A little piece of heaven

Well our vacation was AMAZING. It was the most wonderful time we’ve had in ages.

It started off terrible. Our flights were delayed. We were supposed to leave on Thursday, July 18th at 11 am. However, the flights were delayed so we ended up getting rerouted and we had to stay in the airport and leave at 6:30 directly to London. It was a long flight but Dorje was great, he slept for most of it and played for the rest. We finally made it to London, but then our flight to Manchester was also delayed 6 hours. We finally made it on Friday at 11 pm, only to find that our luggage was missing. In tears, we decided to stay in Manchester for the night and then decide what to do teh next day. in the morning, we headed out to Ulverston hoping that once we got to the festival, we’d be okay, even without our luggage.

Fortunately, we were very lucky, as soon as we got there, someone helped us to find accommodations. Maxine and her family took us in for the 2 weeks. We settled in and then it took a couple of days to buy everything we needed.

Once we were settled, we had the most wonderful time. Dorje was just so happy to have people around him all the time. He was just happy all the time and really enjoyed meeting lots of new people. We meditated in the mornings, rested in the afternoon, had chanted meditations at night. Dorje was so happy through it all, he participated in the meditations and enjoyed everything.

I enjoyed being away from work and the hubub of life and just hanging out with my son. It was lovely. I was able to focus on him and just enjoy him, who he is, his charisma.

He met with my teacher, Venerable Geshe-la. I will write more about that in a different post, but it was the most powerful experience I can remember.

It was all too short. We came back on Thursday. The trip back was long but not bad, Dorje again was wonderful.

There are too many photos to pick from, so go to the photos page can you will find many great pictures.

Photos

There are also some videos here:

Videos

Here are a few:

I’m going to let the pictures and videos speak for themselves:





























Nathan can now suck his thumb by himself!

Before he was very very rarely able to get his hand up to his mouth.

Lately, he is doing it more and more and we are so excited. Also, before, he used to suck the side of his fist, as he rarely opens his hands. Lately, he’s been enjoying his finger so much he’s been opening his hand in order to play with his thumb. Why is this so significant? Twice already we’ve been able to have him lay down for a few minutes without crying!

Since he has no mobility at all, usually when we lay him down on his back he can only resist about 3 seconds and then he starts crying, and if we don’t pick him up within one minute, he gets hysterical. But twice already he’s been able to lay contently while sucking his thumb for a few minutes! We hope this trend continues 🙂









His attention span has also increased and he is enjoying reading books more:

He is starting to play with his hands a little bit more:

And finally, he is enjoying playing on his side. He can hold this position for a little while and will reach out and try to grab and play with toys while on his side: