So Jax had his first experience with alternative healing methods a couple of days ago…and I know what you’re thinking: SWEET! Way to totally perpetuate the California/Bay Area stereotype of the crazy, hippy-dippy New Age parent.
Was it crystal therapy, chakra balancing, Rebirthing, Reiki or a crazed body worker who set up shop in my parents’ house, you ask? What about the life pod, did you send him to the Sedona life pod??
Why no, but thank you just the same for inquiring…
It was cranial sacral therapy, actually. And compared to most of the stuff I’ve experienced (see above healing modes plus various Russian hands-on healers, psychic surgeons, herbal remedies, magnets and waaaaaaay too many other crazy things to mention), cranial sacral therapy isn’t really that ALTERNATIVE at all!
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but Jackson has a flat head. Not flat like FLAT, like some weird cartoon character or something. Not like he has a poker chip perched on the top of his neck. But the back right quadrant of his head is pretty flat, like he has a big dent in his head.
"We can call him Dent-in-the-Head," my Mother helpfully suggested when I pointed it out to her.
Perhaps he was positioned oddly in utero or perhaps he just favors that side for no reason in particular, but he always sleeps with his head slightly cocked to the right, and when he’s in the swing or the car seat, he does the same thing.
At his two month appointment I discussed it with his pediatrician and she suggested we start with repositioning. That turned out to be easier said than done. So at four months, with a still pretty pronounced slope, I decided to take him in again and see what she thought.
She’s a pretty holistic doctor, so she wanted us to try cranial sacral therapy and possibly chiropractic as well. So off we went to his first appointment and I have to say, he LOVED it.
He loved the shit out of that session.
The therapist had him lie on his back on a massage table and just very gently placed her hands behind his back. She barely made any movements, so whatever she was doing it was very gentle.
Jackson just kept staring right into her eyes and smiling and making all these cooing sounds. "Uh, huh, hmmmm…tell me all about it…" she kept saying to him and to my utter surprise, he would ‘answer’ her with these little murmurs. He does not normally do this, by the way.
Parker is way more verbal, she’ll just chatter away (about what? Oh you know, just normal baby talk stuff like the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the recent demonstrations here to get China out of Tibet and why, for a delicate little flower of a girl, she cuts the loudest farts in the history of mankind…just the YOOOGE), but Jackson rarely chirps on and on like he was doing.
"What’s he saying?" I asked, hoping to get some dramatic insight into my young son’s psyche like why he won’t frigging sleep beyond 3 AM without one of us shoving the paci in his gaping maw or why he loves me soooo much more than Daddy. (Just kidding.)
"Oh, he’s just chatting," she said vaguely, as if protecting the ‘doctor’ – patient confidentiality clause. Which sort of annoyed me but whatever.
Then she had me hold him and she worked on his head, and by God within about three seconds he was sound asleep. It was pretty crazy. And then? On the way home in the car seat he held his flat head TOTALLY STRAIGHT for the first time EVER!
Since then he’s reverted a little back to his old tricks, often turning his head back to the right even after we reposition him or make sure the toy is hanging from the play mat to his left or shoving a cloth diaper under one side of the swing’s head rest to force him to keep it straight.
But I’ll take him back next week and I’m hoping after a few sessions it gets better.
Either that or he shows an amazing talent for growing REALLY thick hair.
SO WHAT? I have a flat head. What’s so bunny about THAT?!?
OH MY. My brother had to wear this outfit to cover up his sloping head issue — I just wore it because it’s so damn cute. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
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