Last Sunday was a gorgeous autumn day – the perfect day for Sarah to ride her bike on a forest trail for the first time ever. Carl, Amy, and Sarah rode their bikes while I walked. Maybe next time I will ride too because Sarah is independent enough, and if she does need help then Carl is the better helper anyway. It feels like magic to watch Sarah riding her bike, with no training wheels, all by herself. Absolute magic. I credit Carl and Sarah both for their determination, perseverance, and belief that of course it was possible. Recently, Carl wrote a song about Sarah riding her bike, and she sang it as she pedaled along the path!
Sarah didn’t have school on Monday because she was not taking the PSATs that many juniors were taking. I don’t understand why her resource room teachers couldn’t have done things with her, including taking her to the job she normally does on Mondays, but it is clear that I am never to fully understand the choices made by schools. Anyway, she and I had a wonderful day together. Our new favorite “Frog and Toad” cartoon episode is about Frog tripping over a stick and deciding that the stick is his new friend, much to the jealous consternation of Toad. Sarah and I went to the playground and she tripped over a stick, seemingly legitimately, but in hindsight I’m sure she planned it. She pretended to serve the stick tea so that I could be Toad and grumble with my eyelids at half mast.
During our family zoom on Thursday evening Sarah was surprisingly sad about Granddad not having a tiger on his shirt. This seemed to be a concern out of the blue, and I began judging Sarah for pretending to be sad just for the sake of doing so. It was a good but humbling reminder to realize later that her sadness had real roots. It took her a while to explain that in Religion class earlier in the week they had talked about a sad story. She had mentioned that the day it happened, but didn’t provide any details or any tears. Perhaps they took a while to percolate. Once the details came out she cried and talked for about an hour and then wanted company as she fell asleep. The story evidently had been about a grandfather that died, so seeing Granddad on the zoom reminded her of the feelings she had had but not expressed at school.
Carl and I went to our annual IEP meeting regarding Sarah, and as usual, we felt so good about the team of people thinking well about Sarah. I know many parents struggle with such meetings and feel like they have to fight for what their kids need. I always wonder if I am doing something wrong that I am not fighting for something, but maybe we have just been lucky. Sarah’s teacher said she was having a really great year so far, with none of the behavioral issues that they had last year. Carl and I wonder if this could be related to one of us sitting with her every evening while Amy uses the bathroom to get ready for bed. Maybe that regular time to be connected and calm every night is impacting Sarah’s nervous system in a way that carries through into her days. I find it calming too, and I did notice that the last time Sarah and I were aligned with our periods, we didn’t have our usual temper explosions ahead of time.
The plan on Friday, after the IEP meeting, was to return home for a few hours and then go back to Sarah’s school for the Junior Ring Ceremony. Sarah had a special dress up day for the occasion. Carl and I were excited to attend, but then. . . Well, as Sarah would say, “Hallelujah, it was our lucky day!” There was a police chase and an accident that resulted in a tunnel being closed. We were on the wrong side of that tunnel and missed the ring ceremony entirely. My biggest frustration was that I could have gone a different way if I had looked more carefully at the map when I looked to get our time estimate. Since I know the way, I didn’t notice the slight difference of which entrance I needed to use to get on the parkway. I would like to say I have learned my lesson, but it is hard to remember to look at a map app every single time I need to go somewhere when I don’t actually need directions. Anyway, Sarah was most excited to get her new class ring and didn’t seem to mind that we missed the ceremony. When she said to us later, “Were you sad you missed the ceremony?” she said so with a giant grin on her face. It’s a good thing she loves traffic jams in front of tunnels.
Yesterday Carl rode his bike up the twelve steepest hills in Pittsburgh for the Dirty Dozen race. One of the streets is Canton Ave. It is the steepest street in the continental United States. When we drove up it years ago I felt scared that our car would tip over backwards. I’m sure there was no danger of that, but my fear can tell you something about how steep it is. Carl went up it on his first try! That is extra good because if you stop or fall off then you have to go back and start at the beginning. It is so steep that you can’t possibly start in the middle and get enough momentum to go up.
While Carl was busy busting his butt to get up steep hills, the girls and I had a relaxed day that including going to a restaurant for a Higgy friends gathering of some local scoliosis families. Amy got to show everyone her new Whisper brace and how she can touch her toes and do a backbend and cartwheel while wearing the brace. All of those movements were impossible in her old brace. The gathering also included making sand art and decorating cookies, a feat they also accomplished on their first try.
My feat for the week was re-recording many sentences for my audio book. The process is relatively easy on my part because I’m not the one fiddling with the sound bites to paste in the fixed recordings, but the process is more time-intensive than I expected. As I was tempted to feel disheartened about that, I reminded myself of Sarah’s bowling dances. She would dance whether she got five pins or no pins. In my head I started picturing myself dancing to celebrate every sentence that was fixed. It occurred to me that maybe Sarah is so great at celebrating every attempt and accomplishment because we spent five years intensively celebrating her every attempt and accomplishment. What a beautiful thing.
Lots of love to you. May you celebrate every small or big moment.
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