Tag Archives: kids

Christmas, 2018

30 Sunday Dec 2018

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It was wonderful.

I was so, so ill, both on the day and for about 10 days before. (I’m still coughing fire, sometimes hard enough to wet myself… gotta love stress incontinence, amiright?)

New Husband Jake sorted everything out. I did a 2-hour shift on Christmas morning at the suicide prevention hotline, and then, I basically slept until an hour before the kids came back from their dad’s. (We alternate; it was his year to have them Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, and mine to have them Christmas afternoon and overnight.)

While I slept on the couch, Jake finished wrapping their presents, cleaning their rooms, rearranging furniture (including building new beds and hooking up new electronics) and he brought me coffee and cold & flu tablets when I finally woke up.

The kids–sometimes overwhelmed by Christmas–utterly loved their gifts, especially the lay-outs of their “new” rooms, and for the first time in my life (including my own childhood) I witnessed a Christmas with no child meltdowns.

I am so, so blessed. I have never been this happy before, and yet, I feel like overall, I am becoming happier.

I love you, Jake. I love you, Sweet Babies. Thank you for making this life worthwhile.

Recent Memories, September 2018, 1

24 Monday Sep 2018

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She called herself, “Spin”–one of her alter egos, one of the media through which she accesses the verbal communication the rest of the world seems to take for granted–and she spent an hour with me, playing on my phone and laughing at our shared jokes. I can tickle her again, it seems (and I *promised* her there would always be tickles, 6 and 7 and 8 and more years ago, and I KNOW SHE REMEMBERS, so I’m glad there are tickles now, just like I promised) and she laughs again, not every day, but at least she’s not crying every day anymore, and this may not last forever (what does?) but it’s good right now.

He plays Uno with us, almost every day. We’re about equally good at applying the rules, he and I, and perpetually appeal to the other adults for further instruction (I should be an adult, but I understand why I sometimes don’t seem like one–I catch on so slowly, at team games, at rules with variations, at anything with social give-and-take, so of course my own children are sometimes tempted to see me as one of them, just a strange older child who sometimes tells them what they can and cannot do, and makes their food, and sends them to their rooms to calm down when they get agitated). I digress.

We spend so much time laughing, the 2 of us more than anyone else in the room, and I help him, I suppose I “make” him cheat, to be quite frank: “If you do x, y will happen to me/Jake/Douglas…” and I chortle in my joy (yes, that’s from “Jabberwocky,” and yes, I had to look that one up, and no, it’s not a perfect quote even though I did look it up) and I don’t even care if he knows he’s my pick to win every game we play, even at (especially at?) my own expense, because what *is* a mother, if not the person you can count on to always be on your side, to tell you right from wrong and then turn around and declare that, ultimately, she would still love you and your sibling(s) best no matter what evil you committed?

And besides: he really *doesn’t* understand the rules, yet. When he’s a little older, we’ll stop reminding him to say, “Uno!” every time he’s down to one card. Or we won’t, and he will hardly be the only autistic teen/adult in the world, who gets some special dispensation so he can join in with everyone else, now will he? And if you don’t like it: FIGHT ME, BRO. It is right and just and good, for the more vulnerable to be given more help. I doubt my stance on that will ever change.

Stop digressing! Okay, I will.

She watches us, sometimes. She’s not yet confident enough to play, but I wonder if she would try if it were just the 3 of us? I’ll ask, in time; but only once I remember the rules better myself… that’s not a bad idea, generally speaking. How could it be bad? It’s a chance for me to properly be the adult, in the only situation where I’m convinced I can really be fair: arbitrating between the 2 of them, each the only entity I love in the same way, and with the same ferocity, that I love the other.

Recent Memories, September 2018, 1

17 Monday Sep 2018

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His hazel eyes gazing up at me, crinkled at the corners, so like mine except for the colour, fringed with thick black lashes that belie the pale, wheaty brown, almost blonde, of his jaw-length hair. “Mommy!” he shrieks delightedly, with enough excitement for a boy half his age, “You PRANKED me!” A simple prank, just waiting until he wasn’t looking and tossing a pillow at him, and well worth the risk of upsetting him; he is literally vibrating with joy, his laughter and excited fidgeting causing him to visibly quiver in front of me.

Her still, watchful stare, huge irises a pale ice blue that used to look as if the colour were bleeding into her sclera–she leans into me, and I realise, after a breathless second, that she is leaning against me for a hug. I cuddle her back, I tell her she’s a sweet girl. “Who does Mommy love?” I ask–it’s been a long time since I felt the mood was right, to ask her that question–I’ve timed it well, she smiles a little, and points at herself, using the thumb of her right hand (is she the only person I know, who regularly points with her non-dominant hand?).

They rely so much on non-verbal cues, and I rely so much on explicit, spelled-out, unchanging instructions. How ironic, that one form my autistic spectrum issues should take, is an obsession with words… and she’s non-verbal (not literally, but in the sense it’s usually used, nowadays) and he chatters on about anything and everything, and it’s funny and engaging and he delights me at least as much as I delight him, but there is very little verbal instruction given, between the pair of them.

Every day is a balancing act, and I feel like I lose my balance so often… but actually, I’m better at walking this tightrope than anyone else I’ve ever seen, with the kids.

My own mother would be excellent, of course. She walked a similar tightrope with me, when I used inflection-less, seemingly sarcastic words without any eye contact at all, and she somehow understood that I wasn’t being snide or sarcastic; I was just saying the words, as if reading them from a page in a book, but not acting them at all.

I’m better at the acting part, now. Sometimes I get the inflections right; how very amusing, in a cosmic joke sort of way, that Gabriel especially and even Naomi, more often than you’d believe–the really autistic members of the household, versus me with my probably Asperger’s or HFA, we’ll know soon enough–that the “more” autistic members of our little family, often give me a better idea of how the words ought to sound.

They’re good mimics, like I was/am. Echolalic, though in Nae’s case, not as much as I was (am…). Scripted language, Gabey uses as much scripted language as I ever did, maybe more, but I think his acting is better than mine was. It helps. It all helps. And when they get it wrong, and I see myself in their mistakes, it’s easier to see how to fix it.

Again, this is one of the most constant sources of amusement in my life: by being so unusual themselves, they have made me almost normal… at least on the outside.

Why I’m Grateful for My Husband, 1

05 Saturday May 2018

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I started my period, today.

I wasn’t really expecting to; I was rather expecting *not* to start it, for another 9 months or so, if you catch my drift.

As I have 2 children from my previous marriage, and my husband only has my kids, there was temptation to spread some blame around… the temptation was made worse, not better, by the fact that I know fine well I’m nearly 10 years older than my husband; if one of us has faulty plumbing, it could well be me. My Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) got diagnosed more than 12 years ago, when I was struggling to get pregnant in my early 20s, and they said I had suspected endometriosis at the time, as well as ovaries covered with tiny cysts. But lo, I became pregnant before I could be checked for endo, and had 2 kids, and to be honest, I thought I was done with the whole birthing children thing, so I let them take me off their waiting lists and such-like… no further tests needed.

And then all the things happened that sometimes do, and I got divorced and re-partnered, and had a stint of polyamory (I’ll never know whether that would’ve worked out, if I hadn’t gotten too attached to someone who treated me like shit once he realised I wasn’t going to break my original partner’s heart just to please him)… and eventually, I wound up being left, falling in love with my best friend, and (in a sad turn of events) leaving my original partner in the end anyway.

That’s my first reason to be grateful: someone who knew me a little through mutual friends, acquaintances, and some pretty hardcore frenemies, had one half hour conversation with me, followed by one all-night conversation with me (yes, a literal conversation: don’t be like “treated me like shit” guy and accuse me of the other) and chucked out all the rubbish he’d maybe assumed, and got to know me as I am.

Then, while I was at my very lowest (weeks after my stepdad’s suicide, in the middle of my university dissertation, and during the portion of my relationship with “treats-like-shit” where he’d escalated it to physical abuse and was actually kind of scary to be around) my best friend started coming over and sleeping on the couch opposite me (we each had a couch, we slept not touching, except for sometimes holding hands). I felt safe for the first time in months; I felt understood and genuinely liked for the first time in years, or maybe ever.

And ditto for him, on that last part of the above sentence.

My second reason to be grateful is that he believed me, when I said I wanted to be with him forever, even if it was platonically… I didn’t care if we never slept together, aside from the literal sense of it–I wanted him nearby, where I could hug him and talk to him every day, and he wanted the same thing. When it evolved into my helping him overcome some sexual hang-ups, I was thrilled. When–some months thereafter–it became a genuine, reciprocal, sexual and romantic relationship (after he’d moved in with me) it ruined all my other romances and potential romances… we hurt one person, and I’m sorry, but he actively wanted to share me, and I wanted to stop being shared. It is possible to be spread too thin… and I am grateful my now-husband understood that.

The third reason I have to be grateful (and all I’ve got time for; it’s canny early/late, depending how you look at it) is that, after several months of being absurdly in love (including a whirlwind engagement and wedding) we felt secure enough to stop using my family planning app to avoid pregnancy, and start using it to increase my chances of pregnancy. I’m still taking my temperature (almost) daily, with a super-sensitive thermometer, and I still know within 24-48 hours of when I’ll be ovulating, menstruating, when my PMS might start, etc… and every time I start my period, after thinking maybe this month I won’t–when I’m irritable and bitchy and then dissolve into pointless tears–my husband listens to me, holds me if I need it and gives me space if I need that, and just generally puts up with my shit (and remember, I’m not THAT far out of an abusive relationship… I’ve still got quite some emotional baggage, to be dealing with) every time all that happens, I’m more grateful than ever, for my husband.

I just wouldn’t mind a reason to be grateful that looked like (a smaller, plumper, arguably cuter version of) my husband, is all… and I sure wouldn’t mind giving him another tangible reason to be grateful for me.

Pregnancy…?

07 Tuesday Nov 2017

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So.

I’m now married, and just like that (not remotely “just like that”) I’m kinda sorta okay basically planning to have a 3rd child.

You may be able to ascertain from this statement, that I have 2 children already. Or, if you’ve ever read my blog before, you might know this fact already. You may also be aware that both of my children–one girl, one boy–are autistic, that my girl is the more severely affected, and since my kids’ diagnoses, I’ve more or less accepted the fact that I’m probably on the spectrum as well.

I’m also married to the son of an engineer; I almost never do this, but there’s some interesting reading on that subject:

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1362361397011010

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/autism-experiment-reveals-people-in-technical-professions-are-more-likely-to-have-autistic-traits-a6719956.html

Click to access f49917d08fc12d8f8b85a8708017a11046a1.pdf

So. So, so, so.

Do I just *want* another autistic child? You must be asking yourself that question; I know I would be, in your place. The answer (answers, even) could be explained in many different ways, with a lot more background detail, but here’s the summation:

I want more kids–I want to have a child with the love of my life–and if said child happens to be autistic, well, it’s not like I’m ill-equipped to deal with that eventuality. Experts by experience, that’s the en vogue term, I believe… I’ve been doing this for over 11 years now (34 years, if we’re counting my obvious-in-hindsight experiences of social ostracization and issues with Theory of Mind, growing up and as a young adult). If experience can make you an expert, I am one.

And my kids go to a great school; they’re offering parents a chance to come take some workshops in sensory skills, basic Makaton, Numicon, etc etc etc, over the next couple of months, so in a few weeks, I could be even more skilled at parenting autistic kids… and. Even if I weren’t, I mean, I’m autistic myself. I’m seeing this in a pretty black/white way, and I’ve come down on the side of, “better another autistic kid, than no kid with the love of my life/no mini-husband/no one last chance to do it better, now that I understand the likely challenges we’ll face”.

I think I’ve made up my mind. If you know many autistic folk, or just one autistic person reasonably well, you’ll know what that means.

I’ll post as soon as I know I’m pregnant, alright?

And for my next post, I’ll talk about coming off my meds in preparation for gestation (look at that, it’s an approximate rhyme). Sounds fun, right?

Y’all wish me luck.

A Little Lighter

22 Thursday May 2014

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I know I said I was gonna delve REALLY FAR into depression in my next couple of posts, but I just can’t do it.  I’m depressing myself… that shouldn’t even be possible.  Instead, I’m gonna just chat, for a minute.  I’m going to share a little bit about things that give me joy (even when I can’t feel it).

Today my little boy–my little ball of sunshine–took a stuffed toy to school.  He does that pretty often, but I was proud of his choice, for 2 reasons.  1, it was a new toy (it’s good for him to not fixate on the same thing over and over again) and 2, he pronounced the toy’s name perfectly, first try.

Here’s where it gets silly: it’s a small stuffed cow, blue (turquoise?) and white, and I named it Mordecow.  Double-pun, because “Mordecai” is an actual name, and in Britain, a “mardy cow” is someone who whines and complains and is generally unpleasant.  Triple-pun, because I make Mordecow sing songs and goof around all the time? Quadruple, because Mordecai is a Jewish name, and Mordecow’s a Gentile?  Quintuple, because…. REASONS? (I stole that last bit, but even so.  The rest of it’s mine.)

Sometimes I crack myself up.