April 15

Yesterday was a glorious spring day, almost summery in its warmth. We had a picnic in our tree house. The girls had a friend come over, and they played together in a sprinkler octopus brought by the friend. We cleaned the deck and decided to give away some large kid items that were cluttering the space and no longer being used. We ended the day with dinner outside, a fire in the fire pit, and making s’mores. Such a perfect day! I also went through some of the paint cans that we inherited when we bought the house or that we brought with us from our old house. Ugh. I only made it half way through. Most of it is crap and there are several cans of latex paint now open and drying. I also left a message for a hazardous waste disposal place because we have some items that need such safe disposal. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. I have been putting this task off for a very long time. I’m glad to have finally taken some action but, UGH.

Last weekend Sarah came over to me and said, “Yes, I am looking hilarious!” She looked normal to me. Then she revealed that she was wearing my plaid undies instead of her own undies. Yes, indeed. She is hilarious. I love how she tells on herself about such things.

Amy had her annual eye exam and Sarah was there too. They had the best time waiting and didn’t want to leave when it was over. They loved trying on all of the different pairs of kids’ glasses. Amy also enjoyed wearing the little lab coat and pretending to give an eye exam to a stuffed animal.

Overall, Sarah’s handwriting is much improved. Such things are always on such a continuum that it isn’t as if one day it was bad and one day it was good. But I will say that it used to be much harder to read and now it is much clearer on many occasions. Sometimes when Amy sees some of Sarah’s current school work she is amazed and says how proud she is of Sarah. I love that.

During my SR time with Sarah, she told me that next year she would be in third grade. We had been waiting to tell her that this wouldn’t be the case. I had no plans to tell her at that moment but I did because I didn’t want to lie. Next year she will actually move up to fourth grade. For many years I made decisions to keep Sarah with her developmental peers rather than her age peers. I think this worked out well. But now she is physically developing beyond her developmental peers (who are actually developmentally ahead anyway). If she were to continue without skipping a grade then she would be too old at the end of her school career and wouldn’t be allowed to finish high school. By having her skip a grade, that fixes the problem. Not only will she be allowed to finish high school, she will also be able to attend a university program for a year. If we move her up again in the future then she could have two years in the university program (run by the St. Anthony’s Program the she is in now). We are just skipping one grade at this time so that the changes for her are minimal. She will join a new neurotypical class but her resource room teachers and classmates will be the same as she has had last year and this year. She took the news completely in stride, as if I was just correcting her pronunciation of something. As I wrote this I realized that I better tell Amy too. She also took it easily in stride, but we did talk much more about why. Then she came downstairs and asked Sarah what grade she would be in next year. This all went so smoothly! With so many things about Sarah, I feel like to explain it to Amy all I have to do is present it as normal and ok, and to truly feel that way, which I guess I do. I just explain how people learn at different speeds and Sarah needs more time and help with most things, whereas Amy tends to get things easily and quickly. There’s no value judgement placed on one being better than the other and I feel like Amy really gets that. There may be many things I wish I did differently, but at least with talking to Amy about Sarah I feel pretty good about how I’ve handled it thus far.

Now, as for things that I wish I maybe handled differently… this was actually a completely hilarious moment. We were all having dinner and Amy asked something to which my answer was “a couple.” She asked how many that meant. I said, “Two. Just like a couple of people. Dad and I are a couple.” Then my brain continued thinking and I said, “Oh! Like a coupling.” I was thinking of inanimate objects linking. I was! But Amy asked what I meant and then suddenly I was blushing furiously and wanting the table to swallow me. I was trying hard not to collapse in a fit of laughter. Carl pointed out that he had kept his thought inside his head! Amy asked a couple (ahem) more times what I meant and what I was laughing about. Luckily then Sarah did something and the subject shifted. I was saved! I know at some point I will need to have such conversations with them, but I would prefer not to have it be over the dinner table!