Rainbow Clouds

Most of you already know that Rex, the dear boy, visits with our favorite occupational therapist, Miss T, from time to time. She's been a wonderful lifesaver for us in dealing with Rex's sensory integration issues, helping him to grow and learn and not be stuck inside a body that doesn't work like everyone else's, and helping me to be a functional mother again. Seriously, she's better than a traditional talk therapist.

Anyhow, only my mom has ever been to visit Miss T with us, so last week we took some pictures so you could see some of what he does.

Probably Rex's favorite activity at Miss T's is the Rainbow Clouds. All the fabric in the following pictures is a lot like swimsuit material, and 8 layers of it are suspended at various heights throughout one room of the office suite. Being on it is a lot like jumping on the trampoline, but there is much more give to the fabric, which forces Rex to work a lot harder to use his gross motor skills and to focus on his body awareness. He's usually pretty tuckered when we head home.



A lot of Rex's therapy is about giving his senses all sorts of things to register in such a way that he can process the information at his own pace and under ideal conditions. He loves to bury himself in the ball pit and to sift through all the beans in the bean box shown in the bottom picture. And you know what? There really is something fascinating about plunking down with those beans and just letting them run through your fingers.


Miss T also possesses the Best Swing Collection Ever, all contained within another room in her office suite that has a hook in the ceiling for just such a purpose. Rex's clear favorite is the tire swing. Another part of what we do with him is music therapy, hence the earphones and CD player. He listens to modulated music--it's real music but altered in such a way that it stimulates all those little connections in the brain. I can't really explain how it works, but take my testimonial--it really does work! The different kinds of music you can use affect different things, so we've seen different CDs affect his speech, his body coordination, his level of activity, etc. The brain truly is a mysterious miracle.

And Rex's brain and body are truly one of the greatest miracles. Imagine being so incredibly smart (which he is), but having a body that is wired just slightly differently than everyone else's. You can't make it do what others' bodies can do, or you can't make it do those things so easily, and sometimes you don't even know why you feel so rotten, you just know that it's rotten. But kids like Rex just plow through it, making all sorts of compensations as they go. That's the miracle in it. They don't function like "the rest of us," but they do adapt and learn to function. I often wish my mind were that flexible.

And no one can deny the joi de vivre with which Rex lives everyday. His life is all about the experience all of the time. When life is about the experience, rather than the enduring of it (as we "normal" grownups are so prone to focusing on), how rich and full life becomes! What a true miracle Rex is, and how lucky we are to be a part of it.

And thank heaven for Miss T, because without her I wouldn't have survived to see the miracle!