As of last weekend, Sarah has been sleeping on a mattress on the floor of the bedroom I share with Carl. This is a change from her sleeping next to me and Carl being away or sleeping in Sarah’s bed. When she was next to me, and I adjusted my routines to go to bed with her at 8:30pm, we both started sleeping soundly and well. We fell asleep easily and quickly and Sarah even slept through the times I would wake in the night to go pee. The first two nights of her on the floor mattress went well and she slept just as solidly. Then the time shift happened, and Sarah started having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. She started calling for me to fix her covers even when to my eye they looked perfect. Sometimes I did not handle this well. It is not new for me to overhear my angry, condescending, middle-of-the-night tone of wrath and be horrified, but it was just as awful as ever. I realized one morning that if I overheard anyone else speaking to her the way I did, I would fire them. I would not have them near my precious daughter. And yet here I was, being the ogre! I have resolved to speak to her as someone I would hire rather than fire if I overheard the interaction. It is embarrassing to think that of all people in her life, I have probably been the meanest. I have also moved heaven and earth to support her and figure out what she needs to thrive. It’s embarrassing to be so imperfect and flawed, and yet I share it here because I know I’m not the only one to sometimes be who I wish I wasn’t.
Sarah did have a good week at school! Friday was a big day and she got to do all of the things that were planned. She went to school and her job at school. She rode home with her bus driver. She had an hour to have a snack and watch a show, and then we drove to her acting class. I peeked in at the end and saw her singing and doing the arm motions to “Let’s Go Fly A Kite” from Mary Poppins. In April she will be playing Mrs. Banks in a shortened version of that show, and it was heart-filling to see her in action. After her class we safely zoomed up to her weekend retreat and got her checked in. I made her bed and got her unpacked while she went to dinner. To add to the full adventure of the day, we had very high winds that caused several trees to come down all over Pittsburgh. I had to go off-road a tiny bit to get Sarah to her retreat because a tree was half-way blocking the very long driveway. As I drove home, traffic had to move slowly to get around a downed street light on the highway. I was glad to make it home safe and sound.
Because Sarah was away, she was blissfully unaware of us losing power from Friday night through… Not sure when we will get it back. While this would always add to the sense of adventure, it was even more of an adventure because Amy’s birthday party was Saturday, culminating in a sleepover. On Friday afternoon she and her besties decorated cupcakes. Thank goodness I had made them in the morning when we had power! The cupcakes were chocolate with strawberry frosting. The girls used candy eyeballs, sprinkles, fondant, and edible dyes and markers to create monsterpieces with fangs, whiskers, unicorn horns, and dragon fire. Each cupcake was a work of art.
Amy also dyed her hair pink. The only problem was that she put the dye in when we had power, but when it was time to rinse out the dye, we had no hot water. Luckily, her bestie who lives nearby still had power so Amy went there to shower.
Amy’s party was full of mermaids, werewolves, witches, and laughter. Amy dressed in greens and blues to be a magical watery earth fairy, decorating her face with tendrils of blue and green with hints of pink and yellow amidst the gems and glitter. She decorated our mountain house basement for things like Sea Ball (Skeeball) and Tape the Fangs on the Vampire. When the teens had all taken turns with the fangs, there were two sets left so Carl and I tried our luck. Amy spun Carl around vigorously so he was very dizzy as he stumbled towards the wall. Next, she gently spun me and released me with my fangs. Neither of us got them in the right place!
When we lost power about a year ago due to a crazy big wind storm, Carl bought a large battery backup so we could at least have a working fridge if we ever lost power again, so that alleviated some stress this weekend. But, it has been cold so our house was steadily getting colder and colder. Amy’s party was at our mountain house where we had heat, but the second part of her birthday celebration day was to be at our regular power-less house with a few friends staying for dinner and a sleepover. I took the girls to a restaurant to be warm while Carl used his abilities to connect our boiler and hot water heater to the battery backup! So while we do not have power, we do have a working fridge, hot water, and heat. We can charge our phones and plug in some lamps. This is rather amazing. We did still have to suffer through getting bakery goods for breakfast instead of me making the muffins I had planned on baking, but we managed with no complaints!
Wishing you magic, power, creativity, and forgiveness for when you aren’t your best self.
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