There are many words of wisdom out in the world about seizing the moment and not delaying your goals or dreams. Often when I read those words I think they must be meaning that people should dive into hard and ambitious things. I have decided for now to interpret them as meaning I can seize the day for reading fun books and doing fun things. I am now on my third fun book in a row. Usually I let myself read one page-turner and then I move towards something less page-turny, something either educational or something to prove I am an academic person. What often happens is that then I stop reading all together for a few months. So, bring on the page-turners. Bring on the fun. This may make me less productive around the house, though I’m not actually sure of that. I think I just spend less time on Facebook or wading through cruddy feelings. The actual time of cleaning up or doing things on my to-do list may be the same. I may actually be more productive because I am getting so much me-time that I don’t feel justified in grumping about other tasks. Well, not grumping much.
I bought little books for the girls to collect their stickers. Now I give them stickers when I feel they have done something particularly well. There isn’t really any end goal other than a sticker in a special book. I’m not using it as a big motivator, but it does feel like a tangible way to recognize good behavior, especially in retrospect when the moment may have passed.
Sonia, Carl, and I revisited some of our struggly areas and have made some changes. To earn an extra episode of a tv show, the girls help clean the family room. This makes a huge difference to my experience of the day and the mess in the family room. The rule about getting dressed is now that Sarah has to be dressed to leave the house. That is all. She can wear pajamas in the SR room. If she chooses not to get dressed then she will either skip school/gymnastics or be late and most of the time we have two grown ups so this is possible and our intention will be to truly be relaxed and let the natural consequences occur. I have felt much more relaxed the past few days since we made this new rule.
Often when I turn off the tv, Sarah yells. Sometimes both girls do. Usually I leave or speak sternly or both. A few times this week I have sat down on the sofa with them and suggested we look at a photo book. For the moment, I like this approach. It feels softer.
I spoke with Sarah’s naturopath after the latest round of tests. Sarah’s body is a bit healthier and processing things better in some ways but in other ways we haven’t progressed or have moved backwards. We will do another customized vitamin and another test. We are trying digestive enzymes again. We have tried them a few times in the past and I thought they either contributed to finger blisters and/or to disfluency when speaking. But, it is clear that Sarah isn’t absorbing what she needs to from her food so we have to change something. We are also going to try a paleo protein powder the doctor recommends because she thinks Sarah needs more protein. I am going to work on increasing the protein she gets from meat. Most of her protein comes from nuts, but those are harder to digest. So, while I would like to reduce our meat usage for the good of the environment, for a few months at least I will increase it in the hopes it will help Sarah’s body heal. This feels frustrating to still have so far to go to help Sarah’s body. I also feel grateful that I have a naturopath who is looking at everything so comprehensively so that we know what is going on.
I have ended my gluten-free experiment. Carl suggested that it might be good to end it when we didn’t have any big plans in case I had an unexpected reaction. I haven’t noticed anything so that is nice. I think I will still aim to be low gluten in my diet, but I won’t be stringent because that is less fun.
At the end of this month, Sarah will finish preschool. She has been in preschool for 5 years. I feel a bit teary realizing that she is moving on to kindergarten. I truly feel, for the first time, that she is ready. I also feel thrilled about her kindergarten situation. It will be half days, 5 days a week, with one of her current teachers and just 2 or 3 of her current classmates. I will homeschool and do SR for the rest of the time because I think she has to officially get full-time schooling due to her age. I also think SR is wonderful and is one of the best things we do to help Sarah.
I have started giving Sarah opportunities to show what she knows in terms of math equations. I still present equations up to 3 times a day. It is 3 different equations each time, so it is up to 9 equations total. When we started they would all be within one type, such as addition. Now I vary what is in the packs so it is still consistent within a pack but the packs can be addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division. For the addition I have one equation have a choice of two answers and I ask her to pick one. She is right about 70% of the time. Amazing. This could just be luck, but I will still take it and run with it.
I have Sarah practice writing in some way almost every day. Sometimes this means she traces dotted letters that I write. Sometimes we do letters hand-over-hand. Sometimes she draws or writes just on her own. Yesterday before she did a project with Carl, I asked Sarah to write “tool.” She did so clearly and with good sizing!
I hope you are all having a beautiful day.
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