January 31

We have an 8 year old! How is that even possible?!

Last week I forgot to share that Sonia did an SR session with Sarah that involved doing yoga. After their session they came downstairs and showed their poses to me. They did downward dog including lifting each leg in turn, happy baby, butterfly legs, straight legs and putting their noses toward their toes. Adorable and amazing.

Whenever I notice that I’m not feeling super happy I remind myself about our reading program and how successful it is already being. That often helps me refocus on joy and find new energy. Sarah is learning new words as rapidly as I introduce them. She only gets 5 new words a day, plus the repetition of words from previous days. I have now put the box of retired words in the SR room so she can look at them if she wants.

Words that we have covered so far, most of which she knows when looking at the large cards:
mail
night
Dora
Boots
Troll
Map
delivery
red
her
spokes
brakes
bicycle
gears
cherries
strawberries
ice
reading
swimming
sleeping
play
the
blowing
oranges
hippopotami
Benny
seat
in
helps
roller skates
scooter
with
rides
bathtub
bubbles
spaghetti
carrots
no
oh
backpack

I have been thinking about different ways of working. I can either work hard in my body or in my mind while I give a massage. I think it is a much better massage if I work hard in my mind. Hard isn’t quite the right word, but there is an attentiveness to my own use and Alexandrian directions that can leave me feeling like I worked hard. I recently taught the first class of a myofascial release course. I started thinking more about what I do when I give a massage, especially with any myofascial work, to keep myself comfortable. It is as if I am sending currents of thought/weight through my body in different directions so while my body position may look static it is anything but. Sometimes in the midst of feeling so empowered about our program for Sarah and her progress I can momentarily feel like I will drown in the sorrows of impossibility as I see how far there is still to go. This is sort of like working very hard in my body during a massage. It is time to send my thinking elsewhere, move that current, alleviate that weight. Time to refocus on the broad support of everything that we are doing instead of thinking that all my force needs to come from my perceived need that Sarah has to be normal NOW (which is akin to all my force in a massage coming from my thumbs – it just isn’t actually that powerful and it hurts). I feel the possibilities and the difference in my body with my different thoughts about Sarah as surely as I do with any AT session. Maybe I can actually use AT to help me from sliding into that muddy canyon of fear, because the slide is always accompanied by a physical slump to rival all slumps.

Perhaps it is Sarah who is homeschooling me rather than the other way around.

I wrote all of the above before Sarah’s actual birthday, which is today. Birthdays are such good opportunities for growth and seeing one’s stuck spots. Whenever Sarah reaches another age I still feel some sadness and hopelessness. I am trying to celebrate her as she is but I am judging some of how she does things, how she doesn’t always open presents because she is having so much fun with the package itself, how loud or weird her excited sounds and movements can be, how she isn’t at all near her age peers developmentally. I made a special book for her that only had one or two large words per page and then had a few pictures on separate pages. I made sure that we covered all of the words in the book on the word cards. I had a vision of her reading the book all the way through easily and delightedly, with focus, intent, and purpose. That is not what happened. She opened it and immediately tossed it aside, asking for another present (which she then didn’t open for many minutes). The two times we encouraged her to read it she got a few of the words, needed help with some, and both times stopped before reading the word “spaghetti” (so she doesn’t yet know that Dora rode her bike through spaghetti or what happens after that). In theory I know that this doesn’t mean the reading program is a failure or that I am a failure, but those are my knee-jerk responses internally, with tears behind my eyes as I have one more reminder that ours is not the typical path. Why am I not just ok with this?? I am doing a better job than sometimes at noticing that the feelings are not truth and that what I have been given is information. Sarah isn’t yet quite ready for such a book. That doesn’t mean she isn’t loving the word cards. It doesn’t mean she isn’t learning the words on the cards. It just means she isn’t yet ready to transfer that knowledge to a smaller font in a book, especially when there are other exciting things to look at or do. When I observe that Amy isn’t remembering all the words I don’t worry about it because I know that she is smart and will learn to read at some point. Perhaps I could have that belief with regard to Sarah as well. When the word cards started working so quickly I started imagining Sarah reading chapter books within a month. Just because my envisioned time frame needs work doesn’t mean she won’t eventually read chapter books. We just aren’t there yet. With this journey I think I am sometimes like a little kid constantly asking, “are we there yet?” And I imagine that when we are there, whatever that means, that I will just lie down and sleep for a few months. I get lots of help. Lots and lots of wonderful, beautiful, amazing help, so much so that I feel I have no right to feel tired. And yet I do. Probably some of the fatigue is emotional. We have come amazing distances in 8 years but there have been some seriously stressful hard times along the way. Just as when one wakes from a dream and blinks in surprise as reality resettles, so it is with some of the hard parts and some of the fears I have had in being Sarah’s mother. I have feared for her life 3 times. I am still recognizing that she is alive and safe and well. I am still recognizing that she eats well (selectively but well). I am still noticing that she can walk and talk and play imaginatively. I am still learning that everything is ok.

Whenever I am truly sad and crying, Sarah instantly comes to my side and puts her hand on my forehead as she looks into my eyes. Could I ask for more of a sweetheart?! No, I could not. I am truly, deeply blessed beyond belief by my amazing daughters, husband, parents, in-laws, friends, acquaintances, and wide community of wonderfulness.

I am excited about Sarah’s party tomorrow. Carl and I created a bicycle cake!

May any hard moments provide you with information, and may you easily shift that weight and feel supported and joyful. What a wild bicycle ride this life is.