December 15

Last Sunday the girls decorated our large gingerbread house. Once they were allowed to sample it, the roof was broached. This was a new experience for me to eat the actual gingerbread so early. Normally the house sits so long (with just candy being eaten) that the gingerbread gets stale and hard. Then if you wait long enough it gets soft again. That is when I was used to eating it.

Also last Sunday, we went to lunch at Aladdins. This is one of our favorite places to go as a family because they are quick, kid-friendly, and relatively healthy. Amy hadn’t had much for breakfast and had waited much longer than usual before having more food. I assumed that her distress at Aladdins was due to being very hungry. She was miserable and then had chills. She said her legs didn’t feel right. I started to freak out. We did get some food and drink in her and then I took her to the car to call the healthcare advice line. We went home and Amy had advil and a nap. When she woke up she seemed completely better. She went to school on Monday seeming totally well. Monday night took her down with a fever and repeated puking. So Tuesday she was home and enjoyed some quality snuggle time with our cat Olivia. Wednesday she seemed better aside from a cough. Thursday, similar, though the cough was a bit more intense so I questioned my judgement. It is hard when Amy fights so hard to go to school. It is hard for me to force her to stay home. Thursday night her cough was so persistent she couldn’t go to sleep so we went to the Express Care walk-in service at the Children’s Hospital. Two hours later we were home after she had been given liquid steroid and a breathing treatment with albutirol. The doctor said her coughing sounded like that of someone with asthma where they get in a cycle of inflammation causing coughing which then causes inflammation which causes coughing. We were sent home with a nebulizer to continue breathing treatments until her cough is much better and 4 days of the steroid to help calm everything down. These treatments have helped immensely. Now it is notable when she does cough rather than being notable when the cough abates for a minute, which is how it was on Thursday evening. 

Due to Amy’s situation I was ripe for the duping on Wednesday morning when Sarah uncharacteristically came downstairs as soon as I turned on the hall lights to wake her. Usually we go through 4 rounds of my turning on the lights and her scampering out as the Light Bandit to turn them off.  (As she says, "the Light Bandit strikes again!" Amy amended it to be “the Light Bandit Stripes again!” Then she comes down for breakfast, sometimes reluctantly. Wednesday she came right down and asked me if she could stay home because she didn’t feel well. I thought, I always distrust Sarah about these things and then so often I realize I should have trusted her, so this time I will trust her. Alas, in this case perhaps I should have doubted. It was very clear, after all calls had been made and plans cancelled, that she was totally fine. I chose to focus on the day as a mental health day, because I used to need those when I was little and my mom was wonderful to let me have them. She did rest more than usual. And she does have a cold now, so maybe somehow letting her have a day at home when it wasn’t technically needed helped her evade getting something as intense as Amy’s situation. I think I have made more peace with the fact that making decisions about kids staying home or not is rarely clear and that I will almost always have doubt no matter which decision I make.

We watched Mickey’s Christmas Carol and Sarah loved it even more than usual. Her favorite part is when Scrooge falls into the fiery pit of his own grave. After the movie was finished she really wanted to re-enact that scene so with Carl and Amy’s help she created a box with a hole into which a Donald Duck figurine could fall. Amy made flames from construction paper. Yesterday Sarah wanted to have a hole into which she could fall so she and Carl made one from pillows. 

My Christmas present to myself was finally tackling the giant, overflowing, overstuffed “to file” and “to shred” bins that sit on our mail shelf. Part of the problem was that our filing system in the basement was overstuffed so it was really frustrating to have to add anything. I spent a few minutes pulling out folders that I thought we didn’t need anymore and having Carl verify my decision. We now have a really big pile to take to a shredding place. At least half of what is going is old IEP notes and weekly progress reports from Sarah from when she was in her first preschool or even before that when she had Early Intervention at home. Even looking at the piles I had some sense memories that turned my stomach. Not that we didn’t have lovely people helping us and not that she didn’t progress wonderfully, but that was just such an intense time filled with worry and a lot of struggle, especially around getting Sarah to eat. I also decided we didn’t need every printout from every doctor’s visit she ever had. My promise to myself going forward is to never let the filing system get so frustrating again and to never let the bins on my mail table overflow again. 

I’ve been feeling grateful for our warm house, our healthy food, our time together as a family, reading Christmas books to Amy (because who knows how much longer I will get to read kids' books out loud? that hardly ever happens anymore), and having the time to deal with the areas of mess that have become fixtures in the house. It feels good to have that perspective rather than focusing on the drudgery of needing to deal with the mess. Clearly if the mess has been around this long it doesn’t really need to be cleaned, but I know I feel so much better when things are neater.

December 8

I can’t remember if I have written of this before, so it is possibly a repetition. Whenever we pass a Dairy Queen Sarah will whisper, “Dairy Queen.” For some reason this is hilarious. She often then whispers whatever she says next, which becomes equally hilarious because of being whispered.

This past week Sarah told me when she got her period. I almost didn’t believe her because she so recently had it, but her doctor informed me that this first year can be quite irregular. So to my credit, I didn’t tell Sarah that she was wrong. Instead we went to the bathroom and she got her special undies. I was most impressed by her body awareness and communication of it, which hasn’t happened before with respect to her period. 

Sarah and I had a wonderful SR session. What made it wonderful was that I couldn’t make the trampoline Sarah wanted and she was upset about it for about 45 minutes. Because it was our SR time and Amy was playing with M., I didn’t feel any pressure to move past Sarah’s upset. I was also sleepy so I just sat and listened while she cried, screamed, pleaded, and whined. When our time was almost done I said it was time to take her shower. She protested for a few minutes and then switched to calm ease. She took her shower and washed her hair easily. She seemed calmer overall after her crying session. While I am well aware of how magical a big cry can be, I still marveled at it and was grateful for the reminder. The next morning also went extra smoothly in terms of her getting ready for school.

Sarah had been saying she wanted to be Santa and wanted to wear red and white stripes. She wanted to go to the Red and White Stripe Store, a creation of her imagination in which everything would be striped red and white. Friday morning I had some free time so I went to a thrift store and found a large red and white striped shirt with a matching hat. I also got red, white, and green plaid pajama bottoms. She looks adorably cuddly and has been wearing the whole ensemble since her return from school on Friday.

I started reading The Gratitude Diaries by Janice Kaplan. I have had it on my shelf for months and almost wanted to roll my eyes at it because of course I know that gratitude is a good thing and makes people feel better, blah, blah, blah. While I may know some of what is written, that is a very different thing from applying what I know to my life! I am so glad I have started reading it. It has already been helpful to shift my perspective in many situations to what I can appreciate rather than what I can judge or begrudge. This has helped me be happier more often. I’m also intrigued by the advice regarding showing gratitude more often to people in my life, especially those closest to me. This means focusing more on the adorable creative qualities of my favorite children rather than grumbling about the tissues and socks strewn about. Or possibly being grateful that we have such a snug, warm house with an ample supply of tissues and socks. 

I made miniature gingerbread house pattern cookies, which the girls assembled and decorated, sampling their way through the decorations. Today we will decorate the giant house that takes multiple days for the frosting to set into enough stability to handle the pressure of decorating. 

Amy has been drawing many animals using a how-to-draw book. I am amazed at her ability and her innate drive to create art.

Last weekend we got our tree and Sarah was the one most eager to start decorating it. She participated the whole time and then started taking ornaments off so she could rehang them. This is a shift from past years when she would lose interest part way through. Our cat thinks the tree is tasty despite repeated tummy-upsets because of eating it. She also climbed fully into the lower branches yesterday, which is a first in all of my years of having cats. I know many cats do it, but I was just hoping to have my cat refrain.

I am so grateful to all of you for witnessing our journey and my thoughts about it. I feel loved and supported knowing you are with us and interested in our tears and triumphs. The times that some of you write back mean a great deal too. And I love hearing about your own lives and journeys! I really do!!

December 1

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a wonderful, bountiful day. Grandma made songbooks that included some of the girls’ favorite songs. Amy belted out “Let it Go” with gusto. (Some day I want to name a pet Gusto so I can say that I do everything with Gusto.) Amy and I did a duet of the Vampirina theme song. Sarah took over the piano from Grandma. We all sang many of the songs together, though Amy got upset with the ones she didn’t know. For the rest of the time, Sarah often only wanted to play with Grandpa. Sonia and I did our usual food preparation where we each make enough for the entire group and then put it all together. It was as delicious as always. 

Earlier in the week Sarah did Madlibs with Amy and me. Sometimes she would supply a word. Sometimes she would be the scribe, either asking us for words or copying the prompt into the blank (eg. noun). Since doing her spelling homework is not her forte, I sent the book of madlibs to her teacher to show her what Sarah had done. I haven’t heard back. Still, it amazes me that Sarah was doing all of that with the madlibs, and her writing was correctly on the lines instead of bisected by the lines. 

As you know, baths for Sarah can be a struggle especially when it comes to washing her hair. For a while it was going well but recently had become quite challenging for all involved, with screaming and tears for Sarah and helper Amy. A couple of weeks ago, Sarah then accidentally pressed the overhead shower button. That startled her and Carl turned it into a reference to her favorite thing of a circle with a line through it meaning “no.” Suddenly she was having a good time. Since then, she has taken three showers, one of which still involved upset regarding hair. I bought baby shampoo that she can pump herself. She had been requesting the baby shampoo, of which we had a small bottle left over from years ago. Her last shower was almost fully independent. My only role was to prompt more water or more scrubbing, but she did everything herself. Fingers crossed for today’s shower. 

Yesterday, Carl bought some storage shelves and put them together with Sarah’s help. True help. She hammered shelf supports into their holes and she cut the straps on the box. 

Sarah has been making her own hot chocolate. This is wonderful independence, with the downside that she gives herself an extra hot chocolate per day. 

There have been a few of our customary rough spots, such as when Sarah got home from running  errands with Carl and promptly walked over to where Amy and I were playing Go Fish and pushed our cards off of the playing surface. There was also a time when I was feeling sad and she was laughing while saying she would make me sadder and would take my tissues. I just don’t know how to handle such moments. For the past couple of nights I have been spending a few minutes quietly imagining some of the challenging moments and directing my body to feel grounded and easy, so that that can become my habit rather than my tightening. I have tried this in the past and found it helpful but then somehow let the practice go. I am hoping this will help with the moments that dumbfound me. 

Amy has been her usual amazing self, creating art, reading, making friendship bracelets, doing gymnastics flips on the sofa, being on top of the world and then being furious with all of us and then somehow being happy again. Amy also likes to be my lap cat, which is adorably snuggly. 

November 24

I love to read, but often I don’t immerse myself in a book because then I don’t want to do anything else except read. It is a tricky balance. I just started Where The Crawdads Sing and I really don’t want to put it down. 

I’ve been thinking often about the relationship between Sarah and me, especially when we have our hard times. I have often read the reminder that a child is having a hard time rather than giving someone else a hard time. I totally appreciate that and believe it. But what I wish was also part of that sentence is the honoring that maybe the grown up is also having a hard time. Because when things are really hard I have so little slack to somehow gain the upper ground. I’m just as lost in my own overload as Sarah is, though we may be overloaded by different and interacting things. We had a hard time yesterday. It only lasted a couple of minutes, but it was intensely hard and I was my worst self. I rallied after the height of trouble had passed and we had a wonderful time of close connection that felt very Sarah-Risey. My only goal was to connect well and somehow erase when I was awful. We did connect well. I felt inspired to have that as my only goal ever. And yet, just as with my easier desire to read all the time, the rest of life exists too and I find my adherence to my goal slipping. I can love and appreciate my passion to be here solely for Sarah. I can also feel riotously begrudging that somehow that is asked of me (even if I am doing the asking), because what about me having the rest of my life? I know that most of the time there is a good balance. I know that when I really focus on connecting with her then I feel better and things go better. It is also hard to keep up all the time or even just on demand when my best self might be needed with little advanced notice. This is all a jumble to say that Sarah is my heart and soul and I pour so much into her and am so glad to have her in my life. And, this is so hard sometimes!!! So so so hard. Did I mention that this is hard? And that sometimes I’m a really awful mom? Sometimes I’m amazing and sometimes I’m really not.

We went to see Frozen 2 as a family yesterday. This was the first time we have watched a full movie in a theater all together. Sarah did need to have a break in the middle of the most intense scene, but was mostly attentive and quiet the rest of the time, which is rather amazing. 

Sarah did beautifully with swimming and gymnastics this week. Her piano recital last weekend went wonderfully and some of the what I predicted didn’t happen. She stayed in her seat for almost the whole recital. She was mostly quiet, aside from announcing loudly at one point that she was ready to go to Coldstone for ice cream. 

This morning I realized that Amy never learned to braid. Neither has Sarah, but I’m less concerned about that. So I taught Amy to braid and she made a friendship bracelet. 

Amy is at a wonderful age and stage of being loving. She tells me daily that she loves me soooo much and she gives me giant hugs.

I no longer pick up clothes from the girls’ floor. I will put away clean laundry and I will pickup after people in other rooms, but not theirs. This takes great restraint, but feels like a good starting point for all of us.

November 17

Sarah and I have had more of our massively hard times together. I feel so weary of it all, as if I’m trying to drive but I have only fumes left in the tank. I am refilling it, but slowly. A couple of days ago it felt like we were having emotional wrestling matches and I was in the ring giving up but every time I thought we were done then we would re-engage. After two rounds then Sarah wanted to snuggle. She sat on me. After a couple of minutes she bounced in a way that hurt so I said that it hurt and asked her not to do it again. She laughed and did it more. I didn’t respond calmly to that. I felt done but with no escape in that moment. Yes, I can get sitters but you can’t just magic a sitter into being present instantly. And sometimes these moments feel like they come out of nowhere and blindside me. I feel like Charlie Brown with the football, as if somehow I should know better that any seemingly easy moment could turn at the drop of a hat, but I keep expecting things to just go smoothly. And often they do. The girls have had many moments lately of easily playing together for hours at a time. I know the rough moments are actually short in duration and a small percentage of our overall experience, but in the moment it can be hard to remember that.

I am relearning that I need to map out my weekly time more carefully, as I used to do in pre-parenting days. I used to know how many massages I could give in a day or week and how many was too many. I knew that if I exceeded my limit one week then the next week needed to be light. I don’t have that figured out for myself now because half of my work is teaching and often teaching or giving a massage can feel rejuvenating. Some weeks I can handle a high level of busyness and other weeks I can’t, but I can’t necessarily tell ahead of time which is which. I also know that when Sarah and I struggle that is more fatiguing than anything. So I’m not quite sure of the chicken or the egg, but I am now looking ahead at my weeks and blocking time out when I’m not allowed to work. Or rather, I’m not allowed to do my occupational work. I need that time to do my home work so that I don’t feel out of control with life and thus stressed, with less flexible ease for my children.

Amy has had more wonderful moments of helping Sarah with her homework. And we have had more rough walks home after we get Amy from school, where Amy directs any upset from the school day at Sarah, no matter what she is doing or not doing. Sometimes Sarah ignores her and other times she antagonizes in the big-sister way that she does. Or Sarah decides to push at my boundaries (getting too close to a steep drop-off in the woods or spitting at everything). In those moments I just wish I could teleport us home.

On the plus side, I marvel that Sarah has a piano recital today. Her third! She will get up in front of a crowd, bow, play her piece, pause part-way through to say something to her teacher about what one of both of them is wearing, finish her piece, possibly singing along, bow, and come back to her seat. Then she will most likely try to roam through the seating area and the doors of the church while I hope she will not do or say anything too loud or disruptive. But still! It is still amazing that she continues to learn new piano pieces and can perform them. Sarah also did her homework easily this morning, writing about her piano recital and that she will wear her scarf to it.

To help divert Sarah when she is in a mode of wanting to pick up everything in the kitchen, I made a sensory bin of dried beans and peas. She loves it. It hasn’t yet been put to the kitchen test, but I’m glad to have it as a possibility.

Sarah just asked Amy to go upstairs to play. Amy said yes. Sarah replied, “Come on, vamanos.” Many moments are so easy and wonderful I am stunned. These moments happen just as often or more often than the hard times.

I’m feeling very human this morning, and very repetitive with these stories of struggles. I feel like I should apologize because I’m supposed to be inspiring, but my main aim is just to share our real moments. I just wish I could fill more weeks with the amazing real moments instead of the hard real moments.  

November 10

The week with no iPod for Sarah went beautifully. She easily found other things to do. This has reminded me to keep turns short because then the upset at the end of a turn is much less than if a turn is long. Sometimes I have let turns be long because it seems like I then have time to do something uninterrupted. No more. 

Wednesday was a great day for Sarah. She focused well during piano, despite wearing her favorite piano staff/note scarf (which usually draws her focus intensely). She also did amazingly well during gymnastics. She did the best floor work I have seen from her in ages and she got up on the high beam and did lots of walking with help. Often she refuses to get on the high beam at all. She just seemed more energetic and daring than usual. Her teacher and I kept exchanging surprised glances. 

I got a new winter coat for Sarah and she loves it. There has been no further issue about wearing a coat.

I’ve started requiring Sarah to do one short bit of homework before she watches her afternoon tv show. This worked easily two days in a row. On the third day suddenly she would have none of it and was screaming and banging on the table. Amy and I sat with her until the storm passed and then we both helped her focus on the homework. Amy was amazing. She was so patient, kind, encouraging, and supportive. She is such an incredibly wonderful sister to Sarah. 

I will note that on the daily walk home from Amy’s school when Amy is probably tired and hungry, she is mad at Sarah no matter what Sarah is doing or not doing. Sarah is usually quite easy at these times, just walking and pushing the stroller that she always brings. 

Sarah has been having fun pretending to be dancing to music at a German restaurant that has a fake sky with a moon, as we experienced a couple of years ago at Disney World. With Carl’s help she put her starred winter coat up high, and Amy made a paper moon. Sarah then has us play her favorite Christmas album and she gallops around the room. For all of the tough moments, it is lovely when she is so stinkin’ cute, creative, and adorable. 

Love, stars, and moons to you. 

November 3

Sarah and I have had some really rough moments with each other. Really rough. As in, some of the worst ever. There were two dinners in a row where I served things she normally eats with no difficulty and yet this week she shoved them away with loud protest. I didn’t handle it calmly. Her class went on a field trip to a farm and they made chicken noodle soup. That coincided with my serving chicken soup with rice that evening, but apparently after having the noodles at the farm she no longer likes rice. The main troubles though were on Friday. She wouldn’t get dressed to walk Amy to school. Sarah didn’t have school. Since Carl was still at home, he stayed with Sarah, but with the understanding (or so we thought) that Sarah would get ready easily for  attending Amy’s Pumpkin Parade. Instead, there was protest about getting dressed for that. When clothing was achieved then she refused to wear a sweatshirt or coat of any sort. It was 36 degrees. Eventually she wrapped herself in a blanket and we did get to see the Pumpkin Parade. Then we had a slight hiccough in our expected plans and I needed to take Sarah to a neighbor and that neighbor would also get Amy from her half-day of school while I was at work. Except Sarah refused to leave the house. Because it was cold, but she refused to put on anything to combat the cold. She must have been a stubborn donkey in a past life. Perhaps I was too. We were both screaming at each other. Luckily my neighbors/friends were a pair that day so one of them came to be with Sarah while the other got Amy. I went to work, feeling like a hypocrite for the contrast of such panicky rage and then going to be loving and centered. I also took away Sarah’s ipod for the week.  It is residing in my office so I don’t weaken in my resolve. When I got home, Sarah and I had more rough moments and I called my mom in desperation. She helped me settle and helped Sarah settle. Things weren’t great, but they were at least calmer. Now, Sarah and I seem to be back to more of our usual mode of being together. I feel it in my bones, the way you can feel a change in the weather. She even wore a coat yesterday afternoon with no prompting from anyone. 

To back up… Amy was sick Wednesday night so had to stay home Thursday. She was feeling better and thus was quite mad at us for following the school rule of keeping her home. She was heartbroken to miss the Halloween party. Carl stayed home with her since I was teaching a class that I didn’t want to miss. That gave him time to work on his costume of a bus in a sinkhole. Amy painted a picture of him wearing his bus-sinkhole hat while he worked to make it out of cardboard. For those of you not from Pittsburgh or unaware of recent events, a bus had a sinkhole open under it at a stop downtown. No one was hurt and people have had a field day creating memes and ornaments and cupcakes and costumes about it. Carl’s picture even made in the newspaper. 

Amy was completely well for trick-or-treating and the weather cooperated despite a forecast of constant rain. Sarah had been planning on being a mermaid but decided at the last minute to be a witch, wearing a dress that I bought because it was so beautiful that I wished it came in my size. Amy was a leopard. I wore my skeleton dress and stayed home to hand out candy. Amy went around with her best friend and Sarah went around with Carl. Sarah evidently did a wonderful job of greeting each house with “Happy Halloween” and saying "thank you" for her bounty. They all stayed out for two hours! They brought back more candy than ever before and were so tired that they went straight to bed, opting to have me sort the goods. I had to remove any peanut items from Sarah’s stash and anything too chewy from Amy’s. Amy still has a palate expander so she can’t have anything that might pull it out of place. I think they will be set with candy for a year. Perhaps it was the excitement and resulting fatigue from Halloween that fed the struggle for Sarah on Friday. While some might blame sugar, my girls just had their usual after-dinner treat amount rather than anything extra due to the holiday.

Amy has decided to stop doing Girls On The Run. She loved it when it was just running with friends. She stopped loving it once they were pushed to do certain distances with no choice about how far they went. While I fully supported her in doing it and was happy when she loved it, I am also relieved to simplify our schedule in this way. Now our Mondays and Wednesdays will feel downright leisurely with only one after-school activity. This also means Sarah and I get more walks together, which is usually pleasant and is good exercise.