About Me

My photo
Single autistic mother of three awesome autistic kids. These are my anonymous ramblings about life, love, parenting and the rest – emptying my head of the weird, the wonderful and the mundane. Hope you enjoy.

Friday 30 September 2011

The missing unfeasibly large spider, a lack of walls and a mystical Co-op

I just re-read my last post and realised that the part about the unfeasibly large spider somehow got deleted. Is there a word limit on these things? How strange. Anyway, the unfeasibly large spider of the previous title was sitting above my television as I wrote that post, almost daring me to do something about it. It was the size of my hand and I really was too tired to do anything about it. I did manage to catch it, or one of its friends and put it out - anything that large living in my house needs to leave, pay rent, or start helping out with the chores. However, its friends/it are now enjoying running across the carpet at night and hiding behind DS2's toys. I feel this is a battle I may not win. I do hate wood spiders though, they are not inconspicous things like lovely little money spiders - they have brown hairy legs and big googly eyes and are HUGE! It's a struggle to get them in the insect catcher without them losing a leg, which seems a bit harsh as they don't deserve to lose a limb just for being unwanted visitors.

In other news, I've worked out DS2s seemingly strange behaviour - its walls! The reason he is so happy to be miles away from me when we're outside is that there are no walls, whereas at home if I go in the other room there are walls between us. He seems to just like to do his thing and know that he can come and get me whenever he wants to. Which I suppose is fair enough. His graze on his nose is almost healed now, although yesterday he fell in a prickly bush, so he now has some scratches/splinters on his hands. Oh well, another week, another injury....

Sunday 25 September 2011

Of speech, circles, musical theatre and an unfeasibly large spider

DS2 weekend this weekend, DS1 at his Dad's. It's been a busy one - he is becoming more wilful by the second! Currently he is sleeping and has a big graze on his nose and forehead from falling out of the back door onto the concrete - that'll teach me to try and get some gardening done. I've finally got rid of the cherry tomato plants that he stands by going 'uh, uh' and pointing at every time he's in the garden. I think he's eaten 90% of those tomatoes - DS1 and I did not get a look in.

He's chosen this weekend to start using words. He opened on Saturday morning with 'emur' for the cuddly lemur in my bed (my lemur note, not the kids - sometimes a girl just needs a cuddly lemur). He then decided to say 'big dog there' to a big dog going down the road, and ended the day with the classic baby utterance 'nana' - for banana, of course. Getting dressed after bath time he added 'next foot there' - which is what I always say to him to put his other foot in his pyjama bottoms. So clearly, he can speak, which is good as I was getting a bit concerned. I went to a friend's on Friday, whose little boy, the same age, has a definite vocabulary of recognisable words he uses appropriately - where as up until this point DS1 would only utter 'bruvva' at his brother, other children and, with a slightly different inflection, at trees blowing in the wind - I have interpreted this as 'flower' but to be honest the difference is imperceptible to the non-mum ear. I can only assume that DS2 picked up on my concern and chose yesterday to tell me that he could use these things I called words, he just preferred to express himself through the medium of song and expressive dance - which he does all the time. I have created a musical theatre baby - somewhat unexpected, but who knows, he could go far...

Thursday 22 September 2011

The Godfamily, school friends, snot and paranoia

Sneaking in a quick blog while the baby sleeps - we all have colds at the moment, so it's a welcome respite from being covered in snot snail trails - ah the joy of DS1 being back at school and bringing home every bug, virus and general nasty going!

We finished off the weekend with a lovely day out with DS2's god family (Godmum, Goddad, plus their daughter and Goddad's mum - who we've decided to call Godsister and Godgran to make life easier!) It's fab going out with them - since DS2 doesn't have a 'dad's side' to his family, these are like the joy of in-laws without the hassle of them - I am doubly blessed!! Plus DS1 and Godsister get on really well - which is how we know them in the first place. Went to a country-fair type thing and saw kites dancing to music, went on carousels and bouncy castles, got a cuddly dinosaur for 50p and had DS1 and DS2's name carved on a name plate for their bedroom door.

Of course, all this joyousness made for a very tired and shouty Monday morning back to school - particularly with the colds kicking in. I guess that's the payback for having a busy weekend - would be lovely if there wasn't one but there always is - and I resent it less when its been my weekend than when I get the payback for the weekend DS1 had with his dad - all the pain from someone else's joy.

Saturday 17 September 2011

Dancing, yelling, hoarding... and other generalised strangeness

Strange few days. I offer you a choice of:
  • Thursday - of the ex and swimming and mum dancing
  • Friday - of yelling and baby dancing
  • Saturday - of money making schemes and more yelling and the return of the cupboard clearout.
Take your pick, you might not have time to read them all, I do go on a bit...

 
Thursday:

DS1's dad dropped his stuff off on Thursday morning - seemed like he wanted to talk about school playground stuff - not DS1's stuff, his stuff. He said he felt like everyone knew each other and were chatting in the playground, whilst he was just standing there. To put this in context, we never talk about anything personal at all, so this is possibly the most personal discussion we've had in at least 3 years. (I'm now quite strict about boundaries - having not been to begin with, so he just walked all over them - by which I mean me - but that's some old history for another post another time). I suggested, in the usual joky way that we talk to each other (he can't handle serious conversation, I have tried) that he go stand with the other dad's looking mean and moody at the fence. 'But that's just what I don't want to do' he said, and then just sort of hovered, almost as if he was expecting me to do something about it. Was he asking me to introduce him to my friends? Does he still not realise I'm not his mother/that he is a grown-up? It was odd. Fortunately DS2, with his usual impeccable timing took that moment to try to escape from the front door, saving me from a potentially awkward situation. He is a very good boy.

Wednesday 14 September 2011

A disruption and a blues-playing baby acrobat

Well, so far, so calm. Things seem to have settled a bit with DS1, which is why it's a shame he had to go to his Dad's tonight, which will throw everything up in the air again. I never seem to get used to it, even though I know the routine so well: He goes to his Dad's for the weekend, he comes home whingy and complaining about everything (after the 1st couple of hours of niceness because he missed us) and this works itself up to a height by the time it gets to 'our' weekend, he gets it all out of his system and we have a couple of days of calm before he's off to his Dad's again, and the whole thing starts over. It is very tiring! School night overnights with his Dad are often worse, (even though its only 1 night, unlike the weekends), because it throws his routine out. Maybe this time it will be different though - his Dad forgot to pick up his stuff before he got him from school, so he got to come home and have a quick hug before he went, so I'm hoping that chance to touch base might help - its a vain hope, but I'm crossing everything...

Sunday 11 September 2011

A weekend of two halves...

...and so it was. Saturday, not so good, lots of yelling and swearing - mostly me. I'm assured by many people that other people shout at their kids, but somehow I don't believe them. I am convinced that I must be worse, that no one is quite as bad as me, that somehow all other mothers are calm by comparison, and only ever get mildly annoyed. Completely irrational but somehow stuck in my deepest darkest psyche - a dinosaur that my logical mind can't seem to rationalise with. Which probably doesn't help me keep a calm demeanor when being wound up sky high by a 5 year old.

Friday 9 September 2011

Looks like we made it...

Well the good news is we made it to the end of the first week of term more or less intact. Well, DS2 managed to throw himself down a couple of stairs tonight before DS1 caught him, but that only caused a small nosebleed - I'm hoping this will teach him to be more careful on the stairs, but it didn't work last time. He only seems to fall when we're on the stairs watching him - I think he likes to see us panic.

Wednesday 7 September 2011

New term, new blog, same nonsense...

The 1st day of term for DS1 could've started better. He was knackered anyway from only just getting back from a weekend at his Dad's, and he was still on Summer holiday speed for getting up. So I thought, 'I'll be a kind mum, and drive him to school today'.  (And it was chucking it down, so really didn't want to get me and DS2 soaked too). So, chased down DS2 to put his socks, shoes and coat on;  shouted at DS1 to put his brain in gear as he stared blankly at the book bag and PE bag I'd put out for him the night before; and eventually we made it to the car. Children in, bags in, seatbelts on, turned the key and.... nothing, zip, nada.