Personality

For one of my college classes we took the Myers-Briggs Personality Test.  I came out as an INFJ which I found to be quite accurate.  It describes the weird mesh between being a "math person" and someone who spends a lot of time caring about people.  As I reread the description while writing this blog, I am encouraged by it's description of me as a parent.

INFJ is a natural nurturer; patient, devoted and protective. They make loving parents and usually have strong bonds with their offspring. They have high expectations of their children, and push them to be the best that they can be. This can sometimes manifest itself in the INFJ being hard-nosed and stubborn. But generally, children of an INFJ get devoted and sincere parental guidance, combined with deep caring.

I hope and pray that this is true of me.  I feel deeply bonded with Wesley and I hope my "high expectations" manifests in me getting Wesley as much help as possible to reach his full potential.  I don't want to push him too hard and yet I want him to be able to achieve whatever his heart desires.  I want to be one of the parents that scoffs at doctors who tell them their child will never walk or talk, and proves them all wrong.  But at the same time I want to be realistic about the degree of Wesley's disability.  There's that weird contrast in personality again.


As Wesley gets older, he is starting to develop a personality of his own.  He works hard at playing, and then takes a break and smiles, almost as if he thinks about what he did and then finds it fun.  Sometimes he smiles at the most random times like he just thought of something funny all the sudden.  What stands out the most is how determined he is when he is playing on his own.  He might get hungry or sleepy but he fights it off to keep playing.  He gets so focused and stubborn about it.  Cameron and I were talking about that this evening and he commented that Wesley's stubbornness will probably help him in his development.  That has stuck with me.  I envision adults who have to do physical therapy after an injury who are stubbornly committed to get back to "normal."  It's like Wesley is a mini version of that.  His therapy is playing but he is so determined to keep going despite other distractions.  His attention span has always been considerably long for his age.  Since he was 10 weeks old, he has been staying awake for 1 1/2 hours doing intense therapy at the Anchor Center.  They've always been impressed with how alert he is for such a long period of time (I know I'm bragging on him a little bit)

One of the best therapy tools yet is called a "little room."  The Anchor Center has several "little rooms" that Wesley has used while he was there.  He gets such a kick out of being in it.  Essentially it's a 5 sided cube (2' x 2 1/2' x 3') that has a fiberglass top with holes drilled in it.  Toys, or various household items, and hung by elastic from a grid of holes in the fiberglass.  You lay the baby inside the cube and at first they hit toys on accident just by regular movements.  The longer they are in the room, the more intentional their movements become.  It's one of Wesley's favorite things to play in.  It helps them learn to organize themselves and understand their own location within space (which is hard when they don't have normal vision).  It also gets them to be more vocal as the acoustics inside the "little room" are awesome.  It has a whole list of benefits (for that matter there's a 112 page book about it).  It seems silly that such a simple item can do so much but it really does help Wesley work on so many skills all at once.

Yesterday Cameron and I built Wesley his own "little room."  I adjusted it this afternoon so the toys were the right height and he spent some time in there this evening.  He did so great.  He was tired but stubbornly kept playing (which really means he kept developing).  I hope that he is able to use his stubbornness to push through difficulties and develop to the full of his potential.