The morning after Sarah’s wonderful birthday was a bit challenging. I have since decided that if there is a day when Anna isn’t arriving until sometime after 9am then Sarah will not even know they are coming. On Monday Anna was coming at 1 and that meant Sarah whining, yelling, screaming, and asking repeatedly “when will Anna be here" during almost every moment that wasn’t a school zoom. She very clearly yelled that she didn’t want to do school with me. While I know much of this can be par for the course for teenagers and their parents, I also know that if Sarah isn’t in Impatient Mode then she will happily do school things with me. Friday was a 10am Anna start. With Sarah unaware of this, she and I played many rounds of her Goodnight Moon game. I decided that rather than aiming for much academic work we needed to just have some fun together in her room. I don’t like the idea of keeping information from Sarah, but as Carl pointed out, there are many things we don’t tell our kids for all sorts of reasons. One reason is if we think they can’t handle the information, and Anna’s timing seems to be something Sarah can’t handle. Note that Sarah is fine with the timing for our other sitter C, and C is able to get school things done that I can’t. Sometimes it is hard for me to reconcile all of Sarah’s resistance to me with her instant shifts to asking for “Sincere my dear.” It is hard to shift my own gears that quickly from being rejected to snuggling.
One of Sarah’s birthday presents was a pair of socks with Elephant on one and Piggie on the other, with Pigeon making a surprise appearance on one toe. Sometimes she sits on her bed and recites I Love My New Toy by Mo Willems by alternately sticking her feet in the air as the characters say their lines. It is hilariously wonderfully earnest and fun.
Sarah has also started singing the "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" song. At top volume of course. Sometimes in the early hours of the morning and sometimes in the shower. The book of that title resides in her closet along with many other books that used to be her favorite books. It seems that once she is done obsessing over a book then she doesn’t even want to see it on her shelf. I was excited to hear her love for Brown Bear returning, but when I got the book out she put it back, saying it would be there for when she wanted to read it to Sc on Tuesday.
We have been in Somerset, PA for the weekend and there is a lot of snow. As Sarah says, it is a big foot of snow. Probably at least 2 feet. It is up to my knees. Carl and Amy made a snow fort, complete with Amy’s creation of a snow cat. Carl shoveled large cubes of snow for building blocks. We also made some snow ducks and hearts using plastic molds. The snow penguins didn’t work very well. Heralding the end of a wonderful snow play time together, after Sarah and I did a few exchanges of “you’re sincere my dear” while sitting in the snow fort, she politely asked me to leave. It may have been polite but it still didn’t feel good.
I’ve been working on feeling where in my body my various emotions sit and giving more time before I respond. This has shifted some moments away from anger and into sadness, and I leave and go have a good cry. That is what I did yesterday. It has been interesting to notice how different emotions/worries/thoughts really do reside in different locations in me. Some are in my solar plexus and some in my head and some in my elbows and some all over. Noticing and undoing any tightening is quite relevant to my continued headache healing journey and will also hopefully help my connection with Sarah be smoother.
I’ve been wanting to wear my own choice of clothing more often rather than always following Sarah’s request for me to wear pajamas. I’m sure this must be a little tricky on her end that I so often say yes and then sometimes say no. Sometimes I just really want to wear jeans.
Sarah wanted to make a bus so we draped a sheet over our gymnastics bar and she welcomed various stuffed animal passengers as they boarded. As always, I am so impressed by how she simultaneously can be the most rigid person I know and the most flexible, accepting paper versions of things or a sheet over a bar as a bus.
For school Amy wrote a book about the British Swim School. The assignment was to write a non-ficiton book about a subject where she felt herself to be an expert. Her book is wonderful. It is clear and detailed and the pictures are wonderful and helpful. I sent pictures to some of our past BSS instructors. They both loved her work.
I hope you are all well.
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