May 26

This week we clocked 14 hours and 15 minutes! Of that time, I personally did 9 hours and 15 minutes in the room with her. Woohoo!!!

We had a lot of fun with various toy pieces (eg matching squares, cakes, candles) and my asking "does it go here?" (emphasis on the "here") and putting it under her shirt or shorts or in her sock. She giggles and giggles and attempts to say "here." To encourage pointing and practicing saying "here," every time she asks for a new toy I ask her where she wants it and I point to two places and ask "here or here?" She often responds with her version of "on right here."

We have also had many giggles over pretending to gobble up the toy cakes and then putting them under our shirts. Usually I am holding a cake in front of her mouth and then she pretends to eat it and then I put it under her shirt and then she giggles. I also pretend to eat cakes in a Cookie Monster-ish way and then end up with about 6 cakes under my shirt. Then I say yum or how full I am. Once when I sort of groaned and said I felt soooo full she responded "fl sck" (feel sick).

We are still going gluten-free. When I was buying more of the Liz Lovelly cookies today to prepare for our vacation next week I noticed that one of our favorite kinds actually does have gluten. I don't know if I was accidentally giving S gluten when I thought we were gf. I hope not! I am going to continue a bit longer since we have come this far already and a friend said sometimes behavior goes through a rocky transition phase with going gluten-free. We did get the blood test results back and Sarah does not have celiac disease and does not have a milk allergy. Yay! What I need to research more is if there can still be benefits to going gluten or casein free even if there is not an allergy. One thing I read suggested waiting 6-8 weeks before adding gluten back in to see if there is an effect.

Bedtimes this week were in general not great. Usually they are no problem and this week they were horrible. We got black-out shades and put them up today and (knock-on-wood) bedtime went easily today. This was also day 3 or 4 with no nap and following 3 or 4 days of not getting as much sleep at night. So we can't quite count chickens, but with kids can you ever really count chickens?

Sometimes I catch myself thinking that the improvements we are seeing are somehow "just" Sarah growing up. Yes. That is exactly it. That is exactly what we are going for, to help her grow up, to accelerate that growing up. When I felt so hopeless about her learning to roll over or crawl, I wish someone could have told me how I would be watching her now go out of the back door and down the steps and out to the sandbox to remove the big cover all by herself. And how the child who didn't put anything in her mouth would now be putting sand in her mouth! Not great but maybe just doing some catch-up sensory experience. (we also have issues in the SR room with her putting small objects in her mouth where it might become dangerous so we have to take them away). I remember marveling at other kids blowing bubbles all by themselves and she has been doing so for a while now. Many of her abilities aren't new but I am renewing my gratitude for them. That helps me keep current despairs at bay.

More and more words are becoming full words and becoming more intelligible to other people. When we started, the volunteers really couldn't understand anything she said and she barely said anything. Now she often speaks and they can understand some of it! Today I was reading Chicka Chicka ABC to her and I paused near the end and she said a quiet but perfect "oh no." She has added the final "l" to "bow-l." When she asks for Chicky Boom, her "boo-m" is a sounded boom, instead of swallowed as it was in the past.

Yesterday when we were in the Sarah-Rise room she said her equivalent of "old house green shorts" ("l-ode h-owse guhnuh-n sh-ohts") I asked if she wore green shorts in the old house. She said "aya." I said "really?" She looked at me as if with a sigh of disdain and said "aya!" It was such a real moment that I cracked up and grabbed her in for a rolling hug.

She had great sparkly attention to my reading one of her favorite books (Watch Me Throw the Ball by Mo Willems) yesterday. On the one hand I think she always likes her favorite books and on the other hand I think that if I find myself noticing that she seemed really present or sparkly or attentive then that is probably real and probably different in some slight way from what I am used to. I think sometimes she zones with the books and this time (maybe because I was holding it instead of letting her hold it) she was really looking at me and smiling.

An ode to Chicky Boom... I love this game. This is not surprising given that I love one of Sarah's books called Chicky Chicky Chook Chook and I love the books Chicka Chicka ABC and Boom Chicka Rock and that I find the word "chicken" inherently funny. Years ago when I had a job involving cleaning a chicken coop I would be laughing to tears if someone (or myself) accidentally said it was time to "cheen the clicken choop." At one point at another job I had the nickname Chicken Lips. There are some things (most often Mo Willems books) where I just feel the personality spilling right out and it is so easy to have fun playing with it or reading it. Chicky Boom is such a game, probably because of the name. It is a very simple game with a wooden balancing board that goes on a rounded block. On top of the board you balance wooden hay bales, wagon wheels, and chickens, of course. When S asks for the game I get it off the shelf and then start dancing and singing "Chicky Boom chicky boom chick-chick-chicky boom." This song comes up throughout our play. I balance the pieces and then Sarah knocks over my chickies! I myself tumble on my back and shriek "you boomed my chickies! who boomed my chickies? you boomed my chickies! oh no!" she giggles often with all of this, including the knocking over of pieces. I think any time I can get her laughing then it is a great time for learning and connection (and expanding attention span). What I love most about Chicky Boom is that I don't have to make any effort to pretend to play or enjoy it. That comes naturally. Who doesn't like booming chickies??

On a side note, one of our latest family moments to establish itself is on the steps. Amy loves to sit on the stairs and have us sit with her. Luckily we have wide stairs so we can have all four of us together. Sometimes it is just me and the girls and sometimes just Amy and me. Amy is clearly adoring her sister more and more. When S comes to give her a hug Amy often shrieks with glee. Amy has also started diving towards Sarah to give Sarah a hug.