Not that we don't still have issues with... oh gee, cleanliness, mean tones, fighting over chores, getting ready for school on time, interrupting, abusing screen time limits, being thoughtless of others' feelings, begging for everything she sees, refusing to take responsibility for her actions... I just had to get that out of the way. Life around here can still be pretty stressful.
But overall, I feel like we're on a pretty good path. To wit:
She got invited to her 2nd birthday party in five months. Also her second birthday party in about 5 years. She has several friends at school. I attended the parties with her, and she did really well at getting along with people and playing cooperatively. (Until the end, and when I heard her voice raising, I decided it was time to go.)
She has had more good days at school than bad. Last year her teacher was nice, but young and new. This year her teacher is loving, and experienced and tough, which is a great combination for Az.
She is sticking with dance, and seems to enjoy the musical theatre class she's in. She joined the track team and has her first meet next Friday.
She has made positive choices on several occasions lately, like telling a kid today (when HE got mad at her and said something mean), "It's okay, it's okay. We're on the same team." She's also walked away from a couple of conflicts or people who were annoying her. [Full disclosure: she's made a couple real bad choices, too, but we used to have ZERO good ones, so this is still quite an important step.]
She's sleeping pretty well most of the time (knock wood). She sometimes wakes at 4am for the day, but it's far less often, and she's mostly getting to sleep around 9. (This is a tremendous improvement from about a year ago and all the time before that, ever.)
We haven't had a real rager of a temper tantrum in a while.
She very occasionally says something nice to one of us unprompted.
As I re-read this, I know that "no temper tantrums" and "sleeping mostly" and "more good days than bad" is not what "pretty good" would look like for a neurotypical kid. But I don't have one of those. I have a beautifully neurodivergent artistic weirdo, and I will take our version of "pretty good."
