Wednesday Photo Blogging: Leap of Faith

In the comments to this post, Barbara/therextras asked if it was JoyMama jumping off the bridge in JoyMama's profile picture. Here's the picture:



I responded with a question of my own: "You don't think I'd marry a woman who would fling herself untethered off a bridge, do you???? Well??????"


There are a number of possible answers to the question:

1. It's not JoyMama, so therefore the answer is no, I wouldn't marry a woman who would fling herself untethered off a bridge.

2. Yes, it's JoyMama. I had no idea when we got married that she would do such a thing, and I'm shocked, SHOCKED that she would put herself at such great personal risk. It reflects badly on her as a person and sets a terrible example for Joy and Rose. For I would never do such a thing…

3. Yes, it's JoyMama. She made the leap before we were married when she was young and foolish. As part of our wedding vows, she swore off such desperate acts of thrill seeking, promising to be the sedate librarian from a small town in Kansas I always hoped to marry.

4. Yes, it's JoyMama. In fact, I was the photographer. Which means I stood by, nay, encouraged her to fling herself off the bridge to meet an uncertain fate. It reflects badly on me that I would allow her to put herself in such peril and not do anything to try to stop her.

What exactly is a leap of faith anyway? In common parlance it means believing in something despite, or in the absence of, any available evidence.

Marriage is quite the leap of faith, isn't it? We vetted each other by dating for a year and then spending a year as an engaged couple. But forever is an awful long time to commit oneself to another. In essence, we based a decision on how to order the rest of our lives on a small slice of time compared to how long we were planning on being together. Thankfully, neither of us got cold feet before our wedding day, and at least so far, almost 15 years in, our faith in each other and in the decision to combine our lives has been rewarded. I mean, look at those pictures of the girls in their pretty flower girl dresses -- it amazes me every day how richly blessed we are to have them.

I guess having kids entails a leap of faith as well. There's no crystal ball you can look into to see how they will turn out. Certainly, we wish Joy didn't have to contend with autism or epilepsy, or that our family didn't have to deal with the fallout from those conditions. But if I'd had a crystal ball to gaze into before Joy was born, it would have shown me that despite all of that, raising Joy would turn out to be a wonderful experience. I tell people all the time that despite the struggles and challenges of raising Joy, we ain't giving her back. In fact, because it is a such a challenge, I think the successes we have with Joy (like seeing her becoming more interactive with people, as she has lately) are that much more rewarding.

Oh yeah, the picture... That is indeed JoyMama taking the plunge. And I am the photographer. We had already been married for a while at the time. It's not quite the leap of faith it might have been... We were camping at Baxter State Park in Maine. On one of our first days there, we were hiking near our campsite and came upon the bridge in the photo. There was a group of people swimming in the river, and a number of them were also jumping off the bridge. And not perishing... There was deep spot on one side of the bridge which made jumping off relatively safe. It was quite a refreshing way to end a day of hiking up and down mountains.

And I, of course, took my own turns leaping....

Photo Wednesday: Chomp.

What you are about to see looks like documentation of abuse.

But we didn't do this to her. I promise. She's doing this to herself. With her teeth.



Joy's such a sensory kid, plus she's got a ridiculously high tolerance for pain, plus she's recently stopped grinding her teeth when she stims, plus she has a lot of therapists filling up her days for the past couple of weeks. I think there's something in these aspects put together, with some click of some internal switch, that has resulted in Joy chomping on herself. She does this particularly when she is angry or frustrated, as in "Come on Joy, let's go change your diaper." I try to take her hand, she doesn't want to go, and all of a sudden she's dangling from my hand by one arm and her knee is up in her mouth and she's biting down hard. It's clearly enough to make her feel pain at the time, as she lets out a loud wail when the bite stops.

We've been trying to offer alternate chewing stimulation with therapy chewies and good chewy food. It would be great if she'd re-direct the bite into a chewy-toy instead, but she strikes like a snake and there just isn't time to insert a chewy in between her teeth and her arm.

Jeans and long-sleeve shirts would blunt things somewhat, but we've been topping out past 80 degrees with a lovely bit of late summer weather.

She's done some biting of adults too, but usually we can get out of the way. When the biter and the target are the same person, though, and she doesn't want to get out of the way, you get the results that you see in the photo.

Joy's occupational therapist is making inquiries as to whether the Wilbarger "brushing" protocol might be applicable for this situation. We used the brushing/joint-compressions back when Joy was not quite two years old, and aren't sure it was a lot of help back then. We need something to try now, though. Maybe brushing is it.

Meanwhile, if anyone else has dealt successfully with this kind of thing... let us know! We could use some positive thoughts / vibes / prayers on this, too.

Special Exposure Wednesday: Where's Joy?

Where's Joy? Wheeeeeere is she? Wheeeeeeeere's Joy?

Photo Wednesday: God evry Where

Just when I was thinking that Rose (my neurotypical first-grader) had been zoning out in Sunday school and was doodling during worship and nothing was sinking in, she turned and handed me this:


They're listening. They really are.

Special Exposure Wednesday: The Best Thing About the Park

The best thing about the park is the gravel!

A manicurist's salute to Osh for inspiring that last shot!

Wordless / Special Exposure Wednesday: Sequins!

I do believe that the Elvis of the comeback years would approve of Joy's stim choices! (Thank you. Thank-you-very-much.)

Wordless Wednesday (photo time!)

How wonderful and pleasant it is
when brothers live together in harmony!

-- Psalm 133:1, New Living Translation

(Yes, and sisters too!)

Note for relatives, etc. who haven't encountered Wordless Wednesdays before: the theme of posting photos on Wednesday is a tradition that quite a few bloggers are using to give some structure to their week. Wordless Wednesdays run the gamut from captioned in the header, like this one from Opposite Kids, to extensively captioned, like this one from Therextras.