Birthday Gifts

Tuesday was my mumble-fourth birthday! Happy birthday to me! This year, my birthday started early. 12:51 am, to be specific, with a birthday greeting scream of "Mom! Help!" My poor kid was burning up - 102.5 and aching all over. It wasn't the birthday I would have planned, but brought with it so many gifts.

Gift #1: Connection. "Stay wif me. Sleep wif me. Don't leave me." From 1:00 am until 5:30 am he tossed and moaned, arms and legs touching, holding, draping across one part of my body or another at all times. There wasn't much I could do but offer ibuprofen and kisses, but it turns out that was just what he needed. To be loved by a child from a hard place, to be offered the opportunity to nurture that child into connection, is God's greatest gift.

The way you heal the world

is you start with your own family.

--Mother Teresa

Gift #2: Netflix. There are no words for my gratitude for Netflix, where my son can watch a continuous loop of Let It Shine and pretend he's a gospel rapper. This is especially fun when he's half-delirious and moaning.

I might be a busboy

But you just got served.

--Cyrus

Gift #3: Our pediatrician. I do not take lightly the incredible gift of being able to call our pediatrician at 8:00 am, scheduling an appointment for 11:00 am, and getting a complete, caring and thorough workup to rule out everything from strep to mono. (Turns out it was a particularly nasty but thankfully short-lived virus.) I realize that sadly, this is a privilege not shared by much of the world.

In health there is freedom,

Health is the first of all liberties.

--Henri-Frederic Amiel

Gift #4: Popsicles. Paul didn't want to eat or drink anything. He was so lethargic and hot and achy that nothing tempted him. Until the sweet nurse (see gift #3) handed him an orange popsicle. Doctor's orders - popsicles and Sprite all day long.

I like freedom. I wake up in the morning and I say,

"I don't know, should I have a popsicle or a donut?"

You know, who knows?

--Oscar Nunez

Gift #5: Sick Days. It is a great gift that I have a job in which I can stay home with my sick child. Again, I realize that this is a privilege not shared my all, and many must weight the devastating choice between staying with one's child versus losing one's job. I am thankful that the teachers and students with whom I work are so flexible in rescheduling my guidance time and so caring to send Paul well-wishes and prayers for his healing. An equally great gift - Trent's job is also flexible in allowing him to take the afternoon to relieve me so I could meet with enough classes and students that I didn't fall ridiculously behind with end-of-the-school-year stuff.

Sorry your sick day is due to actual sickness.

--Unknown

Gift #6: Junie B. Jones. Reading is hard work for my 1st grade English language learner, but he loves stories, and he loves to cuddle up next to me and take turns reading about another first grader who is also prone to impulsive mishaps. When his eyes ached too much for television, he wanted an eye mask and some Aloha-ha-ha.

There is no substitute for books

in the life of a child.

--May Ellen Chase

Gift #7: Steno Notebooks. Because we were stuck at home without schoolwork, yet with a reading test looming, we practiced the visual tool - compare and contrast - in our steno notebook/journal. Paul may not know the unit's pattern statement or process questions word-for-word, but he seems to grasp the underlying theme: Mom and Dad "Love me and Take kare ave me."

Children will not remember you

for the material things you provided

but for the feeling that you cherished them.

--Richard L. Evans

Naming It

It's a sunny Monday morning. I just dropped the kids off at carpool. I'm not scheduled to work at school on Monday mornings, although I usually do because there is always something to do or someone who needs a little TLC. But in a few hours I'm traveling to the 5th grade retreat in southern Indiana, and when it's over I'll have to hurry back (Trent laughed when I mentioned that I'm planning to "hurry back" across the bridge - clearly that's an oxymoron) because Sam has a district tournament softball game against arch-rival and good friends at Eastern High School. So from about 10:00 am on it will be nonstop action until game over. And then it will be celebration or consolation. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.

But right now the coffee is brewing, the music is playing, and I have a minute to stop and think. I think best through my fingers. I understand best when I write. My children at school know that when they visit me to work through a tricky problem, I'm likely to pull out a sheet of paper and some markers so we can write and illustrate their story together. I tell both my writing students and my elementary students, "Let's get it out of your head and onto the paper. Then we can figure out what to do with it."

There is a scientific brain-based explanation for why writing and telling our stories are such powerful healing modalities. From THE WHOLE BRAIN CHILD by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne:

The right side of our brain processes our emotions and autobiographical memories, but our left side is what makes sense of these feelings and recollections. Healing from a difficult experience emerges when the left side works with the right to tell our stories… This is what storytelling does: it allows us to understand ourselves and our world by using both our left and right hemispheres together… Research shows that merely assigning a name or label to what we feel literally calms down the activity of the emotional circuitry in the right hemisphere.

Siegel and Payne refer to this storytelling strategy as "Name It to Tame It."

From Whole Brain Child by Siegel and Payne

We are a people of story. Since the beginning of time peoples have gathered around fire or scroll or table to tell the stories of the seasons, of the gods, of the hunt and harvest, of war and love, of hurt and healing. Story puts meaning to memory. We have long known that this is true. Now science shows us why.

Much of therapy is about telling our stories, making sense of our stories, rewriting our stories - integrating the emotional right with the logical left; the survival downstairs brain with the rational upstairs brain.

On Saturday our therapist pulled out her feelings cards to help Paul name and tame a difficult situation that happened on his Adoption Day. "The Tale of the Applesauce" seems a simple story on the surface, a story in which "Paul overreacts and gets in trouble", but she knew and I knew that there was a deeper and darker subplot.

The therapist primed the pump, helping him recount what happened that day, how it felt, what he thought. "I felt mad and scared and shy." Because what happened? "She tooked my applesauce." What did you do? "I yelled. I'm not supposed to yell. Then I felt shy." You felt shy? "Because I was in trouble."

"Those are big feelings. Thank you for telling me. I wonder if your brain remembered other times when someone took something that was special to you?"

He was noncommittal. "Maybe."

On the way home, in the quiet cocoon of the car, Paul shared "The Tale's" prequel - "When We Were Hungry and I Had to Protect Our Food".

"You felt hungry and scared and mad when the big boys tried to take your food. You had to yell and fight and run away to feel safe," I said. "I wonder if your brain remembered those mad and scared feelings when she moved your applesauce. Your brain is still learning that now you are safe, now you have enough to eat, now no one is going to steal your food."

As if to emphasize the point, we pulled through the Chick-fil-A drive-through.

Paul was quiet, watching the cars and people moving in and out of the restaurant, watching as the ever-friendly Chick-fil-A staff handed us our food, wished us a happy day. Then, "She wasn't tooking it. She was just moving it. TRANSFERRING it."

"That's right! She was transferring it. You are helping your brain learn that taking and transferring are different."

Paul grinned, that mischievous twinkle in his eye. "Mom?"

"Hmmm?"

"Can I transfer the strawberries in your fruit cup to my fruit cup?"

"Are you transferring my strawberries or TAKING my strawberries?"

The grin widened. "Taking!" Pause. "Can I? Please?"

"Absolutely."

The serious business of bringing in the harvest.
May 2013