Last week I forgot to write about a couple of things. In her time with Sc, Sarah was making a list of what they needed for a pretend recipe and she said, “and finally, eggs!” I love that “and finally…”
G recently wrote, “Sarah’s output, particularly over the past month, has been…more authentic sounding. It’s hard to put that into other words. Sarah’s communication, and particularly as we think about her word choices but also her prosody…or the melody, intonation, dynamics, and the “music” of her speech…had been, in the past, practiced-sounding. Like an actor not quite ready for opening night from an emotional standpoint but with most of the words memorized. Recently, however, our interactions feel…improvisational, relaxed, connected. Less “classical music” and more “jazz,” which is the nature of communication and relationships since things are generally fairly unpredictable and..well, messy. Sarah does well with the messy. Has fun with the messy. Is comfortable and fluent with the messy.” That is so true!! I have been noticing the same increase in fluency but didn’t know how to describe it. This is so exactly it.
Yesterday Sonia and A. helped me take the girls to Kennywood. I am not a rollercoaster person at all so I brought my reinforcements to take the girls on certain rides. We went to Kiddieland and the girls did several rides including a tiny rollercoaster. They loved it all and then the skies opened and we got drenched, soggily making our way back to the car. There was one ride that Sarah was too tall for and my heart felt a bit broken even though Sarah handled it fine. Later, when Amy saw a picture of herself on that ride she said, “Mom, that’s the ride that broke our hearts.”
The girls had their swim lesson yesterday and once again Sarah did the best she has ever done. She was swimming with a floaty ring! She didn’t want to get out! She can almost do the teacher-assisted floating. With Amy, B. holds her head while she floats. With Sarah he has her lean back against his shoulder as if she is going to sleep and then he makes himself increasingly horizontal. He is a brilliant, patient, and creative teacher. He has never pushed Sarah to do something. As we left he commented on how far she has come and that it was literally step by step, gesturing to the steps that she played on for the first handful of lessons. I love that I happened upon such a wonderful teacher and swim-lesson format.
Amy is now done with Kindergarten! How did that happen?! She can read so well. A few days ago we were at my office after using the pool there and Amy picked up a book by Shakti Gawain and started reading it. She said there were only a couple words that she didn’t know. She said we should try to get a copy of the book because it was very informative! I don’t know how much of that was true and how much she really took in, but it was adorable.
The girls start camp on Monday. It will be their first camp experience ever. For two weeks Sarah will go to a day-camp run by her school and Amy will go to an arts day-camp.
Earlier this week I had a lot of uncertainty about a decision that I felt I had to make. I hate uncertainty and I was making myself rather miserable about it. A friend suggested that maybe I was asking myself the wrong question. That was incredibly helpful. I realized that I had been trying to determine the right answer when maybe there is no such thing. The easier question was just “what do I want?” and then the answer was easily forthcoming.
I did a bunch of Alexander teaching this week and I loved it as much as ever. I love being able to tell that I am a better teacher than I used to be. It is so amazing to actually help students feel more comfortable by doing something that seems like a little bit of nothing and yet can be so profound.
This is an amazing article about how the way we see people may affect how they are around us. It is about the transformative power of being present without putting our expectations or stories about others onto them.
http://equussantafe.com/blog/2017/6/11/empowering-others-by-how-you-see-them
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