i got my hair cut a little. and blown straight. it is so fun to have straight hair for a few days. david thinks it's boring, and asks me what happened to my hair. ha. max looked at me, and then asked me why my hair was down. i guess it is pretty rare for it to be down. zhi and olive have been with me to get this done both times i've gone recently for a hair cut, so they see it happen. the magic straightening process. they won't talk to anyone in the hair salon. they act like mutes.
today, while max and olive and i were eating lunch at one of our favorite sandwhich spots, this grandma woman was pestering max. i swear. she wouldn't leave him alone. he was pretty clear in his language, both verbal and body, that he didn't want to talk. he downright told her, 'i don't feel like talking.' but, she wouldn't stop. so he then moved over another seat at the bar, to be further away from her. i couldn't believe her inability to listen to him. i spoke up for him too, saying 'he is wanting to be quiet right now', thinking she would listen to me. adult to adult, you know? after she still, STILL, wouldn't let up, he tells her he is not allowed to talk to strangers. he was trying to be polite, and give her a good reason to shut up. ha!!!! i was loving him so much in those moments today. really admiring him. his sensitivity to her feelings, and his knowing of and respect for himself and his desire to get away from her. you rock son. i love how you think. i know you act like a royal pain at home a lot of the time, but when i see you interact with the world like that, i breathe easier and smile and feel waves of relief at how you know yourself, and how to speak up for yourself. you know how to take care of yourself.
the therapy session david and i had, to talk solely about this boy and our struggles around parenting him lately, was divine. we were both brought to tears. our minds exploded, at the realization of how closed they'd been in regards to this child. this culture can really get us people stuck in the mud in terms of thinking the direction the mainstream is going is the best, most important, and pretty much the ONLY direction worth going in. not that we are thinking he can't partake in mainstream culture now, we just got our heads out of our butts in regards to thinking his behavior, which can be so out there and triggering, is nothing but unacceptable. it turns out, and i had been feeling this for a while now without knowing how to explain it, our responses to his behaviors were unacceptable. we have been encouraged to focus on building him up emotionally for now. while he does the work of 'claiming his world.' we can still set boundaries, blah blah blah, but instead of feeling disappointed when we see where he's at in comparison to other kids his age, or whatever, we are to cheer him on like he's doing everything so so SO well. yay! how fun does that sound? talk about trust. so much to trust here. him especially. but the therapist that gave us this advice. i do trust her. and myself. my inner guidance. it can feel that this is good goodness, rich divine advice. maybe sharing examples of how we do this in the coming weeks as we re~pattern, would be helpful in explaining what i mean here, cuz i feel i am not articulating it all very well.
he's been wearing his glasses really well so far the rest of this week. he gets a reward for doing so now! rewards for this child are key. rewards for me are key too. key. the right key. what kind of reward do i deserve today?
hmmmmmmmmmm. i want some time at home to blast out some lynyrd skynyrd and feel really really free. that's all. yep.
i love closets.
zhi's tower:
happy weekending.
lion king 3d anyone? that's what max is looking forward to.
Heather,
ReplyDeleteYou rock. What an incredible advocate you are for your children. They are glad you are their mother.
Hey, maybe this is too personal but what sorts of struggles do you have with your little guy? I have a five year old son who we have SERIOUS struggles with and I am just curious if they are similar struggles. I could really use some community in what I am going through with Harv.
Anyway, Peace beautiful mama! Your hair is awesomest curly but you are so beautiful that you can pull off curly, straight, short, bald...you name it!
I took June to go see Lion King 3D tonight, and she was SO FUCKING SAD. She was bawling so hard when Mufasa died that we had to leave. Oh man. It made me think of you for some reason. She is sweet. Miss you. Love you. (PS...Lion King is scary. And sad. I never realized that before).
ReplyDeletegood for Max! The thing with my generation is that we weren't taught to be strong (and sensitive) to adults. We're doing right with this generation...teaching them to listen to their own inner voice. The therapy session sounds great. You must have an awesome therapist.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Kyndale
hey hannah....thanks for your kind encouraging words. who doesn't need words like that coming at them. i want to tell you the same thing. i know you are working hard to be the best mom for your harvy.
ReplyDeletewith max, it's such a combination of things. but maybe the biggest piece we are looking at is our responses to him 'not listening'. instead of flying off the handle, we are trying to remember how hard he has to work at everything, and then have a bunch of compassion for his resistance, and then our reactions to his defiance are way way softer, but still knowing in their firmness. i guess that means we are staying in our heart space more. and then we are showering him with genuine praise more too. he needs it. we had sort of been hard on him, thinking, and saying sometimes, you are this many years old, you need to be able to do so and so and this and that. that's hard on him. he can't do so many things at the same pace and timing as other kids. he has cp, hearing loss, dyselxia, learning delays, social issues, and there's more, but that's not important. what is important is loving him for how amazing he is, and telling him a bunch how amazing he is when it feels genuine. it can't be fake. so getting ourselves back into our heart spaces was the key for this round. basically, it was challenging us to no end, when he couldn't or wouldn't measure up to our expectations of how he should be. expectations can be so tricky. love..
claire....that is so sad. i told the kids and they were all feeling so much love for juniper and that situation. max used to do the exact same thing. we had to hold his hand at that part of the movie for like the first 30 times he saw it. you know, that's like his mantra movie or something, it's the one he watched over and over right after his surgery. all he wanted. sweety. lion king is intense.
kyndale. hi! yeah. we are teaching these guys to be real self~advocates. it is so awesome and inspiring. and yes. we have an amazing therapist. god. i feel so lucky to have come across her. naropa makes some incredible therapists.
holy wow, parenting is so exquisitely CHALLENGING. it cleans our psyche closets of every last fleck of preconditioned debris. i really get that "repatterning" and how much it requires a soft heart space. for me, it feels so hard because it means getting hyper conscious about all those blind spots and the way that "mainstream" conditioning worms its way in without our noticing. it literally feels like taking all the pieces down and putting them back together...exactly like those amazing blocks your kids are playing with! (kiva blocks? we need to get those!). it's such hard work too, i wish for the balance for you of the work AND the time for self replenishment. i love reading about your process with max, the beauty of your relationship and the way he teaches you and you him. and the way he navigated that situation with that grandma...now that takes some nuance! please do share more...your words were not vague at all, but i look forward to hearing more about the process.
ReplyDeleteyou are so beautiful, straight hair shining and curly hair a'flyin. fairy queen mama with her elfin kinder, reminding us all to go deep, break it down and to do it with radiance. hope you got that lynyrd sesh.
mary....these words of yours just blow me away. you are such a weaver. such a seer of the whole picture and how everything is all related. i did get the lynyrd sesh. it was mellower than i was imagining it would be, but it was rich and lovely as i did a bunch of ktichen cooking and cleaning. not at all what i had in mind, ha. but still, those deep voices and sharp tight music made it a pretty awesome kitchen sesh. thanks. yay.
ReplyDelete