My name is Jairus
I am 7 years old (at the time)
I have brown hair...
I like to eat peanut butter out of the jar.
I suppose I've always found that humorous because while I do like peanut butter, and thankfully we have no allergies in this family, the thought of pulling out a spoon and scarfing it down had never entered my mind.
And so this was why, when I saw the ads for the Kraft Peanut Butter contest, I immediately thought of Jairus and how many times I've caught him at the pantry eating PB out of the jar, found a PB covered spoon lying next to the PB in the pantry, or actually opened up the jar to find the spoon still stuck there (oops! caught in the act!) How, though, could we actually videotape him doing it?
Well, in the end, I had a vision for how his PB thievery could be caught on film and we set about doing it. I think it's absolutely hilarious! You can see it here.
I'll admit, I really hope, and think we have a chance of winning it. Maybe that's because he's just so darn-giggly cute, but maybe it's also because (and not that this is a criteria for winning) of why we want to win this.
As I'm sure all who are reading know, Jairus cannot speak. He does make sounds, they do sometimes sound like words, and we who have lived with him for 10 years can usually figure out what he's trying to say (usually). But we pray nightly over Jairus that the Lord will heal him and he will be able to speak someday.
To this end, we are in a constant search and battle to find and provide any solutions that will help. I've taken him to cranial sacral therapy, Turner's therapy (chiropractic), looked into Hyperbaric oxygen therapy. He's seen naturopaths, countless specialists, and of course, speech therapists. Today I'm taking him for an appointment at Blue Balloon, for a screening to determine if he'd benefit from music therapy. And last fall we went to Toronto and had an intake consultation at The Listening Centre, one of the few places in the world that offers Tomatis listening therapy.
I've been especially excited about this one, as my Musikgarten training last summer included information about the five foundations of the curriculum. One of them, ironically was the work and research of Dr. Alfred Tomatis. I hadn't known this before I headed off for the week of seminars and it was really amazing to find this connection; I had been introduced to Tomatis therapy a few years before, even contacted the centre the previous year, but hadn't yet followed through due to the great cost involved. It was going to be about $5000 for Jairus to take the 6 week course of daily listening therapy.
After we followed through with an appointment last fall, I really set about trying to pull the funds together. There were a number of charities recommended by the centre to help with the costs. One by one, we were turned down by them for various reasons--usually that they didn't help with such an 'unorthodox' therapy. (Tomatis has been around for at least 30 years, how long does it take to gain acceptance?) We did receive some help from the Jennifer Ashleigh Foundation and a bit more from our church, but the bulk of the money has remained out of our reach.
So this is what the money would go to, if Jairus' video should win. I'm kindof tickled that he could be getting this therapy due to his own terrible cuteness, his proclivity for peanut butter and the opportunity to show the world how sneaky he can be!
0 comments:
Post a Comment