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Listening Without Ears

As told by Ryan to me:

I learned a lesson today.

Ben fought me as I put on his ankle foot orthotics (AFOs). He kept his toe pointed out, making it impossible for me to get his heel into the brace. We struggled for awhile, and I finally forced his foot in. I continued to put the Velcro in place, but nothing seemed to fit correctly.

Then I realized why nothing was working right, I had the brace on the wrong foot. Ben fought me so hard because he knew it wasn't right.

Ben has done this to me several times too. When our children don't use words to express themselves, we have to listen using our other senses.

Last night, Ben had a hard time falling to sleep because he was stuffy from a cold. About 10pm, Ben crawled into bed with Logan.  Logan came to get me. When I got there, Ben was curled up in a ball, ready to fall asleep. I moved Ben to his bed and put on a video. About an hour later, we found Ben curled up at the end of Logan's bed again. It finally dawned on me that Ben did not want to sleep alone - he wanted company. So I climbed into Ben's bed with him, and he fell asleep instantly. 

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