This update is for the past two weeks. We got 23 hours 2 weeks ago and then this last week was 15 hours and 40 minutes. Pretty amazing that Carl and I can leave the country for a week and the program still continues. Everyone is alive and well, and Carl and I had an absolutely wonderful time in Venice. It is also really great to be back and able to snuggle with my girls.
Before the trip, I went to my first Zumba class. It was a great workout and lots of fun and it was a really good reminder about how it can feel to be learning something new involving physical copying and coordination. It affirmed for me how important it is that we encourage and celebrate Sarah for each of her attempts to copy physical movement or join in a physical activity. It can be a big deal and take courage to try. And sometimes we think we are doing one thing with our body but we are really doing something else.
A few weeks ago when Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop were visiting, Sarah somehow started a game about how Pop-Pop didn’t have any peas. We would react largely in a way she thought was fun and so the game has grown. It is always Sarah that spontaneously adds to the list of what Pop-Pop is missing. Poor, destitute Pop-Pop apparently has no peas, toothpaste, mirror sunglasses, ladders, stripes, fish, stairs, milkshakes, milk, pants, eggs, flossers, beds, sheets, blankets, or houses! He has to live in other people’s houses! Sometimes Mom-Mom is also missing something and other times when I ask, “what about Mom-Mom?” Sarah answers, “don’t…know.” As this interaction has progressed over time Sarah has corrected her initial “Pop-Pop don’t have any …” to “Pop-Pop doesn’t have any…” Amy has now started to add in her own rendition of Sarah’s phrases with great glee.
Before we left on our trip we read Olivia Goes to Venice several times. Sarah can clearly say “Ve-nice” and “I-tal-y.” She also told us we would be gone “a whole week” and that we would “eat pizza, ice cream in Venice.” With that send off we had to indulge in pizza and gelato!
During one of her sessions with Sc., Sarah spontaneously and correctly indicated left and right while playing on a bridge they had made (referencing a bridge in a Dr. Seuss book).
One evening after a long day during our absence, A. was sitting on the sofa with Sarah. He was perusing his phone and not paying much attention to her while she was talking (it had been a looong day; we all know that feeling!) and at one point Sarah reached over to cover his phone and said “look at me.” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love this so much and for multiple reasons. I love that she is so comfortable with eye contact that she was seeking it out and clearly asking for it. I also love that it happened at a time when, if it had been me, I might have judged myself and thought I should be interacting with my kid, but out of that moment came Sarah’s wonderful response, which wouldn’t have happened if A. had already been looking at her. So it is a good reminder that while we are helping Sarah, it is also ok to not always be 100% on; she is the one ultimately driving her own bus and taking herself to each new level. We are just very enthusiastic backseat drivers.
Another moment that taught me something happened the Wednesday before our trip when Sarah and I took Amy to daycare. The night before, I had listened to a talk by Becky Blake (www.creatingsuperkids.com) that discussed how long some kids need to process a request and that if we repeat a request too soon we actually short-circuit where they were in their processing and they have to start over. So when we got to daycare I would prompt Sarah to do something such as get out of the car or go through the door. Then instead of re-prompting 2 seconds later (because those 2 seconds might have felt like a minute) I counted in my head. I never got past 15 or 20 seconds before she completed the action of her own accord. If I hadn’t been counting internally that time would have felt like forever. As one of my best friends lovingly reminds me, “patience, grasshopper.”
Venice in a nutshell… one of the craziest, most wonderful places I have ever seen. I love small streets in between old houses and Venice takes that to an unparalleled extreme. It reminded me of the movie Labrynth. Often we would think we were coming to a dead-end and then discover more streets that were invisible from a distance. Other times we would expect more options and instead find ourselves with no choice except steps into a canal or to turn around. We stayed at a lovely hotel that was only a 5 minute walk from Rialto or from Piazza San Marco, 2 busy hubs of activity, and yet our street was very quiet. We were also 30 seconds away from a delicious restaurant that was quite visible on days when they were open and completely gone without a trace on the days they were closed. Gone. As in, no sign, no menu outside, no way to ever guess a restaurant existed.
Carl rowed in the Vogalonga, a festival-type regatta where they close the canals to motor boats for part of the day. Thanks to connections made by one of the Pittsburgh rowers who is from the Netherlands, Carl and 4 other rowers from Pittsburgh were able to borrow a boat from the Netherlands team. The day before the race they practiced and took the spouses who had come along out for a ride. Totally wonderful. It was beautiful and it was also wonderful to see how the communication and coordination worked so well among the rowers. The Vogalonga itself is a very long race and with 1700 boats or so, things got rather backed up at various points. Carl even made it into one of the newspapers! His boat was in a picture of one of the traffic jams.
We did lots of walking, lots of relaxed eating, lots of laughing, lots of reading, and lots of sleeping through the night. We went to a concert of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” that was probably one of the best concerts I have ever attended. It was in a small church so it was an intimate setting with excellent acoustics. In one of the museums we also accidentally and fortuitously happened upon a harpsichord duet. So much of Venice is still at least 500 years old that I really felt like we could have been there during any time period and it would have felt similar. The history, age, and ornateness of some of the buildings was staggering. I have never seen such beautiful mosaics as they have in the Basilica of San Marco. And I have never seen such gilt ceilings with paintings covering every inch that wasn’t guilded. If you ever get the opportunity, I highly recommend going.
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