Improving Flexibility & Overcoming Fears

So, the other night we tried to pull an "opposite" moment whereby we would eat our dessert before dinner. I thought Jake would think that was funny but no, no, no. He got very upset. It turned out he wasn't feeling well and had a headache which probably accounted for why he didn't want to have anything to do with that. He ate his banana but didn't feel like eating anything else...except his dessert. Apparently he'd forgotten the opposite moment & ate the cookies. The next day when he was feeling better we pointed out how he ended up doing it and survived. ;-) Then, last night he had a migraine and was up all night vomiting....migraines and vomiting another blog could be written about that entirely. Ugh. Anyway, today we pointed out all the opposites he did....the food came up instead of going down, he was up at night instead of sleeping, etc. He thought that was funny. I think pointing out all the "opposites" he does incidentally are helping him see that opposite moments aren't so scary.

Well, then today he requested to go to Rainforest Cafe for dinner. When he was little bitty he hated that place....as one might imagine. Then, he LOVED it. Then, last year when we were in Walt Disney World in Oct of 2007, I made dinner reservations at Rainforest. We had not been in probably a year or so. I thought he would think it was fun. He FREAKED. FREAKED. Crying, covering his ears. Yelling to get out of there. Awful. Something reminded him of that yesterday and he mentioned about how he used to be scared of Rainforest Cafe. Oh, I know. We had talked about going with his cousins but ended up not going which worked out OK b/c he didn't want to go last week. So, yesterday he mentioned how he used to be very scared of it and cried. Today he mentions that he wants to go and then starts telling himself it will be ok. That it will be a little bit scary but it is ok to cover his ears but he doesn't need to get upset. So, we went. We went at about 4pm when it was empty and sat by the big water fountain to help drown out the rainstorm noise, also away from the elephants or gorillas. He did GREAT. Yes, he covered both ears for much of the time until his food came and he discovered that he only had 2 hands. So, he decided to uncover one ear to eat. He did great. No crying, not even a tear. He CHOSE to face his fears, talked himself into it, reassured himself and DID IT!! We spotlighted that in a HUGE way! He was so proud of his accomplishment and so were we! :-D