Dear Charlie (a letter to my fur baby: dreams of the world I want to create),
I want you to know how much I love you. I want my words and especially my actions to make you feel safe. I am here to help you to feel safe and loved so that you can think more clearly, learn more effectively, and generally have more FUN.
I know that sometimes it’s hard for you because I work from home and I spend time on the computer talking to my clients, but I also know that working from home gives me the ability to be here with you WAY more than I would have been able to otherwise. You have no idea the sacrifices that we are making to help you to learn to feel safe and loved and to grow in independence—the dog sitters, the white noise, the inability to leave the house, the expenses of new gates and fences, your special diet. It’s all SO expensive and time consuming.
Sometimes we get frustrated because you used to be so well crate trained, and we miss the freedom to be able to come and go while you took a nap. Sometimes I get frustrated, because I really need to be able to get on the elliptical machine once a day in order to function at my best, and we both know that that has been hard sometimes. It’s so overstimulating for you, and probably it has increased your anxiety, but it’s something that really makes a difference for my ability to be a good mom to you.
And even though you don’t always like to just hang out while I am on my computer, it means a lot to me to be able to work from home. It means a lot to me when I hear that a parent got a compliment from another parent on their parenting, or when a parent tells me that their child told them to take some breaths like the monster (from the Sesame Street Breathe, Think, Do app that I regularly recommend).
And even though you don’t like it, when I take videos of you and watch them afterwards, it helps me to get to know you and to figure out your body language so that I can know how to respond to you more accurately so that in the long run, I will be able to help you to truly feel safe and loved more of the time. And even though you don’t like it that Daddy and I go out of the house, I wish there were a way to truly tell you and show you what a difference it makes. We need our time once a week when we can just connect as humans. And we need our time once a week to look at the calendar and talk about what we need for that week. When we do that, we end up having less moments where you are hiding behind the couch because you are afraid of our upset-ness.
So here we go. We are experimenting with your medications to find one that can help you to feel a good mixture of calm but more able to learn and interested in food and play. The last few days of having you without any anxiety medications has made me realize how much less you were getting into dangerous things when you were medicated. So while I don’t think that medication is for everybody, I am hoping that we can find a combination that is helpful for you and helps to keep you safe.
Together, we are learning. We are learning how to block out things that you might be afraid of. We are keeping strangers off the porch. Our home sounds like we live right near the ocean, with the wave sounds echo throughout the whole house on all the HomePods everywhere!
We are having our dates and our weekly family meetings so that we can have a home where you don’t feel like you have to go hiding behind the sofa quite so often. And we are making you a “safe space” where you can go when you do just need a space of your own to be calm and quiet.
And I am working with my clients so that they, too, can build homes where they and their kids feel supported and safe. Together we are building good “mood spread”.
I am still hoping that at some point I can get your attention to show you that video of the border collie who won the recent agility competition. I am not a competitive person and don’t really care about winning so much, but the look on that dog’s face is just PURE JOY. I tear up watching it just because of how happy that dog must be to be that fast. I wish that for you, too, sweet boy. I hope that together we can find you some activities that really and truly light you up. I want to see that big smile on your face and your eyes light up with pleasure. “The critical link between play and learning—the reason we repeat something and therefore learn from it—is pleasure” (Stamm & Spencer: Bright From the Start).
Here’s to joy, sweet boy!
With love, Mama (Lara)
