SO WHAT!

Happy Holidays to all! I know I am Jewish, the boys are Jewish, so please forgive the above pic, I am just a total sucker for a boy in a Santa hat. (Ask Matt!) and I haven't had time to upload Hanukkah pics yet. So from our little slice of interfaith Wonderland...

We have had an uneventful few weeks but somehow it still feels difficult to find time to blog. Sam starred as Matthias Maccabee in the JCC Hanukkah movie and we enjoyed watching him. I am going to purchase the DVD and try to put a link to it here. We had a wonderful first night of Hanukkah with family and I felt so blessed to have Aaron with us, really WITH us. He is so active, it is getting hard to keep up, and gets a little noisier every day.

Aaron was visited recently by Kia and Jess, the OT and speech therapist who again reiterated that he doesn't seem to them to have a "can't" problem with food, more like a "won't" problem. Is that due to old neurologic injury, reflux, old allergy problems or ongoing pain with feeds? No one knows, including me. Meanwhile, he had gained weight, but then lost again and continues to slip on the growth chart. So, we are going to see gastroenterology to rule out a physical problem there to make eating a problem and I am researching infant feeding centers, and basically just trying different calorie formulas and feeding techniques.

I recently had a revelation that I have been TRYING to follow. I was obsessing one day late at night about Aaron's feeding issues and what that might mean for his future, and the possibility of significant developmental delay and what that might mean for his future. Then he woke up and we were snuggling in the chair and he looked up at me and I felt such overwhelming love for this little person, and I thought SO WHAT! I love him so immensely, everything about him, and so I forced myself to think through all the scenarios I was worried about. And you know what, no matter what, it will be OK. We will figure it out. I wish that this would have come more naturally or sooner to me. I look at my friend Christina who is open to the idea of adopting a special needs child and I marvel at her heart and wonder what is wrong with me. I think some of it is a need to control everything, some of it is this guilt that I carry around, some of it is genuinely wanting the very best for Aaron, and the rest I'd probably need therapy to figure out. But in any case, it has been liberating to think- SO WHAT.

That said, I am still very worried about his eating. But I am trying to channel that worry into productive ways of helping him. I try to "relax" about his eating, but I still am the one who needs to feed him every 3-4 hours and it continues to be a challenge. Well, we will just take it one day at a time.

Oh, one more development. I am heading back to work on a more frequent basis this winter. I am pretty happy about it. I won't have my own patients back, but I will have a regular schedule one evening and one afternoon a week.

Best to everyone. Happy Holidays from me, Matt, my little Matthias Maccabee (Sam as the father of the Maccabees, planning strategy seems somehow appropriate) and our little underdog Aaron "Judah Maccabee" Jane, also seems appropriate, kicking some proverbial ass!