The Resolve of Buddy Bea

Watching her bow at the front of the mat was thrilling. Pride lit up inside me like white-hot spotlights at a Hollywood premiere. It took everything in my power not to coach and encourage her from the sidelines like an enthusiastically overbearing daddy.

"Okay, Beatrice. Count off for me," said instructor Mike.

"Hana, dhul, sehtt, nehtt," Bea answered, counting in Korean.

"That's great, buddy."

Buddy -- instructor Mike called them all buddy -- even Bryce as she bounced around the mat trying, and failing, to follow instructions (which led to her eventual mat removal; she's too young yet anyway). Bryce is a stick of dynamite with a short fuse, another story for another blog post.

But Buddy Bea, she was determined to learn each and every martial arts move. Some she somewhat mastered, while others she struggled with, but through it all her resolve moved me to the point of tears. Seriously.

And this was only class number two for her. After the Mama had taken her the first time to Lairds Academy of Martial Arts, Bea immediately embraced martial arts and excitedly shared with us all what she learned when she returned home.

All except the breathing part. That part, which includes a power shout when breathing out, bothered her. That because of the auditory sensitivity and earlier delays she's experience since she was very little.

So prior to the second class starting, the one I went to with the Mama and both girls and where Bea received her uniform, we talked with the instructors about her auditory sensitivity. They were gracious, but when the class started and Bea herself articulated she didn't like the loud breathing, the primary instructor, Mike, simply told her:

"You're a good student, Beatrice, you'll do fine."

And that was that. She actually smiled and continued on happily with the rest of the class, completely engrossed in learning, with her daddy tongue poke and all. Plus, with all the Mama (and a little Daddy) gumption in their DNA, Bea and Bryce both are go-getters, and Bryce, well, she really helps to drive Bea out of her comfort zone. Amen.

Although her intellect has never been in question, just three years ago we were really worried about where she'd be today developmentally and socially. The resolve of buddy Bea has proven to have a resilience (so far) we had always hoped for, especially on the eve of kindergarten.

Her growing confidence, social skills and longing to learn has been a blessing for all of us. This martial arts class will help improve her coordination, flexibility, focus, patience, self control, and the importance of never initiating violence.

Here's to resolve, kids. And a hana, and a dhul, and a sehtt, and a nehtt...

If we were no longer here: the elasticity of God-empowered DNA

At 16 months old, will she remember our Martian family vacashun?

Will she remember holding hands walking on the beach, bare feet treading the chilly Pacific?

Will she remember the animals at the San Diego Zoo and Sea World?

Will she remember going on her first amusement park ride with Daddy?

Will she remember Mama nursing her through her cold last week in the middle of the night?

My lifelong fascination with how the human brain works and how if plays out in our everyday behavior has been rekindled through the developmental "wonder fire" burning inside Beatrice.

The sheer number of neurons at birth -- firing, wiring and re-wiring -- and by 8 months of age a baby may have an astounding 1,000 trillion synapses in her brain!

Between reading How We Decide to the website Zero to Three to other brain development content candy bars, I'm seeking the knowledge of how and why.

Why, for example, don't I have any memories before the age of 5-6 years old, but my sister claims she does from as early as 2-3?

Most child development experts believe that short-term memory isn't fully developed until age 3, so the ability to store occurrences at any given moment with regularity is hobbled by biological development.

Barring any other predisposed genetic disability or physical defect, a loving and nurturing family environment helps to spur the healthy wiring and re-wiring.

Trauma hampers the circuitry to no end.

According to Zero to Three's Starting Smart:

At the Developmental Traumatology Laboratory at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinics in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, researchers are conducting studies in traumatized children using the most up-to-date methods to study their stress circuits and brain development. In a recent report, they described their findings on maltreated children with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) who they compared to healthy, normal children and to children with clinical anxiety disorders who had not been maltreated. Many of the maltreated children had been sexually abused beginning between the ages of 18 months and 7 years. They had also witnessed domestic violence beginning early in life, and some had been battered by family members. For most of the children with PTSD, the trauma was chronic, lasting for several years before the children were rescued.

Unlike non-maltreated comparison children, the children with PTSD had elevated levels of the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol, even on a normal day when nothing especially stressful was happening (DeBellis, Baum, et al., 1999). Thus, these children’s stress systems seemed to be turned on even when they didn’t need to be. Especially high stress hormone levels were found among the children who had been abused for longer and/or had more severe PTSD. Very similar results have been found for children rescued from Romanian orphanages, even though for the most part these children had been severely neglected rather than physically or sexually abused.

Not surprising then on how PTSD played an unfortunate role in my development and my sister's, and the teenage/adult struggles that ensued. As I've said many times before, we need a helluva lot more purple elevate patches out there.

However, the elasticity of God-empowered DNA gives those of us who fight back a semblance of sanity, and in turn, the opportunity to break the cycle of trauma -- whether that's domestic violence, extreme neglect, even genocidal warfare.

And it favors the nurtured offspring.

This morning we woke Beatrice together as we usually do, talking with her and giving her hugs and kisses, singing her our morning song, and pointing out different icons in her room -- Pooh, Piglet and the flying bees that Amy's sister made.

This morning Beatrice pointed out my ears, mouth, eyes and nose, and then honked my nose. I asked her if her nose felt better ('cause here and Mama shared a cold this last week). She squeezed it and said, "Doe, doe, doe, doe, doe..."

Not that I focus on morbidity with any frequency these days, but this morning I also wondered if suddenly we were no longer here, would Bea remember us? Would even Bryce at this stage?

I'm going to buck the expert scientific trends and say, yes -- yes they would.

I'm crazy like that. I told you before it's the dope.