Month: June 2012

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#blog12daysxmas #blog5daysAustenese #blogjune Random thoughts

Getting older, getting wiser?

Today is the last day of June. Today I’m finishing this #blogjune challenge, where I’ve tried diligently to blog every day. This was my second attempt at #blogjune, and I’m proud to say that I was a lot more consistent this year!

So, according to my calendar, I am one year older. I wonder however, whether or not it’s possible to measure if I am one year wiser?!

I certainly had a lot of new experiences this year. Since my last #blogjune, I have (in chronological-ish order):
– Studied an elective outside the LIS sphere. I didn’t like it.
– Added six new clients to my new “Bloxham Marketing” business.
– Started, and finished, gymnastics lessons for Miss 7.
– Started, and have continued with, swimming lessons for Miss 7.
– Used the #blog12daysxmas challenge to start blogging regularly again.
– Read so many Jane Austen novels that I initiated the #blog5daysAustenese challenge… and had four brave fellow bloggers join me in the journey!
– Presented a 3 hour digital marketing presentation live on LEQ TV.
– Plucked up enough courage to see if Mr 3 was autistic.
– Had my daughter’s eyes tested, and sure enough Miss 7 now wears glasses for reading.
– Supported a good friend who was doctoring in New Guinea. We’d meet each other daily, online, and hold each other accountable in our Christian walks.

– Scored a HD in INN530 Online Information Services, courtesy of the truly wonderful @katiedatwork (still can’t believe that one. SOOOOOOOOOO majorly STOKED!!!!!!)

So… older? Yes. That bit’s inevitable. Wiser? I’m not so sure. I certainly hope so, though! And here ends the #blogjune challenge for another year. I wonder what will happen between this one and the 2013 version? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!

Thanks for sharing this journey with me, dear readers. Your support is far more of an encouragement than you could ever know. You guys rock!!!

Categories
#blogjune

Autism Quote Number 5

I love this one. Hope you like it, too!

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#blogjune

Autism Quote Number 4

So I’m going to start this post by referring to the American sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. Which used to be one of my favourite shows… until someone pointed out to me that the character Dr Sheldon Cooper was a classic autistic. Which, of course, I had always kind of *known*, but hadn’t really connected the dots between this man, and my son.

And when I did, I didn’t find the show all that funny any more.

Here’s today’s quote. (Again, from the ‘Always Unique, Totally Intelligent, Sometimes Mysterious’ Facebook community):

Categories
#blogjune

Autism Quote Number 3

Do *you* know what to “look” for?

 

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#blogjune

Autism Quote Number 2

This is so true:

Autism. Where a scream is speech, fighting to get free.

🙂 *wipes away tear*

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#blogjune

Autism Quote Number 1

So this is Monday’s blog post (I know, I know, it’s 10.42 on Tuesday night) and I’ve decided to follow in @fionawb’s footsteps and do a meme for the final week of #blogjune entries. And seeing as this whole month’s worth of entries has been about the journey I’m now on, with my recently diagnosed autistic son, and also seeing as it looks like I’m going to be MAJORLY short on time this week, I’m going to close out this final week with quotes that bring tears to my eyes. The first:

Always Unique, Totally Intelligent, Sometimes Mysterious

… yep, that’s my boy!

(And if you’re interested, there’s a Facebook community with this name, that’s the story of one autistic boy’s family, and their journey…)

Categories
#blogjune momentous events

I wah war

This is what my little man has said, three times now in the last few weeks. I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, but yesterday he said it as he was running towards me to give me a hug. And that’s when I realised.

“I love you.”

My heart skipped a beat. It was beautiful. Just beautiful.

Categories
#blogjune Technology

#gratitude

This week has been rather an emotional one. I had a bit of a meltdown on Wednesday (sometimes it doesn’t take much!) but it was the huge numbers of messages of support from friends, both IRL and online, that left be stupefied, overwhelmed, and incredibly, incredibly, grateful.
Thanks do much, guys! You seriously ROCK!!!

Categories
#blogjune Random thoughts teaching

On classroom dynamics

So I was a classroom teacher for quite a lot of my career to date. Don’t actually want to count the years, but it was getting up around the 2 decade mark… That’s a bit scary to admit! But anyway, the point I trying to make in my long-winded, English teacher-y way is that a lot of that time, I was interested in the classroom dynamics, and how they’d often shift and change depending on the circumstances and personal growth of the members of the group. It was really quite fascinating to see how a group of unruly, ‘push the boundaries’ year 9 boys would change, at times quickly, another times more slowly, depending on who entered the group, who left, how they interacted with each other, and how they worked for (or didn’t work for, in some cases) the different teachers at the front of the classroom. Yes, classroom dynamics… A fascinating study.
I was thinking about that just this morning, as the dynamics of my household has changed since yesterday morning. This morning, Miss 7 is home; her first day of holidays. (Today is ‘Parent-Teacher interview day at her school.) So Hubby has gone to work, the kids have been fed, and now, with no extremely urgent deadlines (not til midday) I find myself back under my doona, checking twitter and posting for #blogjune on my iPhone, because Miss7 is occupying Mr3 in a two player PS2 game for an hour. She’s stoked, he’s stoked, and I get to relax for a bit (I’ve actually been up working on a St James ad since 5, so I’m not *completely* lazy!) and this is only possible due to the dynamics shift. Cool. Very cool.
Anyway, Miss 4 has now found me and this has inspired her to beg for Hide and Seek, so it looks as though my blog entry for today is over.
Have a great day, dear readers!

Categories
#blogjune

Grieving

Emotional alert. As in, for me. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.
Okay…
So I tweeted last night that yesterday had been a teary day. And it was. Perhaps blogging about my reaction to the thought of my boy never learning to read opened the floodgates or something, but once it started, boy!!! It’s been hard to stop! I broke down in Mr 3’s Speech Therapy session; I bawled after my afternoon Skype to Hervey Bay; I snivelled through the rest of the evening; and although I went to bed *fairly* early (soon after 10) I was up again at 2 this morning, getting editorials finished and ad mockups created and responding to emails and so on and so forth. So yes, today was also a teary one- but at least I’m recognizing that lack of decent sleep has something to do with it, today!
So anyway, I think I’ve figured out the reason for my tears. I’m grieving.

I’m grieving for the life I had hoped that Mr 3 would have. I guess as parents we all have dreams for our kids… I had just never realised that what I had dreamt for him was unrealistic. That his life will be different to what I had imagined. So I’m mourning that loss. Reason number one.
I’m saddened that it is just me who mourns this. Because *he* will never know any different; he will never realize “what he’s missing” – if, indeed, the life I had envisaged ended up being ‘better’ than the one that he *will* have.
Reason number two.
Reason number three: embarrassment. How arrogant of me! As a Christian, I believe that God’s plans are perfect, for each of our lives, so the life He has planned for my little man is far better than anything I could ever come up with! So how arrogant is that, to have been thinking that the life he will have is somehow ‘less’ than what I had hoped / planned for!
Reason number four: embarrassed tears were engulfed by tears of shame. The reality of ‘this is how it is’ saddens me. Because the truth has hit (again) that no, he will *not* be going to Pre-Prep next year. And quite likely, he will *not* be going to Prep the following year. Which means more time at home with me… a good thing… and yet… I know that this means he’ll be more reliant on me for longer than I had anticipated. And again, I’m grieving. And this is where, truth be told, I am gutted. I’m gutted to realize that this is not the situation I want. I love my boy to bits, but I don’t actually *want* him to be dependent on me for so much, for so long! I’m a selfish creature; I can’t see how I will cope! I’m already exhausted from managing just the ECDP and the Speech Therapist into my crowded life; I know I should probably be adding in a weekly OT session, and be looking at Psych. appointments too… but I can’t see how it all can fit in to our lives. Seriously! And that shatters me, to think that I’d rather have him ‘be a “normal” child’ so that life would be easier on me. I tell you what – the self-reflections of my studies are *nothing* compared to what’s been in my head the past two days…