{"id":854,"date":"2007-07-24T20:49:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-24T20:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2007\/07\/do-the-write-thing\/"},"modified":"2007-07-24T20:49:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-24T20:49:00","slug":"do-the-write-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2007\/07\/do-the-write-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Do the Write Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good Morning, here is ONE bear called Corduroy<\/span>
–Lisa McCue<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I took the post down I wrote earlier today. I thought it was stupid after reading it again. Silly and not getting at what I really feel. Not really fair to Nat, either. I could tell because after I posted it I had a stomach ache, like I’d swallowed Jiminy Cricket<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s the point: I love my boy so much and I just want to understand what is going on with him. I just want us to be happy. Him and me. His brothers. His dear father. That’s all. We are all five of us equal parts in a family that works. But it has been so hard lately. Nat has not been happy. Stomping, yelling, charging at people, chewing his arm crazily. Not happy. I get at the end of my rope, despair, and then — I find a few more inches. One of his teachers gave me an idea today, simple and clear: write it down.<\/span> Just write down what is happening the moment he gets upset. Tell him on paper, so he can process it in his own way. Give him a suggestion (on paper) of what he can do (like read Shel Silverstein on the couch). I now believe he cannot process our words effectively when he is feeling in the middle of chaos. And to him, the start of the dinner hour means chaos. But, thankfully, he can process something he reads.<\/p>\n

This should be no surprise, and yet, when his teacher suggested it to me, I felt the light, feathery relief of being helped, at last. Write it down. Of course. Nat has always enjoyed the written word, ever since those earliest days sitting on my lap listening over and over to Corduroy’s Day: A Counting Book<\/span>. That was our very first sophisticated interaction: reading together. Before that day, he could let me know when he wanted food, sleep, or to be changed, but as far as enjoying something with me: reading Corduroy<\/span> was the first ever. I will never forget the joy I felt as he closed the finished book and then handed it back to me so I would read it again. Why? Because I felt it tonight when he took my note about dinner, read it, and calmed down immediately. And then again when he agreed, spontaneously, to go with us to the park to see some friends. And then when he grinned happily as he watched Ben wrestle with Chris and Andy. And then when he asked to throw the ball to Robbie the Blind Dog.<\/p>\n

Peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good Morning, here is ONE bear called Corduroy–Lisa McCue I took the post down I wrote earlier today. I thought it was stupid after reading it again. Silly and not getting at what I really feel. Not really fair to Nat, either. I could tell because after I posted it I had a stomach ache, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-dM","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}