Remember how Sarah doesn’t want me to wash her favorite clothing? Apparently, sitter A asked about washing them when they had their sleepover last weekend and Sarah said yes! And they washed them!
It seems that every time I cross something off the list in terms of an appointment for Sarah, the need for two more appear. We saw an ENT for her left ear and how it is showing as blocked with audiology readings. The ENT did an xray to look at her adenoids and said they seemed fine. She is already on flonase for a couple of weeks to see if that will help dry things out so her ear can balance the pressure for itself. Next is a follow-up in six months with audiology and with the hearing center at the children’s hospital, for which I need a referral. Six months gives me plenty of time to make the required calls, but I find making calls to be one of the trickier things to do these days. So simple and yet sometimes so elusive to remember to call during business hours when the kids are quiet and I’m not working.
Sarah’s visit to the ENT was fraught with lots of screaming and upset on her part. She left the house wearing a pair of jean shorts sitter A gave her. Sarah loves wearing these shorts, but I didn’t realize that when we got to the doctor’s office she would then decide she desperately needed her beloved corduroy shorts. I stayed remarkably calm (you know that isn’t always my forte) and the doctor and nurses were all kind and calm too. They gave Sarah a small stuffed animal and she then brought it with her the next day when we went to get blood work for her neurologist (re her hand tremor, just to see if all levels of things are good). For the blood work she wore her corduroy shorts and we had no trouble. She didn’t even get upset with the needle being in her arm.
Distance learning for Amy continues to go relatively well, although this coming week is who-knows-what and the real-deal-full-on-academics-this-is-really-school starts on September 14. On many days she has big feelings about assignments being too hard and/or pointless and how different it would be if she were there in person. To help, I have been doing some of her assignments really really badly first, so she knows she can’t possibly do a worse drawing than I did. It always feels good to see her relieved laughter emerge after her tears. She calls my creations disasterpieces.
Sarah’s distance learning starts on Tuesday. I have cleared my morning, but we have no idea if it will be like the spring schooling or not. I have noticed that every time I get a school communication about needing to sign up for a time to do a thing and go to a school or manage anything new, my knee-jerk response is of slight panic and stress. I have to remind myself that I can actually handle scheduling things and figuring out new systems. As with so many things, so simple and yet so seemingly unsimple at first.
Amy often feels very strongly about getting her American Girl dolls dressed correctly for something and that she wants to match them. I wonder if this is in part a reaction to this whole distance learning business. This is one thing she can control and these dolls are her classmates and friends. Recently some friends of mine gave us American Girl doll things, such as bunk beds, a wheel chair, crutches, beach gear and camping gear, and some clothing. Amy promptly cut the legs off of the maroon pants so that Sarah’s doll could have shorts that match Sarah’s shorts. Sarah especially loves pushing her doll in the wheel chair. Yesterday Amy’s doll came to the beach with her new towel and then joined us around the campfire with her own small water bottle and s’mores. The doll also wore her new sparkly sneakers, curtesy of Grammy.
The girls now can do Facetime from their ipods. We may have created a Sarah-monster, although she also only has access to her ipod for short time periods. Amy can text and email too, but we haven’t gotten that working for Sarah yet.
Sitter A helped the girls create a game of Pin the (musical) Note on the Staff. Sarah now loves creating more staffs and more notes. We haven’t yet actually played the game as a game.
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