Our Work-Life Balance is in process!

I am away for a night, all by myself and here I am writing about my family!!!   Crazy!

My intention in getting away this evening was to ‘get away from it all’, sleep and be selfish for 24 hours.   Easier said than done. 

I’ve spent my day decompressing, which is great but as I’ve removed myself from my ‘chaos’, I am able to feel.   Feel tired, feel sad, feel happy, feel overwhelmed, feel encouraged… 

The biggest thing that I feel is that my family is everything to me.   My husband and my children’s happiness drive my happiness at this moment in my life.   They are my ‘job’ right now and it is the toughest job I’ve ever had.   The thing about my job (and all parents') is that I can’t quit it!  I suppose I could, but I never would in a million years.   On the bad days when I want to throw in the towel, I won’t - no way.   I have chosen the role that I am in right now – mother and wife - because it is of paramount importance to me that I help create good, happy, contributing and experiencing human beings who are the best people they can be.   I want the human beings that I am helping to shape and grow to be good to themselves, good to the world around them and to experience all that life has to offer.   These human beings of course include Tatum.  

Over the past few months, as we’ve been in the trenches with Tates, I’ve come to realize that she and I need more than our four walls and our crazy intense program.   We are not giving it up, we are still doing the Institutes’ program every single day - we are fully committed.  I am just starting to try to figure out how to let the outside world into our days before I lose my myself and she misses out on her childhood. 

The one big shortcoming of the Institutes’ program, from my perspective, is ‘social skills’ development.   The program is so intense that you could (and most days do) spend 8 hours a day, 7 days a week inside your house and not see a soul except for your patterning volunteers.  While investing this time, your child’s brain benefits enormously, it gets better.   The question is, how long can a mom like me or a hurt child like Tatum do the program with this intensity before they burn out or Mom goes a bit crazy?  

Is it reasonable to invest 5 years of one’s life into the Institutes’ program with the hope that your child will get well?   Many families have done it, some have done it for more than a decade.  During this time everything else is supposed to be secondary… Mom’s autonomy, the marriage, the other kids and letting the hurt child experience life outside the home.   Is it reasonable?   I don’t know. 

One thing I know for sure is that Tatum is happiest when she is outside, she laughs and smiles when she is swinging and swimming.   She is most energized when she is with her friends and family.   Her whole body shakes with excitement when she hears the kids in the schoolyard, playground and pool.   She wiggles her toes, giggles and kicks her feet when the wind blows in her face.    Without her words, Tatum is telling us that she likes the same life that we do.  We need to help her get more of it as we help her get well.

This weekend we are starting a new form of therapy called Therapeutic Horseback riding at a farm up in Stouffville Ontario.    While this is still therapy for Tatum, it is going to be something that she does with her sisters.   All of our girls will ride their own horse, in the same arena, at the same time.   We are so excited to do this as a family and to see how each of our girls learns and grows through horse back riding.  The benefits of therapeutic riding are varied and many.  To list a few

• •      Improved self-confidence through risk-taking, and independent movement
• •      Improved muscle control, balance, strength and range of motion
• •      Improved memory retention through learning and remembering horses names, commands and planning moves
• •      Relationship building through bonding with the horse and trainers
• •      Social integration through practicing socially appropriate behaviors such as appreciation, respect, kindness and attentiveness

Best of all, therapeutic riding is fun, rewarding, great exercise and it doesn’t feel like therapy.   What could be better?  Stay tuned for pictures and an update!

All this said, how is Tatum doing these days?  In a word… AWESOME.   She has been healthy, without even a sniffle, for close to 60 days.   She is growing like crazy… 26 lbs and 2 feet 8 inches… right on track for her peer group, maybe even ahead of the curve.   She’s working on some more teeth and almost has a full head of hair.  Her eyes are bright and her eye contact continuous to improve every day.   She will often look into our eyes and tell us a babbling story or listen to our words.   She no longer has a lazy eye.  Her eyes are completely straight 90% of the time.   Her mouth is no longer down turned from low muscle tone.   She smiles wide when she is pleased and giggles adorably.    Most times we have no idea what she is laughing at but we’ll take joy of any kind!   She is chewing her food… big chunks of meat and veggies and eats ravenously.    Tatum wraps her arms around our necks and gives squeezy hugs that are coming close to paralleling those of her big sister, Peyton.   

In the past week, Tatum has started pulling her entire body off of her incline.   She still goes down her ramp about 40 times each day (on a good day!) and now when she gets to the bottom, she actively moves herself toward her target.   She is most motivated by a bottle, snack or a meal so we put them at the bottom of the ramp and she is moving  with intention towards them.   Her most recent victory was last week when she pulled and pushed her entire body off the ramp in cross pattern, grabbed her bottle, rolled over while holding the bottle and put it in her mouth!!  Huge victory Tatum!!!

Tatum’s fine motor skills continue to develop as well.  She is increasingly able to grab toys and book pages and play actively with them.   

In the past few weeks, we have introduced two new components to Tatum’s intellectual program.  In addition to teaching her to read through word flash cards and home made books, we are now teaching her numbers and presenting her with what the Institutes calls ‘bits of information’.  

The math program is pretty basic right now.   She sees 10 numbers each day, 3 times a day.  Each number is seen for 5 days and is then put away.  She is not shown the actual number symbol but instead is shown a series of dots that represent the number symbol.   We’ll get around to teaching the actual symbol later.   For now, this program serves as a visual and auditory stimulation program and it is amazing… she can’t get enough of it! 

The ‘bits of information’ is essentially an image flash card program that teaches her ‘encyclopedic knowledge’.   Again, this is a visual and auditory stimulation program that has the benefit of giving Tatum great information and keeping her interested.   She loves this program too.   This week, Tatum learned about primate, famous buildings and towers of the world and organs of the human body!

Chris and I are heading back to Philly on November 11^th for our 3^rd revisit with Tatum.   We are looking forward to getting our next report card and new assignments.  

Wish us luck finding our new work-life balance!