My sweet Amy just turned 5. I love how driven she is to create art. I love how she always wants to be dressed appropriately for any occasion (what is appropriate is determined by her) and changes her outfit about 20 times a day. I love how she creates pretend treats that are assembled from all the small pieces of all games and toys we have. I love how she plays all the time and invites Sarah to join her play, either directly or just by being herself and then Sarah observes and decides to join her. Of all the things we have done to help Sarah, having Amy was one of our best decisions ever. This is not to put pressure on Amy to do anything other than be herself. Herself is the biggest gift she can give to all of us and what a wonderful gift that is. Since we share a birthday, Amy is definitely the best birthday present I have ever received.
My sweet self just turned 39. I love how determined I am to find a way to help Sarah thrive. I love how determined I am to find a way out of my cluster headaches through alternative means if possible. I love how I continue to explore and learn, always getting up again after feeling low. I love the network of love and support that I have welcomed into my life. I have been really good at finding really good people to be with and help all of us.
Speaking of birthdays, I find it remarkable that one of our past volunteers has her birthday the day after mine/Amy’s and another past volunteer has her birthday the day after that.
In my journey to let my head and neck muscles relax I have done Alexander Technique Constructive Rest multiple times a day every day for the past week. Sometimes I feel better and sometimes I feel tighter or twisted for the rest of the day. I think my awareness is increasing and changes overall are happening. Those changes then feel strange because they are not my habit and my habit is what feels normal. I do notice much more quickly when I am tensing muscles anywhere or clenching my teeth. My headaches have been very mild this past week, to the point where I wouldn’t really count them as headaches, except that they do count in terms of when I can stop taking the medications. I need to have a month with not even a whisper of a headache.
Thanks to our volunteer L, our house is currently full of a multitude of library books about clocks and time. It is awesome. I want to emulate this in the future around other topics and areas of interest.
Sarah went to school every day this week. She still talks at times when it would be appropriate to be quiet and her talking is her verbal isming. At first I was feeling frustrated about this, and then I realized that it is incredibly awesome that the girl who didn’t really start speaking until she was 4 1/2 now talks so much that it can be deemed a problem. That is the most awesome problem ever!
An awesome Sarah moment occurred on Friday afternoon when Amy threw up unexpectedly. Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop had just arrived (and we are now in the midst of a wonderful visit) and I thought I needed our customary throw-up bowl. I called to Sarah to come to me right away. She did. I asked her to go to her room and get the throw-up bowl and bring it down. This turned out to be closing the barn door belatedly, but what was super amazing was that Sarah did everything I asked and did it promptly. What a super helpful big sister!
When Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop arrived, Sarah ran to the door, peeked around the curtain, and opened the door with great delight. She has loved to climb on both of them. At one point she went over to Pop-Pop and said clear as a bell, “Pop-Pop is reading the newspaper!.” None of these wonderful things are new, but they are still something that I marvel about and delight in. One thing I really love about Son-Rise is the idea that I can value social connection way above and beyond any physical or academic skill. Certainly we hope Sarah can learn to tie her shoes or do math, but the most important thing is that she connects joyfully with other people. From that perspective, where adults are concerned, we are done. Hooray!
I wish you all an appreciation of your own sweet selves.
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