(Sarah’s sleep has been better. This may be due to my repeated suggestions that she stay in bed after Carl or I say goodnight to her, along with the repeated practice of not responding to her if she calls out to us. Some nights she hasn’t called out at all. Some nights she has stayed in bed or only gotten up one or two times. This is amazing. This may also be due to the fact that we finally had a Telehealth with a sleep doctor, so of course things had already started getting better before that appointment. I spoke with the doctor by myself, without Sarah, because I knew if Sarah overheard my descriptions of her sleep situation or my guesses about what might be going on, she would then get more fodder for her checklist of things to call out about or things that might be problems. I think things would have gotten better because of our reminders and changing our behaviors around Sarah’s sleep struggles, but the timing is funny. I also know in theory that writing about this won’t jinx anything but I am slightly more superstitious about some things than I like to admit, which is why all of this is whispered in parentheses. Also, knock on wood.)
Sarah’s swimming was the best it has ever been. I have worked with her for weeks on keeping her legs straight when she kicks in the pool and on Tuesday it finally seemed like things were kicking (ahem) into gear with that and she was overriding her usual habits. She had a few moments of totally straight legs doing powerful kicks. The rest of the time her legs were straighter than usual, her kicks strong, and her torso level in the water instead of tilted down with her legs dragging. This was amazing and gives me hope that eventually I can help her enough with her arms that she will really be able to swim easily and powerfully. There are so many skills where I am not the best teacher for Sarah, and for a long time she didn’t want my help with swimming, so I’m feeling quite proud of both of us for persevering now that the scheduling hasn’t worked to see her swim teacher. As with so many skills, it is when not if she will get them, but it takes a lot of faith and perseverance.
Yesterday I woke up to the news that Watching Sarah Rise won first place in parenting and first place in personal memoir in the Fall 2025 Bookfest Awards. I also reached 71 Amazon reviews, so that was a wonderful start to the day. (If you have read it and not reviewed it, you can always do so now! Nothing fancy needed. Every rating and review helps.) The rest of the day had many good things and yet I felt my energy and good feelings tanking. There were many parenting moments when I wished I had made different decisions or said things differently. I read a memoir that was about a hard life experience. Normally I love such things because I assume if a person wrote a book about it, they moved through it and came out the other end. Not quite so much in this case. The author did learn a lot of wonderful life-changing profound things, but I didn’t get the outcome I wanted from the book. It also tapped into my fears that somehow I will want to go through certain hard experiences to get the profound learning. After all, in college I read the book Son-Rise and thought, “I would like to run a Son-Rise Program someday.” I got my wish, and I am so glad that I did. I wouldn’t change anything. But, here we are looping back to my parentheticals and knocking on wood, worrying about the power of thoughts. This book clearly was knocking on my fears and yet I kept reading because I kept hoping things would go the way I wanted them to.
I’m working on giving space to my big and little fears and feelings rather than trying to push them under a rug. I know I write about this all the time, but that’s because I need the constant reminders. Sometimes it is hard, with what tender little beans we are. Something can feel so big but I judge myself because I believe the situation is small so I shouldn’t have my feelings. Ugh! Ugh! And more Ugh! Perhaps this is the moment to keep going with faith and perseverance that letting my feelings breathe always helps, although that didn’t stop me from trying to solve the problem with chocolate first.
Anyway, I wish you (and me) good sleep, good chocolate, and space for your feelings without judging yourself for such feelings.
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