dance therapy.

There is one definite thing that has always pulled me through any crisis in my life:

Dancing.

  I'll never forget when I first started reading about Batten Disease after Mabel's diagnosis and one of the things that stuck out to me was that batten's children love music.  Our girl always has and still, on her worst day and in her worst moment LOVES the beat.  She would laugh and swing and giggle all day long if I could and some days that's all we do.

 8 o'clock is when we start our bedtime routine yet every night faithfully we somehow end up in the toy room doing a late night dance party.  We let the kids get their energy out and I find that I am completely set free even just by watching them, let alone joining them.  The music is way too loud, we don't stop for anything, the kids scream and laugh and we all go a little wild.  

Most nights it lasts far too long and we laugh deep.  It literally washes my soul. 

 These dance parties have been a constant in our lives. 

 Even in the midst of trial and heartache, the adults around these kids have somehow mustered up enough energy to just turn on the music and dance.  I know that they'll look back on these nights and random kitchen moments with such fond memories.  When I lay down at night I find myself smiling, remembering the friends who joined my redheads in crazy moments and held Mabel as she laughed at the music.

 There's something to be said about a room full of children who are so carefree, and so happy that all they want to do is move and giggle.  I look at them and I feel like the wreckage that could be their life is not.  They actually know nothing else but what we present to them every day and here, in this house-

it is still joy and it is still dancing. 

 There's a quote by Edwin Denby that I love:

"There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good." 

 So if you happen to drive past our house late at night, rest assured that the big window will be open and there will be red hair flying.  Music will be loud and kids will be laughing.  Adults will be shaking their bodies wildly and without restraint because we, too, need it.  And then we laugh and laugh and laugh some more. When the time is up and it's all over for the night, we leave the room feeling lighter, more free.  

The mess of the day, and of this life leave us during our kitchen dancing and toy room escapades.  

I am proud to know that some day our kids will know the best form of therapy simply because we lived it.