Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 69 Comments

Trees

What a stunning tree.

We took Captain Chaos for a walk this morning. Still trying to process yesterday’s school review meeting. Maybe it’s because I am tired but I just can’t get my head fully round it’s implications. It’s times like this when being a single parent sucks… No one to talk things through with. No voice of reason. So the ideas and words just keep swirling around.

I turned up carrying my 300 pages of notes (sorry Trees…). When I opened the paper pile a must do House DIY list dropped out. Sadly nothing can be ticked off the list from the last meeting. Where does all the time go.

The meeting lasted two hours. So many discussions. So many disagreements. So much frustration.

I suspect the best way to summarise is to see a never ending circle.

I ask for something. School confirm it’s not happened. Health Service says the need is real and should be met. School says they don’t have the resources to do this. School asks the Council for funds. Council says it’s not an education issue, it’s a health issue. Health Service says they don’t have the money and it’s an education issue. And on and on. If we give money to health to provide additional support then that has to come from the school and they then can’t even meet his minimum care standards. So Son has real unmet needs – everyone agrees on that but no one is prepared to provide the funds. Everybody at the meeting clearly cared about our son. Let’s be honest Health and Education have been hammered by our current Government. You can only cut things so far before things start falling apart.

Let’s quote our Prime Minister again

“I’m on your side….”

Just sod off. You are not on OUR SIDE. You are just looking after yourself. You don’t give a damm about kids like our son. Get back to looking at your, your husband and your friends off shore investments….

So the bottom line is Health are going to write to the Council and request additional funding. Council are going to write to the Health Managers and ask for additional funds. While our PM sits in Chequers and tries to find more desperate ways of staying in power. Go on May why don’t you bribe the DUP with billions of pounds of public funds again – while lecturing the rest of us that ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’. Madness.

More positively school are going to try some minor adjustments to see if that helps our son. They are also going to formally request exceptional one-off funding to pay for an in-depth dyslexia assessment. The funding probably won’t come but at least school now recognise the impact dyslexia is having on our son’s educational performance.

So hopefully at the next meeting we will have seen some progress and at the very least confirming that

  • Son has started getting some more tailored support,
  • I have started doing some of the DIY projects which are badly needed,
  • I will have gone paperless so more beautiful trees will be saved AND
  • our incompetent and distinctly unpleasant PM is consigned to historical ignominy…..
Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 54 Comments

Decibels

Currently the mad dog is being completely bonkers. It’s a kinda let’s bark at everything type of day. Currently the apple tree is getting it. But as the decibels rise my mind wanders to that quiet little pup. What happened…..

Son is not impressed. If you look closely at the photo you will notice that the duvet cover is Peppa Pig themed. It’s a perfectly good cover so is still used today when his Jurassic Park one is being washed. Son doesn’t really see the practical benefits.

“You do know Peppa Pig is for little kids. It’s not as if I’m watching it. I know you do when you get the chance, but not me. I was watching about the Black Death last night..”

I do have to admit that a quick bit of Peppa Pig, or the Clangers or In The Night Garden is strangely therapeutic. And yes I can’t remember the Peppa Pig episode which featured the Black Death.

All my parenting waffles are subject to a major caveat. As statisticians would say – it’s based on a very limited sample size. Like one child. One child on the autistic spectrum with dyslexia. So when I see something I can’t be sure if that is just particular to our son or is a common thing. The only other benchmark I can use is my childhood. That seems a long time ago…..

Son has a lot of areas where he is more developed and refined than his Dad. Seemingly way beyond his years. But also in a number of areas he probably still reverts back to the Peppa Pig years. Cuddly toys. Not wanting to leave the safety of the family nest. Mr Men stories. Petting Zoos. Toy cars….

Maybe it’s a fear of growing up.

But I can relate to this. Not wanting to completely forget your early childhood days. Now where is that Peppa Pig dvd….

Speaking about not forgetting things.

It’s the Great Bloggers Bake-Off this Sunday. It’s all about having a bit of fun. Pop over to Mel’s blog – Crushed Caramel (Learner at Love). She has done so much work to set this up.

Our special judge is A Jeanne in the Kitchen.

Let’s go Sunday Spongecake mad.

Please send photos of your creation(s) to crushedcaramel@gmail.com

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 64 Comments

Martians just made the list…

Sometimes you just have to get up close to flowers. Neighbours must think I am stark raving mad….

Sometimes you have those days. Days were you get up close to flowers and also end up pulling out what’s left of your hair.

School has been verbally told (many times) and been provided with extensive case notes for our son. Just in case school didn’t fancy reading War and Peace I helpfully provided a two page bullet point summary. Bullet Point 6 said

Can have poor judgement in relation to risk.

Bullet Point 7 adds

Has a diagnosis of Dyspraxia. Has very poor fine motor skills. Struggles to use pens. One to one Care and supervision needed when using sharp objects.

Under the section relating to specific school subjects

Design & Technology. One to one supervision required when using cutting tools, drilling tools and impact tools.

Additionally school has been given a verbal and written update on his current broken hand. Although the bone has heeled he is undertaking physio to try and get his hand working properly again. So he in effect still just using his weaker left hand.

Today was his first Design and Technology lesson. So it was also a fingers crossed type day. Funnily enough it was also a plaster type day……

He came back home. His thumb and two fingers covered in large plasters.

“Dad I had a bit of an accident. I was trying to saw using my left hand. The teacher shouted out an instruction to the class. I got distracted and I started sawing my hand rather than the wood…”

Apparently he wasn’t given any one on one supervision. He was allowed to use a normal saw with his wrong hand, with no additional safety measures in place. – Maybe I’m just being an over protective parent. It’s a natural thing to do.

“Dad funny thing is the lesson was about safety in the workplace. Guess I’ve already failed…”

So that’s something else we will be discussing at his school review meeting on Friday. Could be a long meeting because it’s one sizeable issues list….

But let’s try to finish on a brighter note. We sat on the grass next to the daffodil patch with ice lollies in hand.

“Dad up close Daffodils take on a completely different perspective. If your a bug looking up at those yellow giants, it must be terrifying. Do you think HG Wells got his idea for the mechanical Martians from Daffodils”

As I pondered that the mad dog ran up and before we could stop him, he cocked his leg on the Daffodils. Poor bugs scared to death by Yellow Martian Giants and now doused in Acid Rain. I wonder if an overprotective parent bug may have just added an item to a miniature and a tad damp issue lists. We can wonder.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 83 Comments

The Black Hole…

I could look at these flowers all day. Stunning yellows with one sneaky violet crashing the daffodil party.

The school bus was late. Very late. Our son went into meltdown. Panic attacks over detentions, expulsions and all the associated ever increasing butterfly effects. All today’s carefully constructed plans are in tatters. It’s part and parcel of being a child with autism. We now have a plan for this type of eventuality. A hand written plan we keep safely by the front door. When I say plan it’s actually an old food shopping list. The plan Z list was pulled from the wall.

Tell me 5 things you can see.

Tell me 4 things you can hear.

Tell me 3 things you can touch.

Tell me 2 things you can smell.

Smile once and breathe.

Plan now says Dad get the car keys and drives you to school.

Thankfully today Plan Z worked. Distraction and switching to another orderly plan. It’s funny as a shopping list it was poor (I remember it missed off non essential stuff like bread, milk, pet food…. but as a go to plan in times of crisis – it has been a winner. It’s so flexible the actual words on the paper are irrelevant. It adds credibility to any plan I come up with in an emergency. Because that plan must be good as it’s the plan on that piece of paper – it’s Plan Z. As we reached the school gates order was starting to be restored in his soul. He made me smile with some of his responses.

“I can see bird poo on your car. I think it must have been a big bird.”

“I can see a couple of blue flowers in the Daffodil patch. Maybe they are mutations. Definitely beautiful mutations. Flowers are very welcoming.”

“Dad I can still see that cake you made yesterday. It was so funny how you got it to collapse in the middle. After all these years and still it messes up. The cake was so like a black hole. It was both a thing of wonder and a piece of terror. It’s a special talent Dad.”

As the great Terry Pratchett once said “Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom“.

So yes my sneaky practice run for this Sunday’s GREAT BLOGGERS BAKE-OFF didn’t go so well.

Hopefully you will join in the fun on the 24th.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 58 Comments

Embrace the stain….

Picking up from this mornings post. Spiez is just a perfect place. The building at the front of the picture is the hotel we would stay at. The mountain dominating at the back is the Niederhorn. Before our son was born I was practicing for a mountain race. As part of the training I managed to run up this beautiful mountain. I remember lying at the top ignoring the stunning view – just thinking do I run back down or call for a helicopter evacuation…

I recount this story as it came to me again this afternoon. Setting a goal, achieving it then rather than basking in the success you immediately worry about the next step or challenge.

This feels a bit like fighting the system for our son. So many peaks to climb. You climb one but you then immediately have to face a new climb. It can be soul destroying.

We have potentially found a specialist who will assess our son’s dyslexia. But now I need to find the money to pay for it (the leaking washing machine will have to survive another year before it’s replaced). AND I somehow need to find a way of getting the education system to adopt the recommendations of the assessment. I was speaking to another parent who has been trying unsuccessfully for two years to get her school to adopt the same specialists recommendations. Why do we make it so difficult for our kids…

You then see the news which is dominated by talk of Brexit. Our so called Prime Minister is trying to bribe another party with up to a billion pounds of further funding if they will vote for her shambles of a plan. And yet they can’t find the money to adequately fund our schools or mental health support services. She takes great delight in telling the rest of us that money doesn’t grow on a tree. Clearly our Leader values her own career and legacy higher than the kids of our country…… Sadly she is not the only world leader like that.

Then my mind drifts back to that mountain. The Niederhorn. I didn’t ‘get into the chopper’ in an Austrian accent but decided to run down. It was an interesting decent. As some breathless pillock had collapsed at the top into a fresh pile of some unknown and clearly legendary bird droppings. Running while trying to prevent passerby’s getting a good view of the your oddly coloured rear is just embarrassing. Rather than embracing the stain I just tried to run as quickly as possible while keeping my bum always pointing away from people. I can hear my dad saying ‘son as quick as you run you won’t increase the separation between your shorts and that stain’. Maybe that’s a really good analogy for state of our governments overall strategy……

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 73 Comments

Blue Croc

Captain Chaos with his beloved blue crocodile. That poor croc needs years of therapy.

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When a parent dies it is so tough it is difficult to explain the feeling. That’s a so called adult speaking. Imagine what it’s like for a young kid.

I lost my dad when I was 21. He had been ill for years. I got the feeling during the last period of his life that he was trying to keep going just to see me graduate. Sadly he missed out by a few months. It was a numbing experience but the pain was mitigated a bit as I had been expecting it to happen for ages. I was sort of prepared. My mum died a couple of years back. It was a complete shock. But a five years earlier she had suffered a massive stroke. Doctors told us to prepare for the worst. Yet in a month she was back in her house – still able to live independently. In some respects it felt like the years after the stroke were a real bonus. She got to spend time with her grandson.

But for our son we have no mitigating factors. He had just been to his beloved grannies funeral and a week later his mum goes into hospital for some routine tests. His mum deteriorated rapidly and completely unexpectedly. He was visiting his mum in the hospice two weeks later. For someone so young that’s devastating.

We still get tears but now he can talk about his mum. He can laugh at the good memories. But the anxieties caused by that period of death are still impacting his daily life. He is so worried about becoming ill and also about losing others close to him. Today is common. We have had anxiety about catching illnesses. Worries about dying. On top of that every time I sneeze or cough he runs to make sure I’m ok. We try to find ways to ease the anxieties but it is still so tough for him…..

***********************

Son comes back from school to be greeted by Captain Chaos and a well chewed croc. That’s one thing that works.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 80 Comments

Cold

Today we have an outbreak of manbola. Streaming cold, coughing, sneezing, sore throat …. just didn’t want to get out of bed. I have to admit I am a …….

The dog walk must have been some sight. Gloves, 2 T-shirt’s, Fleece, Jumper, body warmer, waterproof and woolly hat. And that was just the dog.

It’s one of the big downsides of being a single parent. Whatever the relative severity of the manbola – you don’t have the option to not get out of bed or just sit in a chair with a hot water bottle. No one to share the workload. So you just have to get on with your jobs while croaking out conversations with our son. Powered by hot ginger drinks and tea. It’s days like this you want to drop your caffeine ban.

It also gives you plenty of worries. It emphasises that many single parents (and a number of parenting couples) often operate without having an option b in place. If something serious happens to a parent(s) what happens to the kids. It’s a sobering thought.

I am an amateur at these things. So many parents have had much worse situations to deal with for so many more years. I have so so much respect and admiration to you heroes. So we battle on. In the scheme of things manbola isn’t that bad really.

AND one definite plus of manbola is that you just can’t smell the cat litter when you change it….

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 73 Comments

Whitby

I must admit even routine trips out seem like big adventures these days. Occasionally it’s good to return to the outside world. Makes me feel kinda grown up.

We had an afternoon trip to Whitby for a medical appointment. It was cold, wet, windy and misty. But as ever stunningly beautiful. It’s one of those places that when the sun shines it is just the most picturesque place. But in a wild storm it is truly a perfect place for Dracula to land and wreck havoc.

Son always calls Whitby Abbey, Dracula’s Castle.

If the weather had been kinder we would have ventured onto the beach and search beneath the cliffs. It’s a fantastic place to find fossils. It’s just wonderful to see him searching. Methodically digging and searching through stones. Then suddenly a bit of arm flapping and he is deep into a dream world of dinosaurs.

Once we leave Jurassic times a walk round the small port and Son is lost again in dream world. This time dreams drift 250 years ago to Captain James Cook. Whitby was his home port and his famous ship The Endeavour was built here.

At the medical appointment the consultant handed our son a sheet of paper which had his future appointment dates listed. Instantly son announced

“I won’t sign anything before the terms are checked out by my lawyer”

Kids learn so quickly these days.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 88 Comments

Feel the pain

I often hear fitness experts say that you know when exercise is really working because it starts to hurt. No pain no gain. Well I think I successfully disproved that theory this morning. Pain means PAIN.

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Somedays it’s good to be brought back down to earth. An Aspergers child with beautiful honesty is a perfectly designed tool for this job.

At school the kids had to tell the class one thing their parent(s) were brilliant at. Apparently talents such as football, rugby, accountancy, building, driving, cooking, singing, languages, science, nursing, making money, horse riding, swimming, judo, gardening, running, pottery and writing we’re all mentioned. But not in one case…

A certain boy said “well it depends on your exact definition of brilliant, in my Dads case I may need to think about this for a while….”

The boy knows me too well.

*******************

Maybe his hesitation on awarding brilliance was influenced by a little accident this morning. I have a little bit of a sore eye. During my early morning workout I somehow managed to hit myself in the face with a 14lb Kettlebell… So going back to the pain theory – experts would say that my pain was a sign of a most rewarding workout. Really!!!!

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 91 Comments

Tree

“Dad did you just say a money tree. Can you really get a money tree?”

Son will often take things very literally. I’ve talked about this before. It is something which is fairly common with autism. I must admit I did this as a kid. You often find yourself trying to re-explain phrases that you often through into conversations (I am sure my parents had to do a similar thing).

My explanation of a money tree was rudely interrupted by Captain Chaos.

“Dad the pup is running round the garden with a sock. Correction. He is now burying the sock.”

I really can’t wait for the Sock Tree to grow….

Then we started thinking about other really useful trees we wish we could grow in the garden

  • The Money Tree (obviously) or if that’s a problem then we would settle for a Pay Your Bills Tree,
  • The Hugging tree – readily available hugs would be nice,
  • The one our cat can climb without getting stuck Tree,
  • The Anxiety Absorbing Tree,
  • The Children’s Clothes Tree – not having to constantly go to the sewing basket and fix knee and elbow holes would be lovely,
  • The Pancake Tree – would have been really useful today after my rather soggy attempts,
  • The Remote Control Tree – why do remote controls have stealth technology built into them, bloody thing is always going missing,
  • The Brexit Tree – would have to grow within the next few days….,
  • The Prune itself Tree – really essential after my last eye injury,
  • The Mirror of Erised Tree – if Harry Potter can have his deepest desires mirror then surely we can have a tree that does the same thing. Having said that I would prefer a Take you back 6 years to happier times Tree,
  • The Bird Dropping Missile Defence Shield Tree – how good would it be to have a tree that can eliminate bird droppings before they hit the ground,
  • The Chocolate Tree – now we are talking,
  • The Donut Tree – horticultural heaven.

So as I go outside to see if the Sock Tree has started to grow (probably next to the Pants Tree) can you think of any better ones.