September 27

Overall, I rocked the week. It was Sonia’s vacation week and I kept up with the cleaning/groceries/cooking/laundry and was a creative and kind mom too. I felt like Sarah and I had a better connection than we have had in a while, probably because I was spending more time with her. I lost my flow yesterday. But it really was a great week, taking small schedule hiccups in stride multiple times with minimal grumping on my part. I also noticed that I didn’t have much spare time for exercise or reading my book or making new word cards or anything else.

I was in the room for Sarah’s gymnastics class for when/if she needed extra help. I was so impressed with how well she paid attention to the teachers when they demonstrated the routines for each area. This is not something she has always been able to do. 

One night Sarah spilled something on her shorts at dinner. We told her it was ok to keep wearing them or she could take them off. She responded with a sing-song, “pantless.”

During one session with Sc, Sarah said that Sc’s eyes looked like tunnels and that she wanted to go in them. This seems rather poetic and profound. I don’t know if that profundity was intended, but I’ll take it. 

With G, "During our conversation, her thoughts were almost poetic in reminiscence.  At one point we hit the photo with Amy sleeping on Carl.  Sarah started, “Has glasses on.”  I didn’t get it.  “I don’t see glasses.”  “Great Grandpa.”  I still wasn’t there.  Then, “Amy as baby Daddy.”  “Oh. You’re thinking about the photo with baby Daddy with sleeping Great Grandpa.”  Her smile encompassed her entire head."

One night Sc asked Amy who her best friend was. Amy said, “Sarah. Because she’s my sister.” Amy also told me I couldn’t eat Sarah (I was pretending to be that hungry) because Sarah was her sister. 

A week ago I was giving a mini Alexander Technique lesson to N. and Sarah came over and put her hands on his leg, attempting to give an AT lesson too. 

I have been re-using some old word cards so that Sarah can strengthen the words she has learned once, since many fade a bit from her memory over time. It is exciting to see how she just needs one reminder and then she has it. Last night I was reading a beginning-reader book to Amy and realized that Sarah probably knew all the words on one of the pages. I read the set-up page with sentences very similar to the ones I was going to show to Sarah. Then I held the book in front of Sarah and pointed to the words of the next sentences. She has heard the book before (but not often) and I did read the leading sentences, but still… she read every single word of three sentences in a book correctly. WOW! I feel like maybe soon we can stop with the word cards and just help her read simple books as her reading practice.