Last night we made pizza from kits sold by Enrico’s Biscotti company. We watched part of the Scooby Doo movie and the girls slept on the pull-out sofa bed. When I came downstairs this morning I heard Amy leading them through a conversational play scenario of sorts. She asked Sarah to pick a mode of transportation. Sarah chose a boat. Then Amy said they would travel in their big boat to pick up all of their friends. I forget the rest of the details except for being in awe of how present and involved both of them were. Amy would ask Sarah for input after each thing that Amy added. It was heartwarming.
We have decided to back the heck up in terms of helping Sarah with math. She struggles so much with it that often she protests as soon as we even look at some of her homework. Even knowing that Amy and I will help her count for addition or subtraction, Sarah has a knee-jerk response that it is too hard. So now our aim is to build her confidence and use her strengths for remembering things. For many things, she has the best memory of anyone in the house. We just need to start small, start at the beginning, and move on only when she is ready. For a couple of days we added 1+1=2 to our interactions. I taped signs on the wall with the equation written numerically and with words. We have now moved on to 1+2=3 and 2+1=3. She is pretty solid on those too, but sometimes answers 2. As with other math moments, she seems to go too quickly in supplying an answer, just saying something and hoping it is right. I have also started helping her when she practices online with Splashlearn. It is helping her slow down to actually count dots. We had half an hour of working together and it felt fun and companionable. For some problems I just told her the answer and she seemed relieved. As with many other moments of late, I feel like we are getting back to being on the same team with each other instead of being in opposition.
For almost 2 solid weeks I have been peacefully parenting and having a joyful time. The hiccups were more notable as hiccups, but I was still distraught because I really hoped I would never again lose my cool. The best part of losing my equilibrium this time around was realizing that I had just forgotten my recipe. I had started assuming that calm was my new norm, instead of remembering the thoughts and actions that lead me to the calm. When I lose my physical ease I know I have to go through a process of thoughts to help me regain where I want to be. Somehow in other realms of life I can forget that it is a process and that there are thoughts to think and things to do. So for parenting peace I need 1 part exercise, 1 part time to read and write, 1 part crossword puzzle, and many parts greeting the difficult moments with a delighted “Yes! This is great! This will help me be who I want to be and practice new responses!” Those last words could certainly be read with acerbic irony, but they have to be meant for real for the recipe to work.
Grammy sent masks for the girls and their dolls so they can match. Amy is slowly accepting the idea of wearing a mask when she really wants to do something, such as visiting the book table our neighbor set up yesterday. Amy is also re-excited about biking. Last Sunday she and Carl biked 4 miles to Sonia’s house to see a tiny kitten. That kitten visit was the first moment for which Amy wore a mask.
Meanwhile, Sarah has added paper guitars to her favorite musical note scarf so that she can match the scarf of our sitter A. Sarah had been pining for a scarf with guitars so A drew some that Sarah could cut out and put them through our mail slot. Sarah is also into bocce ball and yesterday was a perfect day for some backyard bocce.
This past week I taught a short online Alexander class and tomorrow I have another call with Samahria. What amazes me about both of these moments is that I can actually book a sitter just like the old days. The sitter happens to work via Facetime, but it is just as effective and reliable. Certainly I have been enjoying the time off granted by such calls thus far, but this is the first time I really saw it as booking a sitter.
Remember your recipes for your favorite self.
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