One! One Wonderful Blessing! Muah-ha-ha!

Good grief. According to my hit-count stats, someone actually came and visited Elvis Sightings via a Google search on "horrid kindergarten transition stories"!

It's probably just as well that I held off on posting during the long weekend. I wasn't very good company -- I'm glad that we're on to the second week of school here.

Day Two of school, Thursday, got off to a better start for Joy. We avoided the noisy playground and the teacher had altered the routine such that snacks were not out on the tables. I learned later that Joy had actually managed to hang with the class for the gathering time, and got to use her GoTalk for sharing time and to indicate that she'd brought a bag lunch. But then she started getting warm and lethargic -- I got a call late in the morning that she was running a low-grade fever. I requested that they feed her lunch and call me if things got worse, and didn't receive a second call, but only because she'd crashed out at naptime and they didn't really get her up until time to go home, because it was a shortened day. Her fever at that point had climbed to 101.

Day Three, Friday, I stayed home with her. The lethargy had passed, the cranky took its place. We had varying levels of cranky all weekend long, with lots of swipes and bangs and hair-pulls (particularly on Rose, poor kiddo). Not a good weekend for me either, especially compared to how energized and excited I was at the beginning of the semester last year.

Today was better. And I think it's time for a blessing count.

1) Joy made it through a full day today, no calls to work. She even made it to music class with her classmates, and hung with it much longer than I'd have expected.

ONE! ONE WONDERFUL BLESSING!
MUA-ha-ha-ha!

2) When I went to pick her up, she wrapped me in a huge hug while her aide filled me in.

TWO! TWO WONDERFUL BLESSINGS!
MUA-ha-ha-ha!

3) We invited friends we ran into on the schoolyard for an afternoon playdate. Joy was laid-back, happy, giggled when playdate-dude came popping out to say "peek" at her (rather than yowling and swatting at him)!

(OK, you can fill in the count in your own mind from here.)

4) I'm so fortunate that I got to experience an ideal kindergarten transition, three years ago with Rose. Rose was so ready for kindie when her turn came. Huge grins in her first-day photos, no tears either from her or from me. Pretty much as smooth as it gets.

5) I managed a bike-commute home this afternoon in the face of wind-advisory-level winds. I am bike-commuter, hear me roar! Plus I realized that coming home at 2:30, I'll not have to worry about the encroaching darkness that traditionally has made me put my bike away for the season when we "fall back" for Daylight Savings. I can actually wait for the snow to fly!

6) Zucchini flowers. Which turn into zucchinis. Which turn into zucchini bread with mini-chocolate chips. Yum. (Can you spot the actual zucchini in the photo?)

SIX! SIX WONDERFUL BLESSINGS!
MUA-ha-ha-ha!

Patterns at the Park

I had a fine evening at the park with Joy and Rose the other day. It had been a couple of weeks since the elements converged such that we could all go -- weather and absence of prior commitments on all sides. It was a different experience than the last trip!

Difference #1 - Rose rode her bike. Like, on the way there! When we went to the park to learn to ride, we loaded up the bike into the car and drove to the park. Now she can ride almost the whole way, and only has to walk her bike on one especially steep hill.

Difference #2 - Joy didn't dash. Last time we went, she wandered afield, and I had a big long run at one point, ending with a dramatic swoop whereby I caught her by the coat just as she was about to jump into the water in the ditch! This time, she spent the entire time in the gravel area.

Difference #3 - The gravel area didn't enter Joy's mouth. Last time, particularly near the end of our stay, I felt like I was digging gravel out of her mouth every time I turned around. This time? Not at all.

She did spend lots of time gravel-stimming, which felt very familiar. One new thing was shuffling her feet through the gravel on her way to the swings or play structure. I'm reminded of how last year she started the spring season being extremely stimmy at the park, not wanting to do anything else. Then over the course of the park season, she got gradually more interested in things other than the stimmies. Wondering if we're already seeing that pattern repeat.

Difference #4 - Joy wanted to play on both the big kid swings and the toddler swing. Last time she only wanted the toddler swing, though I tried to interest her in the big-kid swing, the kind with the flexible seat between two chains. She was having none of it, deliberately sliding off even before I could get her swinging. This time she gravitated toward the big-kid swing herself, got into position to hike herself up to sit on it, and then looked at me for help and signed "more" when she didn't quite make it! She went back to the swings several times, sometimes requesting "more" for my help, sometimes draping herself over the swing on her tummy and propelling herself. She even at one point tried to do the tummy-drape thing on the toddler swing, which didn't work quite so well. I liked seeing the experimenting, though. And the signing -- how glorious to see the signing.

Well, Rose would probably tell me (since they worked hard on defining patterns in kindergarten) that you can't call it a pattern until/unless it starts repeating. We shall see. Whatever else it was, though, it was a lovely evening at the park.

Rose Rides a Bike

Living through winter in Wisconsin is kinda like deliberately banging your head against the wall because it feels so good when it stops. [Update: Check out this cartoon from the Sunday paper: I'm not the only one who feels this way!]

It's spring. And it feels GOOD.

I had a cranky whiny post all lined up to run this morning, but I can't do it. I'll post it Monday, which is supposed to be a rainy day anyway...

Today, I've got to write about Rose.

Unlike Joy, who is utterly fearless when it comes to flinging her body around, Rose has all too good an imagination about where excessive body-flinging might lead. This was exacerbated last spring when she fell and broke her arm on her very first trip to the roller rink.

She's been mighty cautious about bicycles.

We bought her a little bike with training wheels at a garage sale two springs ago. She was very hesitant at first. It took a lot of coaxing and support and a whole bunch of tumbles, but by fall 2007 she was riding quite well. I was hoping that 2008 would be the year to take the training wheels off.

No dice.

I actually did try taking the training wheels off at one point last year. Rose rode that way once, with me holding her up the whole time, and was terrified. Refused to touch the bike again until I put those wheels back on. Over the course of last year, as she grew and grew, she was outgrowing the bike to the point that even with the training wheels off, it wouldn't have been a good bet for learning to balance on her own.

Well, I posted at the end of October about just-in-time blessings, how a new right-size bike that wouldn't even take training wheels providentially came our way. That was the same post where I first announced, I think, that I was going to be doing the Couch-to-5K thing.

Of course we couldn't make any progress over the winter with the bike, but I managed to get to the point where a 5K run is now my regular workout. Yesterday was a gorgeous day, and my 5K in the morning was down to a 10:33/mile pace (with hills, and some wind!) After a day with lots of outside time, much lovely yardwork and such, Rose requested a bike-riding lesson for the evening.

There's a park near us that has an oval sidewalk of asphalt that runs around the lawn and playground area, nice and flat and perfect for toppling into the grass on either side when necessary. A red-helmeted Rose got onto the new big-girl bike with fear and trembling, insisting that mama hold her both by handlebars and waist. Around and around we went, lots of of stop-and-topples but no injuries. She got more confident, I let go the handlebar, was starting to have to trot to keep hold of her waist.

And then I let go for just a few seconds. And she balanced. And squealed with delight!

That was the turning point. Pretty soon I was just having to get her started, then letting go and jogging alongside (which I never could have done last fall before all that training...) Then she was making it all the way around the loop without stopping. Then she got up to a speed I couldn't match for very long.

By the end of the session she had succeeded in going THREE times around the loop in succession, without me at her side, only needing a bit of support at the start to get going.

[Update: We went out Sunday morning for another session. Rose went around the loop 26 times without stopping, and succeeded in starting herself without help a couple of times as well. I think she's ready to practice on our street next. Photo below!]


Kristina at Autism.change.org recently mentioned the concept of kairos, the "just moment," the "right time" when things come together in due measure. (The "just-in-time blessing" moment, perhaps?)

I think we've been there twice now this week, between trike and bike. And yes, Joy did do a little smidge of pedaling herself again yesterday.

Did I mention that I love springtime?