Sunday, October 23, 2022

Sunday, October 23, 2022

 

  I woke up early despite going to bed late. The only down note from Saturday was I still need to get my 10,000 steps in. My pedometer app will only start the accumulated daily count from zero after I miss two days. One miss, they call it a day of rest. 

  I went to church. I wanted to keep the pattern; going felt right. It doesn't impact me the way it does devoted Catholics. I came to the party much too late for it to have that effect. That may not have been the case for Mike. I think he found church deeply moving. We never explored what it meant to him or how he felt when participating in the service. Interesting! I love exploring how people perceive and interact in different situations, but I didn't explore this with Mike. I never felt the need to. I don't regret not having asked now. I was happy that I felt content with his choices while he was alive. I was happy to support him in pursuit of his interests. They seemed good for him; they brought him joy. 

  I had a ten-minute session with Adolescent D at noon. It was evident yesterday he had an easier time adding consonants after the vowel. For example, he had no problem adding the /d/ to /e-n/ to make end. But he had a terrible time adding /t/ in front of /a-ke/ to make take. He kept adding the /t/ after /a-ke/. I got a new appreciation of the challenges he faced. Now I understood why he fought starting with the vowel/consonant pair and then adding consonant to the front of the unit. He couldn't do it. He always wanted to start with the first letter and work through the word sequentially. But that never worked for him.

  I had the M & W sisters at two p.m. I had sixth-grade W first. She was sitting in the passenger seat of the car. One of the girls had a basketball game today. W was in a foul mood. I asked her if she wanted to skip the session today. She said, "I have to." Yes, she had to, but she could share how she felt. We all must do things we don't want to do. It is easier if we don't pretend we're happy to do it. That doesn't mean I don't expect myself to do my best and find a way to enjoy it. 

   W and I continued with the Gating Game on a passage from Westing Game. In the Gating Game, one person gives clues, sometimes based on the content of the meaning, sometimes on semantic or syntactical clues. For the word get, I gave "the present of got." It was the first time she had to find the present tense form when I gave the past. She was used to getting the present tense form and figuring out the past. Her mother sat next to her and called, "Give." W got pissed with her mother for "correcting her." Second grade M, sitting in the back of the car, also called out a word. I didn't think anyone was 'correcting' W. They were playing the game. It's engaging.

  Much of the passage we worked on required understanding the characters and the plot. "What would Turtle do in this situation? What would she say?" I had fun. W admitted she had, too.

  When it was second-grade M's turn, I saw her peering from the back seat from under a board. It was a large canvas for W, an incredible artist with a serious talent. She is already of professional quality, and that is without training. M got in the passenger seat, and we did her half hour, doing WbyW, another comprehension activity. She loves our work. 

  I continued watching Ted Lasso. Coach Beard was the focus of a weird, Felliniesque episode. It was dark. The demons were out. It resolved well. I suspect the rest of the cast needed a week off.