Amy had camp this week. As in, camp that was not at our house and camp that was with multiple campers. It was an art day camp in walking distance from our house, and Amy was in heaven because her best friend was there too. They walked too and from camp each day together, got put in the same group for all activities, and some days had extra play dates after camp. Amy is also thrilled that when she starts school this coming Wednesday she and her bff will be in the same home base and have the same class schedule. The last time they had such a situation was second grade. I think it will make the whole transition to a new school building and new teachers easier.
Sarah had time with Anna each day that Amy was in camp. They went to the library twice. On the first library visit Sarah typed a small paragraph about reptiles on the computer, added a picture, and printed it. She asked the librarian for help finding where the printer was. On their next visit, Sarah got a library card! Amy got one years ago but Sarah didn’t want one at that time. Anna told me that Sarah did a wonderful job providing her name, address, and birthday to the librarian. If you look closely at the library card, she wrote her name as Sarah Crocodile. An adventure for a different day was watching an immense beam get delivered to the bridge construction project near our house (remember the bridge that collapsed?). Sarah and Anna watched for a couple of hours and then got pizza and ice cream, taking the first step towards Sarah being the one to ask for a clean scoop for the ice cream. Anna reminded her to explain that the reason is her nut allergy.
Whenever we are on vacation I don’t do my PT exercises. There’s nothing stopping me. I just don’t feel so inclined. But I notice a difference when I am not regular with my exercises, so this week I saw my trainer and have also done more at home and am feeling stronger again. I’ve also been doing many more constructive rest sessions. That’s from the Alexander Technique and is another thing that helps immensely if I do it regularly, but it’s easy to think I don’t have time. What I noticed this week is that when I do the constructive rest then I get up from the floor more easily than I have in ages. I also felt inspired to do more yoga and capable of doing so much more than I have in months. So this all feels great. And my muscles are a bit sore today!
I had a helpful consultation with a Son-Rise specialist. We talked about Sarah’s focus on nickel charts and how I could begin to respond differently. The main new ideas are that it is ok to respond minimally (still respectfully) when Sarah brings up nickels or nickel charts in any way. I have so often been trying to use that to build more language and flexibility or I’ve been grumpy in my response. But if we want to change the subject then it is ok to not build on the nickel idea and also best not to be grumpy about it. Instead we can try to weave in different subjects or activities. I’m not sure if much is changing except that when Sarah does mention nickels and wants to pretend to be Toad losing a nickel, her sadness has the gleam of playfulness. So at least it is now in the category of fun play around sadness that she has had for years rather than seeming to be an emotional issue she still needs to work through. I don’t know if it was my tiny shifts in how I responded or the work from last week with the newspapers and written story she could rip up or what.
Sarah’s allergies do seem better now that we are at home, but we did get some air filters for the house and her room. I think maybe they help some.
Sarah has been really into assembling her Peppa Pig jigsaw puzzles all by herself. As so many things can still feel challenging, this is a helpful reminder that what at one time seems impossible later becomes commonplace. In the past it seemed like she would never figure out how to do jigsaw puzzles and now she completes puzzles of 24 and 48 pieces totally independently. So maybe some day we will not have any issue when Amy uses the bathroom and Sarah screams and rages. On Monday of this week when they were getting ready for swim lessons, Amy asked Sarah if she needed to use the bathroom first, hoping to avoid any issue when Amy went in. Instead Sarah slammed the bathroom door so hard and fast that a towel hanging on a door hook got caught in between the door and the frame. The door would not budge at all. I was so glad all of us were on the outside. I also really hoped our cat wouldn’t need the litterbox for a couple of hours, which was when Carl got home. I assumed he would have to take the door off the hinges, but instead he just figured out that he needed to push the door further closed to get the knob mechanism working to release. So he had it open in a minute.
Sarah and I re-enacted a scenario on Friday in which we have found ourselves before. It’s been ages and it is no fun at all. In hindsight so many small details could have been changed that might have improved everything. I had a routine mammogram (all is well) that morning while Sarah and Anna watched the beam delivery. Then Sarah and I were going to go to Amy’s camp finale art show and carnival, with games the kids had made. I predicted that Sarah would want to do some “chirp chirp” snuggles for a few minutes before we went but erroneously assumed a few minutes would suffice. I really wanted to walk through the woods to get to Amy’s camp, but knew we could drive if the timing was tight. We had ten minutes to do chirp chirp. Sarah insisted on changing into pajamas for those ten minutes. Then… she wanted to nap. My timer chimed after 6 minutes of an attempted nap. Clearly that was not enough. Although sometimes it has been. She was upset and wanted to sleep more. I wasn’t pleased but acknowledged that we could drive. Sarah then yelled that she wanted to walk. I said she had to get dressed. She sat there. We both yelled and screamed. I said I could just go on my own. She screamed that she wanted to go, but didn’t move to get dressed. She did eventually get dressed and I told her to pee before we left because maybe needing to pee added to her screamyness. She emerged from the bathroom as if there had never been a problem, happy and easily ready to go. So that was a great turnaround, but my emotional status needed more time to regroup. I was grumpy as we drove. We did make it on time and enjoyed playing Mermaid Bowling, which Amy and her bff had made.
Grandma and Grandpa also met us at the camp and got to see Amy’s art and bowl. Grandpa was the first one to knock over enough pins to win a mermaid card. I had to bowl several times before winning a card. The card was ostensibly chosen at random but I asked Amy if I could have the crocodile mermaid that I knew she had made. I gave it to Sarah. It turned out to be good that I drove since Amy had a lot of art to bring home. So all was well overall but I felt emotionally worn out for a few hours. I can now see that Sarah and I were both just really caught in our own emotions, to the point where we couldn’t think or function clearly at all. But we aren’t bad people and we still love each other. That sentence might seem so obvious to others but it feels like progress not to spiral into feeling like a rotten mother for hours on end.
My brother is visiting for the weekend and we are having a lovely time playing board games all together and enjoying ice cream. He brought Hello Kitty items for Amy and a crocodile stuffed animal with babies for Sarah. Both kids were delighted. Sarah took one baby crocodile out of its egg and put it in her pocket. Friday night everyone except me did cartwheels in the yard. Carl’s overly confident alter ego Joey showed up to do his cartwheels with much more bravado than skill. That is always a delight. Last night we went to the corner ice cream place, and Sarah placed her order including asking for the clean scoop and saying why. This is a hugely important step towards her being more independent in the world. After the ice cream we looked at the bridge progress. The cranes that are in place to help assemble the bridge are staggeringly enormous. The biggest crane weighs 1.5 million pounds! Then the kids played on the playground and climbed on a rock. Sarah wanted to jump down from the rock but was needing a moment to gather her courage. Amy, on the ground, offered her hand to Sarah and Sarah jumped down while holding Amy’s hand. My heart was overflowing.
Amy has been diligent with making herself and her American Girl dolls match. This diligence and interest comes and goes, usually in spurts. Lately for every meal, one doll joins us and is provided with play dough food that Amy has made in the past. Recently Amy made a paper copy of the hand-band topper one doll wears, taping it to her own headband and wearing a matching nightgown with the doll. They each have their hair in braids and do look remarkably alike. She also makes paper drawings to tape on her own shirts to match what one doll is wearing. This is all fabulous in terms of creativity. The one thing that we need to work on is how to make choices about timing and when dolls need to not happen or have to wait until every other aspect of preparation is done. Amy has already decided that on Tuesday night the dolls will sleep in their school clothes for the next day rather than being in pajamas. The dolls attend school in our front room or family room.
Speaking of likenesses, Amy and I are very similar in our propensity to wear our emotions plainly on our faces. We also adore cute animals. Carl captured a picture of us nearly beside ourselves about the cuteness of a bunny in the backyard. If you just see our faces and don’t know what we were looking at you might think we were watching a house burn down or some similar disaster. Instead we were looking at a bunny sitting still in the yard. At quite a distance. But it was small. And so cute. And its ears were oh so delicate. As with many moments as Amy grows up, I enjoy seeing a glimpse of what I must have been like at her age. I have always been expressive and always adored cute things.
Love and Cuteness to you.
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