Boho Girl

A lot of you precious souls write to me asking how Cedar is doing since I wrote months ago about us receiving a possible diagnosis and our journey within the label/non label-ness of it all. We are so grateful for the love and care from those that have been following our journey as a family. The timing of your love notes is always so divine on those extra energy giving days for us. So many have also reached out because of being on a similar journey. A confirmation how healing being witnessed and understood can be.

This past year we’ve really cocooned with support from family, very patient close friends, his Naturopath and Occupational Therapist. This experience has been such a delicate and beautiful dance of listening to our hearts and our own intuition as parents, listening to Cedar, honoring wisdom from those that have gone before us and yet also surrendering to the not knowing (or needing to know) and finding what feels like home to us through it all.

We were told in the very beginning that a diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome was really early to tell and to stay open as he progresses through therapy and lifestyle changes. As we read through our stacks of books on Asperger’s, there were some elements Cedar shared but so many he didn’t. We were fully aware through this process that not any one child fits in any box. Of course this felt so deeply true for us always even before all of this came to surface. So we remained open through our research. After months of therapy and evaluation, we have found that what we are navigating through is Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). This diagnosis and the wisdom that has come pouring forth from books and therapy and blogs has been such a blessing for us and for him.

I am, we are indeed one of those open, earthy families that believe in Crystal, Rainbow, Sun, Moon Starchild as a way of seeing his spirit and soul but we also surrender to and honor all wisdom that comes our way and it seems in this case, Western’s view on SPD has enlightened us on how to help him and he’s thriving. It helps my family have more compassion and understanding. It will help his teachers know better his special needs. I can only be grateful for this and its another life lesson in letting go of resistance to a label, letting go of judgment from others and surrendering to what my child needs.

As I shared with vulnerability before, we know in our hearts that Cedar is not defined by any one label or diagnosis. He is our Cedar…wholly and fully unique. He’s tender and highly sensitive (like his mama). He hears things we cannot hear (frequencies, wires in walls, etc) and he needs deep pressure/impact to feel things physically. He needs to be reminded that he’s hungry, hot, cold or has to go to the bathroom. He needs forewarning if a loud noise is coming (vacuum, blender, dishwasher) so he can prepare for what it does to his body. He struggles when more than one person is talking in a room, so he self soothes by making noises (hums, clicks or talks loud) to diffuse the sound in his head. If he is not in a centered space, there is a lot of melting down or inability to calm his mind and body. We try our best to honor these needs and not expose him to environments that are uncomfortable for him. We are also learning to be more brave by helping him (and us) practice self awareness in challenging situations where before we just avoided them all together for peace.

Unpredictability is what causes a lot of anxiety for him and to make things predictable, he often tries to control his environment and his imagination is what feels safe to him. He will approach people and say he is another creature and they are another creature and all of a sudden, he is taking them on an adventure. He doesn’t have normal conversations. ; ) He has a wild imagination and those that go along with him and enter into his beautiful world of creatures and magic, not only gain his trust and love but they leave his presence so filled up with other-worldliness. My marmie calls him “the storyteller”…and that he can do (all. day. long.).

What our son is, is deeply connected. Deeply sensitive. Deeply intuitive. This is how we see him…and really, he is such a mirror for us. We too have so many of these needs, his daddy and me. We have learned through this process to honor these needs in each of us.

My husband is so amazing when it comes to information. He’s constantly doing research on how to heal the body from within, especially for children with sensitivities like our Cedar and those on the spectrum. For our own journey through fertility and other things, healing has always been about what we put into our bodies and how it affects our mind, body and spirit. After months of trying so many different diets for Cedar, we have discovered what are triggers for his sensory needs and what nourishes him and helps his body to regulate his senses.

Below I will share what we’ve learned in order to offer some nuggets of help to those that are on a similar path but also to keep those informed that care for our family deeply of where we are today. I realize what works for one child, may not for another. Its all part of exploring our uniqueness!

Here’s our daily gig of healing:

• Occupational therapy once a week. Every other week he joins another boy in the therapy room so they can learn together how to move through social anxieties and fears in a warm, loving, gentle environment. Playing with children can feel so unpredictable to Cedar and what feels safe and predictable is to control his environment by controlling play.  This has made it an emotional experience to connect with other children. This therapy sharing has really helped him be open to other children’s needs and ideas. Its helped him be more brave and open in social situations.
• Gluten Free/Grain Free diet. If he does do grains, only brown rice and quinoa feel good in his body but not in excess…just bits at a time.
• No peanuts
• No bananas
• No dairy with the exception of goats cheese/milk
• No safflower or sunflower oil
• No sunflower seeds
• Cashew nut butter only (he has a reaction from almond, peanut and sunflower butters)
• High doses of Omega 3 oils (five of these & two of these, both in the morning and late afternoon).
• Probiotics (one in morning, one in afternoon) are crucial because we notice that if he is able to digest what goes into his body well, then energy will go towards what he needs for his sensory system rather than energy being used up for his digestion.
• Vitamin D3 (one tablet daily in morning)
• We cook for him with walnut and grapeseed oil. After watching the film Lorenzo’s Oil (true story), my husband did research and discovered the miracle piece to the oil came from walnuts. When we started using these oils for him, we noticed a shift immediately. We start his day with breakfast sauteed heavy in walnut oil (scrambled fresh eggs from our neighbor, organic sausage, potatoes) with some coconut milk yogurt and a wee bit of berries. He needs to start his day with a breakfast mostly of protein with plenty of those oils and that sets him up for a day feeling better in his body.
• He eats nothing processed, no artificial colors, artificial flavors and no sugars. The only sweetener he can tolerate is honey.
• Body movement. Cedar’s occupational therapist describes his sensory needs as a “sensory bank account”. The more you deposit into his account, the better his sensory system can regulate itself. The more that is taken out, the more depleted an unable to regulate he becomes. The best way to fill his account up is with body movement, body impact (deep hugs, deep pressure placed on body, pillow sandwich, running, climbing, pulling, jumping, stretching).
• Music therapy
• We often create dark spaces for him to go to (tents, forts, huge boxes with pillows and blankets inside where he places battery operated candles for low light). This helps him when he is overstimulated and overwhelmed. He’ll read a book or watch a film or play an educational game in these dark spaces until he’s ready to surface.
• Nurturing ourselves: All of this requires a lot of energy and taking time to ourselves (romantic dates, coffee shops, me working on an ecourse, my husband getting massages for his carpel tunnel) helps us be more present for Cedar when we are with him.
• Nature, nature, nature…is his most healing place.  There he can connect in a way where there is no pressure to connect.  Trees, earth, stones, sand and water just get him.

How we communicate these changes we’ve made in our life to Cedar is that we are trying to “help his body feel good”.  What we’ve seen in him as we’ve poured our energy into this journey is that he is so much more in tune with his body.  He is beginning to communicate in words what feels like too much or what he needs.  He will tell his babysitter “my body doesn’t feel good when I eat those” or he will ask if he can leave the room when there are too many people.  He will tell us he needs to be held tightly or he will tell us he doesn’t want to be touched. He is not always able to use his words but many times he does and this is so precious to us.

After spending time communicating with Cedar in a very other worldly way, his Naturopath shared with us that he believes Cedar is a sentient being and these beings that are sent to earth with a message are very sensitive to anything that isn’t pure.

Truly, that is what brought it all together for me. That simple message of purity. Pure…oh how I love that word and really, its been such a guide for us: Pure, simple, clean, clear, whole, organic. Aren’t all of our bodies in need of this, especially when we are in a sensitive space?

a walk in my sister’s almond orchard

In Blackwater Woods

“Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”

~ Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1

**************

Words from Mary that have reached deep inside my bones and offered my heart rest this week. This indeed has been a year of burning fires within and rivers of loss, only to find salvation, find my TRUTH on the other side. Its been a year of holding close to my bosom and clinging onto those last strings of hope and then, letting go of that which I love deeply but doesn’t serve my heart. And yes every year of my life is filled with this but this past year seemed to be that of deeper layers of burning, raging, surrendering and flowing with it all. Perhaps because it wasn’t just about me but also about my son, who I am so deeply connected to and being along side his own journey. It was about the growing pains of my husband and I learning to be his advocate by paying attention to, listening to, protecting and honoring his unique rhythm despite the selflessness this would require, despite the judgment of some that we trusted with our vulnerability.

Its been deeply humbling and empowering to find my own voice, for myself and as a mother. It didn’t come simply for a people-pleaser like me. This past year I’ve had a greater awareness of how deeply I desire to be liked and loved and accepted by all that come into my life and when I am not, it causes self doubt. I’ve seen clearer how these parts of myself led me to putting others needs and ideas before mine or my family in a damaging and unhealthy way. I’m slowly breaking free from those peacemaker ways. I am still nurturing the pieces left by gently putting myself back together again, with tenderness and a gentle wildness, as I rise and stand firmer and firmer, taller and taller.

In all the books I’ve read about parenting a child with unique needs, one thing that is consistent is the importance of circling you and your child with those that trust, honor and respect your choices and desire the same for your child that you do. I am so deeply blessed that this journey with Cedar has attracted a gentle circle of supportive souls around us.

I know all parents travel this journey within their own unique stories. Our children inspire us to find our own voices, inspire us to trust our own intuition and to let go of that which doesn’t bring peace into our lives. This is how they teach us.

sunbeams, blossoms and healing

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…

first image: such a HIM face : )

I remember a dear friend once telling me that once Cedar turned 3, that my husband and I would somehow find our way back to one another as a couple apart from being a family. My friend and I were talking about how much we missed our husband’s even though they were near us most of the day. We loved one another just as much, if not more but our energy and our reserves were devoted to our child and creating a nourishing lifestyle for him and by the end of the evening, we were happy to just sit near one another in silence and surrender to our exhaustion. I found myself concerned about our connectedness until my friend honored and validated me. I was in awe of her relationship with her husband and it felt reassuring to hear with both of their children, the first three years of their child’s life shifted how they connected to one another. Not a lot of people talk about this or perhaps they aren’t aware or perhaps they are too tired to be aware. But it felt validating, nonetheless.

My husband and I had many conversations about it. Allowing ourselves to be gentle in the midst of learning to be parents and put less pressure on needing to be crazy romantic lovebirds like we were before Cedar came into our lives. We looked at intimacy with a greater perspective and what intimacy meant to us as a family. Being in constant communication about our relationship hushed the gremlins that told me we had to be like them or them or even them. We just had to be us and us was pretty amazing and lots of fun. It was so good for me in that it broadened my mind about what romance is.

So three years old came around and my expectations of lots of romantic dates and hours of eye gazing and deep conversations came crashing to the ground. Oh those darn expectations! Its a constant lesson for me to let go of them. Even when I think I have none, I discover I do. Three for Cedar was full of so many transitions. It was the transitions that brought to surface many of Cedar’s anxieties and sensitivities and our world’s had to take pause. Three years old was an intense year for us as a family and just like our fertility journey, it drew my husband and I ever closer as we cocooned and healed. If I could say the most important thing that helped was the many times I came into his office (in our home) and plopped on his leather chair facing his desk and expressed my need to feel connected to him in all of this wildness. He would turn away from his computer and look into my eyes. We would find one another in those moments and whether it was about Cedar and his needs or the color blue, it was enough to just be present and it held us together.

As Cedar approached four, we felt happening what my friend talked about happening at three. As Cedar became more aware of his sensory sensitivities, he started to get into a rhythm of expressing his anxieties and needs rather than us navigating it for him. We found a beautiful and delightful babysitter that just “gets” him and his humor and his need to go into imaginary worlds. She spends time with him a few times a week and sometimes date nights. This allows me a bit of time to be alone in whatever capacity I need and it allows Boho Boy time alone when he finishes work because I am no longer too depleted to let him go. We also began connecting with a dear family a few doors down and each of us started to make dates with them. Me meeting her for coffee or tea or going on a walk and him meeting for guy time to play disc golf. One of their daughters comes over twice a week to play with Cedar and help guide him with how to share ideas and release the need to control everything in order to feel safe. We also have been surrounded by a few other souls that have compassion for Cedar and our journey. And all of these things may sound so simple to most of you…but to me, they are golden. They have breathed life into our hearts this year.

All this to say, through it all, my relationship with my husband is deepening and renewing. In fact the other day he had me belly laughing and he paused and said “its good to hear you laugh with me like that again!”. I realized in that moment how seriously I have taken everything around me. I’ve had no choice.  But the permission to embrace lightness is welcoming. Boho Boy’s humor is one of the first things about him that I fell madly in love with. I feel like we are remembering what drew us to each other in the very beginning. Its been so so good. I love him so.

{image of us taken last week by a kind stranger that offered}

I was going to write a list of things I was grateful for as Thanksgiving approaches but a list felt more than what I needed. Simplicity is filling my days. Focusing on just one thing I am grateful for is all I need in this moment.

This morning. I am grateful for this morning when my limbs were tangled with my husband and my heart was beating wildly in love and Cedar came into our room just when our lips were about to touch. Peeling away from my husband and reaching towards him as he climbed up into our bed. It felt both frustrating and amazing. And it felt dreamy: this wish I tucked away in my younger girl heart to feel this much love for my husband and for my child. To have Cedar tucked in between us while we looked at one another with a sigh and longing. It was good. So good. And enough to fill my page. Just that one thing on my list. And thank goodness Cedar went into his room to play. ; )

I would love to hear one thing…just one thing you are grateful for.

…and Cedar turns four on Thanksgiving!! We are heading to Northern California soon to be with family the remainder of the week. I miss each of them so.

Right before I took the photo above, Cedar said “Mommy, I never want to cut my hair. Can people keep curls as pets?”

People often ask me if I will ever cut his hair. Some have suggested, since Cedar has a bit of a feminine face, that it might be a good idea. Whenever we’ve asked him out of concern for it getting in his eyes, we get a passionate “NO!”. Not a day goes by when we are out and about that Cedar isn’t referred to as a girl by a stranger. But my husband and I have really desired to cultivate nonconforming gender ways of being and have just allowed Cedar to guide us with his interests and needs and what comes natural to him.

When we were ordering him some soft pajamas online, we asked him to pick out which style he wanted. He chose the purple and pink striped ones. My husband and I looked at one another and had one of those unspoken nods of understanding that there may be a journey ahead of us. No matter how liberal and open minded we are, we know there are others out there that are not and allowing Cedar to be and dress how he desires will be a constant choice to let go of those pressures of cultural norms. We know he is only about to turn four…but growing up near San Francisco, it is difficult for my mind to not go to those places of what may lay ahead for him.

We are blessed to live in a very open minded community. One of the reasons we love this place so. Although I still hear people around me say “he is ALL boy” or “girl or boy energy”. I’m not sure why whenever those words are spoken, that it stirs something inside of me. Nothing negative but more like a fluttering or nervousness. I never felt this way before having a child. So my intuition tells me that there may be something ahead of me in my journey with Cedar that may have to break through those preconceived ideas of what kind of gender energy he has or what kind of gender he is more like.

A few days ago his babysitter Emily (and best friend) told me that they were outside playing and he outstretched his arms in a moment of complete abandon and yelled with his scruffy voice “I am Woman!!!” and as she told me this, we both giggled and had a knowing look. We knew Cedar in that moment just got the whole woman power thing and its wild because I’ve never yelled out that phrase to him. It completely came from within. Then of course shortly after that, he’ll play with this tractors or cars and let the wild rumpus start. Or he’ll be outside playing with our neighborhood girls sitting in his big yellow car making loud car noises and then stop to compliment them on their dress or skirt.

The other day I heard Cedar up in my bedroom. I walked in to find him putting my lipstick on his lips in front of my mirror and saying to himself “I love you”. I fought that knee jerk reaction to stop him. Tears welled up and in that moment I realized that is what its all about: Loving himself. We just want him to feel free to be who he is and love who he is and have a strong self esteem. Whether he ends up being more gender-boy or gender-girl or gender-fluid, we hope for him to have a free and un-squashed spirit and we will nurture that in any way we can.