Boho Girl

Sometimes his constant connection to Spirit, to other worldly, to what is around him, to what is *in* him and his need for me to be there at every. single. moment. can be overwhelming. Exhausting. There are days when all I can do in my wee moments alone is stare, linger into nothingness or endlessness and find my breath or close my eyes and whisper that I am still here, me and these Other parts of me. I always describe him as intense on those days but really what he is, is Connected, even in his disconnectedness to people around him, he is connected to something larger and whole and of Spirit. And he just wants me there. With him. I anchor him. I help him feel safe. Heard. Understood. Seen. Calm. Believed in. What we all need, really if we admit it to ourselves.

A Crystal Child mothering a Crystal Child.

I am not used to needing to anchor anyone. I am accustom to people feeling freer around me. I am used to inspiring others to take flight. Ever moving, evolving, spreading of wings but never anchoring.

Perhaps this is the struggle I feel within, that I have felt a resistance to the past few years and not being conscious of it until now. That by me anchoring him, my son keeps me anchored. That together we are in that space to work, to own and claim and BE *in it* and not try it on and then move on to try something else, like my gypsy heart did all the rest of my years growing up.

“I’m not choosing easy. I am not choosing to raise a ‘good’ child.” I heard my friend say to me before laying her exhausted body down to sleep at the end of a very long day with her son. And it shot through me like lightning. This is it. I am not choosing easy. I am not wanting him to conform to any of my ideals. I am desiring him to be fully him, of his own mind and spirit and desires and needs. It is not me controlling him but me joining him and us teaching one another and guiding one another and working through Life on this earth together.

When I allow that surrender to come in, it breathes life into my hours spent with him on the floor, outside playing in puddles and with cars, boats, rocks, sticks, etc. Those moments where I feel agitated and bored and want to be doing something different with my time. I sit with him and share my heart with him and don’t pretend to have it all together as his mother and remember that his purpose on this earth is to heal and transform and offer people wings too. I feel so utterly honored. I feel a heaviness lift and I let go just a bit more and an ease, a relief washes in. And because he is who he is, a born sage, he looks over at me and shows me he totally gets it.

The other day, Cedar said to his babysitter when they were outside “This tree feels sadness, it needs a hug”. He feels so much. I feel so much. When I see this as Connectedness rather than Intensity, it shifts things for me a bit for some reason.

Truly, I am just now beginning to find words for all of this. I haven’t had words. I know I am going to stumble through trying to find words. I’ve been quiet with everyone, about motherhood. Sharing bits with souls I feel safe with but really even being quiet with myself about it. Because I wanted it for so long. Not because I always imagined myself a mother. Quite the contrary. I didn’t really have a strong desire to be a mother until I had a dream at age 30 about an angel child walking with me on the beach and having a very deep conversation with this child. When I woke, there was a knowing that I would be a mother to this child one day. My yearning to be a mother was born from that dream and was affirmed when I met my husband a year later. Then began our very long, emotional fertility journey to our child because that yearning was deeply rooted in me and that child spirit called to me every day.

Because of our long journey, I have carried a bit of guilt that being a mama has felt overwhelming to me. I see women having two, three, four, five and more children.  I see them homeschooling, with their children every moment, not having a second alone and seeming to just flow and ease into it all.  And I wonder why having just one child has felt like so much.

I feel a peace when I stop comparing. I feel a peace when I remember that the child in the dream who visited me long ago, whispered in my ear that he needed to be with me. I feel a peace when I trust this and allow it to be enough.

A Crystal Child mothering a Crystal Child.

Its extraordinarily awesome and beautiful, hard and achy, stretching, widening, opening and rad. I wouldn’t change anything about it except that I need to open up about it a bit more so that I don’t feel alone and all the mamas out there don’t feel alone. Its easier to share the easy parts in this safe screen between us. This is way more vulnerable and risky. I am choosing to trust releasing it into this space.  I choose to trust the pull to do so.

We all have our own stories and journeys through mothering/parenting.  This is my story.  Separate but also part of a whole we all experience and feel and see in each others stories.

Bare with me as I find my words…

Most of my life, especially in my adult life, I have resisted the idea of labels. I felt they placed people in a box and the concept of boxing anyone in didn’t quite resonate or feel good in my bones. Intuitively I knew we were all unique and our experiences were unique and being open to others ideas, experiences meant deeper growth and a life of possibility. I feared the limited-ness and the feeling of being controlled and my free spirit ached for the freedom beyond boundaries.

Yet, even at almost 41 years old, as I continue to seek (and drift) and expand without a desire to associate myself with any one way of being, labels continue to come into my path.  They continue to be my teacher. My vessel of messages my soul needs.  Full of nuggets of wisdom. There is always a process of surrender while trying to sort out my own freedom within these labels and our societies preconceived ideas of them: Celiac, Christian, Infertile, Endometriosis, Dread Head, Empath, Wanderer, Adoptive Parent, Free Spirit, etc. There becomes this dance between intuiting my way through life and surrendering to needing guidance and help, knowing I cannot always do it alone.  I suppose labels happen for a reason. They provide direction when we feel lost.  They provide teaching when we are needing to be a student.  They provide council when we are confused.  They provide an opportunity to go within and find our own true voices in the midst of a choir.

This is what my husband and I are moving through with Cedar. A label. A diagnosis. Our resistance to this label. Our relief upon the awareness of this label. Our confusion. Our clarity. Our “aha…this makes sense”. Our fears. Our projections. A sudden awareness of our expectations of Cedar.  Releasing those expectations. Our surrendering to needing help and guidance. Our tears. Or more like…sobs. Our awakening of being chosen to parent him. Our confidence. Our lack of confidence. Our free spirits so deeply wanting to intuit everything he needs. Our surrendering to the fact that we cannot intuit his needs every moment, especially when we are learning his brain and every cell in his body receives information different than ours.

Asperger’s Syndrome. High functioning Autism. Low Spectrum. Sensory Processing Disorder.

Crystal Child.

Our Cedar.

Suddenly, I felt faced with how to share this with others. What gave me courage is that we are one in billions of parents that are faced with labels for their children and not a lot of people know how to navigate through it all. It can feel isolating and lonely and full of so many fears.  Sometimes our fear of labels can paralyze us from giving our child what they truly need.

We are in the beginning of it all. That first awareness and overwhelm. Trying to live moment by moment and center ourselves and not allow the many opinions that may come our way to divert us from our own intuition and trust as Cedar’s parents . Even the opinions to not label him. Which me, more than anyone, understands so deeply.

But I keep going back to that first moment when I heard the label and how my heart felt relief and a weight lifted and tears poured because I have always known down deep that there was something, something I couldn’t grasp or understand about my precious son. I knew that most times his behavior or sensitivities came from a place that went beyond my empathy or intuition as a mama to a toddler figuring out his way in this world.  There has been completely messy moments for him and me.  Moments where I felt he was judged or I was judged and I have had to be his only advocate in a room.  The idea that I could now help myself and others understand him better, so that Cedar will have room to BE and feel safe being, offered me so much peace.

I know my son cannot be boxed in. I also know that just as I did not allow myself to be controlled or defined by any one label, I, we will raise Cedar to not be defined or controlled by any label. We will also raise him to not attach any shame to any of this as there is no shame in it. Just as I felt there was no shame in my fertility journey and sharing it out loud here on my blog has helped hundreds, if not thousands of women and men not feel alone.

As much as we go down the list of Asperger qualities and nod our head, not all of them apply to him. So we are on a journey. And this journey is all about helping him feel as safe and secure as he can when he is overwhelmed. Being married to a librarian, you better believe we have stacks of books on the subject. But we also put them aside at times, take deep breaths and not allow it to consume us or steer us away from our own intuition and free spirits. Those moments where we just hold space for him and release the need to know all the answers or strategies in that moment and to just surrender to the not knowing and what comes so easily for us, which is loving him with our whole hearts unconditionally.

I have more to share about our process over the last few months and our choice to approach this holistically with a grain free diet, particular vitamins and minerals and tools for sensory overwhelm. We are meeting with an OT this month, have had appointments with a naturopath and phone appointments with a gentle and wise woman sent to me by a dear friend. This woman has become my life line.

In this moment, we are surrendering to the not knowing. Surrendering to the uncertainty of whether or not to embrace this label fully. Surrendering to the relief we feel when we can make sense of why he does what he does. Surrendering to the frustration we feel when we can’t make sense of any of this.

Just surrendering.  Isn’t that just what all parents have to do?

I think we made a good choice with this move, non? ; ) Look at him. Oh how I adore this wild child.

I have many posts to come. So much inner stuff going on that I would love to process in this space. But I do notice that living here, spending more time as a family, being outside most of the day and watching Cedar thrive…has taught me the essence of truly LIVE-ing. I am walking, breathing, feeling, BEing…more in the moment, you know?

I have less time to sit and process because of all this. Not to mention, Cedar seems to no longer need his two hour daytime nap. Ohmygosh! Talk about an adjustment for mama. That was always MY space to blog or clean or process. Now by the time he is indeed ready for bed, we are all under the spell of a nature drunk exhausted feeling.

But I miss being here. I miss sharing more of my life here. I know I am still in a space of getting settled and finding my way but I am writing this post as another way of reminding myself how important this space is to me. To my family. To my heart. To my journey.

I feel so much peeling and healing going on. Also so many new layers of elements I am not used to and trying to find my center with. This I will share soon.

Until then…perhaps you can try to bottle up his joy from this screen and drink it like a tincture. I know I will.

Cedar does this so often. He wants me to sit and watch as he runs down a hill, towards me, then on top of me…to end with a mini boy hug (aka wrestle on the ground). I thought it would be fun to capture it today.

Lately I have discovered the wonder of audio books. Since Cedar came into our lives, I have not had the attention span, nor the time, to sit and read a book. I can skim through it quickly or jump around only to read a few sentences before I end up falling asleep or distracted in some way. I don’t know why it took me so long to come up with the idea of listening to an audio book while doing chores or hanging with Cedar. It’s brilliant!!! And I love that he is being read to as well. Although, the one I save for his nap time is “Connection Parenting…Parenting through Connection Rather than Coercion and Love instead of Fear” by Pam Leo.  Oh man, this one is full of wisdom that wraps around my heart and hugs it tight.  I find myself weepy while doing laundry and picking up his toys from ideas that resonate so deeply with me and also comfort my inner little girl.

So far, here are a few gems that I wrote down.  Will share more soon…

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“We are less likely to pass on our past hurts to our children when we do our own healing work.”

“Once we understand that uncooperative behavior is a communication of a child’s unmet need, a hurt, or a response to an adults unrealistic expectation, we do not have to take the behavior so personally.”

“We create a strong bond over time when we lovingly and consistently meet our child’s needs.”

“When we learn to relate in ways that show children that their needs and feelings matter,  we strengthen the bond and avoid power struggles.”

“Very young children learn conflict resolution when we model it.”

“We teach children that every one’s needs are important by honoring their needs.  From our example, they learn to honor other’s needs.”

“Children are delightful to be with when their needs are being met and nothing is hurting them.”

“Whenever a child responds negatively to a reasonable request,  we look for a hidden hurt or the unmet need.  Once we acknowledge every one’s needs, we can work on problem solving.”

“I’ve learned to say…‘When you behave that way, I know something is wrong.  We love each other and people who love each other don’t treat one another this way. Can you tell me what you need or what is hurting you?’  If I can remember to stop and ask that one simple question, it changes the whole concept of the power struggle.  That question communicates “I love you and what you feel is important to me.”

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Such good stuff…and really resonates with my soul.  I find myself so much more present with Cedar these days.  So much more forgiving of myself in those moments when I am more reactive and then I hold him and talk with him about it.  I feel as though my mind and heart are opening wider to who Cedar is and what triggers him and how I can do my best to create an environment where he feels seen and heard and loved consistently.  Right now this mama business is SO my greatest teacher.

{me in angela’s room at the farmhouse.  yet another kissy photo}

I’m here. I promise.

I arrived home from my sister’s farm the night before last. I feel like I have been living out of a suitcase for the past month. We are settling in. Unpacking slowly. Laundry. Deep breathing. Restoring with sleep. And nurturing a very emotional boy. His two year molars are coming in (ouch!). He also has had a lot of change over the last four weeks with travel to and fro. Change can be hard for Toddlers. Being at the farm was healing for him in that he is SO crazy-loved by my family and of course that just makes a mama’s heart swell to bursting. I remember my sister saying to me and my marmie “Cedar coming into our lives was the start of so much change and healing”. I welled up with tears. I felt blessed and in awe of the gifts he shares with my family.

I apologize for being quiet here.  I am exhausted and in need of restoration. There is so much whirling around in both me and my husband’s hearts and minds. So much transformation ahead of us with preparing for our move and starting a whole new life. I wonder how I can fit it all in over the next 6 months. We have so much to declutter. I would love to arrive in Washington with a simpler idea of what will fill our home.

I was chatting with another blog friend yesterday. She is so beautiful and creative and earthy and crafty and an awesome mama to her children. I was teary while texting “how do you do it all?” and she replied “i don’t.  i feel messy.  i am right where you are”. Then we continued for an hour spilling our stories. This is what happens when we reach out. We begin to not feel alone. I wondered if I was somehow not doing enough or being enough. I have ONE toddler boy and yet my energy towards other loves/passions in my life is barely there. I give him so much because he needs it and I give it willingly but what is left of me at the end of the day is not a whole lot. I am told that this age is a lot…a lot to breathe through.  An age where children discover their separateness from you and are full of emotions and energies that need to be explored and released.  Another dear friend of mine wrote that she drove around in her car for two hours in her pajamas just to center herself away from her children. I told her it made me fall more in love with her. We need to do this, mamas. We need to let it out and have no shame in the hard parts. For me, adding humor to them is what helps me cope. I wonder what helps you cope?

When I put Cedar down for a nap today, I went out and laid on our livingroom floor pretending I was him. I threw myself back in a tantrum, kicking and throwing my limbs about, saying “Nooooooo!”…just to see what it felt like in his body. It felt AWESOME. Now I get it. ; )

I will share more images from my visit to the farm soon. Oh, and come back Wednesday. I will have a YUMMY giveaway for you all!

{cedar in my sister’s almond orchard}

We should all start eating our celery and peanut butter in the middle.  Its where the good stuff is.  I love that he does this.

My days with Cedar have been so full.  His discovery of life…of emotions and energy and feelings and desires and needs are so big and the two of us feel so intertwined.   And I am in Love.  And I am so worn.  I don’t know how you single parents do it but I will forever bow down to you.  Forever.

I am so tired that it is hard to put into words how this last week has been for us.  He is discovering so much more of his separateness and is expressing it in new ways.  The best way to describe it is that I feel like all day long I am either at the Circus or in Therapy.  Our children can be our mirrors and throughout the day I feel myself being triggered in some way.  Motherhood is like a never ending therapy session.  ; )

Guess what.  Remember I said I wanted an iPhone?  Well the very next day, Cedar and I were on a hike and I slid down a muddy slope and my feet flew out in front of me and when I landed, my Palm Pre went flying in the air and crashed down on a rock.  Totally cracked and broken.  I took that as a huge sign that it was time to move on.  We got iPhone’s tonight!!!  I am so giddy about the better photo quality and the fun apps to play with and the video messaging.  I heard from my friends that I may get obsessed.  Would love to hear what apps are your faves!

Would also love to hear about your creative ways of how you inspired, encouraged, guided your toddler to listen to you (when they decide they don’t want to).  Also, are you into time-outs?  If not, what worked for you?  I always love to hear your stories.  Stories are so much more fun than advice.  I am loving the book Parenting for a Peaceful World but I can only read it in bits.  Mama is tired at night.