June 9

This past week we clocked 34 hours. It is interesting how sometimes this total number feels small to me but when I go into the Sarah-Rise room and set the timer for 2 hours I think "wow, that's kind of a long time to focus exclusively on one person."  I am continually deeply amazed at the team of people spending such long focused time with my daughter. I am also so appreciative of the people who spend focused time with Amy. It all makes a difference. Amy even has a best friend (in addition to Sarah) thanks to a friend who watches her own daughter and Amy. Unfortunately, they are moving away from Pittsburgh soon. But still, I love love love that Amy has had such a lovely friend connection.

I had a helpful dialogue with M. where I explored some of why I get frustrated when the girls are upset or not listening. While I still have a lot of threads to unravel, the part that I did start to see more clearly is that I don't need to judge their wants as bad in order to go for a different situation myself. For example, when Amy asks to eat something on the sofa that is actually a beautiful idea. It is ok for me to want her to eat at the table for my reasons and because it is my house and my sofa I can enforce my reasons, but I can still honor that her idea was a valid idea. There are many things in my life that I have paired together and I don't even realize they can be separated, and then it is startling when I see them start to come unglued. It can be totally valid that Sarah has lots of feelings about being parted from her snail shorts for even a moment. I don't have to judge her or the crying as bad or annoying to make my choices about how to respond (whether I have time to listen or not). Upset on the part of the girls doesn't necessarily mean that I have made a bad parenting decision and don't know what I am doing. When I get upset about their upset I think it is often because I am doubting my parenting. When I get snippish around the girls and Carl I think it is sometimes out of protectiveness over my time for me. The thing is, for all that I get my hackles up, I really don't like that feeling and I would much rather see the underlying thing that I want and clearly ask for it. As I said, I still have a lot of unraveling to do but I love it when I start to see the glimmers of more space and freedom in various situations. 

Yesterday when my mom called to say hello we quickly found ourselves not quite connecting as easily as usual and I was feeling tight and prickly and also panicky about her leaving the connection. Because she is extraordinary, she stuck with me and helped me start talking about all the tiny things I'd been emotionally carrying around. I hadn't realized that my tiny carry-ons had grown collectively to the size of something that should be checked. So after talking out all of the seemingly tiny things and crying my own tears, I felt much better and we had a lovely connection overall. On the meta-level, I appreciated this interaction as a reminder of how my girls might potentially feel when they are distressed and they think I am leaving them emotionally. The Son-Rise Program suggests a certain way of responding to crying and tantrums and it has worked for many families (lovingly acknowledging but then moving away). I very rarely feel that I can do this genuinely. I think I take the suggestion as meaning we are aiming for less crying and tantrums. Then I am judging the crying and judging my handling of it. When I am clear enough, I prefer to stay present and listen, which has been such a helpful way for people to be with me when I am upset. 

This week was full of tiny (maybe actually huge) wonderful things. When Sarah and Amy and I were all in the SR room together and Amy pretended to eat play-doh, Sarah cracked up. She knows we aren't supposed to eat play-doh. Understanding rules enough to find humor in pretending to break them seems sophisticated in some way, in a very typical-kid way. I also loved this moment because the girls were really playing together, as they have been doing more and more. One night when I was cooking dinner I yelled at them for roughhousing in the kitchen. Then I thought how lovely it was that they were wresting together so much.

Sarah had two appointments this week and for each one she introduced herself when we arrived. Unprompted! Spontaneous! Never done before! Her last name needs a bit of clarifying but she almost has it. 

When I was carrying Sarah into the SR room one afternoon she had her arms around my neck and said clearly and spontaneously (with pauses between each word) "I love you so much." She has never said that full sentence before. If she says anything like it, which is still rare, it is more often "Ah vv do too" which  is how she learned it very early (J: I love you. S: vv eeoo. J: I love you too. I do! S: Ah vv do too.)

Sarah has started juicing the greens in the morning completely of her own accord. Usually she would move the kale, chard, or collard greens out of her way so she could get the carrots and celery. I would do the greens. This week she started picking up the greens to do them too.

I made meatballs and cut them into pieces for the girls to eat. Amy ate all of hers. Sarah ate a couple bites and then put the rest on the table. I told her I wanted her to eat some more or to at least leave them on the plate if she didn't want them. While I was temporarily distracted, Amy's plate and my plate mysteriously filled with new meatball bites. When I called Sarah on her sneakiness she gave me a knowing look of pure, intentional innocence.

She has been making faces at herself in the mirror sometimes when she is at the bathroom sink. One morning she then pointed to her actual self and said "it's me." We have been working on pronouns for a while. Pronouns are so tricky because they change all around as you try to explain them. Often I use her own hand to point to herself or to me and then say the sentence that would be correct. 

One of our goals is to get Sarah involved in more physical play. J. wore a Pirates shirt one night and that somehow lead to a baseball game in the SR room and running to first base! Carl has gotten a little bit of a game of tag going. Another volunteer encouraged Sarah to participate in cleaning up by turning the process into a basketball game (throwing the toy pieces into the box). 

Sarah has been interested in the new pictures of friends and family that are part of our new games, but so far hasn't embraced the new play in the way we envisioned. This is very typical of games made for Son-Rise rooms - they often don't unfold as planned and that is ok too. This is why we are flexible!

With Son-Rise play it is suggested that we add one small thing at a time as the way to build into a more complex scenario. I hadn't really experienced this much until this week when we started with a tent and kept adding small things (drawing a campfire, singing camp songs, singing about the plaid tent, roasting hot dogs, roasting marshmallows, eating pea donuts). Then we switched to creating a bus which was very simple at first and then grew and changed. First I was the driver, then we got a steering wheel and Sarah was the driver. Then we were stopping for play-doh ice cream. Then we were reading a book on the bus. In both play scenarios what I really appreciated was how we both added ideas and how I was able to incorporate some of her ideas into the original theme instead of switching to new play as I might have done in the past (such as when she said to get ice cream, I made sure that was just a stop on our bus ride instead of ditching the bus).

As a supreme finish to a week filled with lots of pretend buses, Carl took Sarah on an adventure downtown yesterday and they rode buses and subways together. He said she did amazingly well with almost all of it, staying focused and attentive. At one point they took a break to have a snack at a bar (I had packed Sarah-friendly snacks). When another child came in, Sarah's excited jaw movements and arm movements started up in earnest. This is such helpful feedback to know how she is doing with processing various parts of her life. Kids, automated doors, and hallways with patterned carpet or lights (as they have at the Children's hospital) can still really get her excited movements going and other connections become harder at that time. When she is in the SR room she is now almost always reachable. As I continue to notice and affirm, it is good to have occasional experiences outside the home and the SR room, but I think Sarah learns and grows more quickly in the quiet focused space we have created for her. 

I am pleased to report that for the first time ever the scale registered 34 lbs for our little peanut!!