Last week the muscles around my left hip were not happy after an intense workout with my trainer. It took a couple days plus some work from one of my students before I felt normal. Then out of the blue I was hurting again. Then I got better. Then I saw my trainer again and the muscles were aggravated again. What is frustrating is when the muscles are too tired or tight or strained or whatever, then the joint feels uncomfortable in the way my right one used to feel. I was limping Sunday afternoon and not able to walk up stairs normally. The good thing is that it seems tied to muscle function as of now, but not being able to walk normally kicked up all sorts of fears and feelings. I now have a ton of recommendations of possible surgeons if I do need another hip replacement. I don’t think I need one soon, but I want to have plenty of time to find a surgeon that I like and who works out of a different hospital than where I was last time. Everything was ooookaaaay last time, but not wonderful. Not that I expect surgery to be wonderful, but all of the supporting details matter. Anyway, I’m back to normal functioning now.
Sunday night I was feeling sad because of my hip pain and Sarah came over to me saying, “you need some vitamin P.” P for Panda of course. She gave me lots of kisses, hugs, and chin presses. Speaking of pandas, Sarah has been watching a certain episode of Daniel Tiger lately. It is about him getting hurt and going to the doctor. I was thinking maybe she wanted to watch it so often because she has had so many hospital visits in her lifetime. This morning I asked her why she liked the episode so much. She said “because of pandy.” That is what she calls the panda stuffed animal that sits on a couch behind Daniel Tiger’s mom in one of the scenes.
Carl is in Canada skiing for a few days. As he was leaving for the airport, Amy said he was going to “Bananada.” Sarah picked up on the play and said he was going to “Pandada.”
Next year, our little panda - currently in 8th grade- will enter her new high school as a 10th grader. I’m thrilled! Sarah is much older than her classmates at the moment because when she was very young we chose to have her repeat preschool for many years. It made sense at the time to keep her with her developmental peers rather than her age peers. But… that only works to a point. Even though she goes to a Catholic school that we pay for, there is a still an age limit. So for the next five years of school before she ages out, she can either have 4 years of high school and 1 year of the St. Anthony School program at Duquesne University (not a college program, but a post-secondary school program). Or she can have 3 years of high school and 2 years at Duquesne. It’s 5 years no matter how you slice it. When we visited her school for next year we were so moved by the warm welcome from some of the girls in the Resource Room. Those students will be 10th graders next year and it feels like the best thing ever that Sarah will join them, not just in the Resource Room, but for all of the mainstream classes that they join. There is the potential for her to have a friend group in a way she’s never had before. Possibly for the next 5 years. I know there are no guarantees, but having this possibility brings me a deep sense of peace.
When I told Sarah that she would be in 10th grade next year she hardly batted an eyelid. Perhaps because the news was eclipsed by the other news… she gets to wear pajama bottoms to school tomorrow! This week her school is celebrating Dr. Seuss week, which was normally only for the grades 2 and under. This year the school decided to extend the fun dress-down days to all of the grades. Wednesday should be interesting because that is career day. They want kids to dress as if they have some future job, and if they don’t want to do so then they can wear a regular uniform. But don’t tons of jobs just have people dressing in regular clothes? Sarah says she wants to be an Anat Baniel Practitioner. Which is great. And they just wear normal clothes! So hopefully Sarah’s school will accept her explanation.
I just finished reading Life, Animated by Ron Suskind. It is about a family’s journey to connect with their son after he gets diagnosed with autism. He loves Disney movies and the lines from the movies became the words the family could exchange with him to have a way of communicating. It very much reminded me of The Son-Rise Program principals and goal - to connect through a person’s repetitive interest rather than shutting it down. It is an excellent book and I highly recommend it.
Last night Amy had a friend over to spend the night. I ordered pizza and we watched Mulan. Sarah stayed on the sofa until after she was done eating and then went upstairs. I haven’t figured out why certain movies like Turning Red or Inside Out grab her attention so thoroughly while others do not. What was disappointing was that when I went upstairs later she told me she felt phlegmy. This has happened occasionally in the past months, but I always felt like I could explain it away by looking at when she had dairy, blaming a possible culprit because I so much want to understand and have control. But her pizza was dairy-free. So, what was the culprit? It could be the tomato sauce and or the spice in the sausage and pepperoni. I also realize that this is the time of year last year when her phlegm issues started building, but I really thought we were in a stable situation of late. Last night I felt so sad and despairing.
Overall lately I have felt so good about my life and really feeling that Sarah doesn’t need to ever change one iota. Generally society seems to have a perspective that people need to achieve and grow and participate in life in a certain way. But, why? Even if it is about bringing value to the world, Sarah already does that! She brings joy and connection to so many people and to me. This morning, perhaps on the tail of my despair about the phlegm, or perhaps because we snuggled for too long before getting breakfast so I was hangry, I was not feeling that joy and acceptance. I was just feeling blue that our conversations are still so simple and repetitive. It’s still so hard to know if the answers I get are true or if I’ve fed too much of a possible answer to her through my question. Anyway, now that I know she may read my updates later, part of me wants to never put in anything negative. But I also want to keep it real, because that is where all of us can come together in our shared humanness. Sometimes we have it all figured out. Sometimes we don’t. Sometimes the difference is a bit of phlegm and some hunger. It helps to write here and remember vitamin P. Clearly that is what I need more of!
Amy and I had a great day on Friday. She had a half day so when I got home from work we walked to a bakery. Then we watched an entire episode of The Great British Baking Show while eating a delicious treat. Then after Sarah went to bed that night we watched another entire episode! Normally we only watch 20 minutes at a time. It was so lovely to snuggle together and hang out for such long periods of time. Another wonderful Amy moment was when she “mailed” a panda picture from her Animal Tails Magazine to Sarah, addressed to Sarah Toad Wellington at our address, with the specification of “upstairs bedroom with pandas on the walls.” She also gave Sarah an invitation to her birthday party and Sarah enjoyed reading all of the details.
Lastly, after many attempts to dye my hair myself with varying results, I finally went to my hairdresser. It had been about a year since I last had a trim! So my hair is trimmed and dyed and I have no more visible grey. It is taking some getting used to, but I like it.
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