March 17

This past week we got 34 hours! I think I was more aware as I tracked the hours how incredible all of this is. Even just 2 hours in a day is really pretty amazing. 34 hours of one-on-one loving, focused, encouraging, attention is really something!

I have decided to continue full-time Sarah-Rise at least through the next school year. I'm waiting for more details about whether or not I need to officially home school her or whether we are still below the mandatory age, in which case I won't mind skipping any unnecessary paperwork. On Tuesday Sarah will visit the preschool connected with Amy's daycare, with Sonia by her side. If it goes well then that is an option for next year to include a tiny bit of schoolish structure but without taking too much time away from SR. The preschool can be just 2 days a week (they might even let us do 1) from 9-12 with 3 and 4 year olds. They love the idea that Sarah would come with a personal helper. I love the idea that I can select that helper. I think we will also continue with gymnastics or some other class, again to have a little bit of structured group activity.

Amy's birthday party went well and Sarah very excitedly greeted some friends that she recognized. Amy was excited but also held back on my lap for chunks of time. Amy recently had her first haircut so she looks even more like a two-year-old. Sarah wanted to open Amy's presents but handled it calmly when we told her not to and stopped her efforts. Sarah also wanted to eat everyone's share of birthday pie (squash, egg, coconut oil). For those of you who might not know, Amy's birthday is tomorrow, which is also my birthday. As you can imagine, she is the best birthday present I have ever and will ever receive.

Carl returned from a business trip that was over a week long. When he knelt in front of Sarah and said that he missed her, she gently put her hands on his face and said "miss you."

When Sc wrote the name of her cat on the white board, Sarah started pointing out the different letters. While we know she knows her letters, this seemed like a different kind of interest and understanding. When Sb drew a blank chameleon and asked Sarah what color it should be, Sarah started filling it in with different colors, confident and purposeful in her choices. When Carl drew a pair of pants and asked Sarah to add polka dots, he felt like she really understood and enjoyed the activity, staying within the lines of her own accord. During my last session with Sarah, we made a card for Amy. I wrote AMY and Sarah watched attentively. When I asked her to draw a picture she very intently started using different colors, making specific marks, and then choosing her next color. After I wrote Sarah's name at the bottom she then said "wite name" (write name) and proceeded to make very specific (if totally unclear) marks on the page. I love that her desire and purposefulness is there. Skill can come later, but the desire must come first.

I recently watched part of a webinar with Raun Kaufman, the original Son-Rise son, and it helped me feel renewed about our program. It was addressing the when of what we do. What we do is certainly important, but when we do it might be even more important. Most of what he said I already knew, but I had forgotten some of it and it was just helpful to clarify it all really specifically. Sonia and I also filled out the first two stages of the developmental model again (we are encouraged to do this frequently) and that was quite helpful in clarifying my purpose and goals in the playroom. It is really clear that the area of development that lags the most in the first two stages is her physical participation in games, such as tag, trading tickles, wrestling, copying physical movements). I proceeded to have two of my best sessions ever.

When I feel like I had one of my best sessions, that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how Sarah responded or what she did. It is more about how I present myself and how energized and creative and flexible I feel. This week I started taking up a lot more physical space than I usually do and hamming it up even more than usual. We started one session with climbing back and forth over castle walls (these are balance beam pieces arranged in a circle). This started relatively exclusively so I was joining. Then as she started to watch me I changed how I moved a tiny bit, sometimes running or jumping. She smiled. I got down on my knees and pretended to have a hard time crawling over the wall, asking for help (which she gave) and sometimes breaking the castle wall and needed help to reassemble it. I said help in a melodramatic "HELP!" way, with an exaggeratedly panicked expression and sometimes grabbing her sweatshirt, where lapels would be if sweatshirts had lapels. She cracked up. When she started talking about foods that she wanted (but can't have) I again made a huge deal, grabbing her and saying "oh no! we don't have any! Help!! What are we gonna do??" she loved it. When she wanted to take a snack/book-reading break, I mostly acted out the book rather than reading it, and I used the whole room as my stage. She let me do this and watched and laughed for much of the time. With What Color Should I Be? she more often redirected me to read the book, but she still allowed a lot of my changes. Every time we change things this is a challenge to her flexibility and an invitation to be more flexible and spontaneous. What felt so great about my playtime was that I felt more flexible and spontaneous myself.

One of the books we read this week mentioned playing hide and seek. I invited Sarah to play the game (this is a first to even think of doing such a thing). I told her to close her eyes and count to five while I hid. I went into the door entry space of the room, thus hiding in plain sight but sort of around a corner from where she was. I kept telling her to come find me and then I realized I had to tell her how to indicate that she had found me. I told her to touch me to show me that she had found me. She did and I tickled her in celebration. Then it was her turn. I told her to hide while I counted. She hid in the castle, curled in child's pose in plain sight. I pretended to have trouble finding her, eventually discovering her with hugs and kisses and tickles. Then I hid under the curtain, again instructing her on how to find me and encouraging her repeatedly. She found me! This was super exciting that we could even start to play hide and seek. It was also illuminating about how sometimes I can think something is obvious but that in fact I need to break it down and tell Sarah the steps (eg, touch me to show me you found me).

When Sarah and I were playing with the marble run game, which can be semi-exclusive, she looked up and said a line from Duckling Gets A Cookie. I proceeded to recite most of it and I noticed her trying to imitate some of my facial expressions. This is another goal so it is super exciting to see her starting to do it. While she is spontaneously expressive on her own, she doesn't often copy facial expressions as part of play. Copying an expression indicates an awareness of the other person, of herself, and of the relationship going on in the moment.

On Wednesday Sarah sort of counted to 20. There were a few gaps once she got past 10 and the clarity of saying the numbers also needs some work. The best part was "nine-teen....lemon!" Speaking of counting, Amy has started counting to three. As I was fixing breakfast one morning I looked over to see Amy looking at her hand and pointing to her thumb saying "hum." Then she pointed to her fingers (all to herself, not for my benefit) and said "one, two, hee, two hee. cowt" (I think the last word was count).