Most Sincerely,

Our relationship is as such: he is hungry and my body feeds him, he is soiled and my hands change him, he is bored and my legs walk him, he is tired and my being comforts him. Now, the dynamic shifts and he is ill; my being seeks to heal him.

Healing is a creative effort. One must examine the situation, look beneath the surface. A determination must then be made, will the symptoms merely be treated or will energy be manipulated and redirected to heal the cause of dis-order?

So I examine, what is infant eczema? What could be the cause? There is a myriad of information, I sit at the computer clicking from one page to the next. I look at nutritional philosophies. I glean, sift, and catalog.

And now I’m exhausted. I can barely focus sometimes, and most of the time I just want to withdraw. So I do.

I’m trying to cut back on sugar and I’ve become conscious once again of that craving. It comforts me, it always has I believe. I remember a story, and a shadow of a memory. My parents once ran a small general store and restaurant. There were bins of hard candies for sale. In a dusk-lit corner of my memory I can see myself nearly twenty-years ago, standing on a chair snatching candy—round, cinnamon, wrapped. The story goes, “she could grab a piece, have it unwrapped and in her mouth before we’d even know what was happening.”

Tonight my head is pounding. I feel the furthest from grace. I feel stuck within my ick. For Arlo’s sake I’m try to be mindful of my diet. Actually, not for Arlo’s sake alone, truly, in our symbiosis, this is for my sake as well. It goes like this: no dairy, gluten, soy, eggs, tomatoes, avocados. Nothing overly processed, nothing loaded with sugar. Clean food. My body is screaming now.

The sugar is the hardest. Tonight, actually all day, I have just wanted chocolate. I don’t think its really chocolate though. I want comfort. But I don’t know how to open up and ask for it. Honestly, I don’t feel I have the energy to open up and be seen.  

I have been taking fish oil and evening primrose oil. I have been taking vitamin D. I have been brewing a tea composed of: dandelion root/leaf, burdock root, thistle seed, pau d’arco bark, red clover, nettles, and chamomile. Last night I made a salve containing these same properties to use on Arlo’s skin.

Raw, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar helps his condition. I put it in his bath water and he doesn’t mind it. He doesn’t like when I just give him a sponge bath though. The whole time I say over and over, I’m sorry. I use probiotics on his skin too, as well as giving them to him orally.

I really am trying, so hard. I am relying on my knowledge and intuition to get us through. I am riddled with self-doubt and guilt. The nature of our relationship being as such, I feel that this is my fault, my actions with my body have produced this effect in my son.

Along with the eczema his congestion is still present. And there are times he attacks his fingers like his gums are hurting. He seems so uncomfortable. He cries more, and I can hear the distress in his voice. I just want to fix it all.

This is so hard.

I feel broken.

And these feelings are inescapable. I’ve cut out so many distractions now I’m just stuck with myself, I wish I liked me more.  All I see are my shortcomings. Why can’t I be gentle with myself? How can I be gentle with myself?