November 20

Our Son-Rise (Sarah-Rise) room is mostly bare (with pink walls) and a bit of rug from our old house (rust/pink/brown) and a small white area rug. There is a big blue ball that Sarah bounces on with help, a small plastic table, an easle, and a potty. Her toys are up on the shelf in the closet. These include the Eric Carle animal cards, matching squares for a memory game that have pictures of candy on them, fish cards, blocks, stickers, crayons, paper, silk scarves (stars and rainbow), magnet sticks, shaker eggs and a tambourine, and a handful of books. Eventually we will have shelves more out in the open. The idea is to keep the toys out of reach so Sarah has to ask for them. This works a bit already.

I have now worked up to doing an hour and a half at a time when I have Amy care and during the week I just do my best to get in as much as I can if Amy naps when we are at home. Carl has been doing some almost every day too. As we head towards January I have a volunteer to watch Amy for an hour a week and a friend who will watch Amy in trade for us giving her a date night of childcare. My goal is to have a few volunteers to do time in the room with Sarah and also to watch Amy while I have time with Sarah. I alternate between thinking I am nuts and feeling quite hopeful. As with so many things, it is hard to know if Sarah learns something new because she was just ready or if something we did helped tip the balance towards speedier learning.

Her story of how I bumped my head has expanded to my asking "me?" and then she says "yuh-ooo." She also initiated us bopping our heads on the big blue ball. When she sits on that ball to bounce I stabilize her but then she tells me to "L-e-t goh." When we play with matching squares she attempts to say "lollipop" when that card comes up. When we play with the Eric Carle cards that often is tied to singing. She says "ss" for sing and then says "la la la!" with increasing glee. I repeat or build on what she did, either adding a tone or loudness or a new sound. Sometimes she cues me with which sound to do next. When she does her super excited moves then I can be super excited too and she often then responds with delighted imitation of me imitating her. In general she seems a bit more verbal with her single sounds and with her attempts to tell stories about who blew their nose, who bumped their head, or how she bumped her knee on the sidewalk while we were walking.

November 13

We have recently started doing the Son-Rise program with Sarah. As we are starting out we are aiming for at least an hour a day and sometimes more. It has mostly been me with additional time from Sonia and Carl. Even with this seemingly small bit of time each day we are already seeing progress. Sarah participated more in yesterday's music class than she ever has before. Then this morning she went up to her Sarah-rise room all on her own and started singing in the way that she and I have played, this time though she was imitating what I sang! So exciting.

Thanks to all of you for your support in our ventures. And an especially huge thanks to Sonia for her time in Pittsburgh helping us move and get settled and get our Sarah-Rise program up and running.