Thank you, Bob... thank you.

In the psychological thriller, What About Bob, tormented, neurotic patient, Bob Wiley, suggests that "there are two kinds of people in this world- those who like Neil Diamond and those who don't." While we all know this is true, I would argue for an additional classification of human functioning- those who stay up waaayyyy to late and those who don't. I generally fall into the waaayyy too late category, which makes it really, really hard to make it a goal to sleep better. I think part of the problem is that I also tend to fall into the personality category that describes people who tend to focus really well on specific tasks. What this means is that if you give me a project, I will do my best to kick its butt. But I'm terrible at multi-tasking. As most of you parents know, babies force you to multi-task. So, in the past two years, not only has my ability to focus well gone down the toilet fairly quickly, but I have also been struggling to learn the art of multi-tasking. I still try to revert to the whole focusing thing, which means that I stay up til ungodly hours of the night to get crap done that I cannot possibly figure out how to get done during the day. Like last night, for example- stayed up til 2 am doing boring administrative stuff (which is obviously not my strength). And because it was so boring, I had to take breaks to catch up with mindless tv.

ANYWAYS, I guess what this all amounts to is something that I realized in one of my sessions today when the mom was obviously very, very tired because of the unideal hours she works at night and all the effort she puts in during the day with her infant and her toddler with special needs. During our time together, we simplified our agenda to simply making animal sounds while referencing images of animals in a picture book. Her child LOVED this interaction and even tried to mimic some of the sounds. Meanwhile, my throat started to feel a little raw and beat-up from all the oinking, mooing, and growling, so her mom took over. It was like magic. We held her joint attention for about 45 minutes doing this. That's a lot of animal sounds.

What is great about life is that it's pretty forgiving. You stay up waaayyy to late, are super duper tired the next day, work a full day, and hopefully there are some magical moments that happen. A lot of them just naturally occur if there are good sensory experiences mixed in- a step outside in the brisk air, a deep breath, a nice massage, petting a dog, playing with play-dough, or making crazy animal sounds. And ending the day with a nice cup of hot chocolate with a special other someone is not bad either. Thanks, husband.

And, thanks Bob. Somewhere in the suspenseful plot of What About Bob, Bob Wiley sports a shirt that brags, Don't Hassel Me, I'm on Vacation. Sometimes when you can't actually take a vacation, I guess its just not a bad idea to adopt the vacation mentality. A mom told me yesterday that during their 2 week trip to Hawaii, their daughter with significant sensory processing issues started talking. Shoot... who wouldn't?! But if you're not there, it doesn't hurt to bring as much Hawaii to you as you can. Paint vibrant pictures, smell beautiful flowers, and play in water. Its good for kids, but its also good for us grown-ups too.

And, by the way... why am I watching Biography- Guns N' Roses right now? I now know more about Slash than I've ever needed to know.