Greenbelt 2014 - especially for Jan :-) (Part 1)

By special request I am resurrecting this sadly neglected space to blog about Greenbelt 2014, which after 15 years at Cheltenham Racecourse (very handily about 30 mins from home), has moved to Boughton House near Kettering (about 2 hours from home). This means it is on a completely greenfield site again, as compared to the Racecourse which used some of the fixed buildings, hard carparks etc.

The first big change which this meant was that cars are not allowed onto the campsites for the purposes of transporting tents and equipment, to avoid ruining the ground as much as possible.  All equipment had to be carried from the car park to the campsite - tent, bedding, washing up stuff, food, clothes, books, etc. GB said that wheelbarrows would be available to borrow for wheeling stuff down, and that there would be the usual golf-buggy taxis also. However, having once had to go through this process on my own at Cheltenham due to heavy rainfall, I remembered the exhaustion of numerous trips back and forth, the impossibility of getting a taxi because they were all too busy and feeling absolutely wrecked and achey from all the carrying and pulling. So I decided to take our caravan instead of the tent, which meant I could tow it into place and then move the car to the car park. 

We had a good trip there, arriving around 3pm and then queuing through a long slow line to get onto the site. It is a long way from the public road to the car parks! We set up without any problems (didn't have to reverse the caravan, phew!) but I did have to get help from a couple with a similar caravan on how to get the gas working - I hadn't pushed the regulator down hard enough on the gas canister. We did see lots and lots of people having quite a struggle carrying loads of heavy stuff and having to make several trips.

We went down to the Festival village around 6pm. First impressions were really positive - it is a very attractive site with lots of trees, glades, lakes, architectural garden features, and of course the wonderful Greenbelt site vibing which had lights and ribbons in trees, signs, flags and other lovely things :-)

We were too late to get to the Angels' reception and introduction, or the Opening Ceremony but went to try and sign up for the Scratch Choir which would be performing at the Communion service on the Sunday morning. I've never done anything like that at GB and I quite fancied something special to do on my 50th birthday :-)  Unfortunately they were only taking 20 people (not sure if that was kids + adults or 20 of each) and we were too late. So instead we took a peek in at the Family Twist so I could give Isabelle an idea what it was. This regular GB event gives kids the chance to sign up at the beginning of the session to do some sort of performance - telling a joke, singing, dancing or whatever. I had brought Isabelle's guitar to the Festival in the hope that she would want to have a go. To start with she said no, but then changed her mind and agreed to have a go on Saturday.

We wandered round, checked out the wonderful range of food available and looked in some of the tents for the GB merchandise, the bookstore etc. People close to me will find it hard to believe that that was the only time I set foot in the GB bookstore and I did not spend a single pound in there! That has never happened before :-0

However, Isabelle was then suffering from some tummy ache, having had a touch of the runs for 2 days, and she wanted to go back to the caravan. So we had an early night in anticipation of getting stuck in to things the following day. 

At about 3-4am Isabelle woke me up, having got up for the loo and discovering that there were no lights working in the caravan. I got up and checked, found that sure enough there were no lights or power of any sort, and that the caravan battery was completely flat. The culprit was the water pump which is supposed to shut itself off when not actually needed to pump water to the taps or toilet, but which hadn't and had been running for about 12 hours non-stop. Then Isabelle, having been to the toilet in the normal way, said she thought she might be sick, went back in and threw up several times, during which she also discovered she was having a nosebleed as well. This is not good when in the complete dark with no running water, not to mention my phobia of vomit! My mind was running on overdrive and thinking we would have to pack up in the morning and go home. The very sad thing was that I had arranged for my special friend and her daughter to come and visit us at GB for the day on the Saturday and I had to text her at about 4.30am to tell her not to come. We then slept in the next morning till about 9.30am.

To cut a long story short, we eventually got the caravan battery charged up on the Sunday so power was restored, and Isabelle gradually felt better through Saturday and I didn't get ill so all went well after that!

Naturally we had a slow start to Saturday, missing Yoga and Storytelling which we had fancied first thing. If I'd done exactly what I wanted to do on Saturday I would have gone at 10am to listen to Theo Simon (from fab activist band Seize the Day) talk about Voices for the Voiceless, I would have sent Isabelle to do Den Building on the Lawn at the same time (massive flat lawn area in front of the magnificent Boughton House); "Does Church Make you Happy?" about the Happiness Course ("based on both the latest science and ancient biblical wisdom") at 11.30, and also at 11.30 I wanted to listen to Nadia Bolz Weber talk about "The Authority of Experience and what the gospel has to say about real bodies, people, events and trauma - how a Christian community responded to school shootings, the Trayvon Martin murder and gay suicides". I did manage to catch perhaps the last 20-30 minutes of this latter talk and it was really good. Nadia is the sort of woman who wouldn't look out of place in a biker gang - tattoos and piercings and leather - but she is the founding pastor of the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver and she was wonderfully real about the agony and brutality of real life and how we can and do respond to that as ordinary people and as Christians. Hers is a talk I think I will download and listen to again.

At 12.30 ish we wandered round, got some lunch (though I restricted Isabelle to only a small amount of solid food and a fruit smoothie) and sat in on a two-woman play for kids called "Misunderstood Monsters" which was OK-ish (I was a bit bored) but Isabelle enjoyed it enough to sit there while we were eating, and join in the audience participation bits. 

At 1pm I would have wanted to go and listen to the wonderful John Bell of the Iona Community talk about "What shall we tell the children? - in an era when the popularity of books favouring atheism lies alongside a low public profile of organised religion, what are the important things we should tell children about God, the Bible and their role in the world?" Of course I already have my own ideas about the answer to this question but John Bell always speaks with great common sense and insight and I would have liked to hear him. However Isabelle was not up for sitting through another talk so we went for a cup of tea/sit down in the Angels Tent at which time I realised I had not brought my charging plug and lead for my phone down from the caravan so I couldn't get it charged.   

I can't actually remember what we did next. I know Isabelle wanted to go to Archery and Judo on the Lawn but we didn't get there for some reason. Perhaps we went back to the caravan for some cheap lunch. At 4pm it would have been good to get to The Bad Christian's Manifesto by David Tomlinson (Why doesn't the God of religion fit the God-shaped hole in people any more? How can we re-imagine divinity in the 21st century? Is there an antidote for involuntary atheism?) but I also wanted to go to a Mindfulness meditation on the Mount. Boughton House has modernised one area of their garden - digging out a lawn-covered pyramid-shaped hole in the ground with the matching pyramid rising up at the side - for Greenbelt this became the 'Mount', a venue for quiet thought, worship or meditation sessions. I didn't get to either event! What I did make it back for was "Help, Thanks, Wow" by Anne Lamott ("funny, insightful and wise best-selling author) talking on keeping prayer simple - help, thanks, wow, and now since writing the book of that title she has added 'what-ever...' in the style of American teenagers. I really liked her - she is indeed funny and self-deprecating.

We then went to the Family Twist and really enjoyed many of the contributions of the kids including a very cute 2yo singing Twinkle Twinkle and a couple of kids reciting and acting out a poem of Red Riding Hood.  We didn't have Isabelle's guitar though so she said she would have a go on Sunday.

I would have liked to go to Rime which was a combination of circus with theatre and dance based on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but we were in the Twist at the time, and I would also have liked to hear Sara Miles who wrote "Take this Bread" - "Raised as an atheist, Sara Miles lived an enthusiastically secular life as a restaurant cook and writer. Then one morning, for no earthly reason, she wandered into a church. She ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine, and found herself radically transformed, embracing a faith she'd scorned and which would lead to feeding others in a way that she'd never imagined."  I have flicked through that book in a bookshop and I would love to read it completely (but so many books, so little time!). She was talking about "the idolatry of food in the context of widespread hunger" - another talk I think I will have to download.

At 7.30pm we went over to a Family Ceilidh in the Big Top and had an utterly fantastic time! This is the sort of thing where it's brilliant to have Isabelle who loves dancing and threw herself into it all very enthusiastically :-) It was so fun and lovely to have her as a companion to dance with.  After that we were exhausted so grabbed chocolatey (in Isabelle's case) and bananay/chocolatey/Grand Marnier-y (in my case) pancakes for our evening treat and then went back to the caravan for chilling out and bed.

On Sunday morning I had birthday presents to open!!!  :-)  Isabelle made me a cup of tea, and then I cooked bacon and egg for breakfast. We took our time and ended up being about 10-15 minutes late for the massive Communion service, which I wouldn't mind except I missed a couple of my favourite songs and speakers. However what we did hear I really enjoyed, and I sat in the sunshine watching three birds flying very high indeed - they were just little black specks circling round and round in the blue sky and clouds - and felt one of those moments of heaven on earth. For those who are interested I recommend looking up musician Marcus Hummon, and Thistle Farms which rescues women from prostitution, trafficking and addiction. At the end of the service, another group close to us burst into 'Happy Birthday' for one of their group, and at the end Isabelle pointed to me and said "it's her birthday too!" so everybody around me sang loudly and joyfully for me too :-)

And I will have to stop for a while - come back for Part 2!







 

Email to school

I will try and fill in the story so far, but for the time being here is an email I have just sent to the school after an incident on Friday:

Dear Mrs T
Firstly I would like to re-iterate what Bill has said about the approach taken on Friday with T.  It was completely counter-productive and has resulted in T and ourselves having no confidence that her difficulties are being understood and handled appropriately. From time to time that may be the appropriate approach to take, but on Friday she was in particular emotional distress after the meeting, had been crying for a significant length of time, was emotionally exhausted and was not messing anybody about. I had had to use significant persuasion and threat of sanctions to get her to allow me to leave her in SSC at all, and that was only with the agreement that she would be able to stay in that small room. I truly felt that in agreeing to that, she had been pushed as far as she could go at the time, and that getting her to stay at school in that state was a significant 'win' which was best held at that point and not pushed any further.  I agreed with Mrs F that she could try and see if she would go to the lesson, but I assumed that it would be gentle discussion and persuasion given her emotional fragility that afternoon, and only after she had had time to calm down and feel better, not harsh pressure. She says that she finally agreed to go to the lesson because she was too afraid that otherwise you would come back, which was another level of fear and anxiety and stress added on top of what had already been a really difficult day for her. No wonder that she feels emotionally unable to cope with returning to that environment this morning.

As far as making the 'choice' to speak or interact, everybody must understand that this is not about choice. Of course she is physically able to speak - that has never been in question. She is a bright, highly-literate girl with a reading age and vocabulary significantly in advance of her actual age. Selective mutism is an extreme anxiety condition. There is no choice involved in the response, or lack of it.  Below I have copied some extracts from the writings of an adult woman who suffered from SM as a child:

When I stepped outside the door to walk to school I would get a knot in my stomach and feelings of anxiety would rise up within me.  At the same time, heaviness would descend on me, causing me to move slower and weigh me down more and more as I approached school.  Once at school I would find myself standing still.  I would walk to wherever I needed to go if I had to, then find the nearest corner or seat, and either stand or sit still watching others talking all around. 

As far as speaking, the nearest thing I can compare is like an anesthetic injection you get at the dentist where your face goes dead and the muscles won’t work.  It was like having one of these injections in the part of my brain that controlled my speech function.

I would stay like this all day.  I couldn’t ask to have my basic needs met such as putting my hand up to go to the toilet, or for a drink, or if I had forgotten my lunch money, or if hurt or bullied.   I couldn’t participate in lessons, or play with others in the playground.  Then as if by magic, as soon as I came out of school to walk home, the heaviness lifted and I would come back to life, playing, talking and doing everything normally.
I can see how others would have seen this as stubbornness. They encouraged me, disciplined me, got frustrated with me, asked me why I behaved that way and got no answer from me.  They sent me to the educational psychologist and the behavioral-emotional unit and they didn’t know what was wrong either.  Back then, SM was not an official diagnosis so they had no checklist to match my symptoms with.  I was trapped in isolation, and I didn’t know how to get out of the trap.  It felt beyond my power to escape from. 
....I couldn’t show anyone my personality or abilities because they were locked inside.
It was a family who helped me on my way to recovery.  They felt it was right to have me come and live with them when I had just turned 19.  I had very little communication; I mainly used shoulder shrugs and gestures, body language and facial expressions although I did speak the odd word.  Things like saying hello, goodbye, please and thank you were incredibly difficult.  Their response to this was unlike any I had experienced, in that they sent me constant messages that I was loved and accepted unconditionally, and they didn’t feel awkward around my silence.  After a couple of weeks the heaviness and paralysis began to lift.  This was due to them reducing the pressure to speak and I felt safe around them.
(my emphases)
(from http://selectivemutismstories.blogspot.co.uk/)

I could find many many more examples of such stories and testimonies from both recovered and non-recovered SM sufferers.

This emphasises the need for a selective mutism sufferer to feel emotionally safe and unthreatened.  It is like a tortoise retreating into its shell and nothing can be seen of it until it perceives the danger has passed and it is safe for it to come out. T no longer feels emotionally safe at school and therefore will freeze and not show anything of herself in that environment as it is at the moment. It is at times of high emotion and stress that she becomes unable to even nod or shake her head to simple questions. In a more relaxed state of course she is able to do that.

The need for 'control' is just one of the symptoms of anxiety: "Anxiety and The Need To Be In Control - Posted on May 8, 2013 by Jodi Lobozzo Aman, LCSW-R

"When you have anxiety, having control can be very important to you. You either feel like you have it or you don’t. And when you don’t, it feels very scary so you do whatever you have to do to get it back.  Avoid, scream, clean, freeze, isolate, carry out a pattern, research, or control someone else, for example."  From http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/anxiety-schmanxiety/2013/05/anxiety-and-the-need-to-be-in-control/, as just one example.

There is no point directly addressing the symptom of control - the strategy needs to be to address the underlying anxiety that causes the need to control.

I accept that school's responsibility is to educate T but as I said in the meeting on Friday, there is no point having a highly-educated person who can't speak to or interact with other people and in any event, she will be unable to properly learn and assimilate information when under high stress. So it seems clear to me that the very first priority with T should be to address her emotional needs before her educational needs. And it needn't be that complicated.  Her experience in Year 6, when with the right approach she was able to interact fully in the classroom, speak to her teacher, raise her hand in class and answer questions, proves that it is possible to give her what she needs in an ordinary classroom. However at the moment several steps backwards have been taken and we will need to come in and discuss with you how to approach matters from today forwards.

JG

What a difference a year makes

This time last year Jade had only just started answering the register in class. She could read to her teacher, but apart from that did not speak to adults in the school apart from her TA. She had refused to take part in Sports Day. She would not respond to direct questions from anybody. Now, on her last day of primary school, these are her achievements over the past few months:

 - she has been talking well in class since the beginning of the school year;

- she has talked to a different class TA, as well as the teacher;

- she has taken part in Sports Day and come 2nd in her race;

 - she has been doing the Bus Register every morning all year, asking and checking who will be travelling on the school bus that evening;

- she went on the Year 6 residential trip, 2 nights and 3 days away at an outdoor activity centre. She had been adamant she wasn't going to stay overnight right up to the first day there, but towards the end of the afternoon of the 1st day she said she wanted to stay. She loved it!

- she has had a conversation with her riding instructor privately while untacking the pony in the stable at the end of a lesson. She did return to me a bit teary and has been unable to say why, but she semi-agreed it was due to the pressure of the situation, the instructor hadn't said anything difficult or unpleasant (I wouldn't have dreamed that she would have), and Jade had been able to answer the questions;

- she goes round to the shop at our local petrol station to buy sweets, and says she speaks while doing so;

- she went on the bus to her future Secondary School for two induction days, and told me she spoke to a few teachers while there;

- yesterday she spoke to the Headteacher for the first time ever, while explaining the design on her stone for the 'Spiritual Garden' being set up in the school;

 - this morning, she spoke in the school assembly, talking about a shield she and her friend had designed for one of the members of staff;

- this afternoon, she spoke in church at the Leavers' Service, in front of the whole school and many parents, along with all the other Year 6 pupils, describing their stone designs for the Spiritual Garden.

She has come so much further than I ever could have dreamed a year ago. The outlook for her future has changed drastically over the past 12 months. I can now foresee a normal future for her, instead of one where she couldn't function properly or get a job or enjoy social occasions with friends. I am more confident than I ever could have dreamed that she will flourish at secondary school. There is still room for things to go wrong, and for her to regress, but every single report I have ever heard about the school is that it is excellent, especially for those who need some extra support, and I've not heard a bad word about it.

She still has her areas of difficulty - at our first appointment with the psychologist for CBT yesterday she squashed herself into the same chair as me, studiously read a book while the psychologist was speaking to her and did her best to avoid any interaction, and was clearly quite uncomfortable. She still cannot speak to many people, for example my Mum, my brothers, and others. She is unlikely to initiate conversation even with people she can respond to. And she is quick to be moody, grumpy and stroppy even out in public, with people commenting on her angry or miserable appearance especially if she feels any attention is on her. But these are difficulties that I am now more confident can be ironed out in due course.

An amazing day, and one that for a very long time I thought I would never see.

How she's doing.

Jade has continued to make great progress.

Back in July, the same week that she first answered the register at school and danced in the school production, she conquered another big fear. Anybody who knows Jade knows she is pony-mad (like mother, like daughter). She has loved ponies and riding since the age of 4, had her first ride on a pony at 4 and had her first lessons at age 6. She has had regular lessons for about 3 years, has been highly praised by all her different instructors for her natural seat and skill, and can ride beautifully ... but only at walk and trot. Canter has been way too scary for her to try. She has wanted to do it, has driven me mad asking what it feels like, has read about it, thought about it, pretended to do it ... but always refused to try on a real pony. Earlier this year I thought we were going to get somewhere because she agreed to try a canter in her lesson. She was scared of being run away with, though, so wanted to do it on the lunge rein rather than on her own. This means she was going round in a circle instead of a straight line, and although she did manage a few steps of canter, she unfortunately but gently fell off. She then refused to go back to those stables. Instead she wanted to go where her friend E goes, so I asked E's mum, who turns out to have been a qualified riding instructor in a previous life(!) and she recommended Turpins Lodge near Banbury. It's a good 20-25 minute drive from our house and I never would have gone there of our own accord, but they've been absolutely brilliant with Jade. And on about her 4th or 5th lesson, she took us all by surprise. As usual, at canter time, her instructor said "Okay Jade, it's your turn. Trot to the corner, then do sitting trot and kick on and canter round to the back of the ride". And blow me down, she did! I was astonished, and so thrilled! And more importantly, so was she! Check out the video:



So, in the space of a week, she had done her first public performance, said her first word in front of the whole class, and done her first successful canter on a pony. It felt like all the walls were coming tumbling down! Fantastic!

Then came the summer holidays, and a bit of a lull. Having pretty much always spoken to her Grandpa (my Dad) she went all quiet and stopped talking when he was here, for most of the summer.

In early August, the girls and I went for a 3-day camping trip to the New Forest. On our last morning, we all went to a riding stables for an hour's hack. Shannon was in front on a leading rein, then me, and then Jade and another girl behind me. Shortly after we set off, I thought I heard Jade's voice and turned round to hear what she was saying to me, and almost fell off my horse when I realised one of the ride leaders had asked her a question and she was answering!!!! Honestly, that is one of the best moments of my life. And later on when we were talking about it, she told me that when she was wandering round the campsite one day stroking the wild ponies, a man had asked her a question and she had answered him.

Then, of course, it was back-to-school time, with a new teacher and a mix-up of classes, so some old friends and some new classmates. I had a lot of confidence in her teacher, though, because at the end of last term I went to have a chat with her, and discovered she is studying for a Masters in Special Educational Needs, had already read up about SM and her Mum is some sort of SEN trainer who has taught and advised others on selective mutism. However Jade told me she was not planning on answering the register in her new class so I did not know what to expect. Here's how it went:

Sept 2nd - Day 1 of term - Jade did not answer the register but did read out loud to her teacher.

Sept 5th - Day 2 of term - Jade asked her teacher for a maths sheet that she needed. (Initiating speech - quite amazing!!)

Sept 6th - Day 3 - called out the score she got on her maths test in front of the whole class.

Week 2 - answering the register, calling out her maths scores, talking in circle time, answering questions, and volunteering to go up and write stuff on the white board.

Sept 15th - She stood up and explained the third stage of the water cycle to the whole class.

Early Oct - has put up her hand to answer questions in class. She is 'Star of the Week' in her class this week because of her progress with talking, so gets to wear a badge all week which she was presented with in assembly in front of the whole school.

Oct 7th - along with 2 friends Jade has performed a puppet show (with speech) to the whole class.

To say I am proud, relieved and joyful is an understatement. There have been so many dark times when I truly doubted we would ever see such progress, times when I berated myself for not doing more, noticing earlier, helping her better and more consistently, when I felt I identified and empathised too much with her anxiety and didn't help her conquer it. We have not dealt with this perfectly at all. We have muddled through, sometimes pushing forward, sometimes just leaving things be for a long while. We have held back for fear of pushing her too hard, and not known what to do. And yet, imperfectly, slowly, we have helped her along and the results are beginning to show.

She still has a long way to go. She is still silent in every other social situation. She doesn't want to go to any groups or join in after-school activities. She has never asked for what she wants in a cafe or restaurant, is silent while buying things in shops, hides behind me when we meet new people and hates family gatherings and doesn't answer people's questions if we (parents) are there. Nevertheless, we can at last see signs that she is truly on the road to recovery, that it may take time but we can see a positive and normal future for her. Fantastic.

'The Triplets'

The Beans (Petits Haricots) have posted a lovely series of pics of the girls we call 'The Triplets', which includes Shannon, here.

Usborne Books for Sale

All titles are brand new. All cost £1 each unless otherwise noted.


The Amazing Adventures of Hercules – Usborne Young Reading Series 2

Penguins – Usborne First Reading Level 4

The Ugly Duckling – Usborne First Reading Level 4

True Stories of Heroes – Paul Dowswell

The Usborne Detective's Handbook £2

Knights and Armour (Internet Linked) £3

Alice in Wonderland (Hardback padded)

Lift-the-Flap Night-Time

Playtime Activities £2

Pirate Jigsaw Book £2

Farmyard Tales Treasury £3 (Hardback)

Princess Treasury (x 2) £3

A Thief in the House of Memory – Tim Wynne-Jones

The Boy in the Burning House – Tim Wynne-Jones

Usborne Discovery – Trains (Internet Linked

What's Happening to Me (Boys) (x 2)

Bible Tales – Moses in the Bulrushes

The Usborne Flip-Flap Body Book

The Story of Heidi (Padded hardback)

Starting Soccer

The Pony-Mad Princess – Princess Ellie to the Rescue
The Pony-Mad Princess – Princess Ellie Saves the Day

True Polar Adventures – Paul Dowswell

The Snow Queen Book and Cassette tape – Usborne Young Reading Series 2

For the record

Will I ever get the blogging bug back? I don't know, but I know that I regret it when I don't record the important steps as well as the day-to-day stuff for future reading.

Jade had such a good week last week. The girl who, last year, wouldn't even take part in rehearsals for the class production despite having said she wanted to play a percussion instrument, and who wouldn't take part in Sports Day just a month ago, danced in a group on Monday and Tuesday nights in front of a big audience, without a hint or flicker of dropping out or tears or anxiety. We were so pleased!

However, I did notice that during the songs when everyone sang, she wasn't even attempting to take part and therefore stood out (to me anyway - she was at the back) as the only person who wasn't singing. So when, on the way home, she asked me if I would give her a 'prize' for taking part, I said I would if she would even just move her lips during the songs the following night. Maybe I was being a bit ungenerous, but I knew she could do it and I wanted to give her a bit more of a push while things were going so well.

On Tuesday lunchtime, the class TA who worked with Jade a lot last year and is the only person in the school she can properly talk to, rang me to say she had answered the register verbally for the first time! For the past two years she has responded to her name with a thumbs up. But she had said to the TA that she really wants to be a prefect. She's talked about this with me before and I'd said that it was unlikely to happen because she wouldn't be able to tell kids not to run in the corridors, for instance. She'd thought she could just go and tell the TA each time she had something to report. Anyway, as expected, she was not announced as one of the new prefects, but staff will be keeping an eye on the kids and making more prefects of those who deserve it over during the first term. So on Tuesday, the TA said she knew what she had to do to be able to be a prefect, and perhaps now would be a good time to start with her first word by answering the register. The TA suggested she say 'yes' to her friend sitting next to her, but in the event, she gave a very clear 'yes' which the whole class and the TA standing in the doorway could hear! Nobody turned a hair or made her feel uncomfortable. She said she wouldn't do it the following day because they had a substitute teacher who she knows and doesn't like so much, but actually she did, and continued to answer the register all week.

Then on Tuesday evening she took part in the second night of the production and sure enough, I could just about see her lips move during the group songs. It was obviously quite difficult for her as it was quite a small movement, which I found interesting. Strange that it's harder for her to even look as though she's singing (i.e. move her lips clearly) than to dance in front of the audience. We went out the next day and she chose another Breyer horse as her reward!