MY kid is spectacular!

Today was a good day.

It wasn’t the best day but it wasn’t the worst day either. It was the day of the swimming carnival at my kid’s school and this year was the very first time that Harley has attended. It’s been the 3^rd year that he has been old enough to go but I had no success in even getting him there in past years, so his attendance alone was a cause for celebration.

He announced to me on Monday morning that he would like to catch the bus with his sister (Ella) and so I reluctantly signed the permission slip. I was proud of him but I admit that I was also a little uneasy. Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for helping him to stretch his comfort zone a little and I think it’s good for him to try new things but if I was to be completely honest, I was a little nervous having him experience so many new things at one time.

• Attending the carnival for the first time.
• Catching a bus with lots of other children.
• Surviving a crowded, noisy smelly environment for 6 hours straight with no escapes or safe corners.

But I prepared him the best that I could. And yesterday afternoon I had a chat to Ella and asked her if she would please text me at intervals throughout the day to let me know how her little brother was doing because *I* needed to know that he was surviving.

She promised she would and true to her word, she updated me every hour with messages like this:

God bless her - she is such a gem of a child.

So after receiving Ella’s second text, I decided to go for a long drive and I blasted my favourite music in the car singing along loudly at the top of my voice. Simply: because I could and it’s something that I LOVE doing!

Playing any music at ALL is a luxury that I don’t get to indulge in when Harley is in the car, so today I made the most of it and rocked it out big time.

And I may or may not have belted out some Kelly Clarkson, Alanis Morisette and just a bit of Katy Perry – you know – power songs and all that, but I digress….

But today was just what I needed. I had a great day doing whatever the hell I felt like and managed to refuel myself enough to be able to tackle any surprises that the afternoon may or may not have in store for me.

And thank goodness that I did.

Because when I watched Harley alight from the bus and walk towards me hand-in-hand with his big sister, my heart lunged into my shoes. I knew the face that he was wearing all too well. I could read the anxiety, fear and fright in his eyes and knew that he was trying so hard to hold it together. Bless him. I also knew that we only had limited time before the cork was released from the bottle so-to-speak and that I had to act fast. The rumblings of an explosion were there…. He was moaning quietly and pushing his head into my side. He was flailing his arms around floppily so I grabbed his little hand and headed for the office to sign him out early.

But Lucas wouldn’t leave. He wanted to change out of his swimming gear into his clothes and was refusing to come to the car with me. He started to pitch a fit and I didn’t want another upset child on my hands so I sent him to the bathroom with Ella to change.  But they weren’t fast enough and Harley couldn’t hold it in any longer.

So mother and son sat on a step together away from prying eyes while my little boy broke his heart. Tears ran down his cheeks as he alternated between cuddling into me and thrashing uncontrollably. He WANTED to be close to me but he just COULDN’T. His body was fighting him and his entire sensory system was out-of-control. I did what I could but knew I had to ride it out. Eventually he calmed enough for me to carry him out to the car and take him home to his safe place.

**

It was hard on me to drive home watching him wipe away his silent tears out of the corner or my eyes, but I still couldn’t get over the immense sense of pride that I had at that very moment seeing how far he had come.

My boy achieved so much more than I would have ever thought possible today.

• He pushed past his own discomfort to display great sportsmanship by going along and cheering on his friends and classmates even though he himself is a non-swimmer.
• He dealt with a different format for the day and with not always knowing what was coming next or where his teacher would be at any given time.
• He caught the bus like the rest of the kids and went to a pool that he had NEVER been to before and did all this KNOWING that there would be loud noises, lots of kids and strong smells to contend with.

He has gone from a child who refused point-blank to even consider attending the swimming carnival only 12 months ago to a child who achieved SO MUCH personal growth today. And this Mama is so SO proud of him.

And for the record; I am not trying to teach my son to conform, to be like all the other kids or continually expose himself to situations that cause him so much pain and displeasure. Nor am I trying to change him into a ‘normal’ child. I am encouraging him to recognise what I have always known about him and that is that not only will he succeed in life but he will excel.

He can do anything that he puts his hand and mind to and he is amazing, strong and courageous.

And that’s no different to what ANY parent wants for their child is it?

This is my favourite part of today. Watching him decompress and reset his vestibular system by indulging in an old-fashioned game of upside-down TV watching

Turning hate mail into love letters.

Today was the last day of term three for my children and they now have a 2 week holiday, so I wanted to surprise them by making a delicious afternoon tea to celebrate. I baked a beautiful cake and some biscuits and carefully peeled and cut some fruit into bite-sized pieces. I laid it all out on the outdoor table so that they could enjoy a picnic afternoon tea. They were thrilled….Or so I thought.

I went back inside to stir tonight’s dinner in the slow cooker and then my phone rung so I went to answer it. Mid way through my conversation I heard a large crashing sound so I looked out the window in alarm and was far from impressed with what I’d just seen. I immediately excused myself from the call and slammed the phone down in anger.

I flung open the screen door and marched over to the front fence to see both of the boys standing on the wheelie bins with the remains of afternoon tea on the ground around them. I stood on my toes and looked over the fence to discover that they had thrown every last piece of the food I’d lovingly prepared over the fence including my plates and glasses.

Oh…and that crash? It was a HOUSEBRICK that they threw onto the driveway that broke into little pieces and smashed our pavers. Thank God that none of the neighbourhood kids got hit in the head! I was livid but surprisingly calm.

I grabbed both of the boys by their collars and marched them out the front and watched until they picked up every last piece. As a consequence, all of their computer and Wii privileges were revoked and I then made them go back inside to shower and get ready to go to bed. It was only 4:30pm.

Harley screamed at me, kicked the door and clenched his fists in anger while Lucas threw himself down on the ground and sobbed.

Loudly.

I tried my best to ignore them until I could get the motivation to force them into the bathroom to shower. But Harley stomped past me and grabbed a piece of paper off the computer desk. He then grabbed a pen and started drawing a picture. He dug the pen firmly into the paper, scratching the table as he did so. He glared at me and told me to get out of his way as he stormed up to his bedroom to tape his “sign” to his door.

His ‘sign’ was a picture of a woman and a boy with a speech bubble coming from the boy’s mouth. He was telling the woman that he hated her and the words:  ‘Mums arnt alod in my rom evr’ were at the top of the page.

A hallmark card I was given.

I glanced at it briefly and then walked out to give him time to calm down. I returned about twenty minutes later and sat on the edge of his bed and told him that I was very sad.

“Well you should be!” he replied angrily. “You are such a mean mother and I don’t want to live with you anymore”. I willed my face to not show my own anger and hurt and replied in a steady tone: “Ok you might think that, but I love you even when you’re being horrible and angry”.

 He rolled his eyes and mumbled something indiscernible. I stood up and walked over to his door and took the picture down then sat back down without saying a single word. Then I looked at him and then back down at the picture and then back at him a second time.

He grimaced and then put his head under his pillow and I knew then that I had him exactly where I wanted him. He was experiencing remorse. And this is a HUGE step in the right direction for him. Once I’d seen the slight flicker of emotion in his eyes, I started to speak.

“This is a great drawing”.  I said and he peeked one eye out from underneath the pillow.

“I can see that you have drawn a woman and a little boy. Is that you and me?” I continued.

The pillow moved a bit more.

 “But I can’t understand something about the little boy. He looks mad…really mad but I don’t know why?  I paused for a minute.

“Do you know why he might be mad?” I asked.

Harley sat up and looked over at me with a shrug of his shoulders but still refused to talk. “Well, I guess I’ll never know then”.  I continued with a shrug of my own shoulders. “But I know why that Mum is sad” I said. He looked up at my face so I continued.

“She is sad because her little boys threw away all the lovely food that she made for them. And they threw bricks over the fence and were being very naughty. And she’s sad because her little boy yelled at her and told her that he hated her and got very angry”.

I looked over at him and he had his head down. “I wonder what the little boy should have done when he realised that he was angry? Maybe he should have taken a deep breath and counted to ten. Or maybe he should have gone for a walk around the house until he calmed down. Do you think he should have said those mean things to his Mummy?”

 He shook his head slowly.

“So what do you think that the little boy should say to his Mummy now?”

 He put his head down again. “He should say sorry to her”.

 “Yes”  I answered. That would be a great idea.

“The little boy is sorry”. He whispered back and leaned over and hugged me.

“And that Mummy is very proud of her son for apologizing”. I answered.

I gave him another hug and walked out of his room. He came running up behind me and ran straight past me to the kitchen to grab another pen. He sat down at the table with his drawing and started to alter it. He added a picture of Paul, Ella and Lucas and scribbled over the speech bubble.

The sign now reads: ‘Mum and Dad and Lucas and Ella ar al alod in my room evr’.

And then he handed me another scribbled note. This one said simply: “I love u mum, yor the best mum evr.”

***
So why am I excited by this enough to write a blog post about it? Because this is some major progress right there! Children on the autistic spectrum have difficulties in understanding and expressing their emotions.

Most of the time with Harley we only see happiness or anger and nothing in between but by talking with him in this way, I allowed him to discover why losing his temper was wrong without coming down heavily on him.  I deliberately didn’t overwhelm him with words or yell at him (even though I was furious) because I knew he’s go into shut down if I did.

By using the little boy and the lady that he’d drawn as characters in my story, I was able to acknowledge that there were emotions that needed to be dealt with without him feeling that I was attacking him personally. I was able to address the whole situation from a less threatening angle and help him to discover a better way to react in situations that anger him all by himself.

And he learned another valuable lesson today. Consequences.

He went to bed tonight chanting to himself: ‘If I am naughty, I don’t get to do things that I like’ as if he was trying to memorise it for further use.

So yeah…..we are certainly covering a lot of exciting ground here!

Next post: Learning about consequences.

Freshly pressed or freshly stressed?

Taken from the WordPress home page

There are many different reasons that people start writing a blog. Some people just do it for a bit of a creative outlet – maybe to showcase their hobbies and talents (like maybe a fashion, a photography or art blog).

Some people love to tell stories or write poetry, some people are wannabe writers and use their blog as a platform to promote their work hoping for that all exclusive book deal.

And then there are people like me who just write because they find it to be an extremely valuable therapy tool. (That and the fact that raising awareness for autism is one of my passions and I dream that one day people will not just listen but ‘really listen’ and makes changes for a more accepting society).

Recognition is a great thing, but for me – it’s not essential. I sometimes post my blogs to my personal FB page but I deliberately haven’t signed up anywhere to promote my blog to gain more traffic. And the only reason I created a Facebook page for Wonderfully Wired was so that I could have a dedicated place to write about all things autism and give my real life friends a break from constantly having our struggles and triumphs plastered all over their news feeds.

See… I’m considerate like that

I find that writing out my thoughts helps me to properly filter them, centre myself better and focus more clearly. And it also causes me to own and address any wayward emotions that I may have wrongly attached to a particularly difficult situation that I may be going through at any given time.

It really is therapeutic. And if what I write about just happens to help another family going through similar struggles: well it’s a win-win as far as I’m concerned.

Of course there are definitely pros and cons of putting your family’s highs and lows on display so publicly, but I also feel very strongly about creating positive awareness for autism. And to do that – you have to be real or people see through it pretty quickly.

I wrote my post OCD OMG! on Tuesday with a very heavy heart. I was desperate to be heard and felt like I was running out of options. I had hit an emotional brick wall and felt the fight slowly start to drain out of me ,so I wrote about it. As you do when you’re me.

And the response that I got from it was overwhelming to say the least. Not so much from comments on the actual blog post, but by messages sent through Facebook, personal emails, text messages, phone calls and visits. People seemed to come from all directions offering me everything from meals delivered and cyber hugs through to therapist and Doctor’s details and offers to attend appointments with me.

To say I was touched is a gross understatement. To all of you – (you know who you are) …I want to say a huge heartfelt thank you.

Which leads me to my point.

I have a hope that through sharing our story, other families will feel less isolated. Other families will feel less overwhelmed and misunderstood and maybe they will motivated to find the help that they need.

So when I received an email from the WordPress Editors last night informing me that my OCD post is going to be Freshly Pressed in the next few days, I burst into tears.

Not tears of joy at first. I wasn’t exactly elated that I had this prestigious honour bestowed upon me, because it was one of my family’s lowest day so far that is going to be showcased.

I started thinking about all the light-hearted and amusing posts that I had written and wondered why they’d all been bypassed? And why they hadn’t chosen one of the pieces that I have written before that I was particularly proud of?

But the editor wrote these words to me:
…..we really enjoyed it (as much as one can enjoy reading a heartbreaking story) and we know the rest of the WordPress community will too – I know there will be many parents who can relate to your story…..

And with that in mind – I’ve decided to go ahead and let them publish it in the hope that another parent or family can read this and know that they are not alone.

We are all in this together after all

Depression……

Tumbling, Jumbling,
Crowding out my brain,
So many memories,
They’re driving me insane,
.
Too much pain,
Too many thoughts,
Can’t process anything,
Out of good retorts,
.
Wishing, Hoping,
Willing them to cease,
Please leave me alone,
And give a girl some peace!
.
Need some space,
Need a real break,
All this crap is,
More than I can take,
.
Fumbling, Mumbling,
Wanting to be heard,
It all comes of as babble,
And makes me sound absurd,
.
So darn tired,
Want to go to sleep,
Wake me when it’s over please,
And leave me in this heap.

Autism, haircuts and a mother who wants to run away!

I looked at my boys on Friday when they got home from school and realised that they were both long overdue for haircuts. I decided that it would be a good idea to get them done over the weekend because then I would have Mr Patient around to help me. But yesterday he had to go into work, and what was supposed to only be a few hours turned into 13 so he obviously wasn’t able to come with us.

Now, I’m not totally stupid – I wasn’t going to take all 3 kids out to a crowded shopping centre by myself so I wisely waited until today (Sunday) instead. I figured that the boys would be fine with the change of plans. And yes, I know what all you autism parents are thinking right now!

Silly SILLY girl!

Normally I would have written a social story or talked them through this minor change at the very least. And I should have learned from the numerous times that I have done silly things like this before – that changing plans without prior notice NEVER goes well.

Anyhoo….

**

We pulled up in the car park and before our seatbelts were even undone, the tears started.

It took Mr Patient almost ten minutes to coax the already-past-it Harley out of the car.

But getting him to walk wasn’t going to happen, So he had no choice but to carry him.

We arrived at the hairdressers and she asked the boys who was going to go first. And before they could answer: Harley took off.  He literally ran for the hills as fast as he could go. As you do when you have sensory processing disorder and you are confronted with being stuck in the middle of a crowded centre with strange noises, smells and bright lights.

So Mr Patient took Lucas and walked over to the hairdressers chair while I hot-footed it after Harley through the centre.

I eventually caught up to him and took my sobbing shaky little boy over down a quiet alleyway and stroked his head until he calmed. There was clearly no point talking to him. So I devised a quick plan in my head and we walked over to the nearby $2 shop where I bought him a squishy angry birds toy to squeeze. It seemed to do the trick and we managed to walk back and I was finally able to talk to him and ask him what kind of cool haircut he wanted. My distraction worked and we seemed to be right back on track again.

And finally he gave us a smile.

Not long from then, his turn came and he sat down in the special seat and (sort-of) let the hairdresser cut his hair whilst he squeezed Mr piggy vigorously. He stayed put to our delight and came out looking gorgeous.

We all realised that we were hungry so we decided to go and grab some lunch and started walking towards the food court congratulating ourselves on surviving so far.

Until we heard that tell-tale moan that we’ve come to know that means that trouble is looming. We turned around to see Harley crying and flapping furiously.

We sighed and I picked him up and carried him down ANOTHER side alley and it took a while but I finally managed to get to the bottom of this episode….It tuned out that some pieces of freshly cut hair had fallen down underneath his collar and was itching him madly. I could see that he was close to another meltdown and I knew I had to act quickly and I also knew that I had come unprepared so had to duck into a nearby shop and buy him another shirt.  I knew we’d never make it through lunch while he was in such enormous sensory overload.

So in ten minutes – with two of us holding him down and sprinkling baby powder on his neck and removing the old shirt and replacing it with the new one later – we finally made our way to the food court crossing our fingers, toes and anything else that we could think of!

But look at this:

A smile.

It was short lived because soon he started to obsess about having ‘dirty’ hands and wiped them vigorously with baby wipes whilst demanding that we take him to a restroom so that he could wash them properly.

But it was a smile nonetheless.

 

So, we gave in – took him to wash his hands and then again after he’d eaten and started to walk back to the car.

I saw this and grabbed my phone to take another snap – moments like this are precious.

And here’s the bit where I admit that I got home and burst into tears of complete exhaustion and got down on my knees and yelled at God.

Not because I’m mad at Him. Not because I think He gave us a bad deal in life but because I can’t for the life of me figure out why on earth he believes in me as much as He does.

Why does He trust me so much?

I know He will continue to give me the grace that I need to keep on keeping on but honestly, after today….I think I might go to  bed for about a hundred years! It’s all too bloody hard!

I remember…..

This was taken a few weeks after we received Harley's diagnosis. The same age as my reader's child.

I often get emails from strangers who have read my blog and just want to connect by telling me their story. They write and tell me how autism affects their lives and often the parallels between something I’ve written and what they are experiencing in their own worlds is fascinating.

I love receiving emails because it motivates me to keep writing and to keep spreading awareness one reader at a time.

I opened my email a couple of days ago and there was a new message from a brand new reader who had stumbled onto my blog during one of those (I assume) frantic 3am google searches.

They wrote about their child who has only been diagnosed as recently as 2 months ago. They don’t have any support networks as of yet and are not in contact with any other families that are walking a similar path to them. They feel isolated and frightened.

So naturally I sent them the link to Welcome To The Club written by the amazing Jess over at Diary Of A Mom. Because EVERY new parent should be handed that letter along with their child’s diagnosis. It is vital reading.

But do me a favour?….Finish reading this post before you click over there because once you’ve read Jess….you won’t want to come back

The parent who emailed me desperately wanted to know that there is a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. They were anxious to find out when and if their child will grow out of this overwhelmingly exhausting stage and wanted reassurance that it will all be ok.  And to be completely truthful – I was unsure how to answer this at first.

I didn’t want to lie and tell them that the meltdowns, tantrums and sensory issues would just magically disappear one day and that life would become all honky dory all of a sudden. And I didn’t want to give them any false hope by telling them that they can expect their child to become “typical” overnight, but I wanted to assure them that what they are experiencing is a normal part of the early days of discovering that you have a child on the autistic spectrum.

I wrote of the feelings of loneliness, of grief and of self-doubt and I told them that I truly understood. I recognised the fear, the anxiety and the emotional overload that was evident in their email and I was forced to go back in my memory to when Harley was first diagnosed at exactly the same age that their child is now.

I remembered the meltdowns that seemed to go forever. I recorded some of them on my mobile phone so I could show it to the paediatrician because it felt like NO-ONE would believe that there was something “odd” about my child. He watched them and nodded knowingly and told me that I would eventually find a way to manage them.

I didn’t believe him.

I remembered the punch in the guts when this very same Doctor told us that our child was “different” and that we would need to adapt as he handed us a list of therapists, specialists and blood tests request forms. I remembered the desperate feeling of abandonment, and feeling overwhelmed and exhausted all at once.

And I remembering thinking that we’d never make it.

But you know what? Through forcing myself to go back and deliberately remember those early days – I was able to see for the first time just HOW FAR WE HAVE COME!

And it got me all excited!

I remembered these feelings and thoughts, but was able to recognise that we don’t live there permanently anymore. We visit them occasionally and we will always be tied to them in some way, but we have moved on to become stronger, wiser and a lot more street smart.

And so YES, I was able to see that there IS a light at the end of that darn tunnel. YES, it WILL get easier, but sometimes it’s probably more likely a case of our challenges seeming more manageable because we now have experience and adaptability on our side.

Back in those early days, we weren’t as capable of predicting possible outcomes in the same way that we can now. We now know precisely what Harley’s triggers are and we either avoid them completely or find other ways around them to make them work for us. We have developed a “tool kit” that is custom designed for him and we rarely go out unprepared these days.

We’ve altered our expectations and have finally realised that sometimes it just isn’t worth pushing stubborn elephants up hill anymore.

And because of this I would say: YES. There is hope. There is HOPE and you will be ok.  My heart breaks for the pain they are in but I KNOW that they WILL be ok.

Because love conquers all and they have more than enough of that for their child or they would never have cared enough to write.

Confessions of a grumpy mother.

Just a little warning between friends: don’t read today’s post if you want to read something happy and upbeat…you won’t find that here.

I’m waaaay over tired and frustrated and more than a little bit peeved today. I probably shouldn’t even be anywhere near a keyboard in my current state of mind but ….meh…

Today is part 2 of Harley’s cognitive and behavioural assessment at the psych clinic at the university.  I am sitting in the waiting room feeling sick, angry and agitated. There is a little girl beside me snorting every 2 minutes while her father sits by saying nothing. If that were my kid, I’d be whipping out a tissue and telling her to blow, not allowing her to make that insidious noise.

Told you I was cranky.

It’s partly due to lack of sleep and partly due to nerves.

I’m not nervous about the results of the assessment but more the toll that it’s going to take on my already massively sleep deprived child and the crap that I am going to have to wade through to bring some semblance of peace back into the household afterwards.

Last night was an absolutely shocker. He was awake pacing the hallway and crying and intermittently screaming for HOURS on end.   At 2am I eventually stuffed an earplug in my ear and a pillow over my head in a desperate attempt to get SOME sleep but that was short-lived too.

He told me that his brain wouldn’t switch off and that nothing he tried was working. We prayed together, we did the quiet radio in the background, the soft music, the deep pressure massages, the weighted blanket, the brushing and the writing and drawing your thoughts down on paper before sleep.   Heck….I even sung to him! And all of this combined with sleeping tablets…..didn’t make a scrap of difference.

Finally I gave in and took him into my bed with me and even then he constantly reached over to check my face and see if I was asleep. Because EVERYONE loves a slap on the cheek every ten minutes…sigh….It was clear that I wasn’t going to get any sleep either. He had decided that if he was awake – I had to be awake too. That’s obviously the stupid unspoken rule here.

And of course Mr Patient was interstate…..that always adds another level to the anxiety that he experiences and of course I have a big day ahead of me today.

Anyway….once we arrived at the clinic today, I spoke to the psychologist privately before Harley went in. I told her that he had barely slept a wink last night and she replied that lack of sleep would greatly affect the results of the assessment and suggested that we postpone AGAIN! (this is the third time).

I actually laughed in her face.

Does she think I can control this? That I should have maybe done something MORE to avoid another sleepless night before an assessment like this?

Seriously?

Do people think that I exaggerate the seriousness of the sleep issues? That I am trying to extract some sort of sympathy? Because honestly – I  don’t know anyone who would wish this upon their worst enemy. I didn’t choose this life and I’m doing the absolute best that I can with what I have got. If I could fix it, I would have done so years ago. NO-ONE is that stupid.

And surely the fact that every single time we have come here – anxiety has been at play and THAT is the very thing that should be going in her notes. The teachers need to know this stuff. They need to know just how greatly changes affect this child. They need to be given some insight into just what goes on in that head of his and see that his potential is greatly masked by the crippling anxiety that engulfs him frequently.

I don’t want to give my kid more drugs, I don’t want more ‘advice’ I want the results to show that he does not cope under pressure and I want allowances made for him so that he CAN reach his full potential. Is that really too much to ask?

Besides: Isn’t that half the point of doing this assessment in the first place?

Sorry loyal readers. You got me on a grumpy day, I promise to be more upbeat and thankful tomorrow but I KNOW that there are a lot of you also throwing your hands up in the air screaming “Aaargghh…WHAT NOW”  when autism throws you another curve ball as it has done to us this week.

And if nothing else…..at least now you know that you’re not alone.  We are all in this together. Every step of the exhausting frustrating way.

~~~

I’m ever so grateful that tomorrow is a new day with new mercies and greater expectations.    Thank God that His mercies are new every morning. Without that promise – I don’t know what I’d have to cling to.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Check back here next week for the cheerier, more relaxed and less bitter Fiona X

Look closely…It’s all in the eyes…

At first I really struggled to know where exactly to start this post, so late last night I sat down with a pen and paper and wrote out as many random words that came to mind in an attempt to try to figure out what was really bothering me.

I came up with: bewildered, annoyed, helpless, frightened, angry, exhausted and I kept coming back to the one word that crept up more often than the others: frustrated.

And I determined to try to find out why I kept coming back to that word.

I realised that when you’re a parent of a child on the autistic spectrum, you are thrown directly into the deep end and forced to assume the role of not only parent but also that of ‘interpreter’ and “translator’ and you take on this role often several times every single day whether you want it or not.

And most of the time I am totally ok with that, but then there are days that my inability to decipher and decode what my son’s actual crisis is about is when the words like exhaustion, angry, frightened and helpless start to creep in as well.

Last October I took the children home to visit my Mum in the school holidays, and while we were up there, we attended an 80th Birthday party for a close friend that Mum had helped organise. It was a great night and I think only a handful of people actually know what went on behind the scenes in our little world that night. I’m sure that most partygoers were blissfully unaware that my little boy was breaking his heart and clawing at himself in major distress only 2 rooms away from the festivities. Mum was helping in the kitchen and also unaware at first of the mayhem I was dealing with.

And that’s because I’ve become very skilled at removing my distressed child from the attention of onlookers in situations like that night before the brown stuff starts hitting the fans. It’s become my superpower

That night last year was triggered by one small remark that I had made offhandedly to Harley who I saw drinking his second can of soft drink. I casually said to him: “You’ll make yourself sick if you drink too much of that stuff”, and I walked over to greet someone else that had waved me over.

As I started chatting to this lady, I glanced over her shoulder and saw Harley’s face contort and his body stiffen and I knew I had to get him out of there immediately. I JUST knew. I excused myself and apologised quickly and ran the eight or so paces over to Harley and grabbed him under my arm calling out to Ella at the same time to keep on eye on Lucas. She nodded knowingly and grabbed his little hand and skipped outside with him towards the grassed area.

I love that girl.

Anyway….I got Harley outside through the fire exit and sat with him as he bent over the 2 foot brick wall flapping, screaming and crying his little eyes out. He was virtually non-verbal but I managed to figure out that the groans,grunts,screams and cries were to the tune of “You said I’m going to be sick….I don’t want to vomit, I don’t want to be sick, I’m so sorry, I’ll never drink lemonade ever again”

Oh yeah…..Did I mention that one of the traits of  individuals on the spectrum is EXTREME literalness? Well it is.

He had convinced himself that he was going to be physically sick and because he is a massive germ-o-phobe….this was totally unacceptable to him. He stresses if someone even SAYS the word vomit in his hearing so the thought that he might actually be sick himself, had done his head in. I sat there with him for what seemed like hours and I managed to get him to calm down (well, the screaming and crying stopped but the rocking and the nervous flapping hung around a lot longer) and I walked him back inside because he was begging to wash his hands.

As I waited for him outside the bathroom, I saw a friend who I grew up with and hadn’t seen for years, and we started chatting. He and his lovely wife have a beautiful daughter with PDD-NOS and I only had to say that Harley was “having a moment” for him to understand exactly.what.I.meant.

Shortly afterwards, Harley walked out of the bathroom and my friend (God bless him), took one look at my boy and gave me a hug saying: “Ok……You need to leave right now, I understand completely….it was great seeing you.”

I picked Harley up like a little infant and carried his limp sweaty body out to the car with Ella and Lucas following me. I placed Harley into the car seat but he clung to me like a baby koala refusing to let go.(This child is 8 mind you). I couldn’t stand there holding him with my back bent on that angle so I lifted him out and sat with him in the gutter. And there we sat for another half an hour rocking and the tears stopped wetting my shoulder and he eventually released his grip on me and we were able to all get into the car and drive home.

My mum told me later that my friend had said that when he looked into Harley’s eyes, it spoke volumes and that everything made total sense to him at that moment.

I’ve learned long ago that parties and Harley just don’t mix. THIS is why we regretfully decline a lot of invitations (and probably why they’ve stopped coming in anymore).

And it’s important to mention that it wasn’t just the literal comment  of mine that sent Harley spiralling downwards that night, that comment was only the trigger. I had already noticed anxiety rising in him earlier on due to the crowds, loud noises and unfamiliar surroundings. He had his headphones on but the noise wasn’t the only thing bothering him.

Look closely. Those eyes tell a lot. They are saying: "I'm nervous but I know Daddy will protect me"

Which all leads to me yesterday.

Yesterday was the Easter hat parade at my children’s school. Just those words induce horror in a lot of ASD parents and it was no different for me. When I arrived, the kids were all seated in their classes in the quadrangle with the parents and visitors all sitting and standing in a large circle around them. There were a LOT of people there and each class danced around in a circle to very loud and lively music one by one.

Harley’s class got up and from 20 metres away I saw his eyes and said to my friend: “Uh-Oh, he’s gonna blow”. I just knew. It was written all over him and though he may have looked shy or reserved or even nervous to the average Joe….I knew exactly what I was looking at. I’ve seen it many times before, it was unmistakable.

So how did I know?

I have been asked many times how I “know” when he’s about to topple over the edge from coping to a soggy mess and until yesterday I was unable to actually pinpoint exactly how I know. The answer is in the eyes. As my friend pointed out at the party, it was in the eyes. Yes, the eyes tell a LOT. It’s ALL in the eyes.

These eyes say "I'm safe and happy".

As soon as the parade was over I took Harley by the hand and walked him over to his teacher.  He stood beside me silently head butting me and yanking at my hand and I asked her to look closely at his face and body language and explained that THIS is what the lead up to a huge explosive meltdown looks like. I asked that if she ever sees this face….it would be advisable to help him escape to a quiet place as quickly as possible. I explained that it’s when his sensory system is about to blow and that it’s something that you preferably need to get to in the early stages but if not – you need to deal with it ASAP.

I walked him into the quiet vacated classroom and he sat in the corner crying, rocking and shaking. His eyes were filled with pain, with fear and they were pleading for me to fix it all for him. To make it all go away and to help him to soothe himself because he knew he was past the point of no return. He didn’t speak a word but his eyes told me all I needed to know. The rest of the day was a complete write off and ended badly with the effects on the rest of the family carrying over well into the night.  I put on my brave face and acted all nonchalant because I’ve gotten that down to a fine art now But yesterday was hell in many ways. Hours and hours of inconsolable crying and screaming will do horrible things to most people, and I for one, cried long into the night.

And this is where the word frustrated comes in.

Everyone assumes that as his mother that I always have the solution. That I can come along and save the day and that because I can read him that I can make it all better, but this is not always the case. And most of the time I wing it all anyway because what may work one time isn’t guaranteed to work the next. It’s frustrating to be able to predict most meltdowns yet not know how to deal with them.

I was so frustrated as I watched other families laughing, talking and enjoying their picnic lunches with each other, while I had to go and fetch the head of junior school to retrieve my son who had locked himself in the boys toilets crying and screaming only to run out and escape and be untraceable for the next half  hour.

I was so frustrating to have to make my youngest child miss out on his first ever book parade after activities and it was equally as frustrating to have to go over to middle school and ask my 12 year-old daughter to leave her friends and sacrifice her lunch hour to help me by watching one of her little brothers while I searched for my absconder and do massive damage control when I finally found him.

It was even more frustrating for me to see other children on the spectrum sitting quietly with their parents eating their lunch while I bravely held back the tears yet again. I wondered what they had all done that I had forgotten to do?

Why were their kids coping and mine wasn’t? What did I miss?

How come no-one else’s child lost it on such a grand scale?

I finally convinced myself that these other parents must do what I do and whip them outta sight at the first inkling of an explosion too because any other answer would have been far too tough for me to bear.

So yeah….. Frustration is the word of this week.

But next week I’m aiming for fantastic
What are you all aiming for?

Someone broke my baby.

There has been a huge shift around here lately. And it’s really thrown me. I’m not sure what exactly to do so I’m gonna write until I can get my head around it and try to make some sense and figure out a game plan.

Feel free to click somewhere else if you’re not interested in my ramblings. I wouldn’t blame you!

~

Oh? So some of you stayed! I’m impressed!

I’ll go back to the start of the story:

Exactly five years, 8 months and 2 weeks ago we welcomed out second little boy Lucas into the world.

He was unplanned but a really beautiful surprise. He was an incredibly good baby and an absolutely treasure. I admit that I was nervous carrying him for several reasons but mostly because I was genuinely scared to have another boy.

You see, Harley was an absolutely impossible baby with more issues than you could poke a stick at and still at almost 9 yrs old doesn’t sleep through the night.  Or cry any less, or eat any more or behave any better than when he was a toddler.

Ugh.

I remember the day clearly. I was at my 20 week ultrasound. And when the sonograper told me that I was carrying a boy, I burst into tears, NOT because I was disappointed and NOT because I didn’t want him but simply because I just didn’t think that I could possibly go through all of that drama again. The very thought of dealing with 2 completely out-of-control little boys just scared the pants off of me! (Harley was still undiagnosed at the time).

I have always said that out of the 2 boys, Lucas is the easy-going and unflappable one and Harley (although an absolute treasure and blessing himself) has been the almighty handful.

I’ve written MANY times that despite both of the boys sharing a diagnosis of Aspergers Disorder, they couldn’t be more different. Lucas has flourished and shone from very early on and Harley has struggled with extreme anxiety issues, massive sensory issues and is way more aggressive by nature.

But that has started to change lately.

These days – Harley is getting up in the mornings, making his own breakfast, eating it and getting dressed in record time. He has finally worked out that once everything is done – he has more time to do the things he enjoys before school. It’s been an absolute joy to see him so compliant and has given me hope for the future after all the years of heartache that he has provided.

And just when I started to count my chickens…. I found plenty more just waiting to hatch.

Because nowadays, Lucas has taken up the baton and has picked up where Harley left off.

We are running the same frustrating marathon that we ran with Harley at the same age and I gotta tell you – it absolutely sucks.

Lucas is now the one lying thrashing on the floor screaming, kicking and flailing his arms every morning. He is refusing to eat breakfast, making his body like a dead weight so he can’t be picked up to be dressed and hiding underneath his bed and refusing to comply with anything. Cleaning his teeth needs 2 adults . One to hold him down and prise his mouth open and the other to block their ears with their spare hand and shoulder to drown out the screaming and try to wrangle a toothbrush into the tightly clamped shut jaw.

Mornings have become quite a drama and it’s taking me almost and hour and a half to get them out of the house these days. He is crying more than I’ve ever seen him cry and is coming home in the afternoons like a bear with a sore head.

It’s like he has had a complete personality change.

I went and spoke to his lovely teacher last week and asked her if she’s noticed anything different in the classroom. And predictably she said that he is doing really well. ( I expected that *sigh*)

In fact, she said that he is on a reading level that is a lot higher than most kids his age and that he excels at reading and writing. I stood there with my mouth hanging open and was shocked to say the least since I’ve watched Harley struggle with every.single.aspect of school since day dot.

I’m not used to hearing things like that. Usually teachers tell me that “I know he’s trying but…..” or “He needs to work on….”.

So to be told that your child is excelling should feel really good right?

Well maybe if we weren’t copping the brunt of his exhaustion and frustration at home.

I think he does actually love school but it is absolutely draining him. I think that it is a case of the typical aspie habit of keeping it together at school and losing the plot in a big way once he’s safe at home again. I’ve seen this all before.

But whatever it is, I want it to stop. For his sake as well as ours. I want him to not only cope but to thrive and flourish. I’m thrilled in the progress we’ve made with  Harley but wishing that I could enjoy it more without this hanging over my head.

I’m too tired to do this all over again for God only knows how long. I feel like I’ve done my time, and I’m stamping my foot and pouting. It’s just not fair.

Lucas used to be my placid side kick. He was my take anywhere child. He was a reminder to me that I wasn’t a crappy parent and that Aspergers was more than out-of-control behaviour and aggression.

But then I sent him to school and he came home all changed.

Someone broke my baby.

I’ve still got the pom-poms but I shake them less these days.

This is a similar tumour to mine but about half the size of mine....image via wikipedia.

This November it will be eight years since I had life-saving brain surgery to remove a tumour that was growing too close to my brain stem. I have mentioned it on this blog several times and it has never been a no-go topic for me but at the same time; I don’t instantly tell everyone that I meet because most of the time it’s just not necessary and rarely comes up in everyday conversation.

But people often look at me and know that something is different even if they don’t know why. In much the same way as my 2 high-functioning autistic boys often look “different” in how they behave but it’s not always obvious exactly why that is.

In my case: The tumour that I had, was tightly wrapped around both the facial and hearing nerves on the right side of my head. And two major side effects of this particular surgery are hearing loss and facial palsy in varying degrees.  This palsy may or may not get better over time and the old saying that “it’s different for everybody” certainly applies here.

I lost all of the hearing in my right ear and now have SSD and I did not regain my facial nerve back completely. That’s why people I meet can tell straight away that something is different about me. I have been left with a very crooked smile and the entire right side of my face has little movement. Most of the pictures of me that you find on this blog or anywhere else on the web (Facebook, Twitter etc) have been carefully screened by me first so that it’s not strikingly obvious to the average person.

But if you were to meet me in person….you would more than likely notice the palsy even though it has improved dramatically over the years. My close friends tell me that they barely notice it anymore but I’m not sure if I believe them though!

Most of the time, I don’t let my crooked face bother me too much, but if there’s a camera around – I never give an open-mouthed smile. And if I cry (which I do a lot), it’s painfully obvious as I only have one tear duct so only one eye goes puffy and only one cheek gets tear-stained. So I try not to cry in public!  Sometimes I find myself in social situations where I meet new people and notice them trying hard not to stare at my mouth when I talk or laugh. I can see that they are dying to know “what’s wrong with her face” but I sense that they would never ask me, so in moments like this – if it’s appropriate and I’m likely to encounter them sometime again in the future – I tell them why.

The result is usually mild embarrassment for them or fascination and often times: curiosity.

I’m fine with either response but I do so love it when I get to share my story and my triumphs and blessings as a result of going through such a rotten time, because I try really hard to not focus on the icky stuff that I went through after surgery such as self loathing, depression, grief, sadness and pain but to make myself see and verbalise the good things that came from it. I’m still alive aren’t I? And that’s got to be a good thing!

I truly do believe that God works ALL things out for our good and that trials strengthen us and develop our character.

And this thinking is similar to how I am now beginning to approach our family’s journey along the autism highway.

Often if we’re out in public and I notice people observing my son(s) behaviour(s) and wonder if I should offer up an explanation for it. Part of me wants them to understand the ‘why’s’ straight away but I’ve learned that this is rarely the case anyway. I see people watching them happy flapping or twirling around in circles carelessly and I also get the tsk tsk posse when they lose it or meltdown in public. People stare at that which is different. Right or wrong – it’s human nature and it’s just the way it is.

Once upon a time I would tell anyone I caught staring – regularly in fact – but nowadays, I usually decide against it because most of the time, it’s totally unnecessary for me to tell strangers and it’s simply none of their business and would serve no real purpose anyway. And it’s not because autism is a big secret or something to be ashamed of – because if that were true – I wouldn’t have such a public blog that my friends know about. However, I don’t exactly wear a sandwich board around my neck announcing it to every passer-by that I encounter either!

The difference is that the people who read this blog WANT to read and want to know more about life with aspergers, whereas people you meet in the street often have no knowledge of autism and don’t know us personally anyway.

So why don’t I announce it as often these days as before?

Well, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I’ve discovered that by only drawing attention to the negative side of aspergers….I was only really telling one side of the story.

So take for example a hypothetical situation like my son having a meltdown in a supermarket. Once I would’ve played the autism card and “put strangers in their place” assuming that they were judging my parenting, but now: in situations like that, I ignore the stares and judgmental glares and only answer people on the odd occasion that they offer to help. I usually say something along the lines of: “Thank you but my son has autism and is a little overwhelmed right now. He is a great kid but just not coping too well at the moment I’m afraid”.

Because if my son’s meltdown is their first ever encounter with autism, then its possible that this may be the only thing that they ever associate with autism in the future. And I don’t want people stereotyping these kids as badly behaved, spoilt or bratty because I know that they’re not.

Autism parents know that raising these kids is hell on toast some days and Mr Patient and I often scream at the heavens: “WHAT NOW” but raising these special kids is not without its rewards either.

image via wikipedia.

We all know that there is so much more to our kids than bad behaviour, temper fits, meltdowns and rigid and inflexible thinking. So I’m making it my mission to showcase the amazing and beautiful parts of autism too.

A few weeks ago, I was out for afternoon tea in a local café with my 3 kids and a close friend and her child who also has Aspergers. Her child is a similar age to Harley and all the kids get on marvellously despite their respective social difficulties. There is an understanding between them all that is really beautiful to watch. We ordered our meals and the children sat beautifully and behaved remarkably well. They laughed, we chatted, and after we’d eaten, the kids all ran off to play in the playground. Our Waiter came over and commented to my friend and I on how wonderful the children were and how impressed he was with their manners and behaviour.

My friend smiled at him and asked him if he realised that 3 of the 4 children had a diagnosis on the autism spectrum, and he was truly amazed!

I’m not sure if our well-behaved and adorable children were not lining up with any pre-conceived ideas that he may have associated with autism but he was genuinely surprised and praised us for our remarkable dedication to raising them. (Which we lapped up of course!)

Then my friend pointed out to me the importance of praising our kids to strangers and highlighting that they really are remarkable even though sometimes it’s more of a struggle for them.

But the point that I guess I’m making here is that yes – I still want to spread awareness and I’m not hiding anything or trying to gloss over the hardships, but if I only ever take the hard times as opportunities to teach about autism, I’m not being completely fair to my kids or other individuals on the spectrum.

You can be assured that I will still probably write many posts in the weeks, months and years to come lamenting how damn hard this whole raising autistic kids thing is – because one thing I’m not in – is denial. It’s definitely not all roses, rainbows and sunshine but I will try to save those rants and raves and episodes of manic rage for this blog where the people who read it understand where I am coming from and already know that I adore my kids warts and all.

But I’m going to make a conscious decision to choose my time and place for that kind of rant more carefully.

Just like I don’t walk around telling everyone who even so much as glances at me that there is a reason that I look like I’ve had a stroke or bad plastic surgery – I will save the cold hard facts for appropriate situations or when there is a relationship formed with the other party. Autism is still so unbelievably misunderstood and unfortunately, many people still associate it with tantrums, screaming and uncontrollable rage but many fail to see the loving and precious and amazing side as well.

Often as a mother of 2 children with autism I OFTEN fail to see past those tantrums, screaming fits and rage but I have the advantage of KNOWING that there is more to it than that. Other people don’t.

I will always be on the sidelines with my pom-poms and high kicks cheering on my kids and believing that they can do anything that typical children can do and I will remain their strongest advocate because I’m passionate about creating awareness and understanding for them, but I’m going to go about it in a completely different way from now on.

And if someone comments on an achievement that my child makes – I will use that opportunity to sing his praises and teach that there are no limits to what children on the spectrum can do. I will no longer use their hard and non-coping times as teaching exercises because I now see that I’ve had it wrong all along.

Finding a little bit of happy….

As I sat down at the keyboard this afternoon, I wondered where on earth I should start after a well-needed long-break from the interwebs.

Some of Dad's books

Should I start writing about the overwhelming bursts of grief and sadness that I experienced whenever something at Mum’s house would trigger a memory of Dad? Like the day I opened a cupboard in a bedroom looking for a spare pillow but instead found Dad’s Firefighter’s axe, helmets and uniforms stored there? Or the bookcases that are still crammed with the years and years of steam train memorabilia that he had amassed over his 61 short years?

No…that’s still too raw to write about. Seeing these kind of things is like a punch to the stomach – it continues to cause pain even hours after the fact.

So maybe I should write about the person that I ran into in town whom I haven’t seen for years that announced to me that she thought that my boys were “kinda weird and awkward”  and that they “freaked her out a little bit”? 

Dad's helmets

No, it isn’t going to do anyone any good by focusing on hurtful words whether they were intended to inflict wounds or not. Or perhaps I should write about the BBQ that we all went to that I had to make a hasty retreat from with Harley because he went into an extreme anxiety meltdown because he had taken something that I had said to him waaay too literally.

Nope again. These things I might re-visit later on when I’ve had a chance to work through the emotions attached to them and can learn from those experiences rather than blurt a whole lot of negatives that I will one day regret. God will help me to grow through these experiences but I’m not quite able to see the good in them just yet.

So instead, today I want to write about finding happiness.

If you’ve typed ‘define happiness’ into a search engine and it brought you here – you may be disappointed. You’re not gonna get the formula for happiness but what I can offer is an insight into the goings on of my little family over the past month or so and how we have managed to be content with our lots in life.

Happiness comes in so many various forms that it’s impossible to apply a one-size-fits-all approach to discovering it, but I have been thinking a lot recently about what true happiness really means and have wondered how it applies to my own life.

But firstly, I think it’s important to realise and note the difference between happiness (the emotion) and a deep-seated joy (state of peace and contentment). I believe that you can be filled with joy but still experience times of sadness and also that you can have a thankful and joyful heart, but still struggle to feel “happy”. And that’s all totally ok.

In the bible it says that the joy of the LORD is our STRENGTH and that it SO true for me. I find that in the times of my biggest struggles, choosing to rejoice and remain in that state of deep joy DESPITE what is going on around me really does allow God to strengthen me. I can still be sad but the strength that comes from the joy sustains me.

And that’s what I think the difference is between happiness and joy. Happiness is fleeting….joy is permanent IF you make the choice.

I love the quote:

“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect, it just means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections”.

I’m really beginning to see that everything in life really *is* all about choice.

There were a lot of crappy things that happened these school holidays and I won’t lie and say that I handled them all (or my emotions) appropriately but what I will say is that making the decision to move on and not let other people’s words steal my joy was a fabulous decision.

This break that I have just had up at Mum’s with the children has been oh-so cathartic for me and that’s why I have decided to take this blog in a new direction this year.  Whilst it will still be primarily about our family’s daily life with autism, I will also be incorporating anything that takes my fancy!

I’m starting to realise that last year in particular, I laid aside a lot of the things that I enjoy doing and threw myself so far into learning everything and anything about autism that I started to feel like I’d lost “me” and started to long for those things that once helped to keep me sane and created pure joy.

Now don’t get me wrong – I will continue to research, read and trial all that I can to help my boys get the best success rates in life – but I will also be dedicating a lot of time to looking after me.

And this is where my friend Alysia comes is. When I read *THIS POST* that she wrote recently, I cried.

I cried because it hit close to home and because I knew she was onto something big. I felt like I wasn’t alone in feeling overwhelmed and treading water in the sea of autism and all that it encompasses.

In case you haven’t heard or read – she and her friend Shannon have started up the Oxygen Mask Project.

I linked directly to their “Our Mission” page so click on the link and go take a look. It is described perfectly. We as mothers need to take care of ourselves and apply our own oxygen masks first. Then we can be the best Mamas for our kids.

It really is so simple but so many of us miss it.

This year I will be at home alone for the first time in 12 years. My baby starts school and I’m taking 6-12 months off before I start looking for work. It’s going to be MY year.

My plans really are as vague as they are varied but I hope to spend more time writing songs on the piano, reading my bible and making a dent in the piles of books that I have intended to read over the years.

I hope to sew more, bake more and relax more. Not in any particular order

I have stopped searching for things to make me “happy” but instead have decided to purposely seek out the positives in all situation. I didn’t say it was going to be easy, I am naturally a glass half-empty kinda girl but with God’s help – I can do anything!

I found this on Pinterest and I absolutely ♥ it!

So there you go …

Right now the score is –  God&Fiona :1   Depression: 0

HA!

~

~

Unsent letter

To the person who has hurt us,

You do know who you are,

I want to tell you here- right now,

That you have gone too far.

.

I want to let you know that we,

Still love you just the same,

But it hurts me when you judge our ways,

And give me all the blame

.

You know my life is not like yours,

And it will never be,

I do the best with what I have,

So please don’t bad mouth me

.

My children know that they come first,

And have my full attention,

So forgive me now, if you’ve to wait,

And I am not perfection

.

I feel that you just inward look,

And make it all about you,

But in THIS house, we’re not that way,

You never seem to approve

.

I’m sorry if you feel that I,

Have been a dreadful pain,

I have no time for childish rants,

It’s puts me off my game

.

My days are filled with ASDs

And everything that includes,

So give me grace when I am not,

Always in the happiest moods

.

I’m sorry that I sometimes get,

All tense and non compliant,

But all this stress has turned my woes,

Into a towering giant.

.

I’ve never claimed to be immune,

To snapping under pressure,

But bringing up the past to us,

Just brings us such displeasure.

.

So instead of focusing on yourself,

Why not offer to shoulder our burden,

And walk a mile in different shoes,

Before just spurting your poison.

.

I work so hard but still you want,

To criticize me and complain,

You won’t believe in ASDs

So it’s always just the same…

.

I’ve tried to tell you all I can,

But you don’t want to listen,

So saying that I am “not right”

Has been your latest mission

.

If I’m “not right” then why do I,

Do most of this myself?

And manage to raise gorgeous kids,

With barely any help?

.

The things that you’ve complained about,

Weren’t done to tick you off,

My heart was right, and full of love,

But now….I’ve had enough

.

I can’t go on pretending that,

Everything is now okay,

I’ve tried my best – but it’s not enough,

I’ve nothing left to say

.

I truly hope that you get to,

The place where you find peace,

I pray that God will bless you lots,

And that this tension now will cease…..

The armchair analogy

image from: featherandnestkim.blogspot.com

Yes!

It’s snowing on my blog! Usually it would seem silly being that I live in the Southern Hemisphere and it is Summertime here during Christmas but I thought that it was fitting since it has been SO COLD here this past week!

And sadly, the weather isn’t the only thing that’s been a downer lately. It has been quite difficult for me in that I really have been consumed with feelings of mother guilt and regrets.

And while I know that I am probably being too hard on myself – I have struggled to get past these feelings.

Harley had a particularly rough time last week, which I found really hard to take because things had only just started to look up again. If you remember the post before this one – I was just celebrating how far he has come only to slump back to reality with a thud once again.

He is still being bullied at school and it’s really taking its toll on him. There are 2 kids doing the bulk of the teasing but once of them is the ring-leader and the other one a follower. The main gist of the teasing is about him having aspergers and has now extended to him being gluten-free.

I know.

Stupid things to bully a person over but that’s what’s happening.

And I know that Harley is particularly sensitive – more so than your average 8-year-old boy, but that’s just the way he is made and no amount of coaching is going to change his genetic make-up. He gets it from me I suppose because I’m easily hurt by words and it’s killing me to see my boy so sad.

The hard part is that the bully is known to be a “nice kid” to the teachers so convincing them that there is more than meets the eye is proving to be a tough one.

And as it is with most spectrum kids, Harley hasn’t got the ability to be as cunning as his NT peers and often gets caught retaliating when the instigator gets off scott-free because he is smart enough not to do it in front of the teachers.

But I trust the school to tackle this in the right way.

I have to. It’s all I can do right now.

There are only 4 days left of the school year before they break up for 7 ½ weeks and I considered not saying anything and just hoping that it will all blow over, but I decided that if I mention it now, at least if anything happens next year there will be a history of this recorded.

~

We received both of the older children’s school reports last week too.

Ella did exceptionally well and we are mega proud of her. We believe she could have done even better because she also readily admits that she didn’t give her all.

But she is naturally a very smart kid. She has always been an A and B student and has glided through academically since day one with barely any effort at all.

I haven’t really had to put any time into convincing her to do her homework and she tackles all her work with determination. But it’s important to note that we didn’t do anything to make her that way. That’s just how she is. And we are very proud of her success.

But conversely, we have spent hundreds of dollars on tutoring and therapies on Harley and I personally have dedicated many many hours to helping him and yet he has struggled with every.single.subject this year.

Sigh.

His marks weren’t terrible, he isn’t lagging behind the rest of the class and comments on his report reflected that he tried his very best and that he is really really trying but they also scream out ASPIE ALERT all the way through.

Comments such as: ‘gets distracted easily, needs support to complete fine motor activities and struggles with hand-writing’ were all the way through it. He can’t help that. It’s who he is.

And we are oh-so-proud of him because we know that he gave his all and that’s all we ever expect but he is being hard on himself. (Wonder where he gets THAT from?!)

If anything, he worked HARDER than Ella yet she blitzed him with no real effort at all and that was a bitter pill for him to swallow.

~

There is a beautiful little girl in Harley’s class who also has aspergers and she did remarkably well this year and I am SO proud of her! She deserved the accolades because she did such fabulous work this year.

Her lovely mother (a friend of mine) needs a pat on the back too because she also worked really hard with her and I’m thrilled that their hard work has paid off.

But I am worried….. Because I’m hoping that the teachers aren’t seeing this as her trying really hard and Harley not trying at all. I hope that they don’t expect him to be like her because it’s never gonna happen! He is a completely different person with completely different skills and talents.

All you autism parent friends will know the saying : “If you’ve met one person with autism, then you’ve met one person with autism” and this is so true when it comes to Harley.

I have watched him push himself but I have also watched him crumble. I have seen him strive but also dissolve into tears regularly.

It breaks my heart to see him walk out of school deflated and I know how much of a toll this year has taken on him. And to have it all topped off with bullying is the straw that’s breaking the proverbial camel’s back.

So I sit here and ask myself these questions : What could I have done differently for my boy?

What skills should I have put more hours into teaching him so that he didn’t have to struggle so much?

Should I have encouraged him more?

Would it have been different if I had invested more time into teaching him coping mechanisms rather than insisting that he do it my way?

And then it all starts to do my head in and I start to reconsider home-schooling him again.

Not because I think I could do a better job – actually quite the opposite.

I know that I am NOT cut out to be a teacher at all but I don’t want to keep sending my boy into his idea of hell everyday and keep expecting him to force his square peg butt into the very round holes that is the school environment.

I know that my boy will achieve great things. I KNOW that he will not only survive but he will be sensational and I KNOW that he is destined for great things.

But I just wish it didn’t have to take such a toll on him in the process.

He is an amazing kid. ALL of my kids are, and I’m still yet to find out how Lucas will handle school next year but I refuse to let my head go there just yet!

And its times like this that I am so pleased that I have a close relationship with Jesus.

My Dad taught me to visualise a big stuffed comfortable armchair in a room with a light breeze and all my happy things surrounding me. Then he told me to imagine laying back into it and just resting and relaxing and knowing that I am loved and well cared for.

And he explained that this is what God means when He tells us to “Rest in Him”.

Sounds great right?

Nope…sounds AWESOME!

I’m of to find a comfy place right now and if you’re looking for me, I’ll be asleep in my armchair with my caffeine I.V. drip in my arm and a tray of chocolates that never runs out beside me.

Because THAT my friends,  is my idea of heaven.

Distillation in verse.

It’s ok peoples

You don’t need to worry about me….I’m not in a terribly bad place….well not exactly a great place either, but it’s nothing to be concerned about.

I was in a bad (ish) place earlier on but I have worked through a lot of the ‘stuff’ and ‘nonsense’ and some of it has been dealt with.

Some of it

I’m just attempting to clear my head of the thousands of crazy, ridiculous,persistent and nagging thoughts relating to certain circumstances that have plagued us as a family lately, and for me personally – I find that using the medium of poetry is particularly cathartic.

Head is spinning,

Eyes are sore,

Tired of crying,

I can’t take any more.

.

Questions looping,

Answers not there,

Frustrated, angry,

Not wanting to care.

.

Desiring, needing,

Wanting some peace,

Anger is building,

It needs to be released.

.

Tired of fighting,

Nothing seems to work,

Wanting to escape,

But this ire still lurks.

.

Praying, pleading,

Wanting to be free,

Crying and hurting,

This really isn’t me.

.

Sleepy, weepy,

Knowing this will pass,

But not wanting to wait for it,

Is that too much to ask?

My brave little boy.

I’ve just returned to reality after having had such a brilliant weekend.

Mr Patient and I left the children at home with his mother and escaped up to vineyard country for my cousin’s wedding for two nights. And it was absolutely magnificent.

The wedding, the location, the company, the motel, and the spring weather. All of it was simply magical.

We stayed in ✩✩✩✩ accommodation and treated ourselves to a real getaway. With the king sized bed, the plasma and the room service – we didn’t feel much like tired, run-down parents at ALL and more like royalty!

 On the Saturday morning we went to a wine tasting and spoiled ourselves by purchasing a rare wine that came from a vine that was brought over from France 130 years ago!  Later we went for a casual drive around the countryside inhaling all the fresh air and walked hand-in-hand around markets stalls and food sampling tables.

The wedding was fantastic. The bride was stunning, the whole day was planned perfectly down to the little lollies that were left on each table that had the names of the bride and groom written on them!   I got to catch up with my cousins on my Dad’s side of the family and haven’t laughed or danced that much in AGES!

My feet sure paid for it the next morning but I would do it again in a heartbeat!

Sure, there were moments where I couldn’t help but wish that Dad was also there enjoying the festivities with us, but I did get to spend some quality time with my Mum so it wasn’t all bad and it took my focus whenever sadness would start to creep in.   I missed my kids but at the same time…I had no desire to go back to reality anytime soon.

love my kids – but every parent needs a break once in a while.

Of course I wanted to stay in paradise and I didn’t want to go back to being “just Mum”, but I was lapping up the ‘me’ time that I had been looking forward to for so long!   At the wedding, I was an adult with a personality and a purpose and someone who people were actually interested in. I was included in conversations and my opinions mattered and were listened to.   I wasn’t just: Ella, Harley and Lucas’ Mum…..nor was I Mr Patient’s wife or even ‘the mother of autistic kids’.

I was Fiona.

And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I truly belonged and less like someone who should just keep quiet and blend into the back ground.

Driving home yesterday was bittersweet. I wanted to see my kids but didn’t feel like I was ready to go back.   When we drove out of the driveway on Friday afternoon, Harley stood at the front door gripping his teddy bear who he’d wrapped in his blanket and waved to us with tears welling in his eyes.  He wanted to be brave but it was so hard for him. It unnerved me to see him like this but Mr Patient repeatedly told me that he was going to be ok so I did manage to enjoy myself and temporarily forget that my boy wasn’t coping.  

We arrived home at about 4pm yesterday and I knew from the second that I saw Harley that he had struggled while we were gone.   He has sucked and chewed his little hands until they’ve bled again and started to wash them obsessively.

My Mother in law reported that he did a lot of rocking and quiet moaning over the weekend and lost control over his emotions on several occasions. She described these meltdowns perfectly and it saddened me to know that he was so out-of sorts. She also told us that he was non-responsive to her a lot of the time and that he kept asking her the same question : ‘When will Mummy and Daddy be home’ over and over again even though she always gave the same answer.

I explained to her that the rocking, moaning and hand biting/chewing/sucking are all anxiety indicators, and that asking the same question repeatedly and receiving the exact same answer is actually comforting for him.

Put simply: Routine comforts. Changes freak him out.

But all is well this morning. I have sent my little bandaged bear to school and he happily went……..Ok, so maybe he lingered hugging and kissing me a little longer than usual after the bell rung – but he still walked off to class without a backwards glance.

I’m SO proud of my little tiger!

GO HARLEY!!!!!

A valuable insight.

I often write that I am not very good at coping in certain situations. And try as hard as I do, it’s just the way that I am made and no amount of pushing or criticizing me will change my genetic and neurological make up.

Talk to the big guy if you have a problem. I am a product of His workmanship. I didn’t self-design. I can only work with that which I was given.

And He has wired me to be a sensitive person which is wonderful at times – but also can be a REAL burden at others because I have a tendency to take EVERYTHING to heart and it eats away at me and festers long after the original wound was inflicted.

And part of being super-sensitive involves a lot of tears being shed.

Like this morning.

I had intended to go to the school and watch Ella give her speech to middle school. She was chosen as the finalist to represent her class in the heats last week and today was the big day.

I arrived early and grabbed a seat only to be handed a program and discover that she wasn’t on for another 2 hours.

I looked at Lucas and then at the 40% battery level on my iphone and realised that there was no way that I could stretch either for that long.   I made the decision to swap my plans around and go to the local shops and buy my sister’s birthday gift first.

But after I arrived at the shopping centre, my daughter’s teacher called my mobile and told me that it was moving along a lot quicker than they had anticipated and that  Ella would be on next.

I sighed and explained where I was and that there was no way that I could get back there in time so he offered to try and video if for me instead.

Oh well…..I was disappointed but knew that I couldn’t do anything about it. It was just one of those things. I did feel like I’d let Ella down though.

***

The shopping centre that I was at has free parking for the first 3 hours and then they charge from then onwards.

I knew that I would only be an hour so I parked there , and for the first time in my entire life – I took the little parking ticket with me in my pocket instead of leaving it in the car as the signs all around advise you to NOT leave it in your vehicle.

After visiting EVERY single women’s clothing shop in the centre and finding nothing suitable I gave up and decided to head home again. I took the ticket out of my pocket and checked it and realised that I had been there for only one hour and ten minutes.

Perfect – I was well under the free 3 hours.

I walked back to my car, went to get the ticket out and my heart lurched into my shoes.

I felt sick as I searched every pocket frantically and turned my handbag inside out looking for the darn thing. I couldn’t understand how on earth it had gone missing in less than a minute.

Had someone pick-pocketed me?

I was stunned.

I had no choice but to contact the security office and explain what had happened and I was confident that because the centre had only been open for an hour and a half, it was obvious that I hadn’t overstayed the free period.

They didn’t care. They made me pay $25 for a lost ticket…..

 TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS!

And I didn’t even buy anything in this darn centre!!!!

Before I paid it – I spent another half an hour re-tracing my steps JUST IN CASE….but to no avail.

 Lucas was getting tetchy by now and starting to repeat the phrase “Oh no, Mummy, no ticket” over and over and OVER again!

SO I reluctantly paid the stoopid money and drove towards the exit only to see that the boom gate was permanently raised and that the machine was broken so EVERYONE  got to drive out without a ticket anyway!!

***

You’d think I’d be angry wouldn’t you?

No…I was too upset. I pulled my car over in a far section of the car park and burst into tears.  I rung my husband and sobbed into the phone. I cried for almost an hour all up. I was so upset at myself and at the unfairness of the situation. I completely lost it.

He spoke to me gently and calmed me back down again and has rung me every hour on the hour since to tell me that he loves me. He knew that it wasn’t just these two small things that set me off. He knows that there has been a helluva lot go on in our little world this week.  He knew that my heart had been stomped on and that I was already extremely fragile.

But I have been thinking about this whole ridiculous morning since I got home again and it occurred to me that this is very similar to how my Harley explains his meltdowns to me.

•  He has told me that sometimes when bad things happen and he feels like he is going into meltdown that  he can’t focus on anything else that’s going on around him.     (Just like I couldn’t tell you if there were any people near me in the carpark – I can’t remember, all I could think about was the ticket. It was the ONLY thing I could think about).
•  He says that he feels panicky and scared.     (Even though I knew this was fixable – I was overwhelmed with a sense of anxiety that I couldn’t seem to get on top of).
•  He can’t hear what anyone is saying to him and he feels physically sick on the stomach. (I felt like I was going to throw up and I had to ask the lady on the intercom to repeat her requests and questions several times because I wasn’t taking it in).
•  And he just wants to escape. (I wanted nothing more than to jump into my car and drive far, far away from this place that was making me feel so stressed out and unhappy).

 Please note that I am not trying to trivialize his feelings or pretend to know exactly how he feels but am trying to understand him better.

And if THIS is anything close to how he feels – I have so much more compassion for him than EVER before…..it was purely debilitating and sickening.  I know it was only a $25 ticket and not the end of the world. Really I do. But it felt like it was.

But because I have had a really difficult past week and was hurt quite badly, it has made everything else that’s occurred in my life since then appear larger than life. Like a big fat magnifying glass that hovers above me.

And with Harley – it often only takes a very tiny spark to create a bushfire.  It’s rarely the little things alone that send him off…..it’s a culmination of many little things all linked together…..

And if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and remove my smudgy eye makeup before I leave the house again for the school pick up!

Thank you God for giving me this little insight into my boy’s mind….it is AWESOME!

Understanding and working through guilt.

Mum introducing baby Harley to a horse

In just under 2 weeks time – Mr Patient and I are going away overnight to attend my cousin’s wedding. The venue is a couple of hours drive away from here and rather than try to drive back later that night, we have decided to stay in a nearby hotel instead.

I’m actually finding though – that I’m having the exact opposite emotion to guilt (whatever that’s called) whenever we leave the kids with friends or family these days.  Instead of feeling guilty that we have left them…..I feel guilty because I’m NOT missing them….How twisted is that!?

But it hasn’t always been that way.

For many years I carried guilt and shame related to leaving my children and it’s only been recently that God has set me free from this burden and I’ve been able to see that in actual fact – in the particular circumstances that I have lost sleep over I didn’t even do anything wrong. It can all be traced back to the different brain wiring of my son and the fact that we didn’t know anything about it.

I clearly remember way back to in late 2003 when Ella was almost 4 and Harley was still a baby.

None of us had slept more than an hour at a time on any night due to Harley’s constant screaming and crying, but my parents knew that we were absolutely exhausted and needed a break.

So they offered to mind the kids for us up at their place (in the country) for 5 days so that we could escape over to the coast to stay in a gorgeous little bungalow on a lagoon that they had booked for us. We were SO excited at this idea and knew that we desperately needed this break and looked forward to it for WEEKS.

Prior to this – I had been having headaches and facial numbness for months but it had gotten a lot worse in the weeks leading up to this escape so I went and saw the seventh Doctor in two years and listed my symptoms for the 7^th time expecting to be sent away being told that I was a hypochondriac again. But this time I demanded that the Dr do an MRI because I wanted to put my mind at ease once and for all so that I could enjoy this holiday with nothing to encroach on my peace.

But of course the MRI revealed the brain tumour that I had been accused of inventing symptoms for, and our little couples escape never happened.

On the night before I was due to go in for my surgery – my baby Harley came down with the chicken pox and wasn’t allowed to come and visit me in the ICU or even after I was transferred to the brain injury ward until the spots had disappeared.  On the morning of my admission to hospital, my Mum clearly remembers standing on my front porch waving her daughter off to have life-saving brain surgery while her grandchild itched and cried for his Mummy. His little arms reached out to me but I had to turn and walk away. THE hardest thing I’ve ever had to do to date.

When he did finally get the all-clear from the Dr and was allowed to visit me in hospital – he didn’t seem to know who I was. He was only 14 months old and Grandma was the only person he responded to. This was my first introduction to mother’s guilt.

Fast forward almost 2 years and 2 major surgeries later and we finally took that well-deserved holiday on the coast and by then – we were even more in need of a break than 2 years earlier and couldn’t WAIT for the day to arrive.

So we drove the kids up to Mum and Dad’s and jumped back in the car and drove to the coast to r-e-l-a-x!

But do you know what?  Once we got there – we didn’t know what to do with ourselves!  We didn’t know how to just stop and we were unable to relax much because we continued to be consumed by guilt.  After our first swim in the pool, dip in the spa, stroll along the beach and dinner and movie date – we were all outta ideas! And this was all done in the first day!

We weren’t used to having so much time alone together and didn’t how to spend it! We phoned the kids several times a day and actually ended up going back a day early to surprise them! We had clued Mum and Dad in and asked them not to tell the kids.

And to this day – I’ll never forget Harley’s reaction.  Even as young as almost 2, he showed signs of being very distressed by changes in plans.

(And recalling all of this now – I can’t believe that we missed the “A” word for so long).

 So we pulled up in my parent’s drive way and walked around the side of the house because we could hear them playing in the back yard. We didn’t call out to the kids – we just stood there and waited for them to spot us.

Ella saw us first and immediately came running over exclaiming “Mummy, Daddy! I’ve missed you!” But Harley burst into tears and clung to Grandma’s leg… He was confused and wouldn’t come anywhere near us. Me particularly. I remember how devastated I was by this but I think I did a fairly good job of disguising my hurt. We’d only been gone 4 days and I already felt as though I’d abandoned my child and his reaction to me just magnified my guilt. It took me a very long time to stop blaming myself for going away and leaving him even though deep down I knew that we desperately needed the break.

That afternoon, Harley stayed close to his Grandma for hours and eyed me suspiciously from afar.  He lay on Grandma’s knee and drunk his bedtime bottle that night and she was the one who laid him in his cot. Not me.  He didn’t want me. I remember how much my heart broke that night. It stayed with me for years but I didn’t know then that this was one of the early signs of his autism causing confusion, and anxiety in him.

~*~

I was only thinking about all of this today and for the first time I actually GOT IT!

I finally get that these incidences of Harley’s over the top reactions to change were nothing at all to do with my parenting (or lack of). I can now see that they were both just very early indicators of a little boy who is wired very differently to me.  I understand that his response to these events can be attributed to the fright response that is common amongst ASD children when they are confronted with a situation that didn’t go the way that they expected. Harley was simply reacting to change and clung to that which made him feel safe.  And in both of those circumstances – It was my Mum that was his safe place.

It has all become crystal clear to me this week exactly WHY Harley has such a closeness with Grandma.

I now understand completely that she was the only constant in his life every single time that things have gone belly –up.

She was not only someone who was there for him when he needed it most.  Someone who knew he was special and knew that he was different but chose to love him unconditionally and without judgement.

Thank God for my Mum.

And thank you God for healing my hurt.

A no-brainer.

I’ve kept Harley home from school today.

He is reasonably well physically but he is far from well emotionally.

I wondered how he was going to go this morning because he came out of his bedroom several times between 8 and 11pm last night for no apparent reason.

Yes – he usually does this anyway but most of the time he will have some half-baked reason as to why he can’t sleep but last night – he was particularly upset and emotionally charged and couldn’t explain it to me at all.

It probably didn’t help that I kept growling at him and marching him back to his room with not an ounce of compassion in my voice. *sigh*  But hindsight sure is a wonderful thing isn’t it?

So, I suppose that I’m not really very surprised by the flood of emotions that are overwhelming him so far this morning.

He still hasn’t told me what’s going on in his head (he probably can’t find the words yet) but I suspect that it’s got a lot to do with his Daddy being away for longer than usual this time.

Mr Patient has travelled with his job ever since I met him 14 years ago and has therefore travelled since Harley was born but sometimes it affects my little tiger more than others.

I think it may be because this time, Daddy left on a Sunday which probably confused him because weekends are when EVERYONE is home….

So, here we are at the beginning of another “mental health day” or “circuit breaker day” as I like to call them.

But who exactly are these days for? For him or for me?

They are ‘supposed’ to be for Harley to regroup, refocus and chill out without the pressures of being thrust into an environment that takes everything out of him, but in reality – I’ve noticed that these circuit breaker days are also for me.

And the reason for this is simple. It’s because these ‘days off’ from sending my child into the daily battlefield are days where I can spend time mentally preparing him to return tomorrow therefore ensuring a better afternoon.

They are days where I can enjoy my child who is calm and at (his version of) peace.

Days where I don’t have to watch him struggle to conform to society’s spoken and unspoken rules.

And they are days where I can sit back and KNOW that he is going to have a good day because there really aren’t any unreasonable and unattainable expectations being forced upon him.

And this afternoon?….

Well, we have a paediatrician appointment for Lucas to attend and there was NO WAY that I would have expected Harley to manage a whole day of school and then sit for a couple of hours in a waiting room with lots of other noisy kids and funny smells and unfamiliar sounds.

No…..this is definitely the best solution for our family today.

Definitely, no doubt about it.

Tossing out the pebbles.

Decisions are like skimming rocks upon a glistening lake,

Some glide while others plummet and then sink,

I make my plans and polish the stones to see if I can make,

My choices win and not end up in the drink.

~

I’m asking lots of questions but the answer does not come,

Solutions wave and mock me from afar,

I feel my strength unraveling; I’m slowly being undone,

I wonder if it has to be this hard?

~

The answers are in reach although I don’t know where to start,

I question if I really know my stuff?

My priorities are ordered and I know them all by heart,

But I doubt that they will ever be enough.

~

If I could figure out just what my next few moves should be,

And make my brain relax and take a break,

I know then that I’d understand and be able to see,

In front of me and just what is at stake.

~

I need to learn to lay things down and not let them control,

My every waking thought until I crack,

But I’m the kind that feels all things with heart as well as soul,

And know that there’s no room for turning back.

~

I know that once I stop and rest: The answer will hunt ME down,

But that requires me to let things be,

And that’s much easier said than done – I feel like I could drown,

But I have to or I’ll never again be free.

Exploring emotions.

  Meal times have always been a downer here. Rarely have I cooked a meal that all of them have been willing to eat. Tears are a regular occurrence and more often than not I leave the table defeated and somewhat angrier than I was when I sat down.

It’s true that I’m no Master chef but I can do a little better than canned food and toast, but because we have so many conflicting sensory and taste issues here – it’s almost impossible to keep everyone happy all of the time.

Tonight I served up dinner and Lucas and Ella sat down happily, said grace and started eating.

And of course : Harley threw a fit.

Nothing new there, we get this about 4 nights a week. So I casually bent down and picked up the fork that he had sent flying in rage and left him to it.

The other 2 kids are so used to this kind of behaviour that they hardly blinked. They simply went on eating oblivious to the jumping, flailing, screaming and whining.

After a few minutes with no response from any of us – he calmed down a little bit and edged closer to the table to see if he could elicit some sort of reaction from me so I grabbed the tomato sauce bottle and made a smiley face on his plate with it.

I thought this might make him laugh (or even smile at the very least!)

But no. He wasn’t budging.

I went back to eating my dinner and watched out of the corner of my eye as Harley walked around to the other side of the table and grabbed the BBQ sauce bottle and headed back to his seat.

I assumed that his little display of displeasure was over and he’d realised that he wasn’t going to win and I expected him to sit down and start eating therefore silently admitting defeat.

But I was wrong again.

He used his fork to smear out the happy face I’d made and used the BBQ sauce to make a sad face instead next to it and then pushed his plate away and marched off to his bedroom in a flood of tears.

What followed during the next ten minutes conjured up a lot of very mixed emotions in me…I was annoyed, frustrated, proud, relieved, joyful and sad.

All at once.

Harley had taken a pen and a pad of paper into his room with him and had drawn a picture of himself on about 8 different pieces of paper, each with a speech bubble coming out of his mouth. He had then written in each bubble a word and distributed these drawing throughout the house.

He left one on my pillow, one on the table beside me, one on the kitchen bench ….(you get the picture).

I studied them intently trying REALLY hard to decipher his writing but I failed miserably. As hard as I tried, I could not understand his writing and this just seemed to exacerbate his anger so he went and hid underneath the fuse ball table in the back room for half an hour silently rocking back and forth with tears streaming down his little face.

After we’d finished eating, I went and sat down beside him with all the notes and asked him if he could read them to me.

He’d calmed down enough at this point to talk to me and he did.

The bubbles said: “I’m angry”, “I’m sad”, “I’m hungry”, “I’m scared” and “I’m tired”...

Well I just about suffocated him with the huge hug that I wrapped him in because I was SO proud of this amazing progress!

My boy was not only able to recognise and own but CONVEY his feelings and emotions to me in a calm manner!  How cool is THAT?!

Suddenly the frustration that I had at not being able to understand my child was overwritten by a warm fuzzy emotional tidal wave!

It seems that my attempt at making him smile with the sauce actually prompted him to express what was going on inside him. It was the trigger that he needed to tap into his emotional state and he then found a way to communicate with me even amidst his stress.

The sad face that he drew back started a domino effect of emotions that just spilled out of him and I think this is absolutely wonderful!

I have given him some emotions visual cards that I have had printed up for a while now and he is very excited about that. Onwards and upwards I tells ya!