January 25

If Benedict Cumberbatch was suddenly in the room with me, I would have some trouble continuing with my work. In the same way, when I am fastening my belt or putting on my bunny pajamas, Sarah has trouble continuing with what I have just asked her do to. Ah. I understand her distractions in a new way and it is easier to have more patience. 

When my computer shows a rainbow spinny ball, I know that I must wait. Sure, I might feel annoyed, but I know there is nothing I can do except wait. Perhaps I could visualize Sarah as showing me a rainbow spinny ball when she seems distracted and I could just wait, trusting and knowing that there is nothing else for me to do except possibly close some activity windows.

Sarah had her annual audiology appointment on Thursday and it showed possibly a bit more hearing loss than last year. Her left ear hasn't had perfect hearing for a few years but her right ear did. Since she had a bit of a cold we weren't sure if that was impacting her hearing during the tests so we will do a follow-up in March. If her right ear is back to hearing perfectly or nearly perfectly then we won't need to do anything. If the right ear does have some hearing loss then we might want to consider hearing aids at some point. Allowing the possibility that she truly might not be hearing me (rather than willfully ignoring me) helps me have more patience sometimes and changes my behavior somewhat to get closer to her rather than yelling from far away. My request to all of you lovely people is that whenever you think of it, please take a moment to send loving energy to Sarah and her ears. Think about perfect hearing and how wonderful that would be for her. Think about what you most enjoy hearing. Think about Sarah enjoying hearing the word "bicycle." Thank you!!

I bought a massage chair a week ago and I love it. This is a chair for massage therapists to use when they work with clients (for anyone who doesn't know it, I am a massage therapist). What I didn't foresee was that Sarah would enjoy and request mini sessions in the chair. It is one of the cutest things ever to see her snuggled into the chair, her face resting against what is normally the chest pad. 

The number flashcards are a testament to the fact that anything can be anything in a person's imagination. We pretend to taste the numbers and say what flavor they are, we make number cakes (sheet and layer), we frost with number frosting, we pedal number bicycles, we wrap number presents and then put them in a box that serves as a truck/plane/boat/sleigh and we deliver them, we canoe with number canoes and number paddles. Sarah loves it when I give her a choice between two numbers. She says which one she wants and then tastes it. One day I wrote out new cards with each number written as a word. We played 3 rounds of matching the words numbers to their numeral counterpart (I told her what each word was as we went). I also made new numeral cards so now we have 1-100. She watched attentively as I made them and then she started writing and coloring some of her own. She made several 23 cards. Almost every day for the past 3 days, Sarah and Amy and I all play together in the SR room with the number cards. We mainly taste, wrap, mail, and deliver them. On Friday, G. and I did a joint session that involved mailing number card "letters" into G.'s created mail slot above the door. Then I had Sarah sign for a package. At one point I asked Sarah to address a letter and write who it was to. She began, "ot." I nearly fell over with delighted surprise. She had written "to" backwards. Incidentally, I know she knows "two" when we do numbers.

One evening I played "Amazing Grace" on our music system. Sarah said, "Sixty one feet." This is totally impressive wrongness. The group is Sixteen Feet. How amazing that she remembered that from forever ago, knew from her current knowledge of numbers what that must look like and then reversed the numbers.

Sarah walked past a book cover Thursday night and said, "we are six." The cover is for Now We are Six. I didn't know if she had read it or remembered it so I asked her. She said "with Ju." I asked Ju. and she said they briefly played with the cover a few weeks ago but hadn't focused on the words much. I know Sarah knows the word "six." Maybe the line between reading and remembering is not what I thought. I don't any longer sound out my words. I just know what they are. Maybe the same is happening for Sarah. 

I recently learned about a different approach to teaching reading. I feel as excited about this as I did when we started SR and Sarah's language started to increase. The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential have an approach different from phonics. It involves making very large word cards and showing a small group of them briefly each day with joy and enthusiasm. The cards quickly rotate so new words are introduced every day. The method is geared towards babies but can be used with anyone. I bought the kit and I also made lots of cards myself. I am so excited about this I can hardly stand it. I am constantly thinking about new word cards I can make and intro books I can make out of the words we have done. I started this on January 23rd and yesterday Sarah read "swimming" and "Grover." Amy read "spaghetti." This was after ONE day! I want to run from room to room whooping in delight. This is so easy and fun. Amy always wants more words and Sarah wanted to play with the giant stack of cards. I am following the guidelines, though, and not giving Sarah the stack because I think the program is probably designed to introduce enough words to be interesting and not too many so as not to confuse and overwhelm. Another guideline is not to test. If there are fun opportunities for the kids to show what they know then we can offer them those opportunities or, chances are, they will just start saying words as they recognize them. That is what happened with "swimming." Oh my goodness!! Oh my goodness!!!!!!! Oh my goodness!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For anyone interested: http://www.gentlerevolution.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=&Category_Code=Reading

January 18

On Monday night we had a team meeting that was helpful in generating new ideas and reaffirming what we already know but sometimes forget. We watched some micro-tutorials from the Autism Treatment Center of America (where they teach the Son-Rise Program). This reaffirmed waiting until Sarah is really ready before we request something because then the connection will be stronger and more effective. We brainstormed lots of different ideas for growing the Around the Wheel game. This is a very simple game that Sonia and I created and it was only when Sonia pointed it out that I realized there is no end to the game or winning. Sonia also noticed how good Sarah was at all the steps. First you roll the die, then you move your wooden person, then you pick the card that corresponds to the color square you landed on, then you do what the card says. That is a lot of different things within a turn. The great thing about adding ideas for more activity cards is that those activities can be used to build on any other game or interaction in the room. 

On Tuesday, Sarah and I had an amazing session and most of it was inspired by ideas from the group meeting. Sarah wanted a blue elevator but the blanket was yellow-side up. I asked her to help me flip it and she did. She asked for the number flashcards. While she started taking them out of the box I got down the art supplies. I drew a line down a piece of paper and she cut along the line. Together we taped the paper over a small piece of cardboard. I suggested that she draw circles to be buttons for our elevator button panel. She did. Then I asked her to write numbers in the buttons. She did several and I did a few. Then I asked her to color the buttons in. She did, even following prompts to color some in more fully. I put the art supplies away and we were ready to go with our button panel. We used the number flashcards to determine our floor and to label the floor (putting the card on the windowsill). She pressed the buttons on the button panel and I made a sound (sometimes the buttons were broken and the sounds went haywire or my tongue stuck out). When she wanted to go to a floor that was higher than our buttons on the panel we did math to get there (I told her what to press, and she did it. Eg. for floor 100 she pressed the 10 ten times.) At each floor she would get off and she only got caught in the doors (my arms) a few times. I gave her a task at each floor, such as finding a picture of a bicycle or a label that said "table." Then I spread the small word flashcards around on the floor and when she got off the elevator I would tell her to look for a certain word. When she found it I would flip it over so it became a new word (there are words on each side of the cards). She did an amazing job and I only helped a little. When she was clearly done with the word searches I threw the number cards all over and we had to put them in order (1-10) to make the elevator work. Then we were both tired so just did some joining time, for maybe two minutes. For my part I started putting the larger number cards in order. Sarah quickly came over and started tracing them with her finger. She was more careful and deliberate than ever.

I think there is an increase in Sarah's original play ideas that can't be traced to anything but her imagination. She recently pretended to drink Carl's napkin and then in a play session with G. she had the number flashcards being bananas. Last night I suggested that she put the number cards on the blue plank balance beams that I set up in the family room. She and Amy had a wonderful time stepping on the cards and over them. Then Sarah again moved the play towards eating pretend number bananas or sitting in bunches of bananas. Carl and Amy sat with her in the bunches of bananas.

Sarah's sentence clarity is improving. Yesterday she commented that a person had a hole in their sock. In the past she would have said, "having a hole in my sock." This time she said the person's name instead. Awesome! 

On Wednesday, Sarah zipped her coat zipper all by herself for first time ever!!!!!! This was at school. As they were getting ready to leave, Sonia told Sarah to put on her coat and zip it. Then Sonia was busy getting herself ready and when she turned back to Sarah, Sarah was there all zipped. This is super amazing. Since then we have been requesting that she do this more often and she is trying but easily gets frustrated and has yet to repeat her success, but as with so many other things, once there is a first time then there can be a second.

There is an ATEC questionnaire regarding autism that gives a number score. The number determines the level of severity of the autism. I only put salted gentle stock in this, but it is still an interesting data point. I recently filled out the form for Sarah and her score had dropped 3 points from 15 months ago. Keep in mind that this is subjective based on my evaluation of Sarah and my interpretation of the questions and whether things are not a problem, a minor problem, or a big problem. Still, the lower the number the better. This is totally awesome that some areas that used to be more challenging and problematic are no longer problems or are less problematic. Yay. I'll take it!

For what seems like forever, Sarah has been asking every morning to go downstairs in pajamas. Normally we reserved this for Sunday mornings because I believed that we needed the pull of breakfast to help make the girls get dressed during the week. We decided this week to experiment with changing things and following Sarah's request. Astonishingly, humblingly, our mornings have become much more enjoyable and efficient with much less yelling and everyone is ready for the day earlier than ever. I stand happily corrected.

Sometimes Sarah and I have temper clashes. I am still aiming towards not having these moments at all, but since they do happen I am pleased that we continue to have a useful language for discussing it. In the past we used to talk about being on the wrong ball or being borkupines (porcupines). We still use these images but I have added saying that we were on the wrong bicycle. The great thing about this is that Sarah brightens at the very mention of bicycles. This week I said we were on the wrong tandem bicycle. After we had put our prickles away (as Amy pointed out),  we rode on the right tandem bicycle all the way to the bathroom to finish getting ready for the day. Riding the right tandem bicycle involves me holding Sarah under her armpits or around her waist and walking with her while she pedals and I say "pedal, pedal, pedal." Sometimes we have her put on her pretend helmet first. While I do not yet love our angry clashes, I do love our way of pedaling out of them and reconnecting with shared play.

Right (Wright?!) bicycles to all of you,

January 11

I think the good thing I found last Sunday was more compassion for Sarah. I certainly still had some grumpy moments this week with both children, but I feel like I was able to see past some of Sarah's yelling to the child that she is. Sometimes when I am mad at her for being mad or upset it is because I am expecting her to know better and be more of her numerical age instead of seeing her developmental age. It felt good to hold her instead of stalking off. Instead of angrily thinking she was doing her upset just to get at me, I could see that maybe her nervous system was taxed to the max and she just needed to be snuggled and listened to. I often have this softness in response to Amy's upsets and it feels good when I have it for Sarah too. 

Last week I had described the different energies of Sarah (taut) and Amy (soft). A friend who has known me for almost 20 years commented that she saw both of those energies in me and had always valued the combination but could see that I often had more trouble accepting my taut side. That was so helpful. It was truth so largely in front of my face that I couldn't see it until someone else described it. So I took the first baby step towards accepting my taut energy and I think that helped me accept Sarah more. 

While I know that I am blessed to have Sarah as she is and be on this journey, it is always with the component thought of how we will look back on this amazing journey when she is totally neurotypical and has caught up with her peers. Last night we saw The Imitation Game and I had the first moment of truly thinking maybe it could be an asset if Sarah's mind works differently from the "typical" mind. Maybe it isn't something that will change or that I need to hope to change. Yes, I still want to help her thrive as fully as possible, but maybe I can truly be ok with however things are. I may have thought similar things in the past, but this felt like understanding it on a deeper level, at least for a nanosecond.

The week had many notable moments. On Monday we had an awesome playdate. We have playdates almost every Monday but usually the kids play on their own and just happen to be in the same space. This week there was extensive shared play.

Sarah loves Carl's new jeans and belt. She was busy looking at them when Amy came over and said she wanted to play with Sarah. Sarah thought about it and then followed Amy. Wow!

In gymnastics, Sarah did a bear crawl across some bars. She has never been willing to try this before.

Sonia and I were discussing how much Sarah loves the number flashcards and that maybe we should make letter flashcards. Luckily I organized the toy storage area before making anything because I discovered an unopened box of letter flashcards from Handwriting Without Tears, the same company that made the number flashcards. I spent 30 minutes with both girls taking turns making animals with the picture side of the letter flashcards, tracing the letters with their fingers, naming the letters, and attempting to read words that I created with the cards. Following this success I asked Sonia to make small cards with simple words and some with simple math problems. G. had some successful interactions around the simple math flashcards, making his fingers match the number of items indicated (eg 2+2 would have two fingers from each hand). Talking with Ja. resulted in the idea of printing out several small bicycles and flags and other items of interest so that Sarah could have beloved physical items to count and use for math. I love all of the ideas our team thinks of collaboratively. On Thursday, Sarah and I spent an hour in the SR room using the letter flashcards, number flashcards, and practicing writing numbers in a dry-erase book. Solid academic play for 1 hour. Double wow.

Sometimes I don't know where ideas originate. I'm not sure if Sarah came up with the geography elevator all on her own or if that came from a volunteer, but it is a game she has now initiated with multiple volunteers. She uses the number flashcards to select the floor for the elevator and then the elevator takes them to a state on the map. Her time with G. involved making a blue elevator out of a blanket, taking that elevator to the tenth floor, at which point they had a snack at the rest stop. 

I had a small personal first yesterday when I was doing some Alexander Technique shadowing with a class at the massage school. When I was working with a therapist their client said "wow" just after I helped the therapist shift something in themselves. I have known this kind of moment often but never because of my work as the AT teacher. Awesome!!

I have again been feeling so incredibly blessed by my amazing life, especially my volunteers. I cannot believe how many people have been a part of our program over the years and how many of them have been with us for multiple years and how some of them come back every time they can even if their life is no longer regularly in Pittsburgh and how all of them are loving, kind, and creative. I keep wanting to say "really???" you really want to keep helping me with my life (which is really helping Sarah with hers)?? really????? Apparently they really do want to help and really do love our spunky Sarah. Sarah now almost always greets every volunteer by starting her laser beam of delighted eye contact immediately as she moves towards them, sometimes from the top of the stairs or the far end of the family room. She says hello so warmly and excitedly that it is only through an effort of memory that I recall when we had greeting people as a goal. I love how much Sarah loves her volunteers.

Laser beams of loving eye contact to all of you.

January 4

I have no answers and something good is going to happen today. 

That is my motto for the moment. 

We had wonderful Christmas celebrations, travels, and visits. We saw all three sets of the girls' grandparents plus a plethora of cousins, aunts, and uncles. The drives to and from the Philly/DE area were the best drives we have ever had with the girls. Our timing was the same as if we had been without kids. They entertained themselves for basically the entire drive each way. Amy only asked once, 5 minutes into our journey, if we were there yet. The only thing I would have changed about the whole experience was my own health. I started getting a cold before we left and a few days of getting up at 5 or 5:30am did not help. By the time we were at my dad and stepmom's house I had a cough that sounded horrendous and I had to sleep (or attempt it) sitting as fully upright as possible on a couch. Finally, I am 98% better. Nothing helps me appreciate sleep like the lack of it. Nothing helps me appreciate sleeping horizontally in my own bed with only one pillow like a week of not being able to do so. Yesterday I had a 3 hour nap (thank you, Carl!!) and it was marvelous.

It was wonderful to have a break from cooking and cleaning, aside from taking care of Sarah's food. And it is also wonderful to be back home getting back into the groove of making all sorts of foods. 

Mom-Mom had a wonderful series of moments with the girls. When one of them was busy getting ready for bed or dressed for the day, Mom-Mom would invite the other up to her room for a conversation. They loved it. They adored the one-on-one time and I'm guessing the idea of a conversation felt very grown-up. The topics ranged from bicycles to fish to hanging plants, including pretending to bring new hanging plants into the room and watering them. This was a tiny bit of SR where I hadn't planned on any.

When we were saying our goodbyes at our last stop, Amy didn't want to say goodbye. She was heartbroken about leaving. I haven't seen her that way before about a goodbye. At home in the evening she started having a meltdown about getting in pajamas and as I held her she switched to saying how she was sad about leaving Grammy and Granddad's house. 

I felt unenthused towards my children for parts of the trip, probably because of being sick. Upon our return I tried to be more in tune with Sarah's energy (I was inspired after reading some of Awesomism by Suzy Miller). What I noticed was that I very easily can feel in sync with Amy's soft snuggly energy but that I was resistant to the taut energy of Sarah's body. I was wanting her body to be more calm instead of bringing more dynamic energy to my own. I am not yet sure what this means or what to do with the information but it was still interesting. Maybe the first step is just really being ok with her energy and not needing it to change.

Moving through my morning today I could feel the usual pull to blahdom and begrudging the never ending pickup of toys and cleaning of cookware. I felt the beginnings of my usual tug of war of feeling like I should do more, more, more and also wanting to embrace relaxed flowing ease (why these seem mutually exclusive is another thing to ponder). I was thinking about what to write and worrying that I always write the same sorts of things and that maybe people will get tired of reading my words. Then I remembered that this whole update/blog began as a way for me to process and remember my own journey and as such there isn't really a wrong way to do it. I further remembered a day in 7th grade when I woke up just believing it was going to be a good day. I felt so excited to be alive. I was excited to see my crush. And that day really was a fantastic day. So... what if I could allow that it is ok for me not to have any answers? What if I could bring in that level of 7th grade crush anticipation to my daily moments? 

Happy new anticipation of wonderfulness to you,

December 21

I wanted to end the year's updates with a positive glow, and I will get there, but for starters here is the honest grit...

This week felt hard. At least for several moments sprinkled throughout. I don't know if this was due to a change in the girls' behavior or a change in my ability to handle it. I kept resolving to keep it together the next moment or day and not yell and be mad and disdainful towards my most darling children. And then I would do exactly what I had resolved not to do. I was back to tightly, tautly ignoring and then exploding. Wednesday night I had a glimmer of realizing how I was being played and that perhaps they know exactly what to refuse to do and when to refuse and how to refuse and how to go tautly boneless and which yell to do to get me over the edge. Sigh. Understanding this still hasn't fully fixed matters.

The moments that have helped me... talking to my mom and following her suggestion to watch something with the girls so we could all snuggle easily, talking to Sonia, and talking/grumping/crying with Carl and having him listen and not boot me to the curb (as I thought was called for). Thursday night the mountain of tight, mad rocks that somehow had been amassing under the guise of Jenny finally shifted a bit towards melting. Amy was upset and I held her on my lap and just let myself hold her without needing to fix anything or change anything, but just to be with her and find my own comfort in nuzzling into her neck. We snuggled for several minutes and then I told her how much I loved snuggling with her. Then I listed many of the things I love doing with her or that she does. She seemed very delighted to hear it. After the girls went to bed I tried to keep that relaxed energy while I did some cooking and cleaning. Then I read a blog by one of my Alexander teachers from my training and I melted further into a teary blob, recognizing so much of myself in the descriptions of protective body patterns of some AT students. If you would like to read the blog it can be found here: http://peacefulbodyschool.com/2014/12/19/on-becoming-a-person/

I also recommend his entry on poise.

I think sometimes my impression of a day gets informed by a very small percentage of time. The days that I think are crappy because I yell are informed by the 10% of the time I yell, if that. The rest of the time I am still functioning pretty well, cooking, cleaning, kindly and creatively interacting with the girls, and generally being a nice person. So why does the 10% win on those days? As my mom reminded me, perhaps my standards are a little high. I think that is especially true after some weeks where I felt really in the groove with my intentions so then my disappointment in the change is greater.

I was thinking this morning about why I get mad or defensive in certain situations (such as Amy insisting that she wants the Donald Duck spoon and no substitute). I think I am hoping the anger will protect me. If I start with doubting my answer and when to hold fast to my position versus when to be flexible, then when the whining and complaining starts I doubt myself further and then must dig in my heels and reinforce my trenches with tight low-level anger. Does this actually protect me from anything? Probably not. I think I worry that if I don't have anger then I will always cave and give in to whatever the girls want whenever they want it and they will never grow up to be good, upstanding, responsible citizens who clean up their own messes and are polite. But, again, why the anger to reinforce myself? Maybe because anger feels strong. I often feel unappreciated when they whine. But is that them not appreciating me or me not appreciating me? Maybe both. When I am fully confident in my choices and my contribution to our life then I don't really wonder or care if they appreciate me or not. I definitely get into some fight or flight energy when the pitch of their complaining reaches a certain level. I feel desperate to change the situation and like an animal who must use prickles and roars to do so. 

Upon reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas this year, I fully relate to the Grinch. I am sick of the noise, noise, noise, noise and I want to gather up all our crap and take it to the top of Mt. Crumpit to dump it. When I am mad or tight then my heart is definitely two sizes too small. My struggles have helped me appreciate Carl and Sonia even more than usual because I witness moments with the girls and know that I would take one path (of tight anger) and I see them gracefully take a kinder, calmer path that actually gets the desired result. I am so thankful for their help and guidance. 

Among the wonderful moments this week... We did an art project with beads and string. Amy was delighted and did lots of beads, all with my help. For a long time Sarah didn't want to do any of it. Then she played with the cardboard box the beads came in. Then she wanted to string beads and could actually do some of them without my help! And then she took the beads back off. And then I left the room for a few minutes and came back to beads strewn everywhere. But it was still super exciting to watch Sarah string beads!

We have had several moments of the girls singing together, sometimes with an adult and sometimes not. I love their shared looks of delight when they are enjoying singing or saying a phrase together. 

On Friday we had a visit from a friend. For the first few minutes Sarah didn't really connect or pay her any attention. However, after Amy demonstrated some of her climbing and rope sliding abilities, Sarah was quick to follow. As Sarah climbed and flipped she had an enormous grin and kept checking in with D, as if showing off very consciously. I haven't seen that enormous level of delighted connection around the flipping/climbing before. It was like a little laser beam of radiant joy.

Sarah's favorite item in the SR room lately has been number flashcards. Sonia created a game around Sarah's love of having the cards spread all over the floor. Sonia gives Sarah a task to do at a certain number, such as finding the 10 and touching it with her left pinky finger. Sarah was totally responsive and into this game. I continued it some during my time but when I prompted Sarah to give me a task then the game sort of fell apart. Sarah continues to count the items on the flashcards, trace the numbers, and has done some addition with one of our volunteers. She has let me use the cuisenaire rods a tiny bit in conjunction with the flash cards. 

Sarah's sneakiness continues. She now uses a chair in the SR room to get items down from the shelf when adults aren't around. This is not good because if she pulls wrong on the shelf the whole thing could come down, as I have explained multiple times. There was one day when it was clear she had gotten objects down by herself but the tell-tale chair was not under the shelf. She must have thought to return it to the usual position near the table. 

I used her love of the song "Dixie" ("I wish I was in Dixie, hooray, hooray...") to have an easy hair washing time with her. Amy kept yelling at me to stop singing, but Sarah's energy totally shifted and she didn't mind the experience at all. I used it one morning with getting ready for the day, changing the words to match the moment ("I was I was in clothing"). 

After the success with the bath I was in a relaxed mode about getting the girls ready for bed and so instead of sternly reminding them for the 10th time to put on their undies, I started singing and dancing: "Underpants, dah dah dah dah dah dah dah, underpants!" What I didn't expect was that both girls would not only comply but they started singing too and wanted to keep going. When Carl came home we greeted him by lining up at the bannister and singing the underpants song.

For Sarah's school there were two events that involved treats that she couldn't eat unless I sent in a version just for her. This sort of challenge is often a bit fun for me, especially when I succeed. I did make candy cane cookies, but unfortunately they were all crumbly when it was time to eat. I still count it as a success. On Friday there was a school party involving cupcakes that the kids would frost and decorate with sprinkles. I made cupcakes and sent in the white sweet potato/coconut milk combo as frosting and freeze-dried strawberry powder for sprinkles. Sarah ate every bite. I may be a grumpalupagus sometimes but I will always find a way for Sarah to have the right kind of dessert! Priorities, people! :)

An extra wonderful thing about our team of volunteers is that even when I am struggling, Sarah still receives a ton of love and support. I feel like a runner who finishes the race because she is helped by other runners. And Amy has her BFF in her volunteer M. When I got out piles of the girls' artwork so they could pick items to give as presents, Amy picked her first item and designated it for M. This was entirely Amy's suggestion. I am so grateful to M. for the time she spends with Amy. It is the only time in the week that Amy gets two hours of someone dedicated entirely to her. Our entire team of volunteers is the best gift in the world for our family to receive. Volunteers for Sarah and Amy, past and present, I will love you forever and always to the moon and back. Thank you.

May all of you who are reading this have ease, support, and love surrounding you.

December 14

Sometimes things don't go as planned and that is the best thing ever even if you don't know it at the time. For Thanksgiving, the white potatoes had gone bad so Sonia and I combined our sweet potatoes, which neither of us eat a ton of, and made mashed sweet potatoes. We learned then that Amy loves mashed sweet potatoes. Because of that I bought Japanese sweet potatoes for variety, which led to my creating sweet potato cream pie. Just use the crust of your choice (if it needs to be baked do that before you add the filling). Bake enough sweet potatoes to give you two cups (without the skins). Puree with 1 cup full-fat coconut milk. Put the filling in the crust. Refrigerate or eat. This is a good recipe.

I wonder when I have a breakthrough and think I have solved life if then I stop thinking the things that led me to the breakthrough because I believe they are solidly a part of my person, when in reality I am still on wobbly fledgling legs. I had been doing so well at ignoring upsets and then I stopped. I started catching the ball of scream and reacting to all the upsets. It has been a rough couple of days. I think I had stopped having my mantra be to ignore things and I think my commitments increased and my sleep decreased. This is not a good recipe. 

Last night I slept 10 hours. The only way I have to sleep in these days is to go to bed early, so I went to be just after the girls did. Now to get back to my mantra of ignoring my children more, at least when they yell. I don't yet have an answer for how to make them do something when we need to go somewhere or do some activity and they ignore me. I hate being ignored. Yesterday I resorted to threatening that they wouldn't get to go to a Christmas party at Carl's work if they didn't cooperate. This did work, but I hate that mean energy I have when I am flailing to feel like I have any control whatsoever. 

On the plus side... the girls have been helping fill our humidifier (and watering the floor a bit in the process). Somehow Sarah has gotten tall enough to be able to turn on the kitchen faucet without a stool. When did this happen?!? 

Yesterday I did some Alexander Technique teaching at the massage school. I shadowed a class that was learning myofascial massage. I haven't shadowed a class in what feels like forever. I had a great experience and I could tell I was calmer about it than I used to be. I still had moments of wondering if I was helping the students at all, but I do know I helped some of them. This is my favorite class to shadow because it involves therapists being still for long periods of time and that can be very challenging. I used to struggle with doing myofascial release because I was so uncomfortable. Then I had AT lessons and was more comfortable and suddenly I could feel what was going on under my hands. I love helping other people become comfortable enough in their own body that they can pay better attention to the client's body. This is all a good reminder that when I am struggling and clashing with the girls, I really deeply need to attend to my own self first so then I can better see what is going on for the girls. Sometimes it isn't clear how to best care for myself when total escape isn't possible. But, I digress. When I was teaching yesterday, I was able to channel some Sarah-Rise room calm presence and not needing anything to happen into my hands-on work. I reminded myself to just be with the students and not need them to change in a particular way, even while I was inviting the change. I love how these two parts of my life (AT and SR) can work so well together and that each helps me be better at the other. 

Our new SR room arrangement with a larger table and two chairs has been working wonderfully. Sarah has done many activities at the table. She and I have played Mancala and Othello. With both games I direct her very specifically for each turn so I'm not sure how much she is learning to play the game, but I do remember learning to play some games in this way myself. Both games have small pieces and Sarah loves to ism with small objects so it is extra exciting that she has been able to attend to my directions for several turns before she says she wants to be done and just play with the pieces. And she has been telling me verbally that she wants to be done instead of just beginning to ism with no verbal communication.

Sarah has also pulled a chair to be under the shelf in the SR room and once pulled down a bin of markers, tape, and scissors. This was when she was on her own. I'm impressed with her ingenuity but this is totally not ok otherwise. The shelf could very easily tip and send her flying under a rain of everything on the shelf. I explained in detail why using the chair was not ok and why she needs to ask a grown-up. It seemed like she understood but she has moved the chair again during at least one SR session. 

Sarah has done number flashcard play with several volunteers in various games. Yesterday she also played the Around the Wheel game with G. for 22 minutes and then later suggested they play catch with a bean bag, which they did. This is amazing. She also often draws a bicycle on the chalk board that I moved to the dining room. 

Amy is starting to branch out with her drawing from just coloring a solid block of color to drawing lines and shapes (blobs). 

Anywho, I hope you are all having relaxing weekends.

December 7

We started our day with a group meeting. I am consistently amazed by my volunteers with their creativity, thoughtfulness, and dedication to our program. Seriously!!! I have the best volunteers! We have lots of new plans for our time in the room and I'm excited to change the room around a bit. We are going to get a slightly bigger table and have two chairs so we can work on having Sarah sit and do an activity at the table with her partner of the moment. We are going to bring back some games of old and introduce new games that she may be ready for. We are going to paint the walls to be chalk boards and maybe white boards. We are going to first and foremost help her express herself when she doesn't want to keep doing an activity. She is very clear about this with body language but we want to have it be verbal and then we will honor it immediately. If she tells us she doesn't want to do something, ok! Then we will gradually nudge towards expanding the length of time she sticks with something that may be challenging or slightly non-preferred. In many ways we have been doing this from the beginning, but it is new to focus on the moments when she suddenly switches to discussing bicycles or sock marks as times when she maybe could verbally say, "I don't want to do this anymore" or "this is too hard" or "help."

At the beginning of the meeting we reflected on how Sarah has changed since we each did our first session compared to our most recent session. We also noted things that felt the same. For me, there is a sparkly silent magic quality to the air in the Sarah-Rise room, and that has been present from day one. I am not always aware of it, but I often am. It is something that I don't experience anywhere else (yet).

Some highlights from the week... Sarah and I had looked at a world map and I showed her where Sb now lives in Brazil. Sarah immediately said "bicycle!" I said we could ask Sb if they have bicycles in Brazil. A couple days later, after we discussed what a tandem bicycle is, Sarah said, "Sarah squished a tandem bicycle in Brazil." Indeed! That sentence melds topics from sessions with multiple people into a creation uniquely her own.

During her session with J., Sarah spontaneously and independently went to the chalk board to draw a bike. During her session with L., Sarah was talking about a red bicycle and L. brought down paper and markers. L. asked what came first, expecting Sarah to tell her what to draw. Instead, Sarah said, "r...e...d." Sonia has been asking Sarah how various words are spelled and Sarah is nailing many of them and is quite attentive to Sonia's help for the ones she doesn't know.

At school, Sarah drew smiley faces on the easel and none of the adults saw her do it. When the teachers asked who had done the drawing Sarah didn't claim ownership, but another child said that Sarah had done it. Sonia said that they looked like Sarah's work and then Sarah did affirm that they were hers. 

Both girls are doing an amazing job of participating in gymnastics and learning new things. Sarah's strength at home on the gymnastics bar is incredible. Watching her control I am struck by how strong her hands and forearms are, along with everything else, and I think this will help with her writing and cutting skills. L. noticed that Sarah's ability to do snaps has improved dramatically in the past two weeks, and I think this is from increased hand strength.

Sarah has taken to saying she is traipsing along. She learned this word from Mo Willems' Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs. I have learned from this book as well. The moral of the story, as Mo writes it, is "If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave." I have been using this as my reminder motto to leave the room when the yelling commences. Combined with just letting the kids play on their own more made this week feel much easier overall than it might have in the past. I had 3 days when I was the only grown-up for most of the day and overall I totally rocked it. We did errands, we did history lessons, we did art projects, and I stayed happy and relaxed 90% of the time. I felt like I stopped being afraid of my children and their upsets. Today there were some hiccups to this new profound simplicity, but I think I am regaining my equilibrium faster and realigning with my intentions. 

On Tuesday morning I gave two small lessons while we looked at pictures on the computer. I showed the girls pictures of the Wright Flyer, the first flight, the Wright Brothers' bicycle shop and bikes, my dad's students making the Wright Flyer, and my dad dressed as Orville. In follow-up questioning to see how much they had learned, I asked who made the first airplane. Sarah responded, "Granddad." Clearly it worked to capture her interest to see a picture of him, but I also have some work to do! (They now both know it was the Wright Brothers). We also looked at pictures of the Big Bang. Then the girls colored pictures of old bikes and glued bits of buttons and fluff on black paper to artistically represent the Big Bang. I felt so awesome and powerful in my educational prowess after the discussions while at the computer and then I noticed that both were done in 15 minutes total! It felt like we were there and focused for at least an hour. That was a bit humbling but I was still quite pleased with the day. 

Sometimes when Sarah is crying she will pause and say, "sniff." Yesterday she did this and Carl asked if that was from Snoopy. In the midst of her upset, Sarah corrected him that it was Gerald (from Pigs Make Me Sneeze by Mo Willems). 

Sarah reached her milestones belatedly and it was easy for me to despair of her ever getting to a certain point. She didn't walk independently until she was almost 3. Watching her controlled flips I am reminded that just because she can't do something today doesn't mean she isn't going to knock it out of the park in the future.