Tuesday

Today was a painful day, but all is well in the end. I waited too long to get started, my fault, but I am human and have other things that need to get done. I was supposed to be at freshman orientation with my 17 year old, but her older sister went instead. I would have to be gone overnight, which could be a problem. I have never bees away from S, and things are going too well to risk it now. My husband is out of town, so that complicated things. I am so grateful that my kids are a bit older and can understand that their sister needs so much of my time. When we were discussing going yesterday, S said, "I don't want to be away from you" This wasn't the first time she has said this, and I am thrilled when she does. So when we were upstairs waiting to do her NR, she chose to do her cross pattern homolaterals first. These are the ones that gave us so much opposition before. She did those happily and quickly. Then she wanted to crawl, and I suggested doing the ATNR. She refused. I made lots of mistakes after this. I held out until she would do it. She did some and then stopped..twice. I called her sister up to help and we kind of forced her through the motions of a few. I realized that we shouldn't be doing it that way and stopped. She was obviously upset. Her sisters left and I just lay on the floor near her. She finally came out with, "I don't need a mommy." I returned with "I still need you" I can't remember now, but I think there were a few more exchanges of words, then she was about to busrt into tears and ran over to me and I held onto her very tightly. I told her I knew how hard it was for her and that I was here to help her through whatever she was feeling. I decided enough was enough and told her we would go downstairs now and not finish. She gets chocolate pudding when she finishes, and she had just been telling me she doesn't want chocolate pudding. She decided it was time to finish and that she did indeed want her chocolate pudding. She happily did the rest of her exercises. Oh happy day.