This week the girls pulled out all the stops…Literally. They took out all of the “Stop” cards from The Cat In The Hat “I Can Do That” game. It has also been a good week overall.
We have been playing regarding Sarah’s allergies with saying “x” or “two thumbs down” or sounding like a buzzer. Sarah especially loves the buzzer sound, giggling so much her words can barely come out. We have been doing this for a long time but I only just thought to write about it.
Amy biked to and from her friend’s house about a mile away (with a grown-up supervising, of course).
Last Sunday, Sarah’s bath happened easily. She didn’t protest about it happening. She got her hair wet almost entirely by herself. She only got upset for a short time when I had to help.
In general, I am feeling more tuned in to Sarah’s protests and that her shutting down is connected to her frustration and feeling like she can’t do something. Why did it take me so long to see that connection?? Sometimes things are so obvious and so elusive!
Piano practice is going well, with each girl doing about 5-10 minutes each morning. Sarah could use coaching but I’m staying out of it. I did notice that I was able to ask her to use individual fingers instead of just playing all of the notes at once. That bit of intervention was acceptable. I think coaching has to be short, sweet, phrased as a question, and with no preamble about helping.
I realized that practicing shoe tying could be the same as with piano practice. I intend to just give her time to work on it independently, although I haven’t yet attempted this. She has tied her shoes successfully many times with her OT but hasn’t wanted to do it at home. I’m remembering our long past potty training success where I didn’t end-gain. We were just hanging out with books and my plaid pjs that she loved and if something happened it happened and if not then not. That was years ago but I think I can learn from it regarding shoes or piano or other skills.
Sarah will be graduating OT after three more sessions because she has achieved the goals that were our main reasons for seeking OT in the first place. The goals had been clear handwriting, coloring shapes in the lines, and tying her shoes.
The girls and I did a few fire drills with different scenarios. For the first one we all went out to the meeting point together. The meeting point is the Turn-Around tree at the end of our block. The next time, Sarah had to open the front door for herself and Amy. I came out a minute later to meet them. For our last one, Sarah had to go out the front by herself and Amy had to go out the back by herself, including going into the alley and checking for traffic. Sarah now loves this new game. Amy is bored with it. We also reviewed all of the neighbors that they could go to if they needed help and how to call 911. One thing I’ve noticed is that Amy really gets anxious about providing a phone number on demand. She knows our cell numbers but when we want to review then she can shut down and start crying. This means we need to practice a lot more.
Sarah’s pool time has been amazing. At her last lesson she jumped in the pool a fraction of a second before grabbing the hands of teacher. That is tremendous. Then, at the pool at my office, she practiced over and over and over and got even more independent, allowing maybe one whole second to lapse after her jump before grabbing me. She also practiced floating with me holding her head. This is huge that she initiated it and let me help many times.
Friday morning each girl had a really hard, screamy time (at different times, thankfully). Later, during their time with G., they were calmer, more connected, and more cooperative with each other than they have been in ages (comparing to other times with G.)
We have Grammy and Granddad visiting at the moment. It is fun to see how much the girls want to share with them. Sarah has been reading many Elephant and Piggie books to Granddad. Amy has been playing hopscotch and making Valentines with Grammy. Grammy and Granddad also brought a treasure for me: old flashcards and papers from when I was in middle school. There are even a few yearbooks. Most of the papers will go in the recycling because I really don’t need my math notes from 8th grade. I do want my 6th grade report on South Dakota and my advertisement of the word “zeal.” I am also going to keep my huge stack of flashcards from 8th grade Language Arts. If we got 100 on one of our spelling tests (tests that included writing the word, the part of speech, and using it in a sentence), then we got into a special lunch bunch group. At the end of the year our teacher took this small group of us to lunch. I worked hard at learning those words. I can still hear my teacher’s voice saying, “legerdemain.” The rest I think I may need to go through now to boost my vocabulary!
May the elusive become obvious, and may your legerdemain be skillful when you need it.
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