Amy is now a rising 8th grader and already seems taller and more grown-up, but I tend to think that every morning when I first see her. To finish out her 7th grade year, students were required to do a volunteer activity. Hmm. Think about that phrasing. Anyway, the activity could be of their choosing as long as parents took a picture of their kid doing whatever it was and sent it in. I arranged for Amy and her bestie to volunteer by hanging out with my sister-in-law’s one-eyed foster cat. They had a great time and I loved the chance to hang out with Sonia.
Thursday was Kennywood day for Amy’s school to celebrate the end of the school year. Remarkably, the timing was right for us to be able to get a ride with Sarah’s beloved taxi driver who had been her bus driver for 10th grade. She was delighted and so was he.
Kennywood (an amusement park) itself went about as I expected. Amy and her friends went around on their own and stayed until the park closed. Sarah was interested in getting ice cream at Millie’s, which has dairy-free options, and riding the carousel. Last year I wasn’t able to climb on a horse because my hip wasn’t flexible or strong enough but this year I did it with no trouble. Sarah and I walked around a bit more but there wasn’t anything else she wanted to do so we ubered home.
The drive to Philadelphia on Friday was mostly smooth, aside from a totally unexpected Sarah-meltdown in the middle of the rest area parking lot. Carl was on a work zoom so was unavailable to help. I had Amy stand on one side of Sarah while I stood on the other so we would be visible to cars since Sarah had thrown herself onto the pavement in her upset. Eventually I got her to the sidewalk but then she still had some times of throwing her shoes or trying to run away from me. Overall I stayed notably calm and handled it well, but for the rest of the day I felt like I didn’t have my usual reserve for handling things. There weren’t really many other challenges but I still felt like I was moving through things slightly grumpily or sadly and I was missing how grounded and happy I had been for much of the week.
We came to Philly for a family Bat Mitzvah, and Sarah made it through half of the service yesterday before wanting to go. Given that she had had another huge meltdown in the hotel, once she was happy sitting outside of the synagogue, I didn’t want to push her by suggesting we go inside to be able to hear. I was sorry to miss so much of things, but grateful that Sarah was calm and happy. After lunch, she and Carl napped for over 3 hours! Then we all had fun dancing at the celebration dinner, cutting a rug like starfish, as Sarah would say.
The other fun part of this trip is the hotel elevator. It announces which direction it is about to go, but it has a bit of an accent when it says “down.” Amy and I kept trying to imitate it, laughing uproariously. What was especially fun was watching Amy’s whole face change with her different attempts. Then I realized I did the same thing. Carl recorded both of us saying it in different ways so we could compare our faces.
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