This Boy

Go on…look at that angel.  Try and look away.  I know, I can’t either.  Yes, he did pose with that little smirk on his face.  He told his dad that he was “Sheriff Woody Austin,” which is just one of his two alter egos (the other being his more frequent “Austin McQueen”).

This boy is my wonder baby, for so many reasons.  He is funny beyond words.  He is a little tease.  He’s a snuggle bug.  He’s a monkey.  He’s a delight.  He’s playful.  He’s friendly.  He’s shy.  He’s so talkative.  He’s so, so much. 

What he isn’t, is an eater.  I mean literally.  He…won’t…eat… Not a single thing.  Not…a…one.  His history with food is long and scarce.  He’s never loved it, but he did eat.. and now he won’t.  We’ve been to doctors.  We’ve been to therapists.  We’ve been on waiting lists.  We’re at the top now. 

Thank heaven, because this little guys is causing some major, major worries in my life. No, I can’t force him to eat.  He literally will puke it back up.  Trust me…we’ve tried. 

It’s so heartbreaking to me to see this most amazing, adorable child literally starving.  He’s normally very pale (I’m his momma after all), but he really is translucent now with the most tired little eyes. 

I just hold him and try not to let him see me cry over him.  I beg him to eat.  I beg and plead and pray and even bribe the child to take a bit of something…anything.  He will out of some attempt to ease his hunger, I imagine, lick the cheese off of Cheetos.  But, he won’t eat them.  I got him to bite one…once, but he thought he was choking with this piece of something in his mouth.  It’s so sad to me.

I’m in completely unchartered territory here.  I have stubborn, picky eater kids, but this is so outside what I know how to deal with.  When I tell you we’ve tried everything, I mean we’ve tried EVERYTHING to get him to eat…ANYTHING, but it’s not happening. 

Until his therapy starts, I’m so thankful for Special K protein powder to go in his apple juice to give him something to help sustain him. 

I’m struggling to find the “good” in this situation.  I’m looking.  I suppose it’s good that he is an otherwise healthy child and if you don’t look at his skin tone or his eyes, you won’t know he’s starving.  I suppose it’s good that we live near a wonderful children’s hospital to help us get the help we need.  I suppose it’s a good thing he’s so stinking CUTE, because I need to remember that when he wakes up more often at night because his stomach is growling and he needs to drink something so he can go back to sleep.  I KNOW it’s a good think that he’s mine and that I love him so and that I’d go to the ends of the earth for him (or any of my children for that matter) to help him succeed.  I’ll just keep remembering that to help me through (and him too!). 

It’s Within Me

I have a friend whose blog entry today, “Keep Smiling,” really hit home with me.  She got it right on when she stated that everyone has struggles.  While my struggles may seem small to you, or yours to me, that doesn’t make them less valid.  I may not be struggling with (for example) divorce, unemployment, health problems, etc., my struggles are as all-encompassing to me as yours are to you. 

Dawn so beautifully points out that struggles will always be a part of life and that we can endure them by focusing on the good.  Hence the “keep smiling” part.  It sounds so simple and so difficult at the same time.  Some days the good is so obvious that it’s easy to focus on it.  It’s when that “good” is more difficult to find that it is probably the most important time to find it. 

At the risk of sounding like Pollyanna, I really believe that there really is good in every situation, maybe not on the surface, but it’s there.  Take, for example, a friend of mine who has a HORRIBLE disease.  There is NOTHING good about this disease.  This person is honestly sweetest, kindest, most amazing woman I’ve ever met.  This disease is hers not because she did something wrong, but just because it’s hers. 

Where’s the good in this, you ask?  It’s there.  Maybe not for her, although I’m sure she’s thankful for many things still, but I know I’ve benefitted from her disease.  I have learned to really appreciate life.  I mean REALLY appreciate each day, even as dull and mundane as some are. 

I’m also certain it’s in YOU too.  You can find the good within the bad.  Try it!

Do You Mind? Or Do You Matter?

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.          ~Dr. Seuss

I love quotes.  Sometimes, other people can say things much more eloquently than I can.  I’ve been thinking about the above quote…a lot… for the last few weeks and wondering if it’s true or not.  I’m thinking that it sounds good on paper, but really, I think it’s really easy to “matter” and still “mind.”

If you’ve managed in life to never get your feelings hurt by someone you care about, raise your hand.  That’s what I thought.  I think it’s very easy to speak your mind to those who do matter and have them mind.  So, if they do mind, does that mean that person doesn’t matter?  Or does it mean you really shouldn’t really speak your mind to some people or about some things because people will mind?

My self-esteem and self-worth have taken a bit of a beating recently by some things that were said.  So, that above quote has been rattling around in my brain.  I’d like to think that I matter and that I just happened to mind too.  I repeat, that’s what I would LIKE to think.  Maybe not what I’m feeling just yet. 

I have written and rewritten the remainder of this blog entry three times now. The two previous attempts have left me sounding horribly depressed and rambling.  I can’t say I’m still not rambling, but I am not horribly depressed.  Really, Mom…I’m not. 

That said, I do have feelings.  I wear my heart on my sleeve sometimes. And the downside of that is that when my feelings get hurt, boy do they get hurt.

I’m glad I have people in my life who help me remember that I DO matter.  Thank you for that!

The Power of Our Thoughts

A few months ago, I read an article about “John of God,” a man living in a remote area in Brazil who performs miracles.  People flock to him to cure them of all sorts of illnesses and diseases, etc.  Most miracles are performed via “invisible surgeries,” without touch, but some involve a man who is not a doctor cutting into a person often with nothing more than a dirty kitchen knife. 

that’s enough to make me quiver with fear.  For many who visit him, he is their last resort.  He does this without charging people.  He does it because he feels he has a gift that he is supposed to share. 

How a malignant tumor disappears or how a blind person sees after visiting “John of God” is a question without an answer.  Is it a miracle?  Is it faith? Is it a sham?  I don’t know.  There are reports of him performing eye “surgeries” on people where he scrapes cells off the surface of their eye without any sort of sedative or without any sort of pain relief.  The “patient” sits there letting him scrape cells off their eye(s) sitting perfectly still.  That alone is unfathomable to me! 

I do, however, know the power of our thoughts on our bodies.  Our brains are such amazing organs.  Our brains and our thoughts can make things happen to our bodies.  As someone who loves psychology, having earned a degree in it, I have learned of so many psychological disorders that just fascinate me. 

One of the most remarkable is a conversion disorder, where real symptoms occur that are so indicative of a real disorder where that disorder does not exist in that person.  For example, I type medical reports for some pediatric neurologists and come across many pseudo-seizures, where patients present with such typical seizure characteristics, complete with convulsions and all.  When given an EEG, no record of brain wave activity is found. 

The patient is NOT faking their convulsions.  Their body is having convulsions and very real signs.  However, they are not having an epileptic seizure.  Often, when digging for reasons for them, there is often an underlying factor, such as anxiety or stress, etc. there. 

Some times, your brain/mind cannot handle what is going on and it just “snaps,” for lack of a better word.  It is amazing and incredible, fascinating and a little bit scary. 

Given that your mind/thoughts can create symptoms of something serious, I believe that it is also possible for your mind/thoughts could be possible of curing some things.  I absolutely leave room open for miracles…for the divine interference in these amazing circumstances.

My reason for writing about this/thinking about this now is because I’ve been thinking a lot about things under our control and things not under our control.  I cannot control how people think, act, or feel, but knowing how thoughts can become real, I can choose to try to make my thoughts worthwhile.  I know how people’s thoughts can affect me, so it makes me want to be a person whose thoughts work for good and not evil (and I also wish for world peace…my beauty contestant moment here). 

Also knowing how thoughts affect us, I can choose not to let other’s thoughts alter who I am…who I know I am.  Good and bad, our thoughts are so powerful…so wonderful…so amazing…so incredible…so painful…so hurtful…so damaging.  I’m challenging myself to have thoughts for good, to look for good, to think good.  Do you want to challenge yourself? 

From the article:  “What is it we're hoping for when we ask to be healed? To lose an attitude that's holding us back? To lay down a psychic burden? Is it, simply, the ability to be happy at all times? "To learn to love ourselves," Heather had said earlier in the week, "that's the lifelong work." Whatever was going on in this town, it was in service of that goal. Maybe we couldn't fully understand the process yet, but that didn't make it less real. "It's like this," Zsolt told me. "A hundred years ago if someone showed you an iPhone, you wouldn't have believed it. Everything is always progressing. We know so little and our senses are limited, so limited." If you aren't open to the mystery, in other words, you'll never glimpse it. In Abadiânia that veil between the seen and the unseen is a tissue-thin paper full of rips. It is a place not only where miracles happen, but where no one thinks that is unusual.”