Disco Sunday

Today I came prepared for Disco Sunday by bringing a CD of the B52"s. Wendy, Aileen and I use the term "disco" loosely to mean anything that is fun, lively and for which we can dance to. When I arrived, Sam was watching the Sunday morning talk shows on T.V. She seemed to really be taking it all in. I told her that Bush/Cheney were no longer in the White House and that Barack Obama is our new president. She smiled and did two thumbs-up. I also asked her if she knew that Hiliary Clinton had been appointed Secretary of State and she said "I had heard that". I think she "had heard" that from me, from the many times over the last few months that I had mentioned it to her, but perhaps now, she had just been able to recall it. She also wanted to know how my work was going, which was the first time she had asked such a question.

When Wendy arrived, we decided to ask Sam to read to us. We gave her the book I had brought in for her from yesterday and Sam was simply fantastic. She focused on the words and tried to pronounce everything carefully from the start. We were impressed by her being able to differentiate between the words "Nice" - for the city in France and "nice" meaning good, etc. She did the pronunciations perfectly. There were words she could not quite understand, but she tried to pronounce them anyway. Sometimes she would stop speaking, but you could tell she was still reading...and then we would both say "Sam...we can't hear you, speak up". Sam also enjoyed looking at the pictures and we talked with her about them as we went page by page. Towards the end of the book, I was really tired, and thought Sam would be too, so suggested that we take a break before finishing the book. Sam did not want to. I suggested it again (projecting of course onto Sam), and suggested we listen to some music. I put the CD on, but Sam was still focused on the book. I then realized that it was Sam who was always the one who was extremely persistent, focused and ready to conquer anything that came her way. I shut the music off and had Sam carefully finish reading the book to us. Although Sam was tired, and her voice was too low to understand, we kept asking her to speak up - which she did. After finishing the book, we then put the music back on, and started playing with the Beach ball. Sam threw her hands up to catch the ball and threw it back to us for a while. It wasn't the usual dancing Disco Sunday, but is was an impressive day for sure.