October 25: Carving Pumpkins and Waiting

In case there was any confusion based on my previous update, Sarah is still at her usual school virtually, but that translates into having a lot of amazing time with Anna. Anna helps with Sarah’s live meetings when Sarah needs assistance and continues to knock my socks off with the play-based lessons they design for the non-zoom time, which is most of the day. I had Sarah’s IEP meeting virtually this week and it went well, as they always do because I’m rarely asking for any changes. If we didn’t have Anna then I probably would have pushed for more zooms, but now I’m ambivalent about that because I would rather Sarah get the quiet time with Anna! The only thing I requested was a 15 second wait time after asking Sarah a question. It is a good reminder for me too and a skill most grown-ups need to work on regarding most kids. Usually adults give about 2 seconds of silence before re-asking/re-wording, but this restarts the cognitive processing so it actually makes it take longer. There was a moment recently when I asked Sarah something and thought she hadn’t registered my question. Luckily I was counting to 15 in my head because after 10 seconds Sarah answered my question! Later, embarrassingly, I didn’t give Amy time to answer something and she called me on it. 

One evening I kissed Sarah on the head and she asked me why I had done so. Now she likes to tell me that I kissed her on the head because I love her.

Sarah’s “tiny, tiny, tiny, shiny, shiny, shiny” routine has expanded based on her memory of a movement song/game we used to do when she was little. We say “tick tock tick tock goes my very big clock, but my little tiny clock goes ticky ticky ticky ticky ticky ticky tock.” When she was small I used to hold her under the armpits and swing her whole body as if she was the clock pendulum. Now she moves her self or her head.

Yesterday Sarah, Amy, and Carl carved pumpkins to make a cat-o-latern and a mouse-o-latern. They also made a candy slide so we can deliver treats from a safe distance. The girls are quite excited about going trick-or-treating, especially because Anna is going to be with them. Anna helped Sarah create her costume so she can be the house from Goodnight Moon decorated with musical notes. I am confused as to whether or not she is simultaneously going to be Hello Kitty since that has also been mentioned. I assume this will become clear on Halloween night. Amy is going to be a witch and has been riding her broomstick around the block every weekday to get to school (at our house). 

I give you all a kiss on the head.