Last weekend we were hanging out with Sonia and A. for dinner. We were talking and laughing about some tv shows that I have a propensity to like (swashbuckling, a couple of centuries in the past) and somehow that got mixed with me saying that it was the equivalent of asking if I liked chocolate. Sarah picked up on part of this, thinking that it was the question, “do you like chocolate?” that had me laughing so much. Now she asks it thinking I will laugh. Monday night after dinner she asked me and I didn’t laugh. After a few more tries with asking she paused and then commanded, “laugh!” Carl and I then legitimately burst out laughing.
Sarah has been wearing a blue shirt with little white hearts almost non-stop. Every day. Every night. Since she is done with school and it is staying relatively clean I have been allowing this. Monday night as she changed her shorts for pajama bottoms I asked if she would change her shirt too. She said no. I asked if she would let me wash it the next day. She said no. I asked when she would let me wash it. She replied, “after we go to Idlewild.” Well-played Sarah, well-played. We have no immediate plans to go to Idlewild because it is really a whole-day affair and we don’t have any of those available for a while. I did manage to wash the shirt one day when she changed it to take Amy to school. I popped it in the wash immediately and she didn’t even ask about it for the rest of the day.
Carl went to get his notebook for work and found that it wasn’t in his bag. He asked Sarah if she had seen it. She informed him she was using it to trace her handprint.
Errands that I normally do by myself have been quite easy to do with Sarah. I always attributed difficulty with errands with both kids to difficulty with Sarah but that isn’t the case. It is just having two that want different things or go at different speeds. While I have needed to do a few things with Sarah in tow, I extend a huge thank you to A. for hanging out with her a ton this week to allow me to work, attend class, and go to my Jenny-Rise session. Carl also worked from home one afternoon so I could still teach even when my sitter was sick. It does take a village.
My SR session this week was fun and connected and flowed easily. We built a marble run and played with that for a while. It is surprisingly compelling. We did a bit of sad/grumpy bear, which is her change to our previous sad/grumpy cat play. I sang or attempted to sing while Sarah told me no with lots of giggles. I pretended to be a dentist’s chair for some of the time, moving up and down, forward and back, while she was on my lap. Then I sang all of “snuggle puppy” while she snuggled fully against me. We did a few foot rubs with and without socks. We ended with me reading a book to her. She even waited in the middle of our reading for me to tell Amy and M. their time was done.
Amy had a KinderGarden party to welcome the incoming class of kindergarteners to her school. It was amazing to remember how a year ago we attended this party and Amy didn’t want to say anything even though we were paired with our friends and neighbors. This year Amy didn’t even come find me when she could have. Instead, she stopped at the blanket of some other friends and neighbors and talked easily with them. How is she so grown up??
Sarah had an Anat Baniel Method lesson yesterday and the practitioner M. said Sarah was more relaxed in her body than she has been sometimes in the past. I don’t know if this is because of being on summer break or because she was in an office that didn’t have a view of buses driving past. She has another lesson today in the office with bus views so that will be a good basis for comparison.
As happens every once in a while, Sarah had a party in the night for a couple of hours. Even when it is annoying I remind myself how amazing it is that here we are with her reading out loud in the night when she can’t sleep. Reading and speaking used to seem so elusive. I know I write about this often with probably the same edge of stunned amazement, and to everyone else it may seem like we crossed that finish line ages ago so why does it seem so new? I think that the early early years were so intensively hard and filled with fearful doubting and hopeful believing that my cells are still coming to ungrips with the fact that they can relax and celebrate that we made it to the top of so many mountains, even if there is still a range in our viewfinder. It also helps to have a celebratory perspective when it is 2:30am and I would prefer to be asleep.
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