Quick thoughts

Alone

30/09/2016 by MrsSavageAngel Leave a Comment

The sun is streaming through my lounge window. The lounge is as tidy as it ever gets. The house is not quiet, its peaceful. And I feel reborn.

Its hard to explain how having my four year old start school has made me feel. Yes it’s been sad and yes it’s been heart wrenching but it’s also been somewhat liberating. In a way I wasn’t expecting.

I have yet to clean the house. I will, I promise, but I’m just taking my time. My time. Time for me. Imagine that!

Hot coffee. Peaceful toilet trips. Sometimes I feel like I’m just sitting in stunned silence.

I have used my new office just once this week. I will use it more, but at the moment I’m getting used to being in the house, my house, alone. I didn’t realise how rarely that had actually happened in the last four years until now. Even the peaceful times when Oscar was younger, were when he was napping. He was here and I was ‘en garde’ so to speak. Now there is no one here. Just me.

I’m listening hard. And hoping to hear myself.

For the first time in a long time.

Good

04/03/2016 by MrsSavageAngel Leave a Comment

Good

Why do we praise children for being ‘good’?

Not to them but to one another?

“Your boy was so good today”, or

“we loved having him, he was so good”.

What are we saying when we don’t say they were good?

That they were bad?

And what is the definition of good anyway,

and whose definition are our children working to?

How can you measure something you do not, or cannot, define?

Good teaches us nothing.

Good teaches us to toe the party line.

Good teaches us that we must fit in with other peoples expectations of us, even if we don’t know what these expectations are.

Don’t tell me or anyone else our children have been good or are welcome because they are good. It’s too vague and the opposite connotations heartbreakingly negative.

Talk about exactly what it is they’ve done to impress you.

Did they listen?

Were they attentive?

Did they follow all your instructions?

Were they helpful today?

Good?

It’s just a lazy way of saying “I approve of you”

And not saying it

“I don’t”

#AllTheFilters

26/11/2015 by MrsSavageAngel Leave a Comment

If I talk about him too much it’s because he’s all I have. All I am. Everything I’m doing at the moment is him.

I’m sorry if I bore you or if you’d rather talk about more fun things. So would I. SO WOULD I. I want to talk about the latest cinema or the funny things I’ve been up to or the nights I’ve had out or the classes I’m attending.

My life is so dull. The only fun things I do are fun things he does. The only classes I’m attending are Autism 101. The only exciting things happening for me are hearing our EHCP paperwork has been received and that the process is beginning.

I’m sorry if I bore you enough to cut me off. I cut myself off too. Do you notice? Half way through a sentence I realise I’m boring you, so I stop and ask you about yourself. Did you see that? Probably not.

Maybe it’s just too hard for you to hear. You have your own life, your own struggles, your own hard times. Why would you want to hear about mine? I understand that. I do. Not that I focus on the bad, I really, really don’t. Believe me, you get the IG version of how I’m feeling today. Hashtag: allthefilters.

I promised myself when we started this journey that I wouldn’t become all consumed with it. But some days I simply can’t manage anything else.

I’m sorry if I bore you.

This is my life.

Fair

11/10/2015 by MrsSavageAngel Leave a Comment

Sometimes I get jealous. I look at the world and I see the mothers with one, two, three, Jesus, seven children without a disability or a condition between them and I am jealous. I ache when I think of the injustice. It’s not fair. I only want, only ever wanted one child. One little dude to have adventures with, to sing songs and do silly things and run in parks and teach and be told stories by and play imagination games and dress up with and…. the list goes on.

Sometimes I am so angry that this is my life. That this is the path I have not chosen yet it’s the one I’m walking. How is that fair? When I look at the beautiful families and their myriad of children who will never be given labels, who will never be the odd ones out, who will never know what it is to go through life born into a world that just doesn’t get them. These children will just be ‘got’ and it makes me weep.

Just one. Was it too much to ask? One perfect child. One who doesn’t scream at any given thing, one who can understand spoken instructions, one who has a sense of when to stop, one I don’t have to teach each and every god damn thing with pictures and laminate and Velcro and all the hidden worry because God forbid I should cry in front of him. Even though I sometimes do, and then I instantly regret it for the fury it evokes in him.

It’s just not fair.

Then something happens to redress my perception of fair. Of what is cruel in this life.

Or death.

And I ache a little less and I rage a little less. I did not want this life. But I have life. I have the child I longed for, despite his differences to me. I am here. He is here.

I asked ‘why me’? Now I ask ” Why her”?

It seems injustice stalks all our beings, and does not discriminate.

Not fair.

What’s more fun than a box?

21/10/2014 by MrsSavageAngel Leave a Comment

So Oscar’s speech is somewhat delayed. We’ve been looking at various ways of making his communication easier, but have also noticed he’s a really visual learner. So for example last week’s big word was Fish. He got that from watching a Baby TV cartoon with a fish in it several times (it was Baby Art if you’re interested. It’s a wordless cartoon, but I say the words of the things as they appear – he seems to like it) Anyway, we have also noticed that he’ll use a word, but that sometimes it’ll disappear, sometimes to reappear weeks later, sometimes not. We want to be sure that we reinforce the words he is learning, as well as teaching him new ones, so have decided a picture of the word he has acquired (mainly nouns at this stage) somewhere prominent in the house would be a great visual reminder.

Which is one of the reasons Ben came home with a printer yesterday. It’s very exciting, we haven’t had a printer since about 1999! We plan to get cracking with the pictures asap – we may even get a laminater to help them stand up to Hurricane Toddler that regularly bowls round this house.

But for now, it came in a box. A bloody big box. And that’s proved more fun than anything.

We’ll let you know how the pictures go!

... yep that'll work! — … yep that’ll work!