This is so true:
Autism. Where a scream is speech, fighting to get free.
š *wipes away tear*
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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…)
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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.
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#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!!!
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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!
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…
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Sunshine and toys
It’s Wednesday morning; ECDP and Speech Therapy morning. Work happened earlier, I think my clients are getting used to emails dated pre -6am!
Hubby and I were talking about my ‘return to work’ (ha!)
yesterday. The original plan was that I stay home with the kids, and Miss 4 would start Prep next year (2013) and Mr 3 the following year. Then St Paul’s offered a Pre-Prep class for next year; and so then Hubby’s plan became ‘all three kids at school next year / Ceridwyn returns to full-time teaching’.
Trouble is, Mr 3 won’t cope with Pre-Prep in six short months time. And I certainly can’t see him coping with Prep just 12 months later!
I was thinking about this earlier in the day… how his progress in the last couple of months has been amazing… but he is still SOOOOOOOO far ‘behind’ his peers. He has maybe a dozen spoken words (intelligible by others, not just me, and only when in context); he has zero interest in toilet training, he spits out his food as often as eat it, he tantrums when he doesn’t get his own way, and so on and so on and so on. We were looking at a book this morning, and the thought crossed my mind that ‘I hope he reads, one day’. Then I realised what I was thinking and I teared up. The thought that my boy might not read…!??! I never would have expected that one day I would ever have questioned the possibility!
Very sad. And the next thought, possibly sadder still. That he wouldn’t even know what he was missing.
Still, as I sit here in the sunshine, watching Mr 3 play with toys at the ECDP, talking with a parent of a Downs Syndrome child, and looking around to see other children with other various special needs, I think that ‘parenting is parenting’. You just do your best, hey.
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The smaller, the cuter, right?
I blogged last week about Mr 3’s love of small spaces.
Well, he’s now taken this to the next level… it took BOTH me and Miss 7 to extract him from this one. Not once, but twice!
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cruisy…
So for my day 17 #blogjune last night, I posted a question. Thanks for the responses! Yes, it was tricky without context – I had deliberately given none, so as to not bias your answers. But here ’tis…
A couple of nights ago, Hubby and I were talking about our children, and their emerging personalities. I mentioned that Miss 4 was cruisy (in comparison to Miss 7 and Mr 3) and that she took after him. I think he got a little offended at my summation of his character, as he immediately retorted, “Cruisy?!! I’m not cruisy!!!”
I explained further. “In comparison to me, I mean. Compared to me, you’re cruisy.”
“Compared to you, Ceridwyn, Road Runner is cruisy!” was his immediate reply. At which I laughed uncontrollably, because although I knew that I was a pretty intense person when it came to doing stuff – a lot of stuff – in a short amount of time (hey – I’ve only got one life; I want to cram in as much as possible and live it to its fullest!) I didn’t think that I was so full-on that I made Road Runner look crusiy!
So, yes, my immediate thought was ‘hey – that’s cool! Yeh, I like that; that’s a pretty apt description of me!”
However… I’ve since related the story to some IRL friends. And they agreed with him; but unlike me, they weren’t laughing uncontrollably when they heard it. And that made me realise that Hubby hadn’t either. And that made me ask him, “Did you mean that as a compliment? Or was it actually an insult? Or an indictment on me?” His answer, “Ceridwyn, you over-think things!” wasn’t entirely satisfactory, and what was worse was knowing that it’d probably be the last answer I’d get from him on the topic. Hence my question to you all yesterday.
My IRL friends, although agreeing with Hubby, had not necessarily thought of it as a compliment – but rather, took it as a warning that I should probably stop “burning the candle at both ends”. Online responses tended to lean towards the ‘Yep; it’s a compliment”. I think I’d prefer to side with the latter. LOL!
So anyway, that’s my take on it. I’m an intense person who travels through her life at a million miles an hour. And that can be a good thing – but I need to remember than others choose to not do this, and that’s okay. Which is REALLY important to remember when I’m travelling through life with an autistic Mr 3!
CC Image courtesy mark_gilmour atĀ http://www.flickr.com/photos/mark_gilmour/5473967864/
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A Question
If you were told, ‘Compared to you, roadrunner would be cruisy!’ how would you take it? Would you see it as a compliment? An insult?