One night at bedtime, Sarah said, “I love you, Granddad in spirit.” I responded, “I love you, Sarah in the flesh.” That tickled her funny bone and has become the theme for the week. She often tells me, “I love you, mom in the flesh.”
Speaking of bedtime, I successfully shifted to sleeping on a mattress in the hall instead of sleeping on a mattress on Sarah’s floor. The distance to her bed was roughly the same. The distance between her room and my shared bedroom with Carl is just about exactly the size of the floor mat, so it was quite cozy. What felt ridiculous was that, after the first night, Sarah started asking me why I was in the hallway. I felt exasperated because, of course, I was there for her! She seemed quite content to have me in the hall, with no difficulty about the shift out of her room. After a few days, I got tired of stepping on the floor mat every time I walked to my room for something during the day, so I moved all of the bedding out of the way. I assumed this was temporary, but when Sarah didn’t say anything about it, neither did I. I just went to bed in my own bed that night. I had assumed that when it was time to shift to my own bed, I would tell her that was happening. But I didn’t tell her! I just did it! It has been two nights now of sleeping in my own bed, with Sarah in her own bed! I go to bed when she does, and if she calls out I go in right away to give her a hug, but this final transition has happened more beautifully and easily than I ever could have imagined. I was going to say that it is monumental that we got to this point without tons of tears, but that would be incorrect. There have been tons of tears along this bedtime and sleep journey of the past year to regain Sarah’s ability to sleep in her own bed, to go to bed easily, to fall asleep easily, to stay asleep, to be by herself in her own room – and many of those tears have been mine – but there weren’t tears and pain for this last step, and that feels remarkable. It is as if a year ago her sleep muscle got torn and we had to rebuild and retrain it to function again, and we did.
The other exciting sleep development is that my cluster of headaches seems to be back in the box more quickly than ever before in my thirty year history of headaches. Thanks to Topiramate for calming things way the heck down generally and to the nasal spray that helps for any given headache. In the past I wasn’t sure if the nasal spray actually did anything, because sometimes it didn’t, but this time it worked every time. So for this cluster, I did not become a basket case of misery for two months. Fun as that has been in the past, I am so grateful for this different experience.
We celebrated Carl’s birthday with multiple family dinners and fun presents. Sarah made Carl a beautiful cloth wall-hanging by sewing different pieces of striped cloth together with her sewing machine and some help from Anna. Amy made 50 different artistic renditions of things pertaining to Carl, such as countries he has visited or things he likes to do, but mainly potatoes depicted using a multitude of media. I made a “How to be Carl” user manual, and Anna made a LEGO Carl complete with removable red hair.
Yesterday we had a wonderful time at a Fourth of July pool party. The first part of the party involved waiting for thunderstorms to abate, but the girls had fun getting wet in the rain. Amy did a phenomenal job with her face paint, as always, and gave me a beautiful flower on my cheek too. When it was finally safe to go in the pool, Amy was the first one in. The girls loved playing with sparklers, and this year I was able to be relaxed about it, trusting that they knew what they were doing.
This morning we had a form to fill out for Sarah. I was going to fill it out on her behalf, but Carl suggested that she could fill it out herself. She agreed to fill it out, but got completely stressed right away. After some yelling, pressing on her chin, and general upset, she left. We debated finishing the form for her versus waiting. We decided to wait. She came back a few minutes later, having painted her nails as a strategy to calm herself. She sat on my lap and was more able to take in our guidance about what the form was asking for. It was a remarkable experience, to see how extreme her stress response was, to see how well she regrouped, and to see her bravery at trying again.
To celebrate the books published in the spring and summer of 2025, She Writes Press has an ebook sale running through July 10. My book and many other wonderful books are only $0.99. The sale has helped my book temporarily rise in the Amazon rank, one day hovering as high as #14 in ebooks about parenting children with disabilities. If you know anyone who likes to read ebooks, let them know about the sale. It’s like a penny gumball machine. So many amazing books at such a low price! It’s time to stuff your pockets! Or fill your hands and then run and dump them in your mom’s purse, then run back to the machine and load up on more, then dump in your mom’s purse, and repeat. I confess I actually did that when I was younger and there was a gumball machine that was broken so the gum was rather pouring out. What was I meant to do?
Wishing you good books and good sleep.
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