December 1

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a wonderful, bountiful day. Grandma made songbooks that included some of the girls’ favorite songs. Amy belted out “Let it Go” with gusto. (Some day I want to name a pet Gusto so I can say that I do everything with Gusto.) Amy and I did a duet of the Vampirina theme song. Sarah took over the piano from Grandma. We all sang many of the songs together, though Amy got upset with the ones she didn’t know. For the rest of the time, Sarah often only wanted to play with Grandpa. Sonia and I did our usual food preparation where we each make enough for the entire group and then put it all together. It was as delicious as always. 

Earlier in the week Sarah did Madlibs with Amy and me. Sometimes she would supply a word. Sometimes she would be the scribe, either asking us for words or copying the prompt into the blank (eg. noun). Since doing her spelling homework is not her forte, I sent the book of madlibs to her teacher to show her what Sarah had done. I haven’t heard back. Still, it amazes me that Sarah was doing all of that with the madlibs, and her writing was correctly on the lines instead of bisected by the lines. 

As you know, baths for Sarah can be a struggle especially when it comes to washing her hair. For a while it was going well but recently had become quite challenging for all involved, with screaming and tears for Sarah and helper Amy. A couple of weeks ago, Sarah then accidentally pressed the overhead shower button. That startled her and Carl turned it into a reference to her favorite thing of a circle with a line through it meaning “no.” Suddenly she was having a good time. Since then, she has taken three showers, one of which still involved upset regarding hair. I bought baby shampoo that she can pump herself. She had been requesting the baby shampoo, of which we had a small bottle left over from years ago. Her last shower was almost fully independent. My only role was to prompt more water or more scrubbing, but she did everything herself. Fingers crossed for today’s shower. 

Yesterday, Carl bought some storage shelves and put them together with Sarah’s help. True help. She hammered shelf supports into their holes and she cut the straps on the box. 

Sarah has been making her own hot chocolate. This is wonderful independence, with the downside that she gives herself an extra hot chocolate per day. 

There have been a few of our customary rough spots, such as when Sarah got home from running  errands with Carl and promptly walked over to where Amy and I were playing Go Fish and pushed our cards off of the playing surface. There was also a time when I was feeling sad and she was laughing while saying she would make me sadder and would take my tissues. I just don’t know how to handle such moments. For the past couple of nights I have been spending a few minutes quietly imagining some of the challenging moments and directing my body to feel grounded and easy, so that that can become my habit rather than my tightening. I have tried this in the past and found it helpful but then somehow let the practice go. I am hoping this will help with the moments that dumbfound me. 

Amy has been her usual amazing self, creating art, reading, making friendship bracelets, doing gymnastics flips on the sofa, being on top of the world and then being furious with all of us and then somehow being happy again. Amy also likes to be my lap cat, which is adorably snuggly.