Journey to a New Life

In this picture I took today, Cesar and I are playing on Maya's bed with mini flashcards. We've recently started playing with learning how to read and made our own flash cards. Maya made her own little set that Cesar can play with when we come visit her, much to Cesar's delight.

Since Cesar was born, he has gone through many phases in his life. With these phases, I don't mean developmental phases (although in a way, they are), but points in his reality that he gets really interested and obsessed with. These are usually of a kind that is kind of, well 'unpleasant' for the rest of the people living in his environment.

One example would be throwing around the dogs' steel bowls. It makes such a big noise (like someone constantly banging on drum cymbals), but he was absolutely fascinated by it. My first instict was to 'make him stop' because I knew this could be bothersome and distracting to other people. Because I was coming from a point of fear of 'what others might think'; I wasn't considering Cesar within this equation. Making him stop or preventing it was very difficult and he would end up doing it anyway, but with even more vigour as he now knew that 'he might soon not be able to'.

This method was obviously not working for him or for me so I took a moment to stop and really look at what was happening. I looked at Cesar and I looked at myself when I was young and absolutely fascinated by something. I saw that what he was going through was simply a natural curiosity of cause and effect and exploring all the objects in his world. Once he had fully explored an object, he'd be done with it because through his exploration he now got a good understanding of what the object is all about and there is no longer a drive to 'see what happens'; he has tested it all, he know simply knows.

So instead of fighting whatever phase he finds himself in at any particular time; I embrace it - as I understand it's just part of his learning process. Instead of stopping him and getting frustrated I look at how else his particular point of focus can be explored. We can push a bowl sideways so it rolls like a wheel. We can spin it like a spinning top. We can bang it against different objects to see what different sounds it makes. He's learning new things about physical reality, and gets to know what he wants to know much quicker then if he would have gone through a continuous stop-start process where his curiosity never gets satisfied - leaving both him and myself disgruntled. So whenever you find yourself in a situation where you want to make your child stop, I ask yourself: "Am I empowering him or am I simply limiting him out of convenience?"
These simple shifts in perspective can make such a huge change in making your daily life a more flowing and smooth experience!

In my previous blog, Day 83: Playfulness | Gifts from Animals - Dogs, I shared how the dogs’ expression of playfulness assisted me getting through tough times.

If there’s something Cesar knows all about, it’s exactly that = tough times. Being a baby and growing into a toddler is a lot of work for the physical body. The rate at which the body grows and changes is exceptional, and so is the pain and discomfort that comes with it.

On one of the days that he was going through a particularly rough patch, I looked at him and could see myself in his distraught eyes. It reminded me of when I would go through physical discomfort and would then emphasise the physical discomfort by adding an emotional experience to it, basically ‘feeling bad about feeling bad’. I also realised that, even though I was feeling bad – I could make the decision to acknowledge it, but not allow it to ‘take over’ to the point where it disabled me to do something with myself and my day. So looking into Cesar’s eyes, I realised that if I wanted him to get out of this experience, it was going to be up to me to create a new moment. I got up and moved myself to come up with something random for us to do, something he is not used to in terms of his routine that would get him to be engaged and curious about what we are doing, rather than being focused on what he is experiencing. In this particular instance, I playfully pointed out the chillies which were growing on our pepper plants in front of the parrot aviary, how they can be plucked and then given to the parrots who happily eat them.

He was very attentive and could see on his face that he moved out of the experience into what we were physically engaged with. This made him ‘snap out’ of his mood where even after our little activity was over, he was more present and not so overwhelmed with what his body was going through.

So, through simply in a moment moving yourself to embody a particular expression such as playfulness, you can stand as support for another to move themselves into the same expression. This isn’t always easy, because within being a mother, I go through my own share of physical discomfort and can get emotional about this – where I have to stand as the support for myself first to push through and move myself out of my own emotional experience, to only then be able to stand as an example for Cesar to show that you can determine your own experience in a moment and change it, even if the circumstances aren’t in your favour.

I am grateful to the dogs for having been my bridge of support, to show me that I can change when I wasn’t yet able to move myself to change in a moment – and for me to now transfer the same gift to Cesar.

In my previous blog, Day 80: Mysophobia & The Inconvenience of Life – Part 1 | From Farm Life to City Life; I shared some of my experiences and observations which happened around ‘sand’ whilst staying in Belgium.
I ended off with ‘Sand was no longer a medium of expression, something to be explored and played with – but a dreaded ‘dirt’ that would have to be dealt with. Did we not bring sand into the house and get it a little bit dirty? Sure – but it took only a few minutes to clean up as if it was never really there. It wasn’t so much the sand that was dreaded as the inconvenience of taking the time to clean it up. Parents would much rather forgo a child’s funtime and opportunity to play with the sand than having to sacrifice a few moments of their time to clean up after them.’

Another incident which illustrated this point nicely, was when we were at the playground and a child came running very happy and excitedly to have arrived at the playground – where he for a moment was so caught up in his excitement that he fell but was able to stop the fall by putting his hands to the ground. I thought it was rather quick thinking on the child’s part – but the mother who was walking a bit behind let out a big, massive sigh and then loudly scolded the child, complaining that they would now ‘have to go and wash his hands AGAIN’.

From all the variables which took place in that single moment, the one that had caught her attention was that ‘now his hands are dirty again’.

This just blew my mind, to see and realise how far removed we can get ourselves from reality. How we place such specific filters in our mind which define everything we see and experience in our world. In terms of filters active towards children, the biggest ones were money and relationships (/status). I mean, in any given situation, there’s a myriad of ways we can decide to respond to a given situation. But when we have filters in place, such as the things we value and give importance to, this limits our scope of how we see we can responds to a situation; to the point that we believe that there is only ‘one way’ which is the way we end up responding.

This is something I have seen so many times over within myself when working through memories within the DIP Pro course – and it was quite interesting and entertaining (in a scientific kind of way lol) to see it play out in front of my eyes.

There are so many ways to explore and experience childhood, yet within stubbornly holding on to values which set the parameters of how we see things and so respond to our environment, we force children to only live and experience life within very limited dimensions.

Continuing from my previous blog: Day 79: From Farm Life to City Life | Don’t Touch the Walls

Within my previous blog we already established that the inside of the house was not a very pleasant environment to be; not so much because of the physical features but the mental limitations that were imposed within and unto the space.

So – whenever we could; we would go outside to one of the parks so Cesar could walk and play on the playground.

The one would we would go to the most was the bigger one which was furthest away. It had a nice playground which was also covered in sand that kids could play in.

Cesar loved sitting in the sand and picking up sand and placing bits of sand on random places and spots on all the various playground stations. He liked stirring sand with sticks, digging holes, finding little pebbles or rocks or just sitting and watching, observing other children play.

For us, this was natural. On the farm, we sit on the ground outside, we play in the sandpit, he plays with dirt, he plays with dogs – being outside, interacting with ‘the elements’ = you get dirty.

Being at the playground almost everyday, we noticed that the way we were playing and behaving at the playground wasn’t the norm.

The first thing we noticed, was that even though the playground was covered with sand – it was not something children were playing with. The second thing we noticed, was that adults/parents stayed away from the actual playground stations and left the children to play on their own. This isn’t that noteworthy for older children, but did get our attention for toddlers.

In terms of the sand, what became clear was that there was a general agreement that sand is very undesirable and should be avoided at all cost. Do not play with the sand, try not to touch it and dare not to sit in it. Other parents’ eyes actually became big as they saw us and Cesar sit with our bums in the sand, as if we were committing some type of sacrilege (didn’t we know we were gonna get sand all over our bums and maybe even in-between our clothes!!!!) as well as the realisation of fear that our (bad) example may tempt their children into disobedience.

The one time as we went into a shop and some sand from our playground trip had found itself on the shop’s floor; the owner had a fit of rage at the sight of a little bit of sand as this was simply ‘unacceptable’ and was convinced we were deliberate evil-doers.

Sand was no longer a medium of expression, something to be explored and played with – but a dreaded ‘dirt’ that would have to be dealt with. Did we not bring sand into the house and get it a little bit dirty? Sure – but it took only a few minutes to clean up as if it was never really there. It wasn’t so much the sand that was dreaded as the inconvenience of taking the time to clean it up. Parents would much rather forgo a child’s funtime and opportunity to play with the sand than having to sacrifice a few moments of their time to clean up after them.

The fact that children thoroughly enjoy sand and are able to do so much with it – completely bypasses parents’ minds. The only part which gets registered is how much ‘they suffer’ at the hand of sand-play and how they’re just not bothered to go there.

To be continued

 Continuing from Day 76: Sometimes it just Sucks – Part 1.

 I had another experience the other day where Cesar was quite frustrated as we were taking an evening stroll in an attempt to have him settle down more, where he was very upset with the teething pain and wouldn’t calm down. As we were walking and my sister was pushing the stroller while Cesar crying, I checked if there was anything at all we could do different in this moment that would make him more comfortable – which when going through our options, I could tell was not going to be an option, we simply had to walk through this. When I realise there was nothing we could do, I told my sister and told her that it ‘just sucks’ and asked her to also say it out loud. After she said it, she shared that she immediately felt a lot better about the situation we were walking through, and right after that – Cesar settled within himself and calmed down in the stroller in a matter of a few seconds.
This made me think about how we are never taught to express our discontent or frustrations as children. When we are very young and don’t yet know how to express ourselves properly, tantrums are quickly followed by things that will make us ‘shut up’ and stop just for the sake of having the tantrum ended. The reason or origin of the tantrum doesn’t get to be discussed.

At home and at school we are all too often pushed to follow instructions obediently and not too question things. This leaves no space for critical thinking and no space for discontent or frustrations to be expressed. We are only allowed to say good things and give praise under the guise that doing otherwise would be ‘impolite’. So at least we are aware that things aren’t perfect, but we’re not allowed to express it.

Anyway, this led me to play more with expressing frustration on Cesar’s behalf and playing with different words and sounds – and even made a swear-song on teething, accompanied with hitting on tin boxes – which Cesar enjoyed very much. And I will definitely be keeping this dimension on mind when assisting Cesar in building his vocabulary and specifying how he can express himself.

A point I have mentioned several times on this blog, is how little gets shared of the ‘real story’ behind having a family/having a child or children.

Throughout my whole life, no-one every shared with me the true nature or the ‘raw deal’ of what is actually involved in having a family of your own and the challenges you face. At the same time, in how the world is moving – the true nature of parenting is getting forgotten as we all have been led to belief that life is about working and consuming. This means that being a parent and raising your own child isn’t a “thing” anymore, as we spend the majority of the time working while someone else looks after the children (whether a nanny or at school – schools end up being convenient day-care centres).

We are also not trained our taught to value and appreciate parenting, what is involved in child care, the challenges one will face, the sacrifices that need to be made. For many, there is this ‘idea’ of parenting and the ‘idea’ of having a family of one’s own. A picture created in your mind that makes you feel happy thinking of ‘what could be’. Then, a child becomes a reality and your whole world comes crashing down as you have no practical tools whatsoever to direct yourself, so let alone direct a child. With society and the entertainment industry bombarding us with the ‘Me-Me-Me’-ideology – where everything is about what YOU WANT and YOUR FREEDOM; it’s easy to just ‘give up’ on actual parenting and instead embrace the Me-Me ideology where you get to do what you want while having your children ‘in check’ whilst allowing them to play out their own Me-Me-Me-Ideology..

This is something I have been observing more and more, where an idea was created about ‘what it is like to have a family’ and then one it becomes a reality – it all just becomes about ‘managing’ it, about surviving it and waiting for ‘things to get better’.

When we think of having a family of our own, we think of the happy moments, the moments you share a laugh, baby’s first steps, birthdays, baby saying ‘mommy’ and all the other events that are interpreted to signify ‘love’. These moments as images however, are fleeting moments. They happen once in a while and then it’s over. So what about the rest of the time? The rest is spent supervising, cleaning, playing, participating and directing your child. I’m not saying that it’s not ‘fun’ – but it is nothing like the nice energetic feeling that gets brought up when we *think* about having a child/baby of our own. The main point is that you need to be available to your child in every moment. It takes focus, discipline, assertiveness, gentleness, understanding and everlasting patience to do this effectively. These words, are not easy to live – they do not come natural to most and are not values which are taught and transferred effectively in this day and age. Every day, every moment you need to force yourself, your beingness to change and move in a way that supports your child, even though it completely clashes with the life you used to have or the preferences you hold. Parenting is a full time job – and with fulltime I don’t mean from 9 to 5 – I literally mean *full time* as in the full 24 hours (ok, maybe you will get a few hours of sleep ;-)). So to every day face and walk something that goes against every grain of your being as the nature of self-interest – it can be quite daunting. Also consider that: there are no take-backs lol. Once you have a child, you have a child and this other person will be intrinsically interconnected and interwoven in your daily life for the next 18 years. That’s a huge commitment.

Not many manage to find it within themselves to completely dedicate themselves to their children and nurturing them to their utmost potential. Instead, babies and children become accessories. Much like having a pet – where people get a pet like a dog because they like the idea of it – but then end up spending minimal time with the dog in a way that supports the dog’s living experience, and become ‘just another chore’ that needs to be taken care of.

The child or children need to fit in to their schedule. They need to behave in a way that I like. They need to pursue things in life that I approve of, that fits with how I want to be perceived, that will add to my status. They will take credit when the child receives a compliment, but blame the child when negative feedback is received.

Children don’t fit into little boxes however, and tend to retaliate and throw tantrums to express their discontent. This then only feeds more fuel to the fire, where the parents will try and fit them into boxes of rules and conditions even more – and use this ‘despicable behaviour’ as an excuse as to why they need a break from their children, and why they deserve time for themselves and the things they like. Then it’s even more okay to hire a full-time caretaker, send them to boarding school, and immerse yourself into work and/or your social life.

This in turn, creates a pressure on the child as the child is experiencing a lack of freedom, a lack in the ability to express themselves which then overtime turns into an obsession and compulsion of ‘doing what I want’ – turning out just like the parents.

So while you may want a child or family with the best intentions, with having the ‘perfect family moments’ at heart – you end up with a deeply unsatisfied life and children who can’t wait to get away from their parents.

Having a child and starting a family is a serious consideration and not a decision to be made on a whim. Spend some time with families, talk to parents, spend time with children and see if this is something you truly want – or see yourself being able to change into wanting and living it. Having a child is a decision that affects a lifetime – not only yours, but also that of your child.

Continuing from Day 73: No Time for Process – Part 1:
So then I looked at what it was I was holding on to within wanting to holding on to this approach. The two points that stood out for me was that I felt the need to ‘prepare myself’, which had subtly become a mechanism for postponement. Instead of looking and seeing into reactions directly in the moment, I would react to my reactions and within that believe that I first ‘need some time’ to ‘work this out’ before moving to real-time application and change. The other point was that I was still placing value on ‘what others might think of me’, where I was holding on to having visible ‘proof’ that I am walking/living my process and being able to visibly contribute -- limiting my conception of process within intrinsically tying it to ‘what is visibly done for others to see’ ; and diminishing the aspect of real-time change and application which is only visible for self and one’s immediate environment. So these two dimensions were working nicely together to not have me move myself in the moment but instead long for time to write and ‘do my homework’ so to speak – leading to not much of anything happening in the end.

So, since I wasn’t getting to my old way of working with points, I had to find a new way to walk points I was facing and opening up new ones.

I pushed my real-time application by applying Self-Forgiveness out loud whenever a reaction came up. While my hands were generally very busy with taking care of a baby, I could still use my mouth to sound Self-Forgiveness. Initially, I experienced some resistance as I didn’t think I’d be able to open up the points in depth, which is something I had linked to only being possible within writing.

The way I was able to open up points by voicing Self-Forgiveness went actually very smoothly. I would simply go point by point and each time I was finished with one line the next point would naturally open up. While my Self Forgiveness was not yet as specific as how it would have been if it had been written, I ‘got the picture’ in terms of having and seeing the overview of how the pattern/construct plays out much quicker, and would work on the essential points.

Sometimes if the reactions were quite intense or I was overwhelmed by the amount of points that had opened up, I would go for a walk with Cesar and apply Self Forgiveness as we walk so I could focus on just that. Often as I hit a cool point or would ‘round it up’ Cesar would suddenly look me straight in the eyes from his baby carrier, or give me a big gaping smile lol.

When I wasn’t facing any particular new point or reaction, I would play with things like body posture and body movement. Seeing how different postures change how I experience myself inside myself and practicing my self-awareness in relation to my body and body movement. When reading to Cesar or practicing vocabulary/pointing at things or describing what I am doing/what’s happening around us, I’d pay attention to how I voice the words I speak, if there are any charges/reactions/memories to the words and re-voice them until I was clear inside myself.

I’m still playing and practicing all the above mentioned points and found and still find them to be very grounding and stabilising.

While I first believed that being busy with a baby/child all day was ‘distracting’ and keeping me from working with points, I eventually found that it was the complete opposite.

Being and walking with Cesar gives me so much space and time to focus and work on my personal process in ways that I hadn’t conceived to be possible. I get to practice real-time application, correction and awareness every day. I get to re-walk my own childhood as I direct myself to provide him the childhood I wished I could have had. I get to see and understand behaviours my parents displayed towards me when I was a child that I didn’t understand back then, but am now able to put into perspective. I am able to forgive myself for points from my childhood that I didn’t fully understand yet, as well as points from my parents with more clarity and specificity. I am able to really see how much my parents influenced me in shaping myself, my beliefs, my fears and values – and how I can change these to self-supportive patterns for myself and my son.

While parenting is hard, having a child is an immense gift and opens up so many opportunities and possibilities towards self-discovery for self and another as yourself.

Embrace it fully!

An interesting point I faced early on when Cesar was a newborn – and which would sometimes resurface – was the point of ‘Not having time for Process’.

Before I had Cesar, I had quite some moments where I could sit down and write, work on Mind Constructs and essentially spend time laying things out for myself. With Cesar entering the equation, my schedule changed completely and these moments of time were simply not compatible with how my life turned out.

So what I realised here is that I had created a particular pattern and habit of ‘how I deal with things’ that are process related, and where within this habit creation, I had also limited myself to only working with things one way. Where, I’d have emotions, feelings, thoughts and other mind reactions come up – and if they were ‘new’ and unfamiliar (or if new dimensions of a point would open up) I would set time aside to write them out, lay out what I see in them, work with memories etc. to prepare myself to take them on when they come up next time around. Now, within just having become a mother, I had many of these new/unfamiliar experiences and reactions come up as I found myself in a whole new scenario/situation.

I found myself in a bit of anxiety and stress, because of being so used to having the time and space to write and lay things out for myself. When a point or reaction would open up during the day, I’d constrict within myself, knowing that there would be no time later to ‘work on the point’. Even though there was no time in sight, I was still hoping that I’d get some time or a ‘gap’ somewhere in the near future to be able to evaluate the reactions I had been having. So more and more I was postponing opening up the points as I felt I needed to write about it and I needed to use my DIP tools and that this was the only way I’d get a move on my process.

The time and space to open up the points wasn’t coming and in the meantime the reactions/points were just piling up so that when I did have a moment – I didn’t know where to start. So obviously, this approach was not working as I was seeing the friction build up inside myself. I was blaming my situation in terms of the time I had available, where I was busy round the clock for why I was not able to ‘tend to my process’. Seeing the nature of the thoughts I knew there was a point I had to look at in relation to ‘time’ as the nature of the thoughts was indicating to me an abdication of self-responsibility. So when I practically looked at how I wanted to work/walk the points and what was physically here and what I can actually walk – I saw it was not time that was the problem but the ‘method’ I was insisting on sticking by.

So then I looked at what it was I was holding on to within wanting to holding on to this approach. The two points that stood out for me was that I felt the need to ‘prepare myself’, which had subtly become a mechanism for postponement. Instead of looking and seeing into reactions directly in the moment, I would react to my reactions and within that believe that I first ‘need some time’ to ‘work this out’ before moving to real-time application and change. The other point was that I was still placing value on ‘what others might think of me’, where I was holding on to having visible ‘proof’ that I am walking/living my process and being able to visibly contribute -- limiting my conception of process within intrinsically tying it to ‘what is visibly done for others to see’ ; and diminishing the aspect of real-time change and application which is only visible for self and one’s immediate environment. So these two dimensions were working nicely together to not have me move myself in the moment but instead long for time to write and ‘do my homework’ so to speak – leading to not much of anything happening in the end.

To be continued

During my pregnancy, I tried to prepare myself the best as I could by reading up as much as I could on taking care of a baby/child and parenting and went to a pre-natal class to get some last questions answered. You’d think that after 9 months of reading that I’d be pretty well informed and confident to walking the actual practical process of taking care of a baby. Truth was that on the day we got released from the hospital and we were busy leaving the parking lot, I was thinking to myself: “Oh cr*p, can’t someone give me a manual on how to do this thing?”


Having an actual baby and going through the daily process, more questions came up. As I would nurse Cesar, I’d be reading up in more books, looking more things up on the internet. I wanted to be informed about every single point or question I came across. Because every time a point opened up that was new, I was faced with uncertainty – and that was not something I liked in relation to having a new born lol.

So from that perspective – finding all the information and making sure I was informed on all points so I knew what practical steps to take if ‘this’ or ‘that’ were to happen – was a supportive action.

But then, I found myself researching the same points over and over – and finding the same answers over and over – and found an anxiety that started generating and accumulating each time I participated in ‘let me just look this point up one more time’ or ‘maybe there’s something I’ve missed’. Because the evidence was clear: there was no new information coming up whatsoever; so there was no practical reason to continue looking, I already knew what I had to know.

So now within having reached a point of ‘knowing all there is to know’, I knew that the next step was to actually walk the practical process of applying the information, when the need for it would arise. Here I got scared because, I wanted to hold on to ‘being in preparation mode’ and still being busy gathering information as being in that process, I found a sense of safety knowing I do not yet have to trust myself, I can still pretend that I ‘don’t yet know’ and that I need more time to figure things out.

So when there was nothing left to figure out / look up and I got faced over and over with the same answers and information – this would each time re-enforce the self-belief that ‘I cannot trust myself’ in the sense of applying the information, and each time I would look things up again, I could feel myself being disempowered over and over.

So one night during one of our many nursing sessions, and noticing how totally unpleasant the process of looking things up and educating myself had become (which at that point wasn’t educational anymore but merely obsessive) – I put down my tablet which I would use to google things, turned it off and just breathed. Because I realised that what I was doing, was no longer practical but had become compulsive behaviour to excuse why I was putting off trusting myself, within knowing that I would be able to draw from my repertoire of knowledge I had accumulated, and actually put it to the test. Where as long as I was still ‘researching’ and something would happen, I could still ‘claim ignorance’.

So I just sat there nursing, breathing and letting go of all the fears and anxieties. After all, if a point would open up like some form of emergency, it was not going to help me to be in a state of anxiety and insecurity as I’ve seen in the past that this disables me within being able to clearly assess what is going on and what I exactly need to do, as I then within anxiety start to doubt myself and mix up information. So the best thing I could do was just to let go, trust myself and not let myself be tempted to look things up just ‘one more time’ as this would only turn into paranoia about me not being able to practically walk the reality of taking care of a baby.

Another dimension which I would like to open up in relation to my previous blog Day 69: Introducing Toys & Expansive Play, is that of hidden values we may hold towards toys – which our children don’t – and which may affect one’s relationship with one’s child playing with toys; and consequently the child’s relationship with playing with toys.

In my previous blog I mentioned how Cesar would play with toys in a way that ‘they were not intended to’, and the dimension of fear involved in terms of ‘developmental delay’ where I feared that Cesar not playing with the toy as how it was designed/intended to be played with was indicative to him being ‘behind’. Now, another dimension of fear I noticed at one point, was the fear of him breaking toy – which also falls within this category of ‘not using a toy the way it was intended to be used’.

Here, we were playing with a toy which we had just gotten him which had been quite pricey. Then as he started to play with the toy more intensely, almost as if he was deliberately putting its structural integrity and durability to the test – I experienced myself constricting inside myself and intervening in how he was playing with the toy. Cesar obviously didn’t like this very much, as he was exploring the toy within this particular way and was set out to continue exploring it within this manner as far as he could take it. When I noticed movement inside myself and wanting to move to intervene I stopped and asked myself why I was so intent on limiting him within how he was playing with the toy. “It’s his toy” I told myself. And then an image if how expensive the toy had been came up.

‘Ah’.

So here, I saw and realised how I had placed a particular value on the toy within the knowledge and information of how much the toy had cost, and where within the decision of buying the expensive toy, having made the decision/hope that it would ‘go a long way’.

Then you have Cesar who receives the toy and is like ‘Oh yay, cool’ – and almost immediately goes into checking how he can take it apart. This didn’t match my expectation which had been part of the decision of buying the toy, and how I projected he would play with the toy – which than caused inner conflict and friction. Where initially, I perceived Cesar to be the problem within ‘how he plays with the toy’; instead of seeing and realising that the problem was within my projection and expectations which were like ‘hidden terms and conditions’ which I was carrying around within myself in relation to the toy.

So, I took a step back within myself, breathed in, breathed out – and within the out breath completely let go of any expectations and limitations I had placed on the toy – placing the toy unconditionally within Cesar’s control (or rather, within his innocence).

I also realised that it would be futile to forevermore try and keep him from breaking things, as it would always leave an unsatisfied curiosity which would be bound to come out in one way or another.

The one day for instance, we were playing in the garden when some flowers that Maite had recently planted caught his eye. I went ‘uh oh’, and soon enough Cesar was pulling the flowers from the plants. But then he did an interesting thing, where he would pick up the flowers and place them back on the stem from which he pulled them; which obviously didn’t work and the flower would just float/fall down to the ground. And he would try that a few more times with the other flowers he had pulled off and then looked at me with this ‘Oh!’ face. So there I could tell he went through a learning-moment where he realised that if he pulls the flower off, then it’s off and you can’t get it back to how it used to be. So he will pull flowers off and he will break things – it’s inevitable. But the other side of the coin is that he will inevitably learn about the actions he performs, their cause and effect and consequence – and so how our physical reality operates.