A little piece of heaven

Perhaps you have watched as our cruise boat has been slowly changing, shifting directions completely. The process of changing from North to South has been dizzying, exciting, terrifying, enlightening – all at once. Perhaps this is what the caterpillar feels as it is undergoing its metamorphosis.

For you to understand our shift of paradigm I have to talk about many pieces of the puzzle. I can’t tell you what our new paradigm is if there are pieces of the puzzle missing. So for this next week I will share one piece of the puzzle every day, and in a few days, I’ll put them all together.

Today’s piece: Dr. Kenny’s Message.

I have shared about our appointments with Dr. Kenny, where every single time she has told me, Nathan is perfect. The first time she said I blindly agreed, of course of course, he’s perfect, sure. It sounds good and I want to believe it, so why not.

The second time I heard it again and I thought, hmmm. Why is she saying this again. So I really tried thinking about it. How can you take a person like Nathan who in a typical sense is as far from being perfect as you can get, and call him perfect? I understood that she was saying that his soul is perfect. And then I got angry. Sure, it’s easy to say he’s perfect when you’re not the one carrying him around and trying to keep all the parts in one place. Sure, it’s easy to say he’s perfect when you’re not the one running around from therapy to therapy and trying to figure out what he needs.

The third time I saw her she said it again and I asked her, why? Why is he perfect? Why do you say that? And she said, it’s because of his energy and what he does to and for others. His energy is very special. He has a very pure, loving energy. Most importantly, look at how much you’ve changed. He makes you be better. He makes me be better. He makes everyone around him be better. Everyone in Nathan’s life has to learn to see beyond appearances and appreciate him for his soul, not for how he compares to others or for what he can’t and can do. What a gift to the world!

I can see that. Being Nathan’s mother has changed me profoundly. I have learned and changed more in my 3.5 years (including gestation) as his mothers than I have in my 29 years! I have become more patient, compassionate, loving, accepting. He has forced me to dig deep into myself, release demons, and find my peace. I can honestly say that simply being Nathan’s mother has helped me transform myself into a better person.

So as part of this piece of the puzzle, I understood that Nathan’s role in this world is different from the role of others. The more I accept and embrace this, the more I can stop trying to make him like other people. He is perfect for his role in this world. Perhaps his body functions differently, but his soul and heart are perfect.

I started contemplating the fact that maybe Nathan has to be the way he is to fulfill his mission. It was only a beginning, and fraught with many fears and doubts, but it got me thinking.

Tommorrow I will talk about the next piece of the puzzle: Less is More, & Timing.

Above are some videos of Nathan during his Anat Baniel therapy.

The verdict? I think the therapy was good, but the scenario was not beneficial. To receive this therapy we had to travel to San Diego, break Nathan’s routine, take him away from his house, room, bed, dogs, and especially his DAD, change his scheduled therapies, etc. Then we asked him to accept and trust a new person, in a new setting, and in an intense way. It was too much! He resisted and resisted and I’m not sure how much he got out of the therapy.

I liked what I saw and learned a lot about how to get him to play and how to teach him to “be”. Over time I think he will learn if we keep scheduling “being” and “playing” time. But until now he’s never been left alone to play or just set on his back or stomach with toys around him to just play. He’s always resisted, so we’ve never “pushed” him. But now I realize how important it is and Kristi gave us some good tips/ideas for how to do this successfully.

Now that we’re back home he’s as happy as can be. Today we went to Universal Studios and he had a lot of fun! I’ll post some pics up soon.

Have a great weekend!

Today was a long, difficult, awful day. None of us slept well last night so we were pretty exhausted and short of patience. Nathan spent the ENTIRE day whining and complaining. It was incredibly difficult. I have low tolerance for his whining to begin with, but when I am sleep deprived I just cannot handle it – it drives me absolutely bonkers.

During his two sessions with the Anat Baniel therapist he mostly whined. I’m not sure he got anything out of them. But when he sat in the car and we turned on the DVD player, he was perfectly happy, squealing with delight. Which is what shows me that nothing’s wrong – he just doesn’t want to do anything. Which is the main reason I stopped doing ABR. He got spoiled by all the TV he watched while we did ABR, and consequently he didn’t want to just be on the floor playing, or coloring, or doing anything else.

This is an issue that has been very difficult for us for a long time. Since he was little Nathan’s been held and spoiled. We’ve “battled” with him to try and teach him to just be on the floor on his belly or on his back, but he just complains and complains. At one point, before he got sick, we finally had him to a point where he was tolerating it a bit – but all those months of being sick destroyed his tolerance. So we’re right back where we started.

And the really sad thing is that I think this is stunting his development. I think he would be further ahead if he was just left to figure things out on his own. But he is so spoiled and dependent that the moment his belly or bum hits the floor, the whining and crying begins. And all of us have such low tolerance that after a few seconds we pick him up.

Today I decided – ENOUGH IS ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. I think now we’re doing him a disservice by allowing his laziness to manipulate us. That’s all it is – laziness. During the Anat Baniel therapy today, Kristi showed us that he is capable of playing with his hands, grabbing toys, moving them. But he just refuses to do it most of the time because he wants to be either watching TV, or being held, or on the go.

So in the next couple of days and especially when we get home – a new regime starts. Since we’re not doing ABR now we’ll have time where we can just leave him on the floor and teach him to play on his own.

It is time.

He did have a few good moments today at the park: