A little piece of heaven

…her brother!

Dear Belle,

Today you are 5 months old (going on 25).

And today, September 20th , you said your first word: MAMA!!! What a 5th month birthday gift you’ve given me!!!!

Oh and what a glorious 5 months it’s been! Everywhere we go, you stop traffic…you captivate people with your smile and the alertness of your eyes.

This month you finally captured your brother’s heart. We can now put both of you together on the floor and you entertain and play with each other. You reach over and grab his face, pull his hair, and crawl all over him. A couple of times you made the mistake of putting your hands in his mouth and he bit you…but you graciously forgave him. You love it when he sticks his finger in your mouth so you can suck on it..and it blisses him out just as much.

You are doing so many new things already:

– You are learning how to swim. You can already kick underwater by yourself and go from one person to another.

– How to hold on to the edge of the pool, fall into the water, turn and grab the edge

You make the cutest of sounds with your mouth and can sometimes entertain yourself for a long time by repeating the sound over and over again.

You can be very serious and make me work hard to make you smile!

You are trying to learn how to crawl.

– You love your hands with undending passion.

– Instead of delicately sucking on your finger or thumb, it is not rare for me to find both your fists in your mouth.

– You can already drink from a regular cup

– You enjoy watching TV and have already seen 4 movies at the movie theater

– You love being out and about and get antsy if you don’t get to go out every day

– Today you drank formula for the first time (your brother’s hypoallergenic formula). You’ve also had a little bit of avocado, banana, apple, and whatever you manage to steal when we’re not looking.

– You are on the fence about whether you are a mama’s or a daddy’s girl. You get just as excited with each one of us.

– You already found your feet and love to play with them

– You are Ms Grabby and grab EVERYTHING in your path

– You scoot and roll all over the place…I never find you where I left you.

– You already reach for me when someone else is holding you and will lift your arms and hips to be picked up.

– You don’t have a favorite toy…you’ll play with anything and everything!

– You used to sleep really well but now decided you like mommy’s bed and wake every two hours to try and get back in bed with mommy and daddy

– You are a natural born yogi and LOVE moving and playing with your body

– You are sooo interested in Lucas and Lola and love to pull their tail and ears and to stick your fingers in their mouth…they are already terrified of you!

– You love being on your belly and will play for a long time while on your belly..

– You are trying to crawl out of your crib already…lately when I wake up I see you on all fours trying to reach for the edge of the crib…how long will it be until you’re pulling to stand by yourself??

– Your favorite part of the day is anything to do with water…

– You are your mother’s daughter…through and through.

My dear Belle, words can’t express how grateful we are to have you in our lives, how complete you’ve made us, how much much happiness you make us feel. I have no idea how I have survived 30 years without you. Happy 5th month baby, my dearest Belle, we all love you so very much.

About 3 weeks ago, Nathan was downstairs watching TV while I was upstairs changing Belle. His TV show ended and he started whining for me to change the channel. I asked him to give me a moment and he started crying. In case you didn’t know, Impatience is his middle name. And it was then, at that moment in time, that something in my just screamed out ENOUGH and I cracked.

I picked him up from the couch and took him to the living room and told him that it was enough with the TV addiction and it was time to play with some of his toys. We have a nice big mat for him to play in with lots of toys. He was furious and started throwing the biggest tantrum in history. So I told him as soon as he stopped crying for 10 seconds I would pick him up and we could play together.

1 minute…10…30…60…75…120….180 minutes…and he didn’t stop for 10 seconds. 10 seconds wasn’t that much to ask for, right? So I sat by him and had a nervous breakdown while he cried and cried. But I was determined not to break. And guess what. I was finally stronger than my 4 year old!

That day he fell asleep at 5pm.

The next day when the time came for me to put him down on the play mat, he whimpered for about 10 minutes, then he stopped, rolled to the side, and started eating his hand.

I did a victory dance.

The following day he didn’t even whimper. He quietly rolled to his back and reached for a toy. I almost fainted with sheer joy. My Nathan was finally interested in playing with toys!!!!

This probably sounds weird to all of you. But the little tyrant has gotten through 4 years in this planet without ever having “floor” time. It used to be that floor time meant a massive tantrum, which he always won, and then we’d be so traumatized that we wouldn’t try again for months, and then the same thing would happen. So whenever he wasn’t eating or in therapy, he was sitting on his Chill-out Chair watching TV.

But since that glorious day, the TV addiction has been broken and he is finally able to spend time on the floor. Hallellujah!!!

He still doesn’t do much…he will typically just roll to his side and start eating his hands. But there are moments (like today), where a toy catches his eye and he will reach out and play with it. I’ve even noticed him scooting a little.

Now that we are doing lots of Feldenkrais, my hope is that his Feldenkrais lessons combined with lots of floor time will eventually lead to something. Some movement maybe? Something? Anything? Whatever he can produce on his own, I’ll take it!

It used to be that he would watch TV in the morning while having breakfast, during his ABR therapy (2 hrs / day), during his laser therapy (45 min’s / day), and an hour before bed….so, at least 4 hours / day. Now, he is only allowed to watch TV on Sundays.

And guess what? He survived! Not only that…he is showing an interest in toys…he is showing an interest in his own body….he is showing a greater interest in communicating. How amazing, huh!

So now during ABR we read him books, sing him songs, he plays with his ipad, plays with toys… During transition times, he’s on the floor playing… To wind down, his dad got some toys and they play outside like all the other little kids on the block (RC cars, planes, helicopters, rubber band guns).

Believe it or not the Great Media Detox is one of our greatest triumphs. And the little boy lurking underneath the media addiction is even more lovely than ever … happy, sweet, engaging, playful. TV used to hypnotize him, and he would become a zombified space cadet. Now he’s more present than ever…and we love it!

I just had to share because I am oh so happy we’ve accomplished this!

PS. I also think the cold laser has helped him with this. We do something called “unwind” with the laser, where we place it on his adrenals, sacrum, occiput, behind his ear lobes, and solar plexus. These points induce a state of relaxation. So I think the laser has helped take him out of “sympathetic (fight or flight)” and into a “parasympathetic” state.