This Post is NOT About My Voice Lesson

I will post about that later. But first, here's one of the fun things Alex and I do. Little does he know he's getting vestibular input and strengthening his core, both great therapies for SPD. He's just having fun... And so am I.



I mentioned in an earlier post that he has low muscle tone. You can see one example at about 3:30 into the video. Look at his arms and hands as he flops down. The floppy arms are a sign of poor muscle tone.

Oh and you can also see the cat going in and out of the closet that contains the litter box. Just in case you were wondering.

Thank you for reading this non-opera post. I will write all about today's voice lesson next time.

Feeling Blueish

I've been sort of bleh and blah all day. Trying to figure out why. I realized it's a combination of things - more Real Life things than opera-keeping-me-awake things. I mean, yeah, I'm disappointed about not supering this summer, but I'll get over it. More of it has to do with Alex and some of the challenges he has because of his sensory processing disorder and PDD-NOS. He goes to a great program provided by our local school district. He is the sweetest and smartest kid (scored in the 90-99%tile in all areas of cognitive development, has perfect pitch and so on) but his behavioral issues are very challenging. He likes things to be exactly the way he wants them to be (who doesn't?) but he doesn't react appropriately when he doesn't get what he wants. Last fall, before he was diagnosed, he was kicked out of preschool because of his impulsive behavior. I dreaded picking him up each day knowing I'd get a report of all the "bad" things he'd done. Each day brings new challenges as we try to rewire him into a regular kid. He's so very smart and eager to learn, but the behavioral and sensory stuff gets in the way of success in school. Socially too - last year, around the same time he was kicked out of preschool, the mother of a friend of his called the day before her son's birthday party to say that Alex couldn't come because she didn't know how he'd be in the unstructured environment of a child's party. (He'd have been fine. She didn't have all the facts.) His response was, "But they INVITED us!" More recently, we were at a birthday party where they had one of those inflatable bouncing house obstacle courses set up in a gymnasium. The fan for the bouncy house was so loud and echoing that he couldn't bear to be in the room. He very much wanted to play in the bouncy house but just couldn't. He has trouble climbing on playground equipment he's never seen before. He has poor fine-motor skills and poor muscle-tone in his upper torso. So all these challenges and let-downs have been going on for a while, and my heart breaks for him every time. So now you can see why I retreat into my fantasy opera life, why I'm silly with my stupid crushes, why I like to perform... it's all an escape. And I guess right now with the supering thing not happening, a chunk of my escape has vanished. So now you know that as you read my blog, all the silliness is my way of escaping. I don't actually want anything from the people I write about. I don't even want to know them. I'm not some freakish fan. I'm just your average mildly depressed 42 year old woman looking for a safe escape.

Sorry for the digression into non-opera topic. Ok, pathetic whining over. We now return to your regularly scheduled silly.

Snowy Day Activity - 1 2 3 Jump Fall Sleep