We had the best Halloween yet! By best I suppose I mean most typical-feeling. The weather was good and we were ready at the very start of trick-or-treating. Instead of all of us going, Carl took the girls out and I stayed home to hand out treats. Carl was able to stay back on the sidewalk while the girls went up to each house, interacted with our neighbors, and then came back to him. Sarah did try to eat some of her bounty immediately, which was not ok, but she accepted the repeated reminders. When the girls came home they had dinner, a chocolate treat, and pumpkin pie. Sarah didn’t seem to mind in the least that I switched out her chocolate with a homemade chocolate. I also gave her lots of store-bought applesauce pouches, some freeze-dried strawberries, and maple sugar candy for future days. Amy traded a few things but I didn’t force any trading.
The treats we handed out were fruit leather and stickers. I had picked fruit leather a few weeks ago, assuming that Sarah’s hands would be healed and we would be able to try it again. Her hands aren’t healed yet so she got stickers, but she was wishing she could have fruit leather. Amy and I talked about how there are certain treats that she got that she has to consume when Sarah isn’t next to her, such as any peanut items. I also suggested we do the fruit leather without Sarah just out of courtesy for her feelings.
I am amazed at Sarah’s food flexibility. The times she most gets upset about food are when she can’t have one of the things she technically can have but she already had her serving for the day or I don’t want to make whatever it is. She is completely amazing at being ok with other people eating things around her that she can’t have. She accepts substitutes with grace and ease. I feel sad that she can’t have the fruit leather because for crying out loud it is fruit leather! It isn’t full of junk. It is fruit! But in the past I wasn’t certain if she had an itchy reaction to it so we really can’t try it now.
Her hives or expanded eczema or whatever is going on with her hands and right arm continued through the week. I tried taking a break from the ointment from the dermatologist and then I tried reapplying it. I don’t think the reaction is against the ointment but I also don’t think it has been helping. We tried plain coconut oil and that didn’t seem to help at all. I decided to try good ol’ vaseline. I may be imagining things and the progress is slow if at all, but I do think the vaseline is helping. Please, please, please be helping. I am so eager to try new foods but even if we for some reason could never do that, I still want Sarah to have hands that don’t itch.
Yesterday we went to a Halloween party and there were a couple moments when Amy was very sad. After one moment I suggested that she might like sitting next to Sarah in a large toy car that had two seats. Amy readily went over saying, "sometimes when I’m feeling sad I like to do the same thing as my sister because that helps me feel better.” Oh my goodness! I love how mutually beneficial sisterhood is for my girls. It is often clear to me how much it helps Sarah to have Amy to play with and learn from. I love seeing how Sarah helps Amy too, especially in some social situations where Sarah is less overwhelmed and more confident than Amy.
Earlier in the week Sarah was under some cloth. Carl said she looked like a ghost. She said she was a progress bar ghost. Maybe next year she can be a progress bar (when you play music on a smart phone or something similar and see where you are in the song) for Halloween.
Evidently there has been an activity for Sarah at school involving spelling and saying “e-a-t.” Sarah finds this uproariously funny and laughs a big belly laugh after she says it. She also likes to write it using her finger. She has expanded this on her own to spelling and writing other words. When Carl came home one day, Sarah said, “there’s Dad! There’s d-a-d Dad!” When playing with Sc, Sarah spelled and wrote “bus” of her own initiative.
Sarah continues to fly through our recycled word cards, reading the “new” cards without help at least 50% of the time the first time she re-sees them.
On Thursday I will be meeting with some people regarding Sarah’s possible schooling situation for next year. I asked G. if he had any thoughts about this. One thing he said has totally shifted my perspective in an extremely helpful way. He said the question isn’t so much if Sarah is ready for a certain school, it is whether the school is ready for her. Yes!! I love this!! In the past there was a school that I considered an option that didn’t welcome Sarah and I have been harboring some anger and resentment towards them. This shift in perspective, that they were just not ready for Sarah, is so wonderfully freeing. It can also be applied to the school where Sarah has been and is: they were/are ready for Sarah. Yes, they are. And that is part of why I love them so much. Have I mentioned I love this perspective??
In general I feel like Sarah has been doing a bit more problem solving when left to her own devices. Last week when Carl was in the basement and I was at Zumba, Sarah tried helping herself to another slice of pea-crust pizza. This made a mess. Carl heard a tapping sound. When he investigated, he found that Sarah had gone out on the deck (opening two locked doors) to get the broom and was trying to clean the mess.
I hope you all had wonderful Halloweens.
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