First Twins Game

Melanie's All-District Choir was singing the national Anthem at the Twins game tonight.  Quite an honor! This was the first Twins game for both of my girls, and my first time at the new stadium.  Kate was over-the-moon excited!  We had seats directly behind home plate, but very high up, and she was very nervous about walking up the steep steps to get to them. We both felt a bit dizzy at first being up so high, and looking down so far, so steeply. 

She thoroughly enjoyed the first 4 innings, but then started to get whiny.  She really wanted me to buy her a hat, but they are crazy expensive there and I said no, so she fussed and pouted.  Then she realized that the cameras showing people in the stands didn't seem to be showing people way up at  the top, so she wouldn't be able to be on TV, and that was the last straw.  She declared that this was not as fun as she thought it was going to be and she was sooo disappointed, and the only thing that could stop her crying would be a hat or being on TV.  She was "sooo bored", but absolutely did not want to leave early. We held in through the 7th inning and then left to get ahead of the crowds.  

She griped and groaned all the way to the car and fussed and cried all the way home, talking about how she always has such "bad luck", that her friends give her "bad luck" and nothing she does ever turns out good, and it never will.  She feels her "senses" make it too hard for her to go to school and she just wishes she could be "normal".  

She looks at the other kids and wonders what it's like to be "normal" like them.  My mom was with us and told her she needed to start thinking positively and not be determined to be miserable, but Katie only grunted at her.  SO, frustrating and exhausting to spend a big, special night trying to have a good time together, which she really did for a while, only to have her weep and moan later that it was not good enough.  I know it was partially because she was so over tired, but it's still hard to listen to her agrue that everything is awful and nothing can make it any better.

Cheer leading

Katie is absolutely ecstatic to be taking a weekly cheer leading class!  Having a physical outlet like this is excellent for her and she grins from ear to ear the whole time.  She does have a little trouble paying attention to the coach sometimes, because she's busy spinning or dancing around, or watching to see if I'm watching her.  She gives it her all, even though it is clear she's not the most coordinated in the group.  You can see some of the lack of positional awareness and gravitational insecurity, but none of these girls are particularly graceful, so she doesn't stand out too much.

Swimmin' Like A Fish

Another huge improvement this summer is Katie's confidence in swimming.  My mother has a pool at her apartment and the girls have gone swimming with her a few times without me, and suddenly almost all of Kate's clinging anxiety in the water is gone!  She like to wear arm floaties, but says she doesn't need the swim vests anymore.  In Grandma's pool she will swim the entire length down to the 6' mark and back (of course I always stay close when she goes that deep).  She has been attempting to float on her back, though that is still pretty scary when her head actually hits the water, but she tries!  For the past several years she has always insisted that I actually hold her whenever we were in the water, or that she at least hold onto one of my arms the whole time. 

Last time we were at Grandma's pool with all the cousins I was bouncing Kate up in the air a little, in and out of the water, when I accidentally threw her a little too high and she went under when she came back down (though only for a second, as I pulled her right back up).  It startled her, of course, but she didn't freak out or cry as she surely would have before.  She was actually pretty proud of it and wanted to know if everyone had seen it!  She nervously allowed me to do it two more times to show Grandma and an Aunt.

Our apartment complex has a pool as well and this summer is the first I've been able to take the girls and let them play in it without having to be in it with them.  They both stay safely in the 3' end and just sort of bob around. Katie is even willing to forgo the floaties in our pool now and is very proud of being able to walk around all on her own,  especially since big sister Melanie refuses to.  It is so nice to be able to just supervise their water play without having to be Katie's anchor the whole time anymore!

Catching up to date

Wow, it's been way too long between posts!  We were without internet for the whole month of June and then had out-of-state family visiting for a week, and now it seems July has almost gotten away from me as well!  We've been having a pretty good summer.  Quite a difference from our struggles last year and the memory of the bad times are already fading.

This is the first year Katie has had the coordination to pedal her bike!  Until now she would only sit on her tricycle and push it with her feet on the ground, like a young toddler does. Now she's outgrown the tricycle and moved up to her sister's 2-wheeler (with training wheels).

She is still rather nervous getting on and off, as it is unstable and wobbly, and she  insists that I hold on to her or the handle bar to help her feel steady at first, but after she has ridden for a while she feels confident enough to go on her own.  We don't really have a very good area for her to ride at our apartments, just the parking lot and garage area, which are incredibly uneven.  So she has a hard time keeping herself going sometimes, and once she loses her initial momentum it is hard for her restart, lots of frustration, but also lots of pride!  She really took off when we took the bike to my sister's house with a nice long, even sidewalk! As I write this I'm feeling a bit guilty because she was really making progress, but now she hasn't ridden for several weeks.  I'll have to get her back out there because she was really enjoying the confidence it gave her.

Still so much to learn

Reading another excellent book on SPD tonight (Raising a Sensory Smart Child by Lindsey Biel, M.A., OTR/L  and Nancy Peske) and realizing how much more I still need to learn about this condition.  Feeling disgusted with myself for being so impatient with both my girls at times for things that seem so simple to me but may be beyond their control. 

Specifically, a section about motor planning problems (dyspraxia), the authors are explaining that it takes these children many more repetitions of a physical action to master it, and still "every task that required him to use two hands in coordination had to be taught separately.  Even when he finally learned to pull his pants up, he was utterly lost when putting his socks on, although it was basically the same process, because like other dyspraxic kids, he had trouble generalizing skills and applying them to other situations."   I remember losing my temper with both of the girls at various times in almost exactly this sort of situation, "You've got your pants on already, why is it taking so long to get those socks on?!?" etc.  Lord, please teach me patience and help me to see them the way you see them.  They need my support and understanding, not more criticism.