This week we got 35 hours and 45 minutes.
We have added a small amount of raw fruits and veggies to Sarah’s diet. Yay! Aside from a stomach bug for a few days this week, she is doing well and I am thrilled that she has more food options available to her.
Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop are visiting at the moment. Sarah is often glued to Pop-Pop and his striped shirts. She has also had some lovely Sarah-Rise sessions with Mom-Mom, who noted Sarah’s increased verbal clarity, imaginative play, and inner calm. Sarah spontaneously told Mom-Mom “I love you.” During family meals, Sarah has been saying “we are having a feast!”
Sarah is often quite chill after I do Becky Blake’s program with her. She also begins each session of doing Becky’s program with playing the piano. I’m not sure how exactly this became a habit but I’m not going to stop it! It was completely Sarah’s idea. The extra adorable thing is that she turns the pages of piano music and looks at them while plunking the keys. Her playing sounds pretty too. This is just her experimenting; we haven’t done any sort of piano lesson and I have no plans to do so anytime soon. I just love how she wants to play. Watching her continue to do more pieces of Becky’s music movement is lovely. My favorite is when Sarah tries to gallop. It is like watching a filly learn to walk, she is so wobbly and earnest.
Sarah still has her big upsets around snail shorts, door-play restriction, and lack of making new shakes (when the thermos is already full). With our recent goal of politeness she is sometimes able to quickly switch from a whiney voice to a normal voice when asked. She is also sometimes switching from a yelled “no, no, no!” to a sweeter “no, thank you” when prompted.
On Tuesday we went to a reunion of an old playgroup from when Sarah was a baby. It was full of running, loud kids (as to be expected). When we first got in the door, Sarah asked to leave. It wasn’t the easiest experience for her. There were tempting doors but we weren’t allowing her to play in them. She did well with not being able to have the food, and even enjoyed playing with the closed bottle of lemonade. The most exciting thing is that in the midst of the chaos, when one of the dads walked past her she looked up at him and said “hi.” This was completely unprompted!
Despite the fact that I have this written account of Sarah’s progress with the programs we are doing, I can still have times of wondering if it is doing anything. I sometimes notice that I think any progress is because Sarah is amazing and any lack of progress is due to a lack of mothering excellence. That is not clear thinking. I think the truth is that Sarah’s progress is due to Sarah being amazing and wanting to learn. And what we aim to do with Sarah-Rise, GAPS, and Becky’s program is create the most helpful learning environment that we can.
One of Sarah’s favorite games (started by a volunteer) is to pretend to eat popsicles or ice cream. We pretend they are too hard and hurt our teeth or that they are melting all over and we have to lick them quickly. We pretend to put lemon juice on them and then make sour faces. This week we had a small playful battle where she put salt on my popsicle and so I put pepper and paprika on hers. She countered and won the day by putting garlic on mine! Bleh.
May your popsicles be the right temperature and flavor.
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