are! I worked hard to keep her with her developmental age peers as much as possible. That gap continues to widen because she isn’t at all like a neurotypical second grader at this point, but she is much more like a second grader than she is like a fifth grader. While I sometimes feel sorry for myself about this, that isn’t how I am feeling at the moment. I feel proud that we are where we are. She is the size of a small second grader. She is continuing to learn and grow. She is in a school that she enjoys with a team of people who love her and tell me they feel blessed to have her. She seems excited to be a second grader. 

We had a wonderful bus driver for the last several weeks of school. He actually seemed to enjoy his job and to enjoy the kids. He talked with them and joked with them and would tell me what Sarah had said about the bridge construction they saw. We probably won’t have him next year because he is brought in when routes seem broken in some way and need to be fixed. He certainly helped my experience with the bus go from terrible to wonderful.

Thanks to Sonia we are borrowing a wedge pillow. I have it under Sarah’s bed so the slant is gentle. So far she seems fine with it. There have been a few nights that she has told me her ear hurts. I am not certain if this is true or if this is because I explained the pillow might help her not get ear infections, thus bringing up a memory for her of when her ear did hurt. I hope it is just a memory and yet I also want to be able to trust what she says and act on it. This morning when I asked her she said her ear felt good. Fingers crossed. It better feel good given that she is still on her antibiotics! I am less certain about my thinking the infections might be related to gluten. She has been consuming wheat for well over a year (which I hadn’t previously remembered) and the ear infections have just been in the last few months.

On Wednesday Sarah told me that she got in trouble at school for picking up her chair and not listening when her teacher told her not to. I love that she told me all of this so clearly. That is amazing.

Sarah’s vision therapist showed her a book about a fish that goes through all sorts of emotions described by lots of different words, some of which are quite large. The therapist was floored that after reading it to Sarah once Sarah proceeded to read it right back to the therapist. This is not a book that we have. I have never seen it before. Sarah’s teacher didn’t think they had it at school.

Swim lessons on Friday went very well. Sarah took 3 turns with the teacher!!!!!!! Amy is getting better at all of her skills too. What I love most is that they both look forward to the swim lessons. 

J, the massage therapist, came to work with Sarah again. She keeps chewing on her right cheek, which is the one that she bit accidentally a while ago and then bit again and it got swollen and infected and she needed antibiotics. Now I think there is scar tissue in there. I was hoping that getting some work done there would help her leave it alone and I am pretty sure there is no way she will let me do it. She did let J do a little work in her mouth and on her neck, back, and head. She also let me work with her more than she sometimes does and has been asking me to rub her feet a lot since then. While she sat up or moved or  tensed her body often, she also had many moments of stretching out and relaxing. 

G noted that during his time with Sarah she kept requesting that he rub her arms or legs but did so verbally, clearly, and specifically whereas in the past she would physically move his hand to her arm rather than making a verbal request. She is quite clear with her requests to me as well, specifying whether the foot rubs are to be with or without her socks.

Along with most of Pittsburgh, Carl and I have been watching hockey. Carl was explaining to Amy what the word “predators” means because that is the team playing the Penguins. He asked if she could think of an example of a predator. She thought and thought and then said, “frogs?” Well, yes, indeed! Especially if you are a fly. Maybe the Predators should consider changing their mascot.