Two days after Sarah came home from camp, the girls and I were on the road to Philadelphia to see family. Carl was at a conference for work and met us in Philly. For our first two days we saw Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop. We also had a nice visit with Pop-Pop’s daughters who came for lunch on Father’s Day.
Sarah loves having Conversations with Mom-Mom, because that means special play time that is just the two of them or the two of them plus Amy. Apparently Sarah loved talking about falling on her nose and going to the hospital, which is a totally fictitious scenario. Mom-Mom added to Sarah’s pretend hospital time by imagining that someone was wheeling a food cart and the wheels were clacking loudly over the floor. Then the person had squeaky shoes! Sarah of course loved pretending to be both the patient and the person with the squeaky shoes pushing a clacking cart. At dinner that night Sarah pretended to be delivering our meals, but when she gave Mom-Mom her plate, Mom-Mom said it was the wrong food! Sarah’s face lit up with delight. She then proceeded to use a real banana to make calls and then actually cut the banana to make banana pizza (ingredients: banana). It was fun having all of us get to be part of the dinner delivery fiasco.
The next day we enjoyed walking around the Morris Arboretum. Sarah was excited to visit the large robin’s nest and egg sculpture. When it wasn’t there, I suggested that the girls could pretend to be the eggs. They did! And then they hatched just in time to go play in big tree-top nets so they could pretend to be squirrels.
Our next two days were spent visiting Grammy, Granddad, and the two Uncles B (one my brother and one my uncle). Although Sarah loves many people, Granddad is one of her top two people to talk about all the time. Her bus driver is the other. So you can imagine the firehose amount of love and attention radiating towards Granddad. Even when we said it was quiet time, she would sit and alternate playing on her iPad and looking adoringly at Granddad while he read his book. There were a few times Sarah left Granddad’s side to play with Amy in the sprinkler and with side walk chalk.
The first day was easy because Sarah and Granddad had matching shirts. The second day he wore a shirt I got him for Father’s Day and Sarah had a different shirt. She had many feelings about this. In hindsight of course I should have gotten her a matching shirt. But I also know she loves pretending that Granddad is comforting her whenever she is sad, so part of me wondered if she wanted to be sad so she could be comforted in person. Granddad listened patiently and kindly, assuring her multiple times that it was ok to cry. At one point my brother invited Sarah to help fill the bird feeders and she eagerly helped with that – perhaps because they are Granddad’s bird feeders.
Grammy and Amy attempted a jigsaw puzzle that was too hard, but they still had fun. Grammy also supplied us with many muffins, and, if you know Amy, you know part of her DNA must be comprised of muffins. The muffins also saved the day many times during our travels after we left their house.
We have loved the movie Turning Red ever since we first saw it, and Sarah is enjoying watching it again. She and I both relate strongly to how emotions can go from small to BIG rapidly. After saying goodbye to Granddad, I think Sarah had big feelings that didn’t come out until Amy used the bathroom. That is often a trigger for Sarah to unleash upset, but this time it was even more intense than usual. That was a hard moment, but I think it was good. It was extreme enough that we increased our efforts to change this dynamic once and for all. Since it is always a bit intermittent it’s hard to tell if we have achieved the change or not, but so far all has been calm and flexible around bathroom usage. Carl spent a long time talking with Sarah about it and role playing around it to practice. Fingers crossed.
Amy has been her usual remarkably flexible self, but everyone has their limits. After the big upset we had Amy ride in the front passenger seat to give her a bit of sister space while Carl and I traded who sat in the back seat. It was kind of fun to sit in the back seat. I felt more like a kid and like I didn’t have to be responsible for things.
May we all have a gentle firehose of love pointed at us even when we aren’t the selves we wish we were.
Leave a Reply