Here are two videos from our bath time escapades. Nisarga has always loved the playing in water part of bathing and always hated the washing face part of it. 
The fun lies in catching a stream of water or pushing a bobbing toy under. Some of the most enjoyable moments of the day.
Much has happened since the previous posts. I finally gave up on trying to patch the marriage and have moved back to the father, which isn’t a big improvement, but still as step in the right direction.
So, we needed a pediatrician in Parle, and we went to one this time. And what an ace!!! Nisarga has five tests pending – all of them off beat and not easily found, so most doctors kept pointing us to Jaslok, where their appointment procedure was confusing, and it is an hour’s drive at least, so multiple appointments would be a pain.
In an effort to get what we could done nearby, so that at least the agenda on the day we did go to Jaslok was lesser, I got the opthalmic testing done yesterday. The doctor found nothing of concern, but recommended another test – again at Jaslok.
Today’s doctor was able to provide us options that were literally within fifteen minutes at home, plus definite contact numbers and so on. Very useful.
He also was the first doctor to acknowledge that Nisarga’s spine indeed seems to have a curve. Most doctor’s had shrugged it off as something of less consequence. So I wasn’t being paranoid and his back does have a curve.
Nisarga was his usual engaging self while we waited, and lost patience rapidly once we went in. Luckily, the location of the clinic is very charming and child friendly. Here are some pictures of Nisarga from when we waited.
At the end of the day, we are to do four more tests. The Karyotyping, Metabolic screening, BERA and eye opinion. Pretty much as planned originally. Just confirmed. However, he provided us on information where we can get these done without having to go too far. Also phone numbers from each place for getting appointments. Much improvement over the crazy attempts with Jaslok – very strange that no one in their ENT seemed interested in picking the phone and the one time they did, they sounded like they hadn’t heard of BERA, even though the receptionist had connected me with great confidence.
Earlier, most of the advice had been to go to Jaslok, which had been a big problem for me both in terms of expense as well as managing without assistance with Nisarga. So this is a most welcome visit in terms of making things possible, even though nothing different is known or happening on the medical front because of it. For the information of anyone else who may need it, I’ll share the details as and when we do the tests.
Getting a “much deserved” lecture on how to stop avoiding home life and start “doing more” at home. House is a mess. I know. I should hire another maid. Can’t afford. They all have their problems with me, but still don’t want me to leave. They are large hearted. I wish they weren’t. What they say is right. I am too depressed, using work as an escape, should be paying more attention to home and taking son out more. I don’t feel like doing it. Feel vaguely guilty (as intended) for Nisarga. The rest didn’t stick. Am I a selfish, callous person with a big ego? Probably. That is all I can afford right now. No energy to explain my landscape right now. No energy to explain the overwhelming task of using brief spurts of time to “do everything” in the house that reverts faster than I can fix. No energy to explain the futility of tidying up, when the Raka uses the floor as his godown. No energy to explain that I don’t have the money to pay the bills. No energy to explain that the way I get spoken to makes me want to avoid people and that I think its okay if I do so. Depression is a luxury name for being lazy apparently. Feel sad about Nisarga. I do my work online, and I do it more and more hoping to earn more money, but mostly as an escape because I get very depressed and angry when I look at the house. I exit the computer only for my son, and very brief spurts of work around the house. Many essential things neglected. Why me? Apparently, it is the fate of a woman to be saddled with uncaring men. What hurts is why Nisarga? He didn’t do anything to deserve this shit. Fast losing hope of finding any understanding in this place. Don’t wish to leave home, because for what its worth, in my nice little depressed world, it is the one familiar thing. The known evil, so to say, but coming to accept that I am only going to sink more here.
No clue what this means, but it does mean something crucially important. He keeps saying this on and off. Abgugiya and boogiya. He says like he’s identifying/recognizing something.
Boogi seems to he “Bhook lagli” – hungry. Not that the two words sound remotely similar, just from his expressions and the time he uses it as well as very clear “yes” response if asked if he’s hungry after saying boogiya.
No such joy for the googiya stuff. I have asked him hundreds of things, but “that’s not it” expression of impatience.
So, the conversation goes like this:
Nisarga: Googiya.
Me: Huh?
Nisarga: Googiya.
Me – are you hungry, thirsty, sleepy, etc.
Nisarga’s expression. No go, you silly woman, isn’t it obvious?
Me – not obvious
Nisarge – getting frustrated. Me – brainwave “Do you want to go out?”
And we live happily till the next googiya
Yesterday, we went out for dinner. Uh… not valentine’s day, but a friend’s son’s birthday party. I was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing, considering that it was bound to be noisy and I just hoped that when push came to shove, we wouldn’t end up being miserable ourselves and making everyone else miserable. On the other hand, Nisarga loves people, so he could also have a blast.
No such thing happened. Excited to be outside as always, the highlight for N was the enormous amount of time we spend waiting at one restaurant before giving up and moving to another and then waiting there. Lots of people, hyper excited kids to watch (his favourite kind of watching), many people coming to talk to him, one on one…. life was bliss. Once inside the restaurant, he rapidly lost interest and after unsuccessfully trying to get us to go out again, resigned into a fussy spell of muttering on my shoulder and drifted off to sleep. He slept so well in the racket that prevailed all around us, that I wondered if this was the same kid who wakes up at the slightest sound at home.
I guess the high energy kids wore him out. I put him in his pram, and nothing short of an earthquake would have got him up.
Anyway, the surprise that emerged was that Raka and I were at the same dinner table, joining a group with celebrations totally carefree. I had forgotten why I married this guy
I haven’t had time to write the last few months. I got busy, then there was some problem with the blog that I didn’t have time to diagnose…
Anyway, much has happened in the last few months, and some of it I’ll be writing separate posts about. On his health front, my earlier concerns are coming true. Nisarga still isn’t sitting independently or crawling and he is almost a year and a half old. We are doing physiotherapy and meeting doctors and all that, and the general agreement seems to be that physio is what is going to make all the difference regardless of what the matter is.
The physio is…. okay, I guess. I find that the Feldenkrais work I do with him at home helps him far more than the physiotherapy, which often gets him ‘stiffer’. He resists a lot, cries often, though I try to stop as soon as he cries or persuade him in other ways. He still hasn’t been able to do anything the girl tries to get him to do. On the other hand, like I helped him with the rolling over and other things, he is W-sitting on his own at home (they aren’t doing that or anything like that in physio).
So I am really wondering if I should just let it all go and do what I can at home, but I’m scared. If it doesn’t work, I’ll be blamed for ‘playing with his life’ with my beliefs and silly ideas. On the other hand, he seems to learn even better at home if he’s taken a break from the physio and isn’t so stiff. So I currently try and manage both, take a few days off to help him learn at home if something new seems to be coming up….
They want some tests done. Genetics and metabolism. Strange thing is that before this, they haven’t even asked for so much as a blood test. Surely one would begin investigating with the more obvious and common things? Sigh. I’m learning about the medical world real fast, and the more I see, the more I mistrust everything.
None of the doctors so far haven been willing to even consider the possibility of a corelation between the vaccine and his strange regression and they insist that there is no way to investigate that – so how do vaccines become legal anyway, if there is no way to investigate if they are doing harm? I’ll write details about that in another post.
Anyway, enough of this ‘health stuff’. It is depressing, and frankly it doesn’t mean anything to our day. We just go ahead and enjoy each day as it comes.
Nisarga is getting into his personality. Definite likes and dislikes. This makes the day more interesting.
And oh, he’s started really, really enjoying going out. So, if he passes the door, happens to look in that direction, hears words associated with going out, sees anyone dressed to go out, and a million other triggers, this boy is ready to go. He rides your shoulder till it will almost dislocate till you head towards outside. As long as you are headed in the right direction, everything is good. Head in the wrong direction (towards home) and big problem. He protests, explains, chatters nineteen to the dozen, gives you little charming looks designed to melt your heart ……. the idea is that he shouldn’t be imprisoned (at home).
Some of his protests can get so loud that I think in a few years I’ll have cops keeping an eye on me for child abuse or something – why does this woman’s son always refuse to go home? hmmm…
Loves music – any music.
Hates to sleep. Wakes up at the slightest noise unless we manage to tire him out really well. He’s like a security guard on night shift. If he catches himself falling asleep, he will jerk awake and do something energetic to chase it away
What more…? This is an incoherent post, but posting it anyway, since its been a long time. I’ve got photos and other stuff I’ll be uploading soon.
Nisarga had a fascination with water, and we have had several incidences where he encountered water in a new way and was fascinated. From air blon on a wet face to splashing in the tub to trying to catch the stream of water from taps he sees.
The latest is spilling water while drinking. He accidentally knocked my hand when I held a glass of water for him to drink. The water splashed on him. He was thrilled. Now he wants to drink water all the time….. and bat away at the glass.
When I began unschooling Nisarga, he was two months old. I was often told by veteran unschoolers that it was too early to think about schooling or unschooling and to simply enjoy my child. Yet, experiential learning is a way of life with me, and I wasn’t adopting unschooling so much as I had found a name for what I was doing, and a community to help me find ways to do it better. I couldn’t have stopped.
At the same time, I had bought in completely to the opinion expressed that at this stage what I was doing would be attachment parenting, plain and simple. And it was. Yet, I experienced the living proof of what I say countless times – “We begin learning from experience from birth and stop at death. Its like breathing. We may consciously influence its quality, but we can’t stop.” And so it was.
Nisarga was learning a whole load of things, and my awareness of unschooling helped me apply the principles to support his learning at his level.
He is rather young, so it isn’t really about projects and things, but simply discovering the world, creating meaning out of experiences, learning to use our bodies (and I mean the ‘our’ – my own body has discovered many new ways it can be used in this process). I pretty much let him do what he wants. He wakes up, sleeps, plays, interacts or not at will. I let him guide me as to what to do. My chief role at this stage is loving him to bits (he’s one cuddly love-sponge).
He is slightly late developmentally in reaching milestones, so a lot of my responsibilities involve protecting him from unintentional and well intended training that makes him uncomfortable (‘making’ him bear weight on his feet, pressuring him to roll by constantly jangling stuff at him, etc). On the other hand, I am trying to balance ‘getting him to do’ things with providing him with opportunities he enjoys and it has resulted in some very new ‘games’. Currently, his chief toy is me. Followed closely by DH, MIL, an exercise ball, a swing, four foot ‘hit me’ dolphin and absolutely anything he can lay his hands on.
Unschooling provided me the concept of trusting him that helped me discover that I don’t need to make him do exercises to develop his motor skills. If I offer them in a way that’s fun, he prefers them over other things. If he doesn’t want to do them, its not the end of the world. He has taught me (by being excited) to create our own exercises by simply breaking down the movements he is trying unsuccessfully into smaller doable bits or supporting him through the bits he is not able and he enjoys these more, since they are what he wants to do in the first place. I found this AMAZING. He doesn’t need a pediatrician to tell him what to do and this way we always have variety and increasing movements than those ‘recommended activities’.
We intend to go out everyday, but he’s not too much into it. So we don’t, unless he’s in the mood.
He loves spending time on the floor and is currently obsessed with eating his feet and the feet somehow keep escaping. So he rolls to catch them and finds himself rolled over, which is new and interesting. But he doesn’t have the strength to do much from this position, so he yells for me after a while. Depending on his mood, I may pick him up for comforting (fed up) or I may hover him over his toys so that he can pick them up and throw them around the room. He loves this. He taught me this by simply being delighted when I took him over the first time. Another version is when he sits in my lap and plays with toys and I take him over to pick them up himself. He likes being bounced, so I bounce him whenever he asks (which is immediately every time he is in any bounce-capable position). He loves me, so he gets a lot of me. Absolutely unlimited attention, any time he wants it.
We are discovering that he is fine going out in the evenings for a short time if he has had a good nap and enjoys the busy market bustling with people, bright and curious things and moving vehicles. I have started seeing the miserable place as interesting through his eyes. I am learning to be tuned in to him and it is an intimacy I have never experienced before. Its just beautiful. he is a cheerful, expressive baby with a distinct preference for communication, and very little need to cry. Its not like he never cries, but its mostly physical issues like gas or burp, or someone not setting him down when he wants to pee – doesn’t like to pee on people.
I discovered (to my surprise) that there is indeed a way of unschooling a baby, which is unschooling and distinctly different from attachment parenting, or simply loving and indulging. He has interests and preferences. It is not only about being there for him and loving him, but actually paying attention to what he is doing, what he enjoys more, and offering more of the same. Respecting his wishes for what he doesn’t want. Pretty much what I imagine happens with an older child, but this is a baby and it works very well for his learning as well. He likes grabbing at toys. We got him more ‘grabby’ kind of toys. He likes movement, so we have a ball to bounce on, swing, plus a whole repertoire of throwing, swinging, rocking, etc that he enjoys. He doesn’t like rice cereal, so I don’t feed him that. He likes watermelon, so he gets that often. Its a whole load of things we do that we wouldn’t have before beginning unschooling, and I’m glad, because he is so happy, contented, energetic all the time. He takes most opportunities offered, which only makes me see how much more I can offer him. New ideas keep popping up, and life keeps getting enriched.
There is a long way to go, of course, but the journey is enthralling. I totally forget that this guy isn’t actually speaking, which is the thing I was most scared of before I became a mom – how would I understand the ‘tiny creature’?
It is difficult to say what exactly we do, since its pretty much based on what he wants to do in the moment, and in the last couple of weeks, no day has been like another. I guess he’s discovering more and more. My role is to simply make as many wishes of his possible as I can understand and offer anything that I think he may enjoy.
It is an unfurling, an opening. New possibilities emerge with each moment lived.
Would love to hear how other families spend their days.
Nisarga just patted me when asked where is mom!!!
I’d been playing this game mostly because he likes it. I ask “Where is Nisarga?” and he just loves the question and gives huge gummy grins. Then I ask “Where is mom?” and I get another huge grin. We can do this for hours and he will not get bored.
There days, increasingly his grins are more and more huge for Nisarga and he waves his arms for Mom. Today, he patted me on my chest straight when asked “Where is mom?” WOW!!! I thought it was a fluke, so we did this a few more times, and he just grinned in delight for “Nisarga” and patted me a few more times for “Mom”. I guess this smart little guy knows who he is and who his mother is
At Nisarga’s last doctor visit, the pediatrician had recommended that we start giving him a taste of some other foods, like rice water and fruit juices, etc. The rice water was a big flop. Nisarga was much less than not impressed at all. However, the fruits were a different story.
We began with a tiny piece of banana that I mashed up completely and mixed with breast milk to make very liquid. Gave a tiny taste. Eyes wide open, he carefully considered a taste and obviously approved, seeing as he took as much as I gave him. We did banana two more times, one of which was followed by an upset tummy, so we stopped, though I don’t think the tummy upset was because of the banana.
I grated an apple very fine, and gave him that once. He enjoyed it, arms waving and wide grins.
But the biggest hit so far is watermelon. Its crazy hot these days, and walking through the market, I saw watermelons and picked one up. Took one piece and crushed it in a strainer to collect a little less than half an ounce of juice. One taste and this baby was hooked. Lip smacking, coos of approval, mouth opening wide for more, demanding “aaagoo”s if I got late, laughing, babbling, the works, with limbs waving merrily. Okay, we like watermelon beyond anything we have tasted so far.
When he’d finished the juice, he was nowhere near ready to stop, and kept pouting and crying for more. This is the first time this guy wanted something, but since it was his first time, I didn’t want to give too much. He wasn’t interested in breastmilk, and I had to distract him with a serious session of throwing him up and catching him to help him forget the fruit from paradise and come to a place where he could nurse to sleep for his nap
He’ll get more watermelon tomorrow for sure.