HAPPY NEW YEAR and Good Luck with Your Resolutions!

Thoughts on the Day After

A few days after some mild chelation of lead (hopefully), Liberty gets up today after a nap, walks into the kitchen and says, "Eat."

Smiling, I think, are my dreams coming true or am I dreaming?

I am dazed and confused in the aftermath of Christmas, after all of the hustle and bustle and running around and checking off lists and thinking too much. We are lazing around the house, eating a little of this and that of the leftovers, punctuated by too much fudge, watching mindless TV shows and not complaining; our usual routine way off, not caring when we snooze and when we get up.

It's bliss, this lounging. I'm not used to it. Liberty was completely into Christmas, so hyper he could not sleep, wanted to do nothing but sit around the tree with his new stuff and talk to himself in the usual Liberty chatter we are used to now. He cried when the family left, so much so he would not get out of my sister's car. He waved bye-bye crying. This used to be the kid who didn't care or at least did not notice who came and went.

This is big stuff. Liberty is coming back to us. Slowly, he is changing.

We are perched at the edge of a new year drifting in the ocean of potential realities, rich with possibilities and hope.

A time for dreaming.

Merry Christmas from the Gulf Coast

Photo by Susan Feathers

Thanks Pip and Pop

Liberty has really taken an interest in the Disney Channel's Bear in the Big Blue House. It's unfortunate that it was taken off the air. But, we have a DVD of Bear with the theme of making music. There is an episode where the characters (Jim Henson muppets), Pip and Pop, "two rockin' otters" use pots and pans as musical instruments. The other night Liberty was watching and he ran past me into the kitchen. I watched him run past me again carrying a bunch of pot lids! It was so precious. He is finally making connections.

I have gotten nothing but glowing reports about his behavior and participation in class for weeks now. He even did well on the last break, as far as getting right back into the classroom structure after Thanksgiving. This time, we have two weeks off instead of one. I hope I can keep him busy and engaged during that time, and keep from losing my mind at the same time.

At school, where the structure is rigid, he eats almost everything I send to school and participates in games and initiates activities. (He got the mats out for circle time for the teacher and signed that is what he wanted!) These are all things he would not do last year at all.

But, when he comes home, he will not do a thing for me. He just wants to "hang out" and play with the 5,000 crayons and Mister Potato Head parts he places in a huge pile in his room. Even when I have tried to structure him like school, he resists. I used to feel bad about it, like he did not like being home, or he is not having as much fun at home like he does at school.

But, then I thought about it. His behavior makes sense. If you had ABA all day from 8:00 to 2:30, wouldn't you want to come home, put on comfortable clothes and do nothing but hang out?

Along the lines of cheering myself up...

I watch Elf every year now, specifically to hear Zooey Deschanel sing this song:




and this is probably my favorite scene, don't you love the music??:

Smile, Smile, Smile

I got a real lift from my friend Michelle's blog this morning. You must click over and watch a 16 minute video that will really lift your spirits. She is just one of those light-filled people I am so glad to know.

I especially loved this video because according to Abraham, the way to improve any situation is to find things to appreciate. As you focus your attention on appreciation, you begin to feel better. And when you feel good, things in your life get better. Abraham would call this coming into vibrational alignment with who you really are.

I have thought a lot about this lately. With the economy such as it is, it can be very easy to get down in the dumps; especially when you watch TV and allow the talking heads to report it over and over again. The more you talk about how bad a situation is, the more you beat the drum of something you don't want in your experience. This is a habit of mind learned in our society. We call it "facing reality." What most people don't understand is that talking about what you don't want over and over again, just produces more of the same. It keeps you stuck.

But, the moment you begin to focus on what is going right in your life, instead of what is going wrong, you begin to bring your outlook up a notch. It's like getting yourself a step stool so you can see a little higher, a little further, and broaden your ability to see beyond present circumstances, which are only temporary anyway. Then, the further you can see, the more you influence your ability to allow more possibilities and solutions to flow to you.

Each day, I have started my morning by listing what is going right in my life instead of focusing my energy on all that appears to be going wrong. It's amazing how just a small adjustment each morning can impact my day, my mood, my life. It helps me to be able to find joy in my day, in spite of my present circumstances. And that is the trick, isn't it?

I have never forgotten what the philosopher Kahlil Gibran, wrote in The Prophet: "You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief, but rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound."

I can say this with confidence after 49 years on the planet learning the same lessons over and over again: When you seek to find joy first, no matter the present circumstance, you begin to feel better. When you feel better, you begin to attract better-feeling circumstances into your life.

It's the Law of Attraction in action.

So, if you can take about 20 minutes out of your day, do yourself a favor and go watch the video on Michelle's blog today. I guarantee you will be smiling the rest of your day! :)

Casein, Seizures and Taurine

I wrote this summer that I was seeing odd behavior in my son, something that I thought could be brain blips, something seizure-like. We took Liberty to a neurologist and they botched the entire procedure because they gave him Benadryl without asking me. These people just assume that Benadryl works for all children and makes then sleepy. A pharmacist told me once that Benadryl has a paradoxical effect in many children and can make them bounce off the walls.

Anyway, I had Liberty in summer camp at the time, and had been letting him have yogurt. They liked him manding for yogurt and began to give him two cups a day. That is when I started seeing the behavior. When I stopped the yogurt, the behavior ceased.

I told Dr. Bock this at our last appointment and he thought it was very significant; in fact he was rather stunned.

I looked up epilepsy and dairy products, and there is a lot of information about it. One of the treatments for epilepsy is a gluten free, casein free diet. Did you know that?

Below is a clip I found on another blog, Schuyler's Monster, that shows absence seizures. Can you spot them? The little girl has four of them. She will stop, look up, and there is a little bit of swallowing or mouth movement. That is exactly what my son did this summer. He would get very sleepy afterward, too. I dreamed around that time of Lib having these God-awful seizures and convulsions so that was confirmation for me that I was seeing actual seizures. These seizures, though not really harmful in themselves, do need to be controlled because they can lead to bigger seizures. Absence seizures are called petit mal seizures and the more overt seizures are grand mal seizures or the type we usually think of as seizures. As you can see, if you did not know what you were looking for, they are easy to miss.

I started Liberty on the amino acid taurine which has been used for prevention of seizures for a very long time and is a common supplement for the biomedical treatment of autism. I believe it helps absorb some other nutrients and is typically low in children with autism. It won't stop a seizure when one is occurring, but does help prevent them. So far, we have had no more of that type of behavior and have avoided medication.

Prayers

Woke this morning to a very loud noise. I was sleepy and stumbling toward the coffee pot. It crossed my mind briefly that it sounded like a gunshot. Then I thought it was just the highway in the distance, sound travels further in the cold morning air.

Later in the morning, my husband came back in and told me there were police cars and tape and ambulances on the street behind us. A man blew his brains out in his backyard. He was 46 years old. I did not know him, but I did wave to him when I went on my walks around the neighborhood.

I don't know if it was because of a loss of a job or the details. I do know that the media is adding fuel to the fire on an already tense time for so many people by the steady stream of reporting on the economy and loss of jobs (which is real, of course). But we are just bombarded to death with the "bad news." Couple that with Christmas approaching and I assume it's just too much for some people.

So, I light candles for us all today.

My heart goes out to the man and his family and so many others like him who must have been in despair. Just the news that the gunshot I heard took the life of someone at that moment was enough to double me over in tears. My husband and I, too, are experiencing some temporary financial setbacks right now, and he said let's just remind ourselves to keep this all in perspective and focus on the things we still do have and not what we have lost.

That's the way we get through some tough times. Focus on what is still good, what remains. The more we do that, the better things are able to become. Perhaps he had no support.

Let us focus our prayers and practice sending waves of love and support into the world this season. We all need it.

So, the bus driver says...

This morning, Lib ran for the bus. He stopped to look at our bus driver, Terry. She said, "Good morning, Liberty. How are you this morning?" To which my sweet child looked her in the eye and replied, "Good."

I waved good-bye to her with both of our mouths agape.

It's gonna be a great day.

For you, Dad, to officially kick off the Christmas Season!