Sarah rode her bike!! By herself!! Without training wheels and without Carl holding on!! For seconds at a time! She pedaled a bit, touched her toes briefly to the ground, and pedaled more, repeatedly for several seconds!!! As Carl and I celebrated her we looked at each other and affirmed our motto regarding Sarah, “it’s not if, it’s when.”
Sarah loves album covers and her latest love is the New Republic “Native” album with various animals including what I think is an owl, a buffalo, and a mountain lion. Sarah really wants there to be a bear. As we talked about it one day and she pointed at one animal I said, “I think that is an owl.” She responded, “maybe I will call it a bear.”
Foxes are Sarah’s biggest new love. I’m not sure what kindled her interest. I know a few weeks ago when her bus driver sneezed they had a good time pretending it was because he was allergic to the elusive attic fox as they pretended to drive through an arctic jungle. Now Sarah loves saying the word “fox.” It is the first word she says when she wakes in the morning or from a nap. She follows it by asking me, “what is a fox?” Sometimes I ask her what it is. Other times I come up with various descriptions such as, “a mammal,” “a woodland creature,” or “an animal with a fluffy tail.” When Anna was babysitting on Wednesday, I was in the kitchen and only half paying attention to what was being said, but I heard Sarah say “Exit has the letter x… can you think of any other words with the letter x? … FOX?” It was such a hilarious and beautiful set-up that Sarah created to lead to her favorite word.
Roughly eight years ago Sarah was evaluated by the public school system to determine her placement in a classroom if she attended public school. That wasn’t the path we took for her but those records are part of her IEP which is renewed and revised yearly. The IEP is new each year but the evaluation hasn’t been repeated until last week! And that was only because we asked for it since it is needed for her to have a supports coordinator in place for when she turns eighteen. I had to fill out many forms too, along with an autism scale questionnaire. I hate such forms and questionnaires that somehow take my wonderful sparkly amazing daughter and put a negative slant on her abilities or lack thereof. The question I really couldn’t stand, but had to answer, was for the autism scale so I had to rank her as “never” up through “frequently” with options in between. The statement to rank was “understands why people don’t like him/her.” What the actual fuck? Firstly, do people not like her? I’m not aware of it beyond how one could generalize that nobody is universally liked, but why would you even say that? Secondly, if someone doesn’t like her, I hope she doesn’t know it!! And what are they assuming about who she is that there are things a person couldn’t like and she would know what those things are?! This was just the most egregious of the questions. I’m glad to leave it in my rear view mirror and not look back.
Amy had the first of many upcoming birthday celebrations, enjoying her Birthday Bash Sleepover at Anna’s. When Carl went to get the girls yesterday morning he was greeted not by Amy, but by Effie from The Hunger Games. Amy was incredibly made-up so she didn’t look anything like herself but was all Effie.
We had a wonderful week of concerts. On Monday Carl and I saw Bandits on the Run at Club Cafe. The girls couldn’t attend because of the age restrictions, but I recorded some songs and the girls watched their own virtual concert last night. Sarah quickly got up to dance and then grabbed her own guitar to jam along with the Bandits. For those who may be new to my updates, Adrian from the Bandits used to volunteer in the Sarah-Rise program. What is impossible is that that was roughly twelve years ago!
Friday night Carl and I went to a Josh Ritter concert. It was just Josh solo rather than him with his band as we had seen him in Philly. He was playing songs that are works in progress, along with the usual favorites. It was a great show but the venue isn’t one I would go to again unless it is a favorite artist. It was at the City Winery and the tables are packed very tightly so good luck if you have to get up to pee. Also, to allow everyone to see and not have their back to the stage, everyone is sideways to the stage so you have to twist to see. My neck was not happy after 90 minutes of that.
Anyway, yesterday I had a wet drive to see my dad and stepmom and brother in Delaware. It rained across the entire state of PA all day long. At least I had good music to listen to, playing Bandits on the Run and Josh Ritter as the miles sped past.
No comments:
Post a Comment