Mafe Maria: A Creative Playground by Maria Q. Stultz
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(92 entries)
Last weekend we enjoyed the company of Katrina Kramlich, a lovely and experienced Son-Rise child facilitator who came to our home to play with Joaquin in his romper room. The experience was absolutely wonderful, especially because the universe conspired to fit everything in such a perfect way, that Eliza (our first volunteer), had a chance [...]
01. Help! Exhausted. Having to cook every meal every single day really drains me. Wish I could buy prepared food once in a while… And with all this cooking spilling over the weekends, I don’t have time to prepare games for therapy. By the end of each day I’m tired and can’t work (on games) [...]
In preparation for my coming trip back to Massachusetts to attend an advanced Son-Rise course, last week I had to fill out a long survey reporting all kinds of details about Joaquin’s current state. The survey was exactly the same I took back in May, just a few weeks after having become aware of Joaquin’s [...]
01. Giving SCD a Try a.k.a. Finding Joy in Cooking.During the few months after diagnosing Joaquin, I have resisted all the special diets and biomedical approaches collective wisdom recommends for autistic kids. Joaquin does not show signs of GI problems, but recently I decided to try SCD, the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, just in case that [...]
I’ve always believed in this: If you do everything you are supposed to do; if you work hard; if you really work hard at getting something, there’s no way that the universe will not compensate you for your efforts. This used to be my motto throughout my five years at college… While my boyfriend would [...]
06. The Romper Room Joaquin’s romper room (i.e. Son-rise playroom) is AWESOME!!!… Still haven’t closed the door, but with the massive migration of toys into it, the bollo is already spending time in the room, and I’m loving it. 07. Calling the Beacons of Light! Remember that exercise we did where we got on groups [...]
Funny. Just a few hours after posting that I’m on my way to become a force of nature, a soft wind blows and I’m all out of balance feeling like a victim, hoping that I never find out that it was a FREAKING VACCINE what triggered Joaquin’s autism. Because, yes, he’s always had social challenges, [...]
I’ve just received my rental car for the week. After placing my bag in the trunk and contemplating all the little ways how this cheap rental is not as nice as our family car, I pull out the map package I’ve printed earlier charting the route to the Option Institute. The number of steps is [...]
12. Happy That laugh!… It happens every day now. 14. Son-Rise Start Up During her intro speech, Bryn Hogan said “Each of you are here today because you love a child”. They had all of their photos on these walls surrounding us in our training auditorium. 20. Belonging Back home after an amazing week in [...]
You can’t imagine how many times I’ve sat down to write this first post during all these weeks of silence. Some times I’ve failed because there’s so much to tell. Other times I’ve failed because I’m in the wrong mood to write it. The rest of the times I’ve failed because I’m afraid of labeling [...]
With only a couple of slow days after the hectic month I’ve had, my brain is starting to play its typical games… Those where it tries to make me feel guilty for not being busy, for not being immersed on accomplishing something, for not tackling the items on my To–do–when–I’m–not–busy list… Only after TWO miserable [...]
As soon as I saw her, she reminded me of my mom. She looked mature, yet youthful. I liked everything she said, her experience, her presence at my house, and the best sign of all: Joaquin seemed to be ok with her. He ate his dinner peacefully, even with a “stranger” at the table. Then [...]
It’s all about me… Maria’s world.
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