Things are getting worse, please send chocolate

Words change, but some people don't

2011-10-19T23:37:00.000+01:00

I was fortunate enough to be brought up by my grandparents. It gave me an appreciation and understanding of ways of life other than what may be accepted by members of my peer group as "the norm".

Nan was a very solid, sensible woman; practical, hard nosed, desperately proud, quick to temper, prone to sulks at times. She was funny, rude, informative and kind. She could destroy you with a look but was the one who would sit stroking my hair and calming me during one of my many childhood night terrors.

Grandad was a quiet man with a quick wit. He liked a drink and to socialise, performed magic tricks; an expert storyteller with an ability to convey and capture you in a chronicle like no other. He worked nights and we were often needed to be quiet during the day so he could sleep, but he ensured that he spent time with us three children, sharing something special and unique with each of us.

They were people of their time. Nan maintained she was racist but to me this seemed akin to most people's assertion that they are C of E; something that she had been brought up to believe but showed no empirical evidence of. Grandad was fond of getting an attack of what he called "The Sillies", but worked tirelessly as a union shop steward at Ford's.

Words were words in our house. There were no banned words, simply words that were used and words that were not used. Surprisingly to anyone who knows me now, I was late to swearing as I did not hear it at home.

I recall coming home one day from school, having heard a word in the playground, to ask what it meant. Nan turned ashen and Grandad was summoned from his bed to speak with me.

We walked around the garden, and Grandad told me about when he came to England, aged 16, during the war. He was spat on, refused entry to places, beaten up several times and these were the lighter aspects that he could tell to a 7 year old. When Nan and he married, her family refused to accept the match. He told me about their early lives together.

In later years, Nan became increasingly immobile. She had horrendous leg ulcers for which she endured many years of painful operations, and as she refused amputation, she needed a wheelchair to get around. As times had changed so had attitudes towards the Irish, although an Irish accent then equated to an association with the IRA in much the same way as a turban indicates membership to Al Qaeda today for some members of the community. He was addressed and she was ignored, the assumption being that she had in some way lost the ability to talk because she had lost the ability to walk.

Both experienced name calling based on an assumption of what and who they were, having been judged based on other's expectations of what they could achieve. Perhaps they always stayed quiet and accepted it; perhaps they challenged it; certainly they did not "get over it".

Regardless of how the meaning of a word may evolve or change, the intention behind its use does not always move at the same speed. People may change but not all people do.

After that chat in the garden with Grandad, I have never repeated the word I asked him about that day and can still only refer to it as "the 'p' word". He told me that to use words that pick up on other's differences, either as a weapon, a percieved defence or as a casual shorthand was not what he expected from me. I will not disappoint him in this expectation as I believe it to be true.

Fast forward to now. I have been subjected to other's "hilarious" casual use of words that have been used against my son, and on challenging them have been told I am over reacting. Language matures and the meaning of a word may advance, but the intention behind how it is used and received may not. It cannot be for anyone to challenge another's reaction to a word, because they do not know their life experience behind it.

When I read or hear words that I consider to be archaic anachronisms, it surprises me rather than shocks me. It makes me feel shame and pity; shame that the person using the word is so ignorant, and pity that they are living in a world where they think it is acceptable to demean others by casual reference to their colour, sexuality or disability before they criticise anyone who addresses them on it.

It's just not something that we should consider to be acceptable if we claim to be civilised and educated. Is it, Ricky?

Ch...Ch..Ch...Changes

2011-08-23T06:00:00.000+01:00

Life has a habit of changing and evolving whilst you merrily skip through it, utterly oblivious.

Where once you hated olives, you have a sudden hankering for all things meze. Your love for the lead singer of an indie band waivers when he starts comparing a well known fast food branch to people being shot, and suddenly you wonder if he really could invade Poland whilst retaining your loyalty.

Other things, like a hatred for Bono that verges on the distractingly passionate, or a love of The Muppets that would embarrass you at 37 if you actually gave a shit about these things, remain very much the same. Unchanged. Set in stone. A bit of a comfort.

As someone who constantly awaits her own inevitable upcoming failure and downfall, life is always interesting. I await karma's punishment for everything I do, for no good deed appears to go unpunished in my world, it's merely a case of whether that punishment is metered out by me or by the universe at large. The worst of these two options are the punishments I dole out to myself. I cannot forgive myself for what I would regard in others as attarctive character traits, but in myself I view with abject disgust. It is the downside to being a relatively happy depressive, or the pessimistic optimist if you will.

I have been attempting to change. Not in a huge way, but in the smallest, least significant of ways, I am attempting to build up something resembling a self esteem, something ego shaped; trying to like myself, if you will. Cripes on a bike it's a challenge, but I am trying (and yes, lawks alone knows I am so very, very trying).

It is the small things, the seemingly insignificant factors that are the things that start to both chip away at your carefully constructed protective walls whilst using those parts to start building a foundation. The most relevant thing I have done thus far is to not repoint the walls; to allow them to crack, to crumble and to stay that way.

It's nothing to those of you who believe in yourself, who insist that they deserve good things to happen to them and who have established their right to be in the world by spaying your ego around like a tom cat marking its territory. For me, who mentally flagellates and physically punishes herself and herself alone for her part in all her deeds, whether good or bad, it is enormous.

"My" Cinema, Walthamstow

2011-05-17T21:04:00.000+01:00

When I was 3 years old, I was taken to the cinema for the first time. The film was "Star Wars", and the cinema was Walthamstow. It signalled the start a love affair with cinema, (but particularly Walthamstow cinema, which I always regarded as "mine") and film (although my adulation of Star Wars ended when "The Phantom Menace" was released.)

We were counted in by the cinema manager, a man who we nicknamed "Hitler" on account of his stature of 4 foot 5 inches and who inexplicably checked how many of us could come in by smacking us soundly on our heads.

We bought our tickets; beautiful, snug rectangles of card, generally grey if memory serves, which we carried as if they were golden tickets for entry to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. We were ushered past the sweet concession stall, on account of the sandwiches we had smuggled in, wrapped in tinfoil (mine were haslet and concealed in my pocket) and a carton of juice each. We walked up the grand staircase, impossibly high to my three year old legs; marveled at the chandelier and walked, dumbstruck, to the viewing room.

We (my mother, sister, brother and I) took our seats (after careful checking by Mum that we had all gone to the toilet). I remember looking around the theatre and being in utter and complete awe of its magnificence. Mum told me that it used to be a music hall theatre. When I was older, my Nan told me Alfred Hitchcock used to go there. My Grandad had seen The Kinks there.

I stared around me, unable to believe just how wonderful the building was.

It started with an advert for Pearl and Dean, the tune of which transports me back to being the over excited 3 year old I was when I first saw it. The "upcoming features" were wonderful, and I remain one of the few people who refuses to forward through previews on DVDs.

The noise, the lights; the beauty of the theatre. Utter. complete, divine. Happiness; sheer happiness.

The sticky floors; the people sureptitiously having a fag in the back row (these being the days when the back row meant something).

I went to Walthamstow cinema fairly regularly afterwards. We lived in Chingford, and it was our local cinema. I even continued to go there when we moved to Loughton, and was an occasional visitor when we moved further afield.

When the cinema was taken over by EMD with the stipulation that only non English language films be played, I still visited.

This all stopped in 2003 when the UKCG church bought the building, closed it, and did nothing with it. From the point of purchase in 2003 until the current day, they have boarded it up and left it to slowly rot. The church's application to change the cinema into a church has been consistently rejected by the council, and despite many offers from interested parties, including cinema operators, UKCG will not sell the property on.

There's been a constant campaign, from the McGuffin Film Society, and Save Walthamstow Cinema amongst others. Tomorrow, Waltham Forest Council make a final decision as to its eventual fate. It has been UKCG's plan to convert the cinema into a church has been recommended against, but there will still be a debate and a vote as to what will happen.

Now look; you may have never even heard of Walthamstow, didn't know of its existence before reading this and had no idea it had a cinema let alone one that was closed.

But do you remember, when you were wee, going to your first film? The excitement and the noise; the sticky floors; the lure of the popcorn; the feeling of being miniscule in relation to the venue you were in? The epic films; the insanity of the impossibly huge screen that you were watching it on; the black circles that popped up to tell the projectionist to change the reel of film.

For that reason alone, Walthamstow EMD (nee Odeon, Granada et al) is worth saving.

If you are a local, there is still time to get your opinions heard by the planning committee, via your ward councillor. You can turn up to the protest being organised for 18th May.

Please help save "my" cinema.

Fat

2011-05-17T13:11:00.000+01:00

A phonecall from the school. The Boy was in the head teacher's office, having punched one of his colleagues in the face. Can I come in to discuss what has happened?

Of course, says I, hoping this isn't the start of another reaction to a change at school that I have, yet again, not been advised of and will thus spend several weeks of being used as his human punch bag until I can get to the bottom of what the issue is.

To school I toddle, and am shown straight through to the head teacher. The Boy is sat outside, swinging his legs and with his head bowed, picking at an invisible to my eye speck on his trousers. He won't look at me, he won't look up at me. He does not respond when I say his name. He is clearly struggling to contain himself.

It transpires that he has punched some of his fellow inmates during a lunch time scuffle, and continued to shout at said compadres and attempting to kick at then as he was pulled off. I ask if it has been establised what led to this incident; I am told "nothing". I am told that he "jumped on and started to attack and pummel" these children with no possible provocation.

I take several deep breaths and launch, once again, in a detailed speech about how autism doesn't work like that; how everything is a result of stimuli, how sometimes his reactions are delayed to earlier wrongs, and how morality has no place in examining what has occured. I ask if they have a STAR form filled in for him in relation to the incident, already knowing the answer is no.

I think, surely at this point, they've heard this from me so many times, in so many variations, that they muct be expecting it. You'd think that they would at least investigate what I say to them; what I "claim" to the case, merely to save me saying this to them every time I am called in for one of his minor disability related misdemeanors. Sometimes, the constant explanations that I need to give, what seems like total logic to me, appears to pass them by completely and I start to hear my voice wander off elsewhere, trying to find where the teacher's comprehension facilities are and why their brains can't process such easy, evident information.

I ask that The Boy be called in. He shuffles in, eyes down. He is picking at a nail, the side of his thumb is gently bleeding from the pressure he is applying to ease his stress. He looks at me; a mixture of defiance, annoyance and a face that just screams out "this isn't fair."

It is a face I know well on The Boy, and one that does not need to be questioned. Ever. He has acted in a way he believes tobe absolutely right, and now we will need to find out what the reasons were that he did.

He sits down. The head teacher starts to speak. The Boy looks directly at me. He speaks quietly, and over the head's voice.

"They called Lid fat Mum, and they made her cry. They wouldn't stop. I told them to leave her alone, and I asked the grown ups, but they didn't. And Lid was crying and she was really sad. So I stopped them."

The head teacher starts to say that, even if this is the case, it is not right of him to react like this, and tells The Boy that I agree with her. She waits for me to confirm that she is right on this supposition.

I ignore her. I hug him and thank him for being a good big brother. I tell him that I wish that I had a brother like him, and I really, genuinely do. My heart swells with pride. I want to rush up to these bullies and shout "ha!" in their faces. I want to put The Boy up on my shoulders, carry him through town shouting "this is my son! I made him in my tummy you know!" But most of all, I want to see my daughter and make sure she is ok.

As it is nearing the end of the school day, she is brought to me, still slightly sniffy, still very upset. She starts to cry when she tells me that these stupid, ignorant idiots have called her fat. I know that she is delicate in a way that people miss, and I know this because she is me.

We cuddle and chat. I tell her that of course she isn't fat. She is strong and tall and extremely cool. I tell her that she is the most beautiful girl in the world. "And the prettiest" pipes up her brother. I tell her that she is more than just beautiful, she is kind and gentle and funny and clever; that these are the things that are important; these are the qualities that the bullies in the playground do not possess; the same ones that she and her brother have in gargantuan quantities.

The head attempts to intervene about a suitable "punishment" for The Boy. I ask how will the children be punished for their verbal abuse of my daughter? I am told it will be "investigated". I already know that this means nothing will be done.

Her voice persists, saying that The Boy will have to miss break times for a week, and may need to be internally excluded.

I sigh heavily. At times like these I struggle to keep my tendency to swear when those around me are being idiotic under control, although my control assisted inordinately by having children in the room. I look at her. I tell her, very slowly, in my best cross voice, that maybe she should be examining how the lunchtime assistants are supervising their charges. A little less time for them to gossip, a little more time for them to attend to the chidlren around them.

I tell her that I can't help but be proud of The Boy, because although hitting isn't right, defending someone younger and smaller than you always is, especially when it's your sister. I tell her that I won't condemn him for being the sort of brother that all girls, but especially Lid, deserve, and that I can only heap praise and thanks on him for stepping in where I could not and her staff would not.

We leave at this point. Nothing will be achieved by continuing the conversation. I hold on to The Boy and Lid's hands, and we skip outside in to the sunshine.

"You'd think Head Teacher would understand more" says The Boy "because she really is fat."

"Yes" says Lid "and she has goopy droopy boobies."

*Sigh* I can see a lecture about not calling people namesa coming on...

How It Is

2011-05-08T21:23:00.000+01:00

In some ways, depression is the groovy old family cat of your best friend. It holds no prejudice of class, gender or education. It isn't concerned with how much you earn, how much you weigh or how many things in your life are "good". If it chooses to be your companion, it will be, regardless of whether or not you try to scare it away.

Much like that family cat of your best friend, depression is a weird and stinky old sod.

I find, once again, it is moulting on my trousers and dribbling on my shoulder. It makes me angry. It makes me feel powerless. It makes me really, really bloody cross because I do not have time to be depressed. I have far too much to do. Damn it, I don't have the hours to sit being maudlin and annoyed by how indescribably rubbish my attempts at being a human are.

I have no idea why I have depression. I feel like an inveterate fraud for having it. I live a relatively easy life, and although it hasn't been without its less easy periods I am still alive.

I hate the feeling of not being able to cope, but not knowing what it is I can't cope with. I hate the wanting to cry but not being able to. I hate the way that my brain throws open my carefully prepared, anotated with mental post it note boxes of shit and throws it on the floor so I have to scrabble through it like a fly searching for shit to understand what the problem is this time.

I resent having feelings. I resent feeling despair. I resent that my brain has wibbles that I cannot control and am sometimes unable to stop. I despise myself for being this pathetic. I despise myself for admitting this. I feel weak and like a victim for it. Sometimes painting the house or double digging the garden just isn't going to cut it for me, because I don't know what I am sad about.

But this; this is how it is. This is how I am. And for all the annoying nuances that I have as a result; for all my unending stupidity and casually moronic actions; for all my staring out of the window procrastinating and hating myself; for all the self harm I've inflicted and continue to perpetrate against my body through my idiotic relationship with food; for the ridiculous level of sensitivity that I deny I have and attempt to hide behind my rhinocerous skin; for all the abuse I put myself through because, really, I am the person that hates me the most, I wouldn't change it. I couldn't change it, because having depression, being like this, means I can understand how and why others do the same thing.

And that; that is how it is.

On Abstinence Not Making The Heart Grow Fonder

2011-05-04T16:38:00.000+01:00

There's always one, isn't there? One idiotic, twat faced shithead who thinks that we should all live by their bullshit fucked up morality, whilst not even being able to attain said morality in their own sad, dire little lives.

The ones who pass judgement on others sexual behaviour whilst entirely ignoring the ethical background of their own. They're always the loud ones; the gobby ones; the "oooo, look at me" ones. Claiming to be "standing up for women" whilst stabbing the entire gender in the back. They're usually demented Tory MPs for Mid Bedfordshire, claiming to be feminist whilst amply displaying their misogynistic qualities.

As if not satisified with spreading vile, bile fuelled misinformation about abortions and attempting to get it made into law, the target is spreading from any woman of sexual maturity to those below the legal age of consent.

"Abstinence only" is to be added to the sexual education of school children, but only for girls. This is crass stupidity for many reasons, but I'll let you into a secret here. Women like sex. Yeah. I said it. We like it and we want to do it just as much as men (if not more). Not only that your sister, mother, daughter, auntie, neice; they all feel the same.

Are you seriously telling me that you woud rather your daughter didn't know the options available to her and be unprepared to potentially be faced with unwanted pregnancy, venereal disease and that old favourite, death? Of course not, you're not stupid.

I'm not denying that I would rather my daughter never had any sexual contact with any one, but she's going to whether I approve or not dammit. I'd rather she knew her options.

If you want to teach something to girls only, how about we teach them how to knee a bloke's dick clean off his groin if he starts waving it around to us in any fashion we find threatening, invasive or inappropriate? Because that's something I could actually get behind and support.

What say we teach girls that they don't need to weigh two and a half stone, be the conformist societal "norm", be absent of opinion and that, most importantly, regardless of what they do, who they are that to us, they are perfection? No morality, just support and love where it counts.

The 67 MPs who voted in favour today; make me feel sad inside, and scared for the world my daughter will grow up into. Let's not make this another thing that we let them do.

Sausages

2011-04-27T22:41:00.000+01:00

I really, really like sausages. In fact, they are my favourite tea (especially with mash and gravy). However, I can never get the sausages right.
Everything seems to be going ok, and then I get distracted. The sausages burn.

Every time I go to cook sausages, I always think "I'll get it right this time!" I never do. I always burn the sausages.

And once, just once, it would be nice if I didn't burn them.

Sometimes, I think that I expect too much from the sausages. That I expect that they will be ruined the moment that they go in the oven, so what is the point in even trying to cook them. I go in with the expectation that I will burn them.

I want to trust the sausages. I want to believe that they won't burn, and sometimes I feel like the sausages need me to believe that it is possible that they won't burn.

I want to trust the sausages. I want to believe that it is possible for the sausages not to burn, because I don't bloody want them to burn. I want them to be ok.

And I know, I know; I need to trust the sausages sometime, or I'll always be turning them and they'll never be cooked evenly. Sometimes, in my need to make the sausages right, I give them too much attention and they don't cook properly. When I look away, because I think they are doing ok, they burn.
Perhaps the perfect cooked sausage does not exist, but maybe, with enough onion gravy and proper mash you can make a really decent dinner with slightly burnt sausages. I suppose that, when the sausages get a bit burnt, I just think it's not worth bothering anymore and that it should all go in the bin as the whole thing is ruined.

I suppose I need to remember that a slightly burnt sausage can be rescued, but also that I need not to throw the sausages away for fear that they may burn.

As with sausages, with men...

I Resign

2011-04-27T10:52:00.000+01:00

Dear Men & Women Throughout The World Of Legal Sexual Age,

Just a brief note to advise you that I officially resign from any type of sexual relationship.

After all, I have a cat now.

Faithfully,

Mad Old Cat Lady That Lives Down The Street.

Poetry

2011-03-29T15:51:00.000+01:00

I thought I would a poem about how I am feeling.

First, I studied poetry to ensure that
There would be no confusion
As to whom I was alluding
When I entered turgid allegories
Of fetid, dreary categories
Designed to psycho analyse
Everything.

I worried over use of meter,
Iambic pentameter? Ballad? Heroic couplet?
What length the stanza, and is it even called that?
A verse, a paragraph, the venting of words
Or just an outpouring of verbal turds
On to paper
Who knows.

I examined the structure
Stared hard at the verse
I tried really hard but the words just got worse
There are so many rules to which you have to adhere
So if it's not right will anyone "hear"?
What you're trying to say
Who can tell.

It was time to begin
When I started to write
My thoughts just took flight
And I couldn't think of anything to rhyme
With "you're as much use to me as an armadilo is as a flak jacket"
I had to adjective-fy my nouns and verbify my shiz
So

I thought I would a poem about how I am feeling.
And this is it.

A lassie who wasn't from Hayes
Liked to eat egg mayonnaise
She had a shit time
But in the end she was fine
Once she'd sat for a bit in a daze.

Fin.

Advice

2011-03-23T13:25:00.000Z

Someone that I know via Twitter, of whom I am rather fond, recently asked for people to give their one piece of advice, their "rule for life" if you will, to assist her in a project.

I thought quite hard about it. I started to worry that I don't have any at all. When I'd finished breathing into a paper bag, I came to the more realistic conclusion that I don't have just one.

So here, in no particular order, are my set of life ethics. Vaguely. These are, of course, subject to change as I decide to break them or remember something else that was much, much better. Dammit.

Rules aren't there to be broken, but sometimes they need to be shaped to fit.
This was one of the biggies for me. I follow rules. Always. I'm the Richie Cunningham of rule breaking (apart from not being ginger. Or American. Or fictional); I just don't. The arrival of children, specifically autistic children means that I will bend rules if need be, mostly because I know to pick my battles.

Pick your battles.
If only the ConDems could follow this piece of advice, but on a literal rather than a metaphorical level. Perhaps if they had had a Nan like mine, a woman who was hard enough to roll her own tampons, they would do. They'd certainly know not to fuck with a disabled lady in her 70s, or any disabled person for that matter. It's something Norman Tebbit learned after just one encounter with her. Again, this has had more resonance since I had children. You know what? If you chose not to eat your tea, that's up to you. Just don't come bitching at me half an hour after you weren't hungry demanding cake only to start bitching when I point you in the direction of your crusty arsed tea because you know I will let you scream your small person head off.

Manners apply to everyone.
This is an unbendable rule. I'm looking at you, elderly lady who thinks that she can push to the front of the queue when my kids have been waiting patiently and correctly for the bus for twenty minutes. Yes, I will point it out to you. Not only that, I will march you to the back of the line if need be. You'll be the first to complain when they end up mugging you in 10 years time for your pension because I didn't teach them manners, and you know it.

There's no such thing as failing.
You don't fail. You just perfect on the journey.

You get there when you get there.
See above. Sometimes fear keeps you back. Sometimes circumstance procrastinates for you. Sometimes other people steam ahead in their lovely, shiny lives seemingly oblivious whilst you sit there gnawing at your knuckles unable to fathom how you fucked up. Fact is; you didn't. You didn't fuck up. You learned. You grew. You took that knowledge on to perfection. To re-iterate above; there's no such thing as failing, because you get there when you get there.

There's gold all around; you just have to remember to see it.
You look at it and see a pile of shit. I look at it and see something I can use in my garden to grow my vegetables. You see a dollop of rubbish in the shit. I look at the shit and see gold, even though it's only a Caramac wrapper. A while ago, a person I love recorded me the Dr Who theme on a stylophone that I sent him. It made me smile so widely that it kept me going for a good few days afterwards. Through all the shit, though all the trauma, there's a Caramac wrapper or the Dr Who theme being played on a stylophone, and it's all for you.

Not being the special one is hard.
Maybe you don't have super powers. Maybe you aren't a whiz at calculus. Possibly you can't sight read music. You know, you may not even have the great novel unwritten inside of you. Doesn't matter because you know what?

I'm going to love you anyway, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.
To me, you're special. To me, you're perfect. You can reel off a million reasons why you think you're not and I'll rebut everyone. Twice. The fact is, I love you, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Ha!

A Bad Case of The Fucks

2011-02-14T23:54:00.000Z

The Boy has a new stim. Well, I say it's a stim, but it's more a new behaviour. Or rather a revisited behaviour that has come back stronger this time. Parents of autistic kids will know how *that* rolls.

Thanks to the intrepid help of a group of lads he played with at school and encouraged him to swear, he has a bad case of the Fucks. Everything is "fucking stupid". Dinner is met with the enquiry of "What is this fucking shit, Mummy?" When I annoy him, he requests that I go "fuck my face." Or, in the midst of a crowded cafe, an expression of distaste in his meal will result in his proclaiming (loudly) "fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!" Gizmo is "a fucking excellent cat." He is absolutely correct, for indeed she is a fucking excellent cat, but there are better ways to express this.

To some degree, I am heartened that he is using the word (for the most part) contextually, but I am unsure otherwise how to deal with it. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it somehow seems as invasive and deliberate as his spitting stim. When your 6 year old unleashes a torrent of swearing at you that lasts for an hour, it is hard to know how to respond to it.

It is not like the baby who builds a tower, and upon its collapse mutters "shit" to the hilarity of its parents. This is a six year old boy who has been taught swearing with malice, by a group of his peers, for their entertainment. The Boy has been "banned" from playing with these children. They continue to play together and he faces long drawn out lunchtimes, where he is effectively alone.

I have been in to the school several times about it, continue to go in and raise issues, but to a degree I am helpless. I've approached the parent of one of the children who was bullying him about trying to work out playdates for them to work through things rather than leaving them to fester as his teacher appears to have.

The very worst thing about it of course is that the children who were swearing have now moved on. They have their (same) group of friends, and he is merely floating.

It will be a slow process, as ever, and an annoying one. The fact remains though, when you think about it, it''s just not fucking fair, is it?

Valentine

2011-02-14T23:13:00.000Z

I am laying in bed with my young man of choice, and we are discussing our respective day.

I have been trotting about doing what I describe as "Mum stuff."

He has been hard at work, stuck at a desk for the best part of his waking day. He is having the roughest of times at present. Weekdays are no longer pleasant or full of promise. He dreads them to such a degree he has vomited from the fear of what unknown pressures he may have to endure that day. Every day presents a new challenge, often seemingly insurmountable, yet he continues to try his best.

His ability to cope with his daily environment has been disintergrating since new year. He is being bullied, and it is effecting his ability He knows things are wrong and there's nothing he can do. He's spoken to someone at "the office" about it; his superior if you will. Nothing has been done; the bullies have been told to leave him alone, and he spends his lunch hours alone; often lonely, certainly confused, whilst they continue to associate together.

The quiet way he says all this; his description of how sad it makes him breaks my heart. I am torn between the furious anger that makes me want to kick these bullies in the legs, the sadness that someone I love more than anything is in pain, and the knowledge that I cannot protect him.

I tell him that I love him. I hold him tight, and tell him he is my best friend and that that will never change. He drifts off slowly, but as he is dozing, he turns to me.

"Mum, thank you for my heart cake today. I will always be your valentine you know." With that, he drifts off, and I cling to the only man I will ever really love; my beautiful autistic son.

New Addition

2011-02-09T11:58:00.000Z

After a great deal of discussion at Wiltshire Towers which has lasted for close to 4 years, we decided it was time to expand our family. Despite my previous assertions that I was happy with two children, I did feel that another small person could only add to the mix.

As a result, we have adopted a two year old. She has made her mark in many ways, settling in and slowly taking over the entire household. She is developing relationships with each of us in her own way; she intuitively knows to give The Boy more space than she would anyone else, and will sit next to him quietly. She has contained The Ex and forced him to relax more of an evening, distracting him from his Football Manager game. She is devoted to Lid, who is puzzled yet delighted at having someone who is equally adamant that they are in charge as she is.

All in all, it has been a good decision and she is even managing to help calm my mad.

It has been a long time since we had a cat at The Towers and it is fitting that, in a house of lost souls and damaged people, the newest member of the Wiltshire family found her way to us after having been abandoned herself.

So I introduce you to Gizmo Wiltshire; Cattersea moggy extradinaire, newest member of Wiltshire Towers, and all round supercat.

Kentucky Fried Fuck Off

2010-11-09T15:04:00.000Z

We are on our way to a sleepover at Grandma and Grandad's (the self same alleged grandparents who left us homeless by evicting us with one hours notice on that fateful St Patricks Day The Boy received his diagnosis).

I am not looking forward to this at all, and one doesn't have to be spiderman for the senses to tingle that he is not looking forward to it. I am concerned; not that he will misbehave, not that Autistic Boy will take over; I am concerned that the stress of being back in this environment will prove too much for him and cause him to enter shut down. I am prepared to leave very quickly. We approach the door and enter. He is, as ever, a star.

He is exquisitely behaved; polite, divine, endearing, loveable. Everything he is and all that he can be. His charm is set to high. We attend a showing of Peppa Pig's Party at the theatre. He joins in, asks intelligent questions, dances and thanks Grandma and Grandad for bringing him.

We start the journey home, which progresses relatively well until we reach the stop we need to get on to our homeward bound train. A notice tells us services have been suspended due to engineering works. We had not factored this in to our plans. Usually fastidious in my checks, this has passed me by.

The Boy is becoming increasingly irritated at the thought of not getting home. A Sunday trade off that we have is, in exchange for him sitting to do his homework with no fuss, an hour playing on the Wii. He is now, having completed his homework at Grandma and Grandad's and been delayed from the treasured treat by several hours, increasingly desperate to get home and play.

We all know this isn't going to go well, right? It didn't.

I suggest we go to KFC's to get him some of their variant forms of chicken testes. He is not interested, but he is persuaded. We go in. I bring him to a table. Immediately, he shouts "for fuck's sake, why are we here?"

Eyes turn towards us. I'm not particularly concerned; I'm used to this, and it doesn't embarrass me. I settle him with his sister and The Ex, and go to order.

The queue is extremely long. There is a man dithering about chicken at the front of the queue. It has taken him several minutes to order very little. I can see The Boy becoming slowly more agitated, and Lid is beginning her slow "poke poke" of him to solicit a reaction. The Ex is struggling to contain them. After what seems like an age, I am finally served. I return to the table.

Faces like thunder look back at me. The Ex has partially turned his back on The Boy, for kicking him. I muse to myself how little he "gets" this; that there is always going to be a trade off for going out at all, he just isn't usually there to suffer the consequences.

We eat. Ever so slowly, The Boy starts to stim gently. He is tapping at the table, and making his "brrrrrrrrr, brrrrrrrrr" noises. The Ex tells him to be quiet. I attempt to distract him, but I know it is utterly futile. I whisper to him, gently; I hold his hand and tell him to squeeze it. Nothing is going to work.

It has been a long and tiring weekend for The Boy. He needs to release it and, as it happens, he's quite happy to do that in a public place.

He starts to swear, kicking and punching me. I speak gently to him. He can't hear me.

I become very aware that everyone's eyes are staring in our direction. There are mumbles of how I am a bad parent; there are loud tuts and rolled eyes. Can't I control him? What sort of a child is that? Someone makes the mistake of saying that we are a god-less family.

I flick my eyes up, and look directly at the perpetrator. I speak, slowly, but loud enough for everyone to hear "You know, I was always under the impression that god was a forgiving sort; not one to judge children, especially disabled children. Maybe you're right about your retribution nonsense, because you have the ugliest baby I have ever seen. It should come with a warning."

I am gathering pace as I gather together my children and belongings. Loudly, I tell The Boy that the diners have more than enjoyed the show of watching the disabled child have a meltdown, and that it is time for us to leave. As we make our move towards the door, I see a middle aged woman rolling her eyes at us.

I ask The Boy to wave at her and shout goodbye. Which he does.

Things do not improve whilst we wait for the train; if anything, they get a little worse.

The thing that you learn when you are parenting special children is to stop being embarrassed for you; to stop being embarrased for your child and to start feeling really embarrassed for those ignorant enough to stare; those who pass judgement and comment as if it is their right. You get to the point where you stop feeling you have to justify their disability; you stop caring what everyone else thinks and you can just focus on what you're doing and making a passage out. And it's right around then that you can confidently tell people to fuck right off; not as a reaction to your child's behaviour, but as a reaction to them invading your privacy.

Astronaughty

2010-10-27T10:21:00.000+01:00

We are traipsing around the Science Museum, attempting to see the exhibitions. The Boy and I have spoken of this trip for some time; we are both excited. We have invited along the ostracised grandparents who made us homeless some years back. He is concerned by their presence, but accepts that it means that he will have my attention as they will fuss over his sister.

We meet and proceed to the museum. The Boy is polite but quiet; he is incapable of hatred for he is too kind and placid a soul, but you can feel his distrust of them as he clings tightly to my side, even reaching for the odd hug of reassurance and receiving a kiss on the forehead without wiping it off in disgust.

We walk into the museum, and already The Boy is entranced. He is careful to look around, and wants to plan a route. We see, on the lower floor, the start of an exhibition on movement. Lid demands we go to the Psychoanalysis exhibition, as there are stairs and she wants to climb them. The Boy, resignedly, agrees.

Lid becomes obsessed with the many flights of stairs, and is determined to use them, though only to walk upwards. Any attempt to halt her upwards motion is met with those meltdowns familiar to those with autistic children. She has been disturbed in her endeavour, and seemingly must continue to climb the stairs for fear of some unknown and unrevealed consequence.

The Boy is being endearingly patient of his younger sibling. He reminds her, gently, that there are things to see. He guides her, kindly, to things he thinks she will enjoy. He anticipates her meltdowns; senses what may set her off in the way that I do for them both. He takes turns and helps her. He sacrifices what he wants to see to keep her happy. He holds her hand, carries the pink cat she has been presented with by the grandparent interlopers; he makes it talk to her to persuade her to move from the walkways that she inevitably decides to lie down and scream in. He guides her up the stairs, offers to carry the impossibly heavy rucksack containing the kit needed to transport them around almost seamlessly; the ear protectors, the magazines, the favourite toys, the stim facilitators, the favourite snacks so that I can carry his sister to make her journey easier.

Eventually, we arrive at the lower floors. We start by going through the "Who Am I?" exhibition. They marvel at the sights, and The Boy asks why there isn't anything there about children like him and his sister? He looks at the "Am I Normal" signs and chuckles; "I don't want to be like everyone else Mummy, so if that's normal (indicating an NT child who is kicking his mother) I'm pleased I'm autistic."

We move onwards, and marvel at the trains and automobiles. The Boy is full of open mouthed wonder; he reads the notes provided, fills in where the information is lacking. We wander through, towards the highly anticipated space area.

We glide on, using the items on display, marveling at the rockets. We come to an exhibition demonstrating an astronaut, and what vehicles and tools are used when on the moon.

"Would you like be an astronaut?" I ask him, knowing that, really, even if he wanted to, he possibly won't be one.

He looks at me with his big blues, and flashes me his giant beaming smile. "I already am, Mummy."

He's right, of course, the clever swine. The whole idiocy that we neurotypicals allow ourselves to operate within; that the musuem itself deigns that it is able to comment on what is and isn't "normal" about a human being; he is, in essence, a kind alien within a hostile environment, exploring a world that doesn't make sense. I think of how far he has come, and at this point Lid begins what feels like her 700th meltdown of the day. The despair I used to feel at them is gone; I remember when The Boy was like that. He has made me feel anything is possible.

"What about Lid? Will she be an astronaut?" I ask him. He looks shocked. "Oh no, Mummy, but Lid will always be astronaughty!"

He ruffles her hair, grabs her hand, and we head off back into unexplored territory.

Some Secrets and One Lie.

2010-10-18T14:28:00.002+01:00

When I seperated from my son's biological father, I was more upset that I would have to find a new hairdresser than the fact I would be a single parent. It transpires that a good hairdresser is indeed irreplaceable, whereas the converse is true of a bad partner.

I was recently told that my daughter may not be on the autistic spectrum. Although I should be pleased with this possiblilty, I am instead sad that she may have to care for her autistic brother if she is neurotypical.

I spent a large portion of my life carrying a torch (that I now realise had never been ignited) for someone in the vain hope that it would give me back my young adulthood. It wouldn't.

My biggest regret is that I didn't tell you that I love you before you died.

I distrust anyone who places more faith and effort into what they perceive to be green issues than in society and making it better.

Once hope is gone, there is nothing left to live for. The absence of hope leads to the death of the soul.

I will never, ever give up on you.

I love you and I think you're wonderful. Please don't forget.

I miss my cats.

I can never forgive or forget what you did.

Just because I'm laughing, it doesn't mean I'm happy.

Maybe it's not that I don't want to talk about it, but rather that I can't.

I pretend to more ignorant than I am as it amuses me to be patronised.

My children make it better.

Pissing About Cutting Matey's Acronymic Nuncheon

2010-09-21T13:52:00.000+01:00

It is a fair comment to level at me that I avoid personal confrontation where possible. Where t'midgets are concerned, I'm like a rabid dog that needs to be shot so you have a fighting chance, but for myself I will stay silent.

I don't like not to be liked; I seek to please people I couldn't give a flying fuck about, which is infinitely more irritating for me than the people I direct my pleasantness at.

The upside of not being able to confront people directly for any perceived "sin" they make against me has been, of necessity, developing quite a talent for passive aggression.

Whether it be making a cutting comment on my Facebook status that the person concerned will never read, pointlessly alluding to it in a Twitter feed that can't be read by the person it concerns as they don't have an account, sarcastically contributing a back handed compliment, being deliberately rude under the light cover of humour; where these are concerned, I have got it going *on*.

As of late, when Steed affronts my sensibilities, I don't cut his sandwiches. I make them, bag them, but don't cut them, with the idea being that the bastard will struggle eating his lunch and look ridiculous in front of his colleagues as he struggles to talk to them whilst desperately hoping his corned beef doesn't make a dash for his desk (hopefully being forced to have a conversation with a high ranking client with the remnants of sweetcorn relish down the front of his shirt).

Yeah; that'll show him, eh?

*Just surrenders to concept that she may not be very good at revenge.*

Fine

2010-09-21T13:20:00.000+01:00

It is a Friday in July. It has been yet another rough week in an academic year of rough days.

The Boy has commited an act seen as so heinous by the school, his autism provoking him into reacting in a way that a neurotypical child would not, that the result is he has been put under internal exclusion. This means that he is excluded from his class, instead being placed within another at his school. He is to sit at the desk, in silence and on his own, completing the work he has been given. He is not allowed to speak to the other children in this class, nor they to he.

His behaviour at home is collapsing. He is almost consistently violent. He screams and shouts. He does not listen. He reacts violently to the slightest provocation, even when you do not consider your actions to be provoking (an offer of an apple juice has been met that morning with a headbutt so violent my nose is still bleeding).

There are meetings; there are phonecalls. I am at the school daily. I try to talk to the teachers. I try to get my son help.

My son is lost and I do not know how to get him back, but I want him back. I will accept this imposter, I will love him, but I want my boy back.

I am physically exhausted, I am mentally spent. I wonder if it is my parenting that has made this change. In private moments, I admit to myself in hushed tones that I do not like my son right now. I wonder if it would be better for all concerned if I disappeared. I consider whether it would be okay for me to die.

I cannot listen to classical music anymore without being drenched in sorrow and anger; enraged by the futility of life. It hurts to hear it, so I stop.

I am asked how things are and respond, in a montone, that they are "fine." Everything is utterly, utterly "fine." I appear to be in control, but I can't remember the last time I slept for more than an hour in 24. I can't remember the last time I felt comfortable in my own thoughts. I can't recall a time when I did not flinch in horror at the phone ringing, expecting there to be another conversation where I am told that he has been poorly behaved at school, and I am left at home, powerless, deflated, feeling judged and unable to do anything apart from apologise for my son's disability.

I try to make myself go out once a month, but I don't really feel like it. I make myself go. I try to be like everyone else, but I'm not. I'm hoping that someone else will put me out of my misery as I am too frightened; too obliged to continue living; too scared of losing control.

I drink too much at times, but only on these monthly nights out. I act like a bit of an arse, because I don't know how I am supposed to be acting. Is it acceptable to be unhappy? Is it acceptable to just be locked into your own misery? I'm not sure anymore.

I've stopped being me. I've stopped living in my body. I'm floating above it, watching myself go throught the motions. I'm living my life like one of the social stories I draw for The Boy and Lid; get up, wash, smile, get kids up, get them clean and dressed, feed them, laugh, smile, pretend. Repeat to fade.

I ask my GP for help. I ask for a referral for counselling. I know that things are really bad for me, and I know that there's a chance that my pessimistic optimism isn't going to get me out this time. I am planning. I am thinking, thinking far too much about things that I wish I could file away because they hurt too much.

The counsellor does not turn up for our first appointment. She does not call me. I smile and congratulate myself for being so ridculously shit and unloveable that even someone who is paid to care about me doesn't.

Things get worse. There is not enough chocolate to cover them.

Still, I tell everyone that I am fine. "Yeah, great!" I say, when asked how The Boy is, how I am, how Lid is. I cannot say aloud that sometimes I feel crushed, suffocated. That the responsibilty of my situation seems unending. That I am still trying to be responsible for everyone I know, even those that I know by the slightest association. I want to ask someone to look after me. I need to be looked after, and I am ready to admit this, but I fear I will be laughed at. Even if I wasn't laughed at, who would look after me?

This continues. I am frightened. I attempt just dis-connecting myself from my body entirely, ignoring my thoughts in an effort to continue. I fill my days with activity. I work more nights. I stop writing because I just can't anymore.

The Boy's behaviour worsens. Lid becomes more challenging. I paint the house.

In all, it lasted for over a year. June 2009 until August 2010. That entire period constitutes nothing more than a lost weekend to me. I have forgotten more than I remember of it. I am unconvinced that this will not happen again, as it has happened before.

During this period, I have metaphorically lost my Boy, my Lid and myself. I have misplaced our direction. I have lied to people who care for me. I have covered up and pretended.

Slowly things have resolved and become clearer. My head is less fuzzy. I am close to being me again. I can listen to classical music without feeling sad. Life's still hard; nothing is perfect but I like it. I like me. And when I say things are "fine", it feels like they are.

Every Disabled Child Matters Too.

2010-09-20T13:26:00.001+01:00

Last week, Ofsted released into the wild “A Statement is Not Enough”, a new report addressing whether the needs of SEN pupils are being met. It transpires that, in their view, they’re not.

The report has found that there are many children who have been diagnosed as having a special educational need that they do not have, as many as 25%. It states that teachers are failing to teach everyone in their classes. It is also stated that some of the more “behaviourally challenged” pupils are being labelled as having SENs when the reality is that the teaching staff cannot or will not, amend their teaching to include everyone within their classroom.

Let’s start by considering the furore that was caused by Panorama’s report that only 18 teachers have been struck off in 40 years whilst there were at least 17,000 struggling teachers, it would appear that there is some weight behind the results. If there are so many incompetent teachers being hidden within the system, it appears plausible that children are labelled as challenging by staff who simply cannot meet the needs.

If you look further, a different story appears. Over the years, the number of statements issued for children in schools has dropped dramatically. Many parents do not know, for instance, that if their child has a disability but not a statement, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (as amended by Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001), demands that their child must still be catered for as if they do have a statement. The school must make reasonable provisions to include a disabled child within a mainstream environment, regardless of whether they have the vital statement or not.

The School Action and School Action Plus schemes were introduced in January 2002, to assist with Labour’s movement towards providing inclusive (or mainstream) education for those with special educational needs. Whilst applauded at the time, the problem is the swing towards accusations of statements being applied too widely. Ofsted’s report states that “as many as half of all pupils identified for School Action would not be identified as having special educational needs if schools focused on improving teaching and learning for all, with individual goals for improvement.” (most likely believed to be encompassed by the Individual Education Plan).

The suggestion is that, as children with a statement, or those without who are covered by the School Action Plus plan receive funding to assist their education (pro rata for primary schools based on two or more pupils being covered by it, and per child for secondary schools), educational establishments are wrongly labelling children as having special educational needs to access additional monies. The very real danger is that, as a knee jerk reaction to this, funding will be scaled back even further, making statements harder to put into place, and reducing the support children with disabilities receive.

What seems to have been ignored by the mainstream press is Ofsted’s assertion that provision for disabled children’s education is weak. What concerns me, as the parent of two autistic children within mainstream schooling environments, neither of whom have a statement and yet whom we struggle to get one for the elder of the two whose behaviour is profoundly autistic is; what happens when the money runs out?

The Surest of Starts

2010-09-14T13:03:00.001+01:00

This afternoon, my daughter and I are going to a Mum and Toddler group to do some messy play. Like many other children her age, she goes to Nursery, sometimes to a place at childcare. She sees a health visitor, and has access to a speech and language therapist. She has access to a wide range of courses, groups and activities. She likes nothing better than to watch Peppa Pig whilst scoffing a huge packet of bacon crisps, and making snuffling oinking noises. We can access all of these services through our local Sure Start centre and we are concerned, as is the figurehead of the centres Miss Peppa Pig herself and a number of children's charities, about their future.

There is current debate as to whether the Sure Start scheme is reaching those who need the service most in its current form. Therein lays the problem; who “deserves” to have access to services? What price to deliver “fair chances... to everyone... [so they may]... realise their potential”? What will happen to those who need these services because there is poor provision elsewhere in the community?

The Government has stated that the “universal service” offered by the centres means that poorer families can “miss out”, but this assumes that everyone within a defined area has the same socio-economic background.

An area may be seen as “wealthy”, but it does not follow that all of its residents are. Our local Sure Start centre have been told that only centres where it is deemed the services are “needed” will be kept open; areas that are seen as socially and economically deprived.

Who is to say though, that just because an area is deprived there won’t be richer families residing within it? Or that there won’t be poorer families living in areas that are purportedly socially and economically rich? Will those “sharp elbowed middle classes” of Cameron’s need to display their NHS Tax Credit Exemption Certificate to gain entry? Will poorer families need to display their milk tokens? It is increasingly clear that the millionaire members of the Government have little, if any, idea as to what constitutes membership to the middle or working classes.

There is no recognition that the class that a person “belongs to” will not preclude their child from having learning difficulties. Disability does not respect class. Wing’s study of same, which examined autism diagnosis rates against social class holds true; there is no qualifier where disability is concerned, but those with more knowledge will seek more help. There is no acknowledgment that, if your child has delayed development, you will need help regardless of the area or class you belong to.

The same commitment shown last year to a universal Sure Start has become “targeted support” under the coalition government. A suggestion that schools no longer be a universal service would be met with outrage; what will have targeted support next? Will Academies diverge from their initial purpose, only existing in the more affluent demographics?

“Targeted support” ignores the EPPE 3-11 project that showed children benefit from being in environments where there is a mix of social demographic; where the confident speakers help the less confident ones in developing speech, and where communities can be formed by children mixing with each other. It ignores stigmatising families based on their use of a facility. It ignores issues of pride, issues of reason and issues of fact.

As a parent, I will feel this more keenly than someone who does not have children. The daughter that I mentioned above is a lovely wee cow, who also happens to be my lovely wee autistic cow. Her diagnosis was started by the health visitor at our Sure Start centre, as we did not have an assigned one due to cut backs by our local authority. The speech and language therapist at the centre has helped us to develop exercises and games to develop her speech, as local services had a huge waiting list. She has seen a play worker to help her develop her play skills so she can integrate better with her peers.

With “targeted support”, she may not have had the chance of early intervention based purely on where we were living. Every child deserves the chance to be the best they can; and if the incumbent government takes nothing else on board from their predecessors, let them at least keep the ethos that every child matters.

Glee

2010-09-14T10:26:00.000+01:00

Football is a relatively new interest for The Boy, but it is becoming a passionate one. We have passed the lucky dip performed by my male friends to see "who he would support" held whilst I was pregnant with him, which saw the poor swine encased in a Charlton Athletic babygrow (oh, thank you so much Uncle Jason).

He has now made a decision as to the team for him, and it is West Ham. Suggestions that I nudged him in that direction by pointing out that they have blue on their kit are entirely, er, true. We will ignore the fact that I did the patented Wiltshire Chocolate Dance (TM) on receiving this news, and sadly I can neither confirm nor deny that I danced up to Himself shouting "in your face!" before letting fly what can only be described as an "interesting" smell from my bottom regions.

Needless to say, The Boy has chosen (and he is well aware that West Ham lose a lot, which is one of the reasons I hoped he would choose them, though as we all know, West Ham picks you rather than the other way around), and he has chosen well.

The tricky part of not being skilled at football whilst expecting himself to be the best player that walked the earth is one that needs to addressed. Still, he has a passion, he loves the team, he appreaciates that they do not always win but that they always try (though doubtless there will be those amongst us who would dispute that whilst attamepting to ram their season tickets up Gold and Sullivan's posteriors). We have attended one of those small people football classes only to find that many of the parents don't see it as a way of introducing their children to something they love but as a way of showcasing their Mini Pele.

Last Wednesday, The Boy proudly presented me with two forms for after school clubs.

The first was for Football Club which, if you've managed to read this far, you'll know is a much coveted activity by The Boy, who would like to (if possible) exchange his current primary school for Football School.

The second was for Singing Club.

I has assumed that he would want to go to Football Club, but he delighted me by telling me he wanted to go to Singing Club, because "Paul (the football teacher) takes football too seriously so it isn't fun anymore. Anyway, I like singing. And there'll be lots of girls at singing, so it'll be better."

I was ridculously happy, esepcially as there is are studies showing that children with autism can benefit greatly from singing and playing musical instruments. I duly signed him up for Singing Club.

When I went to collect him yesterday, I was told that there was a problem, and that he may not be able to continue at the club.

My heart sank as I expected to be told that he had had some sort of meltdown or display of aggressive behaviour related to his autism. This was not his case.

His heinous act had been to not sing all the songs and to look out of the window. Once I had finished laughing in her face, I merely raised my eyebrows and walked away.

Clearly it was a mistake on my part. I had thought that this was a club where participants joined because they love music and enjoy singing. I am obviously incorrect.

Which one of us is going to tell her that these are a group of primary school children and not "Glee : The New Generation"?

Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones, But You Are Still A Cuntard

2010-09-05T07:56:00.000+01:00

I have a poilicy of not moderating the comments I receive on any post I make; mainly because I don't have the readership that would warrant it but also, mental health wise, I can't be doing with it. My blog is syndicated on a few sites; on those, I've received some comments that have upset me and been (in my opinion) un-necessarily unpleasant (and at times verbally aggressive towards my children's disability), but I attempt to take this in my stride. After all, it's only words, and if anything really vulgar was said, I would address it.

A few months ago, I received a comment on this post. The post itself concerned my latest feelings of impotence in what feels like the ongoing battle to ensure that The Boy is adequately catered for within school.

Within this post, I referred to the headteacher as a "cuntard." I received a comment that advised me that they would no longer be reading my blog as the word I used was comparable to the "r" word.

Yes, *that* "r" word. The one that I despise and never use. The one that I once forced a guest at the hotel write an apology to my son for saying. The one that makes me visibly wince and will see me address the use of it to anyone who utters it. Much like the "s" word, it is not used by me, and is not used around me more than once by anyone I encounter.

I was, and remain, shocked by this in a way that only someone who knows me could ever possibly understand.

Despite being academically quite smart, I am a fool where social matters are concerned. Nuances pass me by. I stare blankly into the beaming light of accepted normality and, frankly, haven't a clue what is transpiring.

In my real life, I have certain rules. I do not, for example, swear around children. This applies whether the child is newly arrived to the world, still baking, or running around in a garden smearing their own fecal matter on the fence. I will not swear around people who have expressed that they dislike it. I will, and do, swear magnificently around old people. I feel it is my duty.

This is something about me that often surprises others; I am prolific and, I feel, extremely gifted at swearing. I adore swearing. I find it to be both big and clever. It accentuates an argument. It punctuates a sentence. It gives emphasis where there was previously none. I can sneak swear words into a conversation so comfortably others often don't notice that I have said them. I call people "cunt" in much the same way that others call their contemporaries "mate". There is no malice, it's meant with love and adulation.

I do not condone the use of racial slur words. They make me wince. I will confront anyone that uses them.
Sexual and sexuality based slur words will provoke the same reaction. In real life, I couldn't give a flying fuck what or who you do, I'm just interested in whether or not you're a nice person. If you are, I'm going to call you a cunt. If you're not, I'm going to call you a cunt. Either way, we're both going to leave the room happy; we'll leave as friends (yay!) or safe in the knowledge that we will never, ever see each other again (yay!). Using a word that is derivative of your race, sexuality, sex, disability; yeah, it's not going to happen.

Because, and I can honestly say this, it never struck me that "cuntard" was seen as an extension of the "r" word. When I made mention of this elsewhere, I was sent a link that stated that it was. I was amazed.

My use of the word was to indicate that not only do I find The Boy's headteacher to be utterly talentless and dreary; boring and benign; dull beyond belief, I also believe her to be a cunt. She is that mixture of dullard and cunt that she can only reasonably be described, when in a fit of pique and fury, as a cuntard.

Having been fortunate enough to be brought up by my grandparents (who lived through a phenomonal period of recent history where their relationship saw them being persecuted and subject to horrific attacks, both verbal and physcial), I was encouraged to stand up for what I believe in. I was taught that using words that pick apart someone's differences; words that are used with the intent of making another to be lesser than yourself; words that are used to hurt and degrade your fellow humans is the pasttime of the fuck wit; the hobby of the stupid.

I hope that I'm neither, though I'm sure you could find many a thousand person who would disagree with that.

If someone says something that you disagree with, it is your duty to question it. It's possible you may have misunderstood what the intent was; it's possible that the person saying it is a narrow minded cunt who deserves a good hard kick in the leg. Either way, you must put up or shut up. Believe in what you have to say, and stand by it.

To that effect, I categorically confirm that I believe The Boy's head teacher was, and still is, acting like an utter fucking cuntard, and when this blog retruns from its current summer hibernation, expect me to call her the same.

The Smiles

2010-08-02T04:14:00.000+01:00

We have returned to Wiltshire Towers post our almost week of holidaying in Norfolk.

Neither Midget particularly enjoyed the experience; there were too many instances of sensory overload; too many things that were a bit too different; and despite best efforts to prepare them (including my sitting up and making a booklet about the chalet and surrounding areas with pictures, maps etc in it a week before the trip), a relaxing experience it did not make.

Lid found the sand desperately uncomfortable if she spent more than 20 minutes playing in it, which made the trips to the beach that Nanna insisted upon slightly troublesome, especially as she wanted to stay there for as long as her parking ticket was paid up until, and would then snipe should we leave earlier than she wanted to.

The sheer mechanics of organising any trip to the beach were also chaotic, as was trying to track where the children were once there. Nanna viewed this very much as her holiday, and as such ducked out of child supervision. Cue Mummy running frantically from one end of the beach to another trying to keep them in the same general area.

The Boy suffered horribly whilst there. He experienced verbal loops that were driving him to distraction. He tried to stop and then became frustrated at his inability to do so. His violent behaviour increased with his levels of upset and the sheer challenge of the environment he was in. He flapped and circled. He hit and spat.

Lid cried and tantrumed, unable to sleep, tormented by the strangeness of it all.

I was confronted by "well meaning" citizens regarding their behaviour, and challenged as to why I could not control them. My parenting was questioned, and I ended up snapping at one such idiot in the toilets after she barked at my son "be quiet, you".

Attempts to organise trips out were thwarted by the children being unable to "handle" them. A trip to the Sealife Centre, a personal favourite of mine, saw the fastest turnaround that the cashier on the till had ever seen at Great Yarmouth. We walked in, Lid started to scream and cry, and refused to move. Attempts to pacify her, talk her through, offers of torches failed. We left. Very quickly.

One of the hardest things to accept as the parent of an autistic child is that your attempts to show them the more enjoyable experiences of the world that you had as a child simply do not work for them. You can of course try and you will, desperately so, but what worked for you may not work for them.

It is, truly, soul destroying, but it teaches you. It teaches you that, for your child, pleasures will be different and quite often simpler. The offer of small piece of blu tac to fiddle with can make your 4 year old giggle in delight, and entertain her almost solidly for hours as she puts it in and then takes it out of a glasses case. The production of a toy car will give your 6 year old son something that he can play with, twirling the wheels, playing at Top Gear, criticising the inaccurancy of the scale to which it has been made.

It teaches you that the best weapon at your disposal is imagination; that there is a need to think outside the neurotypical box that you are stuck within. It teaches you that, sometimes, what you are going to do is to sit and watch "Toy Story 2" for what feels like the 7,000th time and that any attempt to turn it off, even when they are not in the room, will produce a barrage of protests that they were "watching that."

It teaches you to never give up.

It teaches you to concentrate on the triumphs. It teaches you to concentrate on the smiles. It teaches you that, for every fuck up you make, you've resolved at least three things, that every picture tells a different story to what you felt was going on and that, in the end, all that leaves is the smiles.

Yeah!

2010-08-02T03:35:00.000+01:00

Here's to clarity.

Shits and Giggles

2010-07-24T15:36:00.000+01:00

Another night, another attempt by a friend to introduce to me someone they believe can become part of the Wiltshire Towers family.

On this night, it is the lovely Dan who has attempted to widen my social circle, by loaning me his best friend as an escort to a comedy festival.

Having spent a day or two ragging the shit out of each other by text, it's quite clear that we will get on, and together we hatch a plan.

"What if", we mused, "we were to orchestrate an elaborate plan against our friend, which suggested that not only did we despise each other but that we expressly blamed Dan for our meeting?"

Thus our non date began; he sent a text saying that he was annoyed he hadn't been warned I am a blonde godzilla; mine bemoaned he was like a brown Telly Savelas.

Next came my enquiring as to why he waxed his arms; he sent one asking why did I start crying when I saw a ginger person on the train?

He then sent one to Dan complaining that I had farted and that he was trapped next to me in the tube carriage; I texted to whinge that there was a horrible smell coming from him and that he was trying to blame it on me.

He had misdirected us into a wood I said, when we were supposed to be going to a park. I claimed I saw him taking lube out of his pocket and that I was getting frightened. He then sent one saying that, as part of a shortcut, we had entered some woodlands and that I was freaking out when he took out some lip balm.

On and on we went, with his stating that I was such a cunt he was going to go to the "loo" and leave by climbing out the window. I said that he had been in the toilet for ages and asked if he had a stomach problem. Had he left, I mused?

Meanwhile, poor Dan is hyperventilating into a brown paper bag and forcing Mrs Dan to make regular service station stops so he can vomit piteously into his own crumbling nightmarish world.

It has to be said that, at 3am when we both sent the "we've had sex" texts I started to doubt that it was the best idea, and come midday today when he still wasn't talking to me I felt a tad bad, but hey; it were fecking funny.

Top Gear

2010-07-24T15:16:00.000+01:00

Fellow parents of ASD children will know about all encompassing obsessions.

This can be in the form of a physical tic, inanimate objects, ordering, television programmes, films and many, many others.

The Boy's obsessions have always revolved around a programme, expanding to toys, books, magazines, related paraphenalia etc. This has been a relief, if an expensive one, as it means that we have a starting point to teach him things, something to draw him in and encourage him to learn. Oh, the hours I have spent cobbling together Bob the Builder maths and Thomas the Tank Engine literacy lessons, but still.

Currently, Top Gear is the name of the game, and The Boy has decided that he is Clarkson.

Yes, that's right; The Boy has decided that he is Jeremy Clarkson, who is possibly the very anti-Mummy. On the plus side, Lid is Hammond, Daddy is James and Mummy, rather superbly, gets to be The Stig. We'll ignore that I can't drive; we'll focus on the fact The Boy has clearly observed that I can push that buggy of Lid's faster than the fastest bastard and piggy back the fuck out of Jenson Button (or Benjamin Button for that matter).

Today, we are taking a leisurely Mummy and The Boy stroll, before setting off to take a DLR tour.

As we make a change and start to trot towards a canal, The Boy spies a car.

"Mummy, Mummy look! It's the Bugatti Vera!"

"Do you mean the Bugatti Veyron, son?"

"Yeah, yeah, look Mummy, look!"

He gesticulates wildly at a silver car making a slow turn in the road.

"Er, that's a Ford Fiesta son."

One imagines his knowledge of car types may take a little effort and encouragement...

Night Shift Buckaroo

2010-07-12T06:23:00.000+01:00

Come one, come all; gather together to play the game sweeping the nation : Night Shift Buckaroo.

You will require one colleague who is so utterly shite that they attend their night shift with the sole intention of sleeping through it.

Once they are asleep, you will require a number of items to balance on their lazy, money stealing bastard body as it slumbers whilst you do all the work and they earn more than you do, seemingly by being paid to sleep.

Pile up bananas on their head! Stack cups on their shoes! Shove piles of paper onto their lap that they will send sprawling and have to clear up!

Don't forget to take pictures of it all, now...

I'll Save You A Cup

2010-07-12T06:18:00.000+01:00

The Boy's TAC meeting took place on Wednesday. We have once more met, the group of health professionals that work or have worked with The Boy, as well as myself, the school SENco, his class teacher and myself.

This time, The Menopausal Misery deigned to attend also, following on I have no doubt from the sucession of complaints I have submitted about her (which, rather oddly as they were not addressed to her rather she received a copy as a professional courtesy, she has decided to respond to. Still, this is a story for another time).

I have come away from it with exactly no new insight or knowledge as to how The Boy's school intends to adjust to accomodate his autism whilst he is still in attendance there.

I have sat through many hours of this babbling nonsense, where The Menopausal Misery tells me that The Boy's behaviour is due to his own volition rather than due to his being profoundly behaviourally disabled through autism.

She has told me that it is my fault that he behaves as he does. This is variantly because I allow him to watch Doctor Who (of which he likes approximately three episodes which are all vetted beforehand as he finds many of the others too frightening); because they believe that I do not employ any sanctions at home (though you should note that, before employing the school's rather interpretative take on strategies suggested by autism professionals at home, we had few incidents of very poor behaviour at home; although admittedly they did occcur); because they believe that I am inconsistent in dealing with him; because they believe that I am somehow encouraging his behaviour and condoning or possibly praising him for spitting, hitting and general violence.

She has told me that he is a naughty child; that he cannot learn. I have been told by the school that they cannot quantify his intellectual level, and if indeed he has one.

Horrifically, he has been told by staff at the school that, should his behaviours continue, he will go to prison. He has been told that nobody likes him, and that he is not wanted at the school. He has been told that he is useless, and naughty, and that there is no place for him.

I have been told that he acts without provocation; that he it is not that he reacts to stimuli but that he sulks. I have been told so much banality that I think my ears have finally decided to stop listening to it.

The school has shown that it understands autism as well as I understand rocket science. The Menopausal Misery has demanded that I make The Boy differentiate between the way he acts towards children and adults, an impossible task for him. I have asserted that this is not something that he is able to do, what with him having a disability that prevens him being able to apply rules without equality.

He is not to assert when he finds a situation uncomfortable, if this might make him appear as rude or insolent. Try to explain to these cuntards that he's not being rude but rather that he's being autistic and they will stare at you as if you are trying to excuse his shitting on a packed school playground whilst they are being visited by the Queen.

Try to advise them that whilst he has a reading age that is almost double his physical age and that his comprehension of language rivals that of a Year 4 child, his ability to express what he feels or what has occured is less than his younger sisters' and again you are met with the look of cro magnon man being passed an iPhone.

State as I did that you are tired of hearing their belief that your child is anything other than a little boy with a disability; a disability that makes the world a frightening, loud and consistently over stimulating place where everyone appears to be speaking a language that you have never heard with cultural references you do not understand and you will be looked at through the minds of a group of people who most likely believe that the Hand of God really did appear in 1986.

Have professionals on board who back up what you say with clinical evidence, who tell them that when The Boy makes a statement it should be listened to, that when he tries to amend how he behaves and it is not supported that he will not continue to try, and in essence you may as well be talking to yourself for all the information that they take on board.

Therefore, the decision has been made (not entirely with my support, but still) that The Boy will be on half days until term ends. This will mean that there is a real chance of learning, both for me and for him, as I am the one who will now be teaching him for the next few weeks. This appears to have been interpreted that I will now take on part of his teaching via a Pastoral Support Programme until Christmas.

For the time being, I will say nothing, instead adhering to the rules and supporting him as best I am able to.

Meanwhile, the application for a statement is complete, and will be sent off pending The Boy's ever supportive Autism Advisary Service case worker casting her experienced eye over it. The process of statement application may even assist with finding a more accomodating school for The Boy. I will continue to speak with my local Parent Partnership worker. I will continue to make a scene and complain.

To those of you have offered advice and help, I thank you. To those of you who have asked me for advice and help, please don't give up. We're all going to get there, just at different times; and regardless of what time you turn up, there'll still be enough coffee to go round.

The Menopausal Misery

2010-07-12T06:16:00.000+01:00

Regular readers, anyone who knows me and vague passers by will be aware that The Boy is facing substantial problems at school at present.

You may not, however, be aware of the root cause of many of them.

Despite having been advised by many professionals with substantial expertise of working with people on the autistic spectrum, The Boy's headteacher (re-named, possibly cruelly, by myself as The Menopausal Misery) refuses to take on board anything of real value that has been suggested or submitted in regards to addressing his behaviour.

I have now had countless meetings with this sour faced, dowdy, regret sodden beast, who does not concede that The Boy's violence is due to his disability rather than due to a concious decision on his part. I have endured such uneducated bile that I have had to pinch myself to stop myself from laughing at her. I restrain myself from launching a full verbal attack on her, conducted in the most professional of manners of course, as I worry that there may be repercussions for The Boy if I do so.

There is really no forum for me to say what I really feel in regards to her behaviour, in regards to her obvious disdain for my son and others like him; in regards to her insistence that he be forced to adhere to her Victorian and authoritarian views of how a child should behave.

I have, of course, submitted a complaint. It is very long, very detailed, and very professional. There are things that I desire to say, and there is no place for them in such a letter. There is no place for them anywhere really, no forum for me to express how I feel.

Except, I suppose, here. Thus might I state, categorically and unequivocably from the safety of this blog that goes largely un-noticed by all but a few people, that she is the saddest person I have ever met.

I severely doubt that she has ever made another person's face light up in happiness, or made someone laugh so hard that they have pig snorted in response. I doubt that she has ever meant the world to anyone; that her absence has been felt so acutely by another that it causes pain; that someone has chosen her above everything else in the outside world and would rather be with her than anyone else.

I do not concede that anyone would give her their last piece of chocolate; that another would walk to a shop three miles away at 3am to get her a loaf of bread or a packet of chocolate buttons because she was sick and that was what she wanted.

What I do believe is that she is someone who is to be pitied. Clearly, she has lived a life that has not included a loving parent, and how terribly sad that is, not just for her but for every child who is entrusted to her care as a headmistress.

As an aside, her bosom is also so terribly uncared for that I believe she could sweep the dirty streets with the sagging mound of flesh that she refers to as nipples, and frankly this would be a job that was much more suited to her natural abilities and talents than the position that she is currently employed in.

Some Things About Me

2010-07-12T03:58:00.000+01:00

I've been bat shit crazy for as long as I can remember
It's taken me years to start sorting myself out, and even then I have been hesitant to do it properly. I find being depressed a comfort; it allows me to pretend to be someone else when I am being Showroom Karen. Pretending also means that even though I can get hurt, the people that hurt me don't know about it.

I seceretly think I'm Cat Ballou
Because I'm damned if anyone will see me cry. And because I'll probably end up in a noose.

I'm not very comfortable with being touched.
I'm just not comfortable with it. There's all manner of reasons, and the one connected to my childhood would be the right place to start looking at why that is. Moving on from that;

I didn't have a nice time as a kid.
As a result, I'm pretty determind that my kids will have a much easier time, though it hasn't always worked that way.

I am always surprised at how few other people want to be part of a fair society.
One where we all help each other, and do stuff to help because we have the capacity to and just can.

I loved school, but I was bullied really badly through most of it
As a result, I really despise bullying, even though I've been guilty of it myself.

I tend not to keep in touch with people.
It's just easier. Once people get to know me, they discover there's not much to me and don't want to me anymore anyway. This way just cuts out the bothering.

I have really, really appalling taste in men.
Seriously. Appalling.

People never fail to disappoint me.
More's the pity.

Even if it's dead, I can't bury it.
Ridiculous mistakes from the past keep me awake at night.

I worry about things that are essentially of no importance whatsoever.
There's not enough space to list it all.

I am over protective of others.
Because I don't want them to get hurt or go through what I have.

I don't inspire that protective instinct in others.

Deep down, I want to be treated like a delicate princess.
Though I don't think the bloke that could get away with it has (or for that matter, ever will) been born.

AtTAC

2010-07-06T14:51:00.000+01:00

The moment fast approaches us of the next TAC (Team Around The Child) meeting at The Boy's current school.

It's been wonderfully useless in establishing anything of any use or worth. It has consistently fallen short of the lowest of expectations. It has been a them against us situation throughout. It has been tiring and exhausting. It has raised more accusations and doubts regarding my parenting skills than any of my own self doubt and low self worth ever has.

It has been shockingly inappropriate. It has ignored the suggestions of autism professionals. It has not been worth the time of day.

Tomorrow, at 12.30, will be what I hope will be our last TAC at The Boy's current primary school.

Hopefully, he will achieve the statement I will be applying for for him, and he will find an alternative school.

I will say this; the fight will not be over then, not at his new school nor at his old. I refuse to sit back, make my complaint and scuttle away.

The treatment he has received will never happen to another child at that school, and thus we will fight on, regardless that he will no longer be attending the school.

Because, and I state this categorically, once you start treating one child badly, it doesn't stop there, and if being part of the Disabled Mum crew has taught me nothing more, it is that we all stick together.

This is how it feels to be lonely

2010-07-06T14:34:00.000+01:00

Another day, another telephone call regarding The Boy's behaviour.

This time, he appears to have gone so far that he has ostracised himself completely from his classmates. The fragile friendships that he was building are irrecoverably damaged. There is literally nothing that I can do.

The Boy is a surprisingly sensitive soul. His delight in making a friend of his own, on his own terms at school, however tentatively and precariously, is immense. He has been proud of his achievement, and rightly so.

This has now ended. He is devastated.

It would be easier if he had no concept of his autism. It would be easier if he did not care whether or not he has friends. It would be easier if he lived the life of one who is unaware of what occurs around him. It would be easier if he didn't know his behaviour is wrong. It would be easier if he could stop how he reacts, something he desperately wants to do but cannot.

When you have kids, you sign up for all of it, good and bad. Regardless of what they do, you love them. Regardless of how it happens, you want to stop them from hurting. It is not always possible, and that is the challenge of being a parent.

When your child turns to you and says, with the honesty of being a child that "I wasn't meant to be autistic; I was meant to just be a boy" there is nothing that you can do apart from decide then and there that the fight for them to be "just be a boy" never ends until that is what they are.

Everyone's a winner

2010-07-06T14:14:00.000+01:00

Ah, Sports Day at The Boy's school. Time to remind myself how very, very terrible at sport I was at school and remian to this day. Time also to be surprised at how competitive the parents are, both in regards to their "own" races and those of their children.

There will be elbowing at the finish line (from both parents and children). There will be much screaming for their own children, and everyone else can safely be ignored for they are not considered to be of any worth.

There will the winners who make it over the line first. There will be the losers who come so significantly last that nobody cheers for them. Nobody at all.

Well, apart from me. For I will position myself at the finish line, and I will whoop and cheer and make my loud appreciative gig noises, much to the annoyance and eventual deafening of the other parents.

I will clap every child, I will congratulate every one, and I will clap and cheer the ones that are last because, for most of them, they have been dreading this day. Their participation in itself is the sign of a real winner.

And when my son comes last, which he did this year as he did last year and no doubt will do every year, I will clap and hug and tell him that it does not matter; it is taking part that counts.

Except this year, I did not need to. He excitedly approached me at the finish line, and told me "I came last Mummy!" I prepared myself for the emotional onslaught that appeared to be inevitable, and he merely told me, whilst hopping from leg to leg "It didn't matter though because I tried."

As he turned to go, he turned back and shouted to me "Did you see my friend Griffith though? He came first! I'm really proud of him!"

See chaps? Coming last can also mean you come first, it all depends on the atttitude.

Chicken and The Egg

2010-07-04T04:22:00.000+01:00

Chicken Omelettes.

Seriously?

What's next; calf stuffed cow? Cat a la kitten? Cub in a fox?

People of the world; no. Just no.

Which Came First?

2010-07-04T04:19:00.002+01:00

It certainly wasn't me.

Mwahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

The Green Mile

2010-06-26T10:47:00.000+01:00

An adage at Wiltshire Towers has always been "when you're going through hell, keep going."

It's served as a timely reminder that however empty the barrel is, there's still more you can scrape to keep going. It's a reminder that bad times are transitory. It reminds me that I can get through anything, even the shocking revelation that I can agree with a Tory.

It has founded our philosophy that Wiltshire's don't quit. It has reminded us to keep banging away at things, even when they should be let be. It has inspired me, damnit. It has inspired me never to give up on these wee babies of mine; never to give up on myself; to always believe that things can be achieved, that I have the resources to keep getting things done, regardless of whether I feel I can keep going it has made me continue.

It also serves to remind me that sometimes, no matter how hard I try to get things done, it's time to give up and move on, to look elsewhere to achieve that which needs to be done.

This year, The Boy has become a changed character. He used to love going to school; he used to achieve. He had the odd moment of bad behaviour, rarely at home. He enjoyed activities, and although he didn't have any friends per se, he was liked and appreciated by others.

This has escalated so that now a day does not pass without a phone call from school to tell me he has performed some wrong doing. Whilst this is something to be expected if he is hitting someone, the school itself has defined which aggressive behaviour deserves to be reported to me (apparently, it is worse for him to hit an adult than a child). They phone me if he calls a teacher cheeky. They phone me if he tells them he needs to be left alone. They phone me for imagined insolences. They tell me that I am to define to him which people he can stay away from if he dislikes them (again, that I must define between an adult and a child). They tell me how to punish him and that I must do what they say.

I haven't had a single day with him at this blasted school this year where I haven't felt like crying. I hate forcing him to school in the morning, bribing him to get ready, and make no mistake it is a process of asking, pleading, shouting to get him out of the door every morning. I hate the playground duty with the Sewing Circle; the gossip, the bullshit.

It is like dragging the wrongly convicted man to the electric chair, forcing him along the green mile to the destination of torture; school.

He is upset. I am upset. My ability to support the Victorian pseudo authoritarian regime put in place by the head, or at least pretend to, is exhausted. I just can't anymore, and I can't see why he should either. I can't understand why I have forced him through this for so long.

It all became clear when we sat down to write a list of pros and cons of school. His "for" list consisted of the blue jumper and tie he wears as uniform, and that was it. He could think of nothing else positive to say about it. That, my friends, is the wake up call I had needed.

Yesterday, I spent the time contacting and visiting schools for him. Monday will be the same procedure, as will Tuesday, Wednesday etc until I have found something that works for him, and I will find something.

I'm not prepared to give up on the little sod; never have done, never will do. I am, however, prepared to swap one definite hell for a potential hell, one that might help him, or at the very least do him no harm.

It just took a plummet to the mud at the bottom of hell that prevented me from moving at all; a stop that gave me time to see clearly, look around and see what was really going on, to be able to decide to keep chugging through; but towards the happy space this time.

a

Really? I don't think so.

2010-06-24T21:02:00.000+01:00

Correct me if I am wrong, but the Conservative party are keen to reverse the ban on fox hunting.

Shazam! Foxes start entering million pound properties and feasting on babies whilst their parents watch the X-Factor on tv. "He looked at me bold as you like. He just didn't move. Then the cunt offered me a glacier mint and a polar bear chewed my tits off", bleats distraught mother, who was so distressed she was shit faced on Pernod, leaving her 9 month old twins in a room without a baby monitor.

Again, I may be incorrect, but I believe that the Conservative party are keen to lower the period of time that an abortion can be had at.

Kapow! IVF patients aborting their babies left right and centre.

"It's like they enjoyed having their emotions in tatters from all the hormones, and the just want to go through it all again for fun", shouts ignorant Social Commentator, ignoring the fact that many of the fetuses aborted were instances were the mother was carrying multiple children, and the process of which supports the remaining children in utero.

I await the stories of disabled single parent immigrants attacking Tory MPs after being asked for proof they can stand up so that they can have their ovaries tied before being told to leave the country.

*Waits patiently. Rallies troops,*

It's Not Me, It's You

2010-06-24T09:46:00.000+01:00

Oh for the days when I will be able to shove both Midgets in the direction of their respective schools without having to deal with the rude ignorance and stupidity that is Other Children's Parents.

Other Children's Parents (herein OCP) are the parental world's equivalent of Other People's Children to the single, childless observer.

They seem live on a different planet to others. They sometimes appear to reside in a parallel universe. Sometimes, I suspect they have fallen through the back of a wardrobe from their Narnian winter land covered in snow, baffled by the lack of talking moggies and goat boys. Though to be honest that white stuff on their shoulders may well be their dandruff.

Being an adult in the playground is really no different from being a child; there are still cliches, the trendy (or those who believe themselves to be trendy) still travel in packs. Your popularity depends on how popular your child is; how much make up you are wearing and which brand; which decade your clothes came from and how much they cost. Nothing has changed, nothing at all.

In a throwback to your yesteryear, some parents will even only let their children associate with the children of parents they like, regardless of how their child feels about that forced friendship.

Some parents are desperate to be a part of the braying forces, to be associated with any part of it at all.

At our school, there are the "Friends of", who treat their voluntary unpaid minion work as if they are heading the "cure for cancer" department of UNICEF. They roam the playground like overweight, over made up female cast members of a particularly underfunded "Reservoir Dogs" remake shot in extra idiotic vision, who may or may not deign to speak to you, regardless of how polite you are to them. They are Very Important, and this must not be forgotten at any time, ever.

There are the Racist Mums, the Trendy Mums, the Working Mums, the Unemployed Mums, the Smoking Mums, the Childcare Mums, the Dads, and then, in the smallest group of all, there are the Disabled Kid Mums.

I see it as a smaller group, mostly by design. I don't really want to get involved in the nasty bitchiness that goes around, although it's possible to be a Disabled Kid Mum and still be a gossipy witch. I try, as much as possible, to stay out of things completely. I don't really want to talk to anyone about anything. I'll happily talk to children, as they can't help who their parents are, but the parents? No. No thank you.

I don't want for people to feel comfortable coming up to me bemoaning what my child has done. I am increasingly less patient on this matter, and it is only manners that prevent me from throwing back at them what their child has done to mine. I happily ostracise myself, not because I don't need or want support, not because I don't need or want friendship, but because I don't need or want the hassle that appears to go with it. I don't want to be gossiped about over coffee. I don't want to have my private life aired betwixt people who know nothing of it. I do not see why I should bend over backwards to help you but you will not even stand to one side for me to get past.

I do not want to hear your nonsense. I do not want to have to bite my tongue so that I do not say what I think are the multitude of personality defects and etiquette bypasses your child is afflicted with after you have finished giving your "helpful" insights on mine.

I do not want it, and neither should I have to bear it. I will stand in the background, speaking only with the children who are ignored by their parents, nodding at the parents I can tolerate, smiling at the few I adore for their genuine unconditional support of my child.

It's taken me a long time to realise it, but actually; it's not me, it's you.

Dedication

2010-06-23T13:27:00.000+01:00

Roy Castle once said to me, as we sat by the bus stop at Tescos, having met by the apples, mingled in the condiment aisle and trumpet played through the frozen chicken department, that if you want to be the best, and be better than the rest, ooooooo, dedication is what you need.

Sometimes, I concentrate so much on the bigger social picture that I forget to look at the reasons I do things. I forget that, although I am working towards Goal A, and I am doing it to help various named children, my main focus in doing so is to help The Boy and Lid.

You will forgive me then if, for a time, I stop being about the whole and I start being about the specifics.

To get to where we are at Wiltshire Towers, there has been sacrifice, and there has been hardships endured. It seems like very little, but when I look back and see what went before, steps larger than those taken by pioneers in their fields have been achieved.

Sometimes, I forget that. Sometimes, I think my parenting is so very awful, that I fail my children so constantly, I wonder if I am a good option for them.

I forget that, in order for them to do well, I have to be the one that castigates them, that sets boundaries, that tells them no, that tells them I love them every day, the one that asks them how much I love them so that they will have to say out loud that I love them a lot, the one that kisses them only to find them displaying the humour I wanted them to be imbued with by wiping it off and saying "bleeeuuurrrggghhhh!"

All of these things and more have to be done. Helping them to speak when I was told it wouldn't happen, hearing they have made a friend on their own terms without mine nor the school's involvement or assistance, seeing them have the confidence to be insolent, even though I don't approve of the action itself.

Watching them, time and time again, almost deliberately confounding every low expectation others have of them, and doing it because they know they are better, they know they can do better.

In every life, shit happens. To everyone. Everyone fucks up don't ever doubt that; it's how you recover from it that counts.

Do you give up? Do you just look at it as an opportunity to learn and try again? Do you keep on going, keep having the courage to fuck it up, the courage to make mistakes, or do you just quit? Do you, constantly, heart breakingly, frustratedly always find an extra something to propel you onwards, to let you have strength to fail again? Or just stop and proclaim no more?

For me, it's a combination of the two I suppose. Mostly because I have never learnt that there are things I can't do; I have never learnt that I can fail without learning and getting stronger; I have never learnt how to shut up, only to put up. There are benefits in being a bitch, and this is one of them.

Dedication people; that's what you need.

Lid

2010-06-23T13:04:00.000+01:00

On the 17th June, Lidly Wendelsworth, otherwise known as "Spud", "Stop it NOW", or my darling daughter, became four years old.

She shared the celebrations with Barry Manilow, though they didn't have a joint party (not after what happened last year).

Lid is what can only be described as a shining, beautiful light, that makes everyone and everything around her seem all the more glorious by her mere presence within any given situation.

Her kindness knows no bounds; she is caring and gentle; she is funny and beautiful; she is clever and sincere. She is, frankly, mad as a bag of frogs and thrice as messy. I cannot conceive of a world that she does not exist in, and neither would I want to. A world without Lid would be dull and lacklustre; there would be significantly less empathy and love, less laughter, less hugs, less kisses, and less strangely hilarious foot stomping faux tantrums which she has modelled on Mittens from "Timmy Time".

A world without my beautiful little autistic cow tugging on my hand, calling me constantly, poking me in the arm, yanking me about, making outrageous demands and generally being a right littte madam is one that would bore me to tears.

Happy belated birthday, Lid; much, much love, and may I have you on borrow for the longest time.

Word Association

2010-06-08T09:53:00.000+01:00

Himself and I are standing in the kitchen doorway, watching both Midgets furiously play and scramble around in the back garden.

It is a beautiful and balmy day, one where we can not only stand the sight of each other but also engage in an activity I believe other humans refer to as "talking."

We decide to test our companion skills by a quick game of word association.

"Carrot."

"Your weird ginger obsession."

"Cunt."

"Robbie Williams."

"Flacid."

"Robbie Williams."

"Cock."

"Robbie Williams."

"Shit."

"Robbie Williams."

And then we watched the football and it just got worse...

Hey! Teacher! Leave My Kids Alone.

2010-05-26T22:55:00.000+01:00

My thoughts on having a special needs child without a statement in mainstream education are these.

If, everytime I approach the school a siren is sounded to announce my impending approach; should, when I speak to a member of staff, their shoulders fall and their faces drop; when I speak to them on the telephone their voices audibly register "what the fuck do you want this time"; then I know that I am winning the battle.

If they want to deal with me as quickly as possible; if my very assent fills them with dread; should the mere thought of my descending upon them make them break out in a cold sweat; if I irritate them so greatly that they turn their back on me in meetings or they are foolish enough to reveal their turgid hand every time they "deal" with me, I am winning the war.

If they are daft enough to try, in any way shape or form, to disregard input regarding my son or daughter, whether that be from me, professionals helping them, or most silly of all, from my children themselves, that mainstream school has put themselves in a very foolish position.

On an entirely unrelated note, I have a phD in law, and I'm actually much cleverer than I would ever let on.

Continue.

Happy

2010-05-26T22:27:00.000+01:00

When I was pregnant with The Boy, I was often asked if I knew what I was having. To start with, I replied that I would be happy either way. I would then be told that "it wouldn't matter so long as they had ten fingers and ten toes", to which I always replied that that didn't concern me; so long as they were happy, I would be happy.

The ability to be other people's perception of "normal" was not a wish I had for my baby. I wanted them to be happy; have a happy childhood, enjoy the things around them, feel safe and loved throughout, as these were not things I felt as a child myself. I wanted things to be different for my child. I wanted things to be better. I felt sure that this was something I could attain.

It didn't start off great. I already put him in the same fatherless family as I was born into when he was six months old. Still, it wouldn't be awful. I reasoned that I could rely on my family, who all duly, er, disappeared.

No matter, things would be well. I could work around the troublesome sitiuation we were in, and I would suceed, for the sake both of our happiness.

Life continued, difficulties arose, but always and throughout, The Boy was happy. His smile lit up my heart. In my blackest hours, of which there were many, the mere fact that he existed made me believe that there was good in an otherwise dark and lonely world.

He never gave up on me. He always believed that I could make things better for him, for us. When my faith in us as a team slipped, his didn't. It never has and I doubt that it ever will.

There have been inordinate lows; his hospitalisation at 18 months when the little shit tried to die on me and leave me on my own in this shitty world springs to mind; my being told when he was 2 and a half that he would never speak and that I should "consider my options"; and enormous highs; the day that he spoke again after a year of silence; when he castigates me for trying to quit when, as we all know, Wiltshire's don't quit; when he casually tells me he loves me; his obvious joy when he does something brilliant and he sees the pride on my face.

My belief in My Boy has never been shaken. Sometimes I do not believe that the actions he takes are those of my child, are those of My Boy; yet I know that often the action performed is not his choice - it is autism's choice. It is not his reaction, it is autism's reaction. The pain that it inflicts on him, the awkwardness that he feels when he knows he mustn't hit others when he is angry but must instead talk about it to find a resolution, his inability to do this despite how hard he tries is utterly heartbreaking.

I don't resent that he is autistic. I have said many times and I re-iterate that were it not for him I would have self destructed years ago. I do resent the effect that the autism itself has on him. How, as it has become more "noticeable" and obvious that he is different to some of his peers, parents hold back their children, the invitations to parties do not extend to him, he is glared at for behaviour that he cannot help.

I resent and I despise how it makes My Boy sad, how it robs him of his happiness, and how he isolates himself from others because he is now so used to rejection that he figures he may just as well act upon the impulses autism provides.

I resent that I think that he doesn't deserve it, because you know, he doesn't deserve it.

I resent how his mainstream school have dug their heels in over statementing, and yet threatened me repeatedly that they will exclude him from school, enforcing illegal exclusions on him that I facilitated in his Reception year, how they have refused to get involved to help him, how the "blame" for the actions caused by his autism has been placed upon me, and how, when they purport that changes they have railed against have improved his behaviour by 70% last week have meant that his behaviour is increasingly disintegrating this week.

I resent that I didn't over rule him and insist he went to a school that I thought more trustworthy, had a better OFSTED (although admittedly it is in a "worse" area), and was rumoured to have better experience with SEN children.

I hate myself for thinking that his instant happiness was more important that his ongoing happiness; that I didn't sacrifice the continuity of children who could tolerate him when he was less obviously "weird" and different when he entered Recepton at 4 who now find him unbearable at 6.

I wish that I had thought it through more, and decided against the school next to his old nursery, where he still receives some after school care, to give continuity of grown ups the group that has let him down the most.

I wish for him to be happy. I want for The Boy to be happy. I need for My Boy to happy.

It is finding the way and taking the action that is most appropriate, knowing the damage a wrong decision could inflict today, the sadness it may cause, will provide him with a future that is full of the good stuff. A future where he will attain all that I have ever wanted for him; happiness.

Absence

2010-05-26T21:30:00.000+01:00

I have been absent for a time whilst I wallowed in a strange half world of what I perceived to be near emotional "normality". I have floated in a space of disinterested polarity, filling my time and re-directing my anger.

Instead of weeping, I have been painting. Rather than gorging and vomiting, I have been creosoting. I have been organising my garden, removing clutter. Getting organised.

I suppositioned that I can do nothing about the eponymous depression that looms over me; it is something that will always be there to some degree or another. I can medicate it, I can yoga it, I can nutrition it, but the basic chemical inbalance within me will always be there.

Sometimes that inbalance will be bearable, other times it will be crippling. On the days that it is crippling, I will paint a wall. On the days it is bearable, I will worry for when it returns to destroy me.

I shall feel no less mentalist, but the house will look pretty spiffing.

In the meantime, my thoughts of deleting this blog have just been blasted out of the water. Shit's happening, and I need to talk about it. I can't do it in person, because it makes me feel too awkward, because I like to be private about some things, but I've just been told by someone that it helped them to read what I write, so fuck it - I'm in.

Ready?

West Ham

2010-05-06T10:39:00.000+01:00

There is only one rule that I follow where football is concerned, and that is ABC (Anyone But Chelsea). To me, Chelsea are the blue team well known for having a sinister figure throwing money to invest in a side that contains people that cheat and do not care for their team mates. They are a side that does not show interest in the ordinary fans that come to support them week after week. They do not care about fair play; they show no interest in the big picture, the team does not concern them, it appears to be all about personal gain.
Winning and doing what is best for them; accruing the most money; getting a result regardless of who they damage - that, to me, is the blue team.

There is only one team for me, and that is West Ham. I have loved West Ham for a long time. I have seen them relegated, I have seen them promoted, I have seen them win and I have seen them fail.

There is no sensible person that could blame the club's misfortune on one singular human being, as that merely displays crass stupidity. If we look at football nationally, there is a decrease in the amounts being paid to players, in the amount that the clubs earn, and an increase in forced relegations due to clubs falling into administration. This can also be seen globally.

I do not like their current owners. I did not like their last owner. For me, it is not about who owns the team. It is about the team itself working as a team. It is about what the team stands for.

To me, West Ham stands for truth. They are what is good about the UK. There is an affection for them that is almost London wide. That is because, despite their fiscal situation, despite the mistakes made by them, they stand for the greater good. We know that they will get better. We know that it is a difficult situation that we we are in. We know that there are issues that need to be resolved. We know that there have been crushing mistakes and mis-management. We know that there have been mistakes in the past, some of them due to us, some due to the past malaction of others.

We also know that it can be made better. We are in it for the long haul. We know that we can suceed, because we can.

When I look at the owners of West Ham, although I don't like them, I know that, put in a room with the other owners, they are the cleverest of all of them.

This is what I want from any leader. I want the cleverest person in the room to be in charge, to lead and direct. I am not interested in the one that looks best in a suit.

I want the one that has experience of turning situations around, who has led to victory, and I want to keep that person when times are challenging and hard.

For me, the blue team will never be able to offer that to me.

The past is no longer relevant, it is the future that concerns me. I am ready to pay more for a season ticket, because it has been told to me honestly that by doing this my children have a good chance of loving this team just like I do.

I want a club that I can bring my kids to, one that has some of the best facilities for children in the premiership, where they support disabled children like mine, where they support the community and develop support networks within it.

I care for the future. I want the future to be fair, and fair for all. That is why I will always, always love West Ham, and I could never support the blue team.

The Backyardigans

2010-04-27T09:05:00.000+01:00

At present, both t'Midgets are in the grip of a bizarre obsession with children's animated cartoon, "The Backyardigans". This is a Canadian effort, where they use their imaginations to play (which is great for autistic children to watch and get a grip on the concept of).

Both children have their favourites. The Boy favours Pablo the penguin, for the glaring reason that said penguin is blue and does hand flaps. Lid prefers Uniqua, or as she calls her, "Pink One", because she is, er, pink and a bit violent. Clearly, there is no discernable reason why either should show allegence to these exact animations as they in no way reflect their actual personalities. Ahem...

One of their favourite episodes is about an attempt to join the Tidy Club, which is seemingly thwarted by a group of worm like creatures called the Wormins, who make mess where ever they go. Sadly, i can't reveal any more than this as I wouldn't like to spoil it for you, though I can tell you they sing a rather nifty ditty called "Wormin Party", because, you know, they are worms.

This morning Lid, in her typically hesitant way, barged into the toilet whilst Daddy was using it. She pointed at his penis, and shouted to her brother "Look! It's a Wormin! Quick, come and look!"

Cue Daddy yanking up his underpants swiftly, and making a mental note to lock the lavatory door when he is using it in future...

Happy Birthday

2010-04-13T07:52:00.000+01:00

Happy birthday, Guy Fawkes, rubbish conspirator against the Government that ended in abject failure.

Bon anniversaire Ron Perlman, epitome of cool and the best interpretation of a graphic novel character ever.

Congratulations on being founded, the Metropolitain Museum of Art, and hurray for the anniversary of the first elephant from India to land in America.

Most of all, happy birthday to The Boy, whom I met after giving birth to him and fell in love with a little while later. May I always look at you and feel that swell of pride, the prick of a tear in my eyes, and nod sagely whilst beaming broadly and announcing to all "I made him in my tummy, you know. Practically all by myself."

Happy birthday, The Boy. 6 today and yet destined to always be only seconds old to your Mum. I am loving your work, Monkey, as are all those who know you. Continue, please.

A Correction and Apology.

2010-04-07T15:52:00.002+01:00

In a previous post, I claimed that I couldn't find a picture of Gordon Brown with an animal. I subsequently light heartedly posted a picture featuring him and David Cameron, whereby I insinuated that David Cameron was a dumb animal.

I can see that this wrong and that I shouldn't have committed that to t'internet. I apologise heartily to all those of you who have animals.

Of course, there is a picture of Gordon Brown with a feckless, witless, dumb animal, in existence. It was lazy research on my part to claim otherwise.

Again, my apologies for my previous mistake. Please find the corrected image below.

Gordon Brown, Texture Like Sun

2010-04-07T15:42:00.001+01:00

What concerns me about this photo is;

1) Gordon - wrong fucking finger. Back to Scottish hard bastard school;

2) He's not even trusted with an animal - I did a search and couldn't find a picture of Gordon with a dumb animal anywhere.

Well, apart from this one;

Er...

2010-04-07T15:35:00.000+01:00

Of course, the Green party would never kill a puppy to get elected like what that David Cameron would. Think of the carbon footprint that would cause...

Dave Says...

2010-04-07T10:03:00.000+01:00

"Vote for me or the puppy gets it."

What Mrs Bear Did Next

2010-04-05T07:58:00.000+01:00

Some of you will be aware that The Boy's long standing companion, Mrs Bear, went missing in January of this year.

I wrote a post on the blog, and asked someone on Twitter to RT it. What followed, frankly, blew me away.

A number of twitter users contacted me, asking if they could help. People I "know" on Facebook contacted me, wanting to help too. They all suggested the same thing - that Mrs Bear had on holiday, and would want to send tales of her adventures home to her favourite Boy.

A stack of postcards arrived for The Boy from Mrs Bear, detailing her travels both across the UK and globally.

Next, a number of extremely kind people started to send him "cousins" of Mrs Bear, who Mrs Bear had decided should come to stay with him to make sure that he was ok.

These are literally just a very small number of the bears and cards that he was sent. They still reside in his bed, with favourites Patch (a blue dog that came to stay a few days after Mrs Bear went travelling) and the new Mrs Bear taking pride of place on his pillow when he is not there cuddling them.

After a panic stricken month, and the realisation that Mrs Bear was not coming back (despite our efforts and those of our local shops in Waltham Cross putting up posters advertising The Boy's lost bear, we knew that our only chance lay with trying to find a replacement. All we could find listed on ebay was innumerable cream or blue bears, and we knew that we would have to do some very specific work on Mrs Bear.

When Mrs Bear first joined us at Wiltshire Towers (proprietors at the time : The Boy and Big Momma K), she was a very bright pink. She remained a very bright pink, until Mummy accidentally put her in the wash with a blue sock, when she became a rather stunning purple. The Boy didn't seem to mind, but I knew that it would involve a good deal of work on my part to make any interloper look a convincing friend for The Boy.

A new bear was eventually found on ebay by Himself, after a great deal of help from various very dear and kind friends who also scoured sale sites, lost toy sites, craft sales and their local charity shops daily.

When she was arrived at the newly established Wiltshire Towers (CEO : Lid), she was so blindingly pink that I couldn't believe that the original Mrs Bear had ever shared that colour. The process began.

Whereas this bear was plump, Mrs Bear had become emaciated from cuddles. She had been placed on The Boy's face many times to offer him comfort and relaxation as he struggled to sleep every night. She had been used to calm his hands when he was particularly upset.

The allure of the original Mrs Bear was not her cuddliness, but that she stank of Mummy. Everytime she was washed, she would be tucked in my bra next to my left bosom, so that she would emanate comforting Mummy stench when I was at work.

She also had to be washed and that colour amended.

It was a terrifying week where I tried to emulate that original Bear look. She was washed three times a day to make her less full. A variety of dark clothes were used to amend her colour. She was cuddled by me almost 24 hours a day, secreted somewhere on my person.

We started to prepare The Boy that, maybe, Mrs Bear would not look the same when she came home. She may be a different colour. She may be bigger than he remembered. She might not smell the same.

Eventually, when it came to Mrs Bear's triumphant return, all plans and bets were off. The Boy saw her peeping out of my top, and screamed with joy. He grabbed her, and cuddled her, held her close and was determined that he would keep her safe.

The result? However much I worried, I think that this says it all.

Many thanks to all of you who gave your time, postcards, bears and help. Whilst the "real" Mrs Bear did a Sam Beckett, I think this one makes an admirable replacement. Thank you to all.

The Importance of Politics

2010-04-05T05:55:00.001+01:00

Those who know me through my "other" work will know that my interest in politics has spread to my children.

The extent of this was shown last year, previous to the 4th July elections. Upon being canvassed by a pair of BNP supporters (Why do they always travel in pairs? Is it so that they always have someone to fellate after a tough day's neo nazism?), I chased them off my property with a mini trampette (the most action it has ever seen), whilst The Boy shouted out "You're a nazi and nazis smell of poo."

It is suggested that the reason members of the BNP were elected was because voter apathy was at an all time high, and that combined with disgust at the way that MPs were extorting the public with their expenses claims saw many voters stay inside. Essentially, these fuckers slipped in through the back door, which is something I believe their glorious leader knows a great deal about.

We are now approaching a general election, believed to be being held on 6th May 2010.

I could type a long list of non policies held by the BNP and why I don't think you should vote for them, but let's be honest, if you vote BNP you're unlikely to be reading this anyway (unless you're the person that keeps sending me Jamaican money and posting those notes through my door, and if you are I rather wish you'd stop. It's most tiresome.)

I'd prefer to ask that you have ensured that you are registered to vote, and that, having made sure that you have registered, you get yourself to the polling station and exercise your right to vote.

We are so lucky in the UK, we have a proliferation of rights that we take for granted, voting being one of them.

When you think about not registering, when you consider not voting, when your apathy runs you down and you start to question just how lucky we are, it might serve you to reflect on these ladies. If ever there were a reason to celebrate women, these chicks would be it. Just saying.

Mentalism

2010-04-05T04:48:00.000+01:00

Mentalism has returned to Wiltshire Towers. It transpires that if I forget to take my medication for a few days, this will co-incide with a something synonymous with my depression raising its vile head and throwing me off kilter. I will then fall into utter annoyance, and have to obsess over that synonym. In the past, days like that have become weeks of deep funks.

I will also trot about in a withdrawal haze, which is more than a little unpleasant as well as being deeply trippy.

Thus, back to the tablets before it affects my ability to live my life in an oasis of semi organised faux-control, but perhaps with added reminders and alarms to take the bloody things.

Bingo

2010-04-05T04:34:00.000+01:00

It can be observed by any one in possession of eyes that I have the fashion sense of a blind woman. I have nothing that is provocative, cool or trendy in my wardrobe (certainly not that I can wear at any rate. I often find one or both t'midgets hiding in there playing silly buggers, both of whom can be described as effortlessly cool just by virtue of being, but it is unlikely that I would shove them around my neck as a fetching scarf.)

I do like the idea that, at some junction, I will get enough interest in myself to give a shit about how I look, past the "does it have vomit / snot / blood / saliva / food on it?" It seems highly unlikely.

In the meantime, we can all play Karen Bingo, whereby you can carry a card with a list of possible bodily fluids, food stuffs, craft materials, and general household items that may (and likely are) smeared across my clothing. Upon meeting, you can scan my clothing and tick off your card.

A full house wins you a withering look. To the gamecards!

Gordon Brown, Stick It Up Your Bum

2010-04-05T04:27:00.001+01:00

News reaches Wiltshire Towers that young Gordon Brown believes that the way to entice women into voting for Labour is to promise us that we can have home births. This promise has apparently "wooed" us, the female gender, to vote for him, along with a promise that new dads can have an overnight hospital bed when the baby is born.

Might I suggest that, in order to "woo" women voters, he starts by not assuming that our reason for living is to push out babies, just as those pointless adverts that simper "so easy, a man could do it" might do well to stop thinking that to balance inequality we must portray men as stupid.

The thing is, given enough time and metaphorical rope, men are perfectly capable of doing that job themselves without any assistance from women.

Seriously - home births and overnight hospital beds, Gordon? Why not promise us free Dairy Milk and a Mother's Day card? Or at the very least, legal entitlement, protection, pensions, and related pay for the work that mothers do every day, twenty four hours a day and 365 days a year, every year, until we die or our children do?

And if I may be so impertinent as to remind you that not all women want to have children, perhaps you'll be wanting to re-think your assumption that we are all duly won over by one piss poor promise that you couldn't possibly live up to with the NHS in the state that it is.

It's shit like this Gordo that makes it very hard to keep defending you, knobber.

Happy Days

2010-04-05T04:18:00.002+01:00

I am rather lucky to know a number of rather groovy people. We all share interests, though it can be a very self contained venn diagram.

Despite the differences that we have, we can all be tolerant of each other's beliefs, however ridiculous we find them to be.

What irritates, and always has, is the sanctimonious attitude held that "their belief" is better than anothers.

In general, I find athiest friends to be the worst where tolerance is concerned.

I'm not advocating a theory of creationism - personally, I cannot conceive that anyone could dismiss the evidence of evolution, nor dismiss the scientific physical evidence that correlates the Big Bang theory, but I wouldn't judge another if that is their belief.

I have had leaflets thrust upon me telling me that I need to get to church, that Jesus wants to save me, that I am condemning my children to eternal damnation by not having them affilaited to a religion.

I am told that I am an idiot for having any concept of a god figure, that I must be an uneducated lummox for believing in anything past science.

I reside in the middle of the two. I can't commit to athiesm, and I can't sign on the line and affiliate myself to a religion either.

I remain a hopeful agnostic. Hopeful because I cannot bear the idea that the people I have loved who have died are just worm food, an agnostic because I can't conceive a being that is said to be higher than us mere mortals would hate people who are different.

My faith isn't immoveable and it isn't particularly strong. I have fallen out with my god, and we have stopped speaking for a number of years in the past. Presently, we speak infrequently. We are like estranged siblings.

I believe more in my children than I could ever do in an invisible omnipresence. I believe in people's right to have beliefs that do not echo my own. I believe in the right to disagree, the right to argue, the right to disbelieve.

A lady who I consider a very good friend and am lucky to have in my life told me recently that she is a Jehovah's Witness, which took me back a bit as I had found her to be so tolerant of me. As she said to me at the time "If you're so narrow minded that you can't be friends with me because of it, I don't want you to be my friend anyway."

And that ladies and gentleman, is the very definition of class, style and grace. It told me in so many ways that I still smile when I think about it.

I mean really; do we all have to hate because we disagree? Can there be no room for us to believe in different things?

Exactly.

Happy Easter. Or Hoppy Eggster. Or Happy Friday, Sunday and Monday. Or Happy Return of the Zombie Jew. Or Happy Bank Holiday.

Whatever. Let's just be happy, tolerant and try to get along. Happy Days, all.

I Fucked Up

2010-04-05T02:29:00.000+01:00

When I was 8, I wanted to be a stuntman. The fact that I was a girl did not deter me from my desire to be a stunt-man, I was determined that that was my destiny (spurred on by my obsession with "The Fall Guy").

As I got older, I wanted to be a jourmalist. I started a degree, and was utterly appalling at turning up. Whilst there, my Nan got sick, it turned out that the course didn't have a proper accreditation, and I left fairly quickly after starting.

I wouldn't have been a good journalist; I don't have a nose for a story, I don't write very well as it is, and I doubt that that would have changed had I been writing about things I didn't care for.

Years passed, and the dream shifted from writing to practicing law. I did my degree, had a traineeship lined up for after my LPC, then found myself pregnant and single. That dream was put on hold. Instead, I continued my studies, became a parent, and continued along.

There are many things that I have wanted to do; many careers I have thought about training to do, but to be honest, I've fucked up every single one of them, happily and deliberately. I have complete faith in myself that I wil continue to fuck up with glorious ineptitude throughout my life. Dreams will be thought of. I will not attain them. They will shift, they will alter, and I will bitch that I could have been a contender when of course I couldn't. I never could have been.

We, as a race of beings, fuck up continuosly and will continue to do so ad infinitum until we no longer exist. I will blaze the trail, be the marker leader, stand as a shining example of fucked-up-ness to you all. Shrines will be planned to my ineptitude, but these will drop through as something else is thought of instead, and as a nation we sigh and think "procrastination - maybe later."

In the meantime, let us remember that my fuck ups aren't yours. Your fuck ups don't belong to your children. Just because you had a dream, and it didn't suceed, it doesn't mean that there isn't another dream that can succeed.

Often, the dreams that you thought you had will subtly shift and change, until they bear no resemblance to the original. The dream of being a journalist falls because you just aren't talented enough and you know it, the opportunities for that "proper" career doesn't happen not because you couldn't do it but rather because you won't do it or commit to it.

It isn't that you stop chasing the dream, merely that the dream shifts. Writing pales into comparison to hanging out with a relative you love. No career could ever be as important as being a Mummy, not to me.

I suppose that this is really a post about love.

In moments of deep depression, I like to think that I fucked up my dreams, that I fucked up my life, and that I'm fucking up my children's life too.

I know, when I am honest and feeling sane, that all that happened is that my dreams shifted and changed. They stopped being puerile, they stopped being about posturing, and they started to be about something tangible, real and attainable.

My dreams will stay. They will change and they will alter. And yet the only one that has remained true for the past 6 years is that I do not fuck up the dreams of my babies. I am confident of little in life, but I know that I can make this one dream happen.

Pizza Party

2010-04-05T01:05:00.000+01:00

Another birthday party has passed for The Boy, as chaotic as all the others (but at least not held in our house this time).

This time, Pizza Hut was the unwilling victim of a flood of aggressive and over active five and six year olds, most of whom were boys.

One of the (many) benefits of having a party for either Midget at a location other than Wiltshire Towers is that, when either child has had enough, they can leave the premises to the comparative calm of our house (rather than have guests still at the house after both kids have gone to bed and I am in my pyjamas, even when the party has finished at 3pm. True story. Happened twice).
I had pre warned them that some of our party are disabled, birthday boy included, for no reason other than I like to cover my bases should something happen and it is easier for me to pre ascertain where quiet areas are should any of the tribe need them.

Here, the differently abled kids, and the younger ones The Boy had let Lid invite from her class, behaved impecably (bar one who ran around like a ferret up piping and could not be pinned down, whose mother said it was nice to have a break and then thankfully dragged him away an hour before it ended), being helpful, kind, and generally a joy to be about. The Boy's female best friend was wonderful throughout, taking pictures for us, and the special kids and younger guests were generally rambucious, excited and fun, including a young female friend of mine who highlighted tv programmes to me which I hadn't realised were on.

The neurotypicals - not so much, to the extent that one of them was asked to leave by myself after he shoved one of The Boy's friends so hard that he hit his face on a seat seperator and his tooth went through his lip.

The lessons I have learnt from this?

This is the second time we have had a party for either kid away from home, and I think that it is something we will be sticking with. At home, we have had parents arrive several hours before a party is due to start or after a party has ended (even here, I was left at the venue for an additional 45 minutes after the party had over run by a good hour trying to phone one lad's parents, neither of whom answered their mobiles.)

It gave a quick escape for the most important person there - the birthday boy himself. I didn't spend a week cleaning the house only to have some sanctimonious mother spot a cobweb I hadn't. And I didn't end up with a shedload of food that wasn't eaten (though we did end up with guests that weren't invited, which is usual, but slightly irritating when you are paying per child).

Lastly (and let's ensure that the fact that I am listening to something he has said get back to him), allowing The Ex to veto children that have acted badly at our house in the past (the lad that hit The Boy's mate has a history of throwing toys on the train track that runs next to our house) would have been an excellent idea. But we'll keep quiet about that...

Nuts

2010-04-04T06:31:00.000+01:00

On Friday, I was lucky enough to spend some time with my eldest nephew.

D is now a strapping 15 year old, close to the six foot mark, replete with almost broken voice, stubble, and that gangly way of the teenager that is yet to realise just how wonderful he is, and the amazing man he will grow to be.

When he decided to make his debut to the world, I went to sit with my neice whilst my sister was taken to hospital. My brother in law had crept into the house and chosen not to disturb me, as he thought I had some hot date ensconsed in my bed when the reality was a drunk friend whom I kept awake both that night and others by snoring at full volume all night.

D and I first met when he was 12 hours old, and the size of a 3 month old baby, weighing in as he did at 12 lbs and 12 ounces. I still wince when I look at him. I am unable to see him as any older than the huge 12 hour old baby that was unceremoniously plonked in my arms by my sister, the smallest and yet the biggest baby I had ever held at that point, who terrified me so utterly that I still stay away from babies as much as I am able to to this day.

When I split with my son's biological father, it was D who was hit hard by it. It was D who spent time to hang out with his very boring tearful and pregnant Auntie. It was D who offered to be The Boy's big brother. It was D who said that, when he was bigger, that he would be a fireman, or a doctor, but that when he was a daddy that would be his most important job.

He is a lovely sensitive fellow, and part of the reason that The Mammy moved in with me was to free the room she had been using so as he might be able to have some *cough* private time. This has not, as of yet, occured.

Thus he has a score of magazines for the gentleman purveyor, locked in a secure case that he *cough* peruses as and when he has the opportunity to, seeing as he shares a room with his two significantly younger
and very annoying brothers.

On Friday, we went for a walk and I offered to spot him a magazine. We browsed the shelves, and although I knew he wouldn't want CBeebies magazine, I imagined that he would want Ben 10, or Toxic, or similar.

He plumped for Nuts. Which is ironic I suppose, seeing as he'll be using the content to do his own particular brand of pumping...

World Autism Day

2010-04-02T00:45:00.000+01:00

Today, 2nd April 2010, is World Autism Awareness Day.

To celebrate, those who love someone with autism will be wearing something blue.

If you've read this blog and vaguely enjoyed any part of it, please join me in celebrating my children's disability by wearing something blue, taking a picture of yourself then posting it as a comment.

That would be smashing. Thank you for reading.

All at Wiltshire Towers.

Team Around My Child Meeting

2010-03-31T07:22:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, The Boy's Team Around The Child review meeting was held.

This is an opportunity for all agencies involved with The Boy to provide input as to how their work with him has affected his ability to integrate into the school, his behaviour generally and what the "next step" is.

I have seen the numbers around the table swell from being myself, the SENCO and the head, to representatives from the Autism Advisory Service, The Behaviour Unit of CAMHS, an educational psychologist, the speech and language therapist and, rather more importantly to my mind, his teacher.

A general review was held, where again the SENCO refused to listen to what was being said. This time, instead of it being me shouting at her, there were a whole body of professionals doing it for me, and she quickly learnt to do as she was told.

It is a huge shame that it has taken this long for him to get the help he needs. I know all parents say this about their children, but The Boy really is a lovely kid. Despite the violence that he displays through frustration, he is a kind and thoughtful person, he is funny, he is sweet, and as recently discovered, he is extremely intelligent.

The school decrees that the next step for The Boy will be exclusion, as per the head. Now that bodies are involved to assist with his behaviour and it isn't improving as much as they think it should (and we will ignore that they appear to believe that it should magically change overnight rather than acknowledging that a lot of it is learnt behaviour that will take much time to amend), exclusion is said to be the next step.

It's a horrifying step, but it does mean that the application of a statement will be taken more seriously by the panel who consider it. It's highly upsetting to know that your child makes anyone feel unsafe, especially when you know that from personal experience. It is worse when you are told that it is without basis that he acts like that, when you know that it isn't because he is naughty that he does it.

The review also enables queries to be raised in regards to the previous or existing CAFs. One of mine has been the school's insistence on levying a distinction between violence towards an adult or child. If he is violent or threatening towards an adult, I am supposed to be phoned at the time of incident whilst he was in the room. I had wanted for this to also be the case if a child was attacked. When I am called, it is as I leave the house to collect him. It transpires that he is not in the room when it is done. Thus, the calls are made with the only punishment being that I am made to feel crap and a bad parent.

I am told that it is school policy that I be called. The others around the table tell the SENCO that being human and considering the feelings of a parent who is unsupported and has been doing this alone should be school policy. I cry. We reconvene for 6 weeks time. I'll keep you updated.

So...

2010-03-29T19:18:00.000+01:00

So, happy birthday Norman Tebbit, alleged humanoid and former MP for Chingford.

How I look back fondly on the day you canvassed at my Nan and Grandad's house, speaking to the former.

"Would you like us to arrange a lift for you to the pollong station?" he enquired of the wheelchair bound grand matriach.

"Yes, I would" she replied.

He duly made a note of this, and confirmed that he would arrange the lift for her at a set time.

"I imagine we can count on your vote for the Conservative party?" he enquired, with what I imagine he envisaged constituted a smile.

"No chuffing fear!" shouted Nan, as she slammed the door on his face, and sat laughing hysterically.

Oh - happy days.

Mousetrap

2010-03-22T15:10:00.000Z

As of late, we have been having a bit of a problem with a mouse at Wiltshire Towers. It's not one that has come in as a pet, rather one that keeps sneaking in through the cupboard under the sink.

A number of techniques were employed to persuade it out of the house (including a sonic mouse repeller, which did nothing). These were stepped up when the swine ate huge chunks out of my Sesame Street t-shirt and nibbled through my favourite bra.

In order to address this problem, I purchased a number of humane traps, the eponomously titled "Big Cheese". Apparently, once loaded and set, these will humanely trap my mouse (and yes, I am referring to it as a singular mouse as the idea that there are multiple mice makes me feel more than a little sweaty), whom I can then drive several miles away and release into a field. It sounds excellent.

Sadly, it would appear that Wiltshire Towers has a magical effect on anyone under the height of 5 foot, making them into quasi genuis'.

The result of these traps? The fecking mouse has stolen the bait from one of the traps, and as for the other one?

Time to try again, methinks...

Jamie

2010-03-22T12:13:00.000Z

Today, I met The Boy's speech and language therapist.

She was utterly lovely, extremely sweet and passionate about what she does. She also clocked me giving a small child that was misbehaving "a look" and congratulated me on it, so she has gone down extremely well with Big Momma K of Wiltshire Towers.

She is what you fellas may refer to as "a bit of alright", resplendant in glorious hair (mine is greasy and all over the place and doubtless nit-filled), acrylic nails (I hide my sodden cuticles from her view), gloriously slim (the bitch), tanned (whilst I am easily seen at night due to my reflective skin), and has an impressive rack on display.

The Boy, however, is unconvinced of same.

As we walked together to do some work with her, on this the second occassion that he has seen her, he whispers to me "Is Jamie a boy or a girl?"

I lean down and say, "She's a girl."

He looks unsure. "Are you sure Mummy? Because Jamie is a boy's name."

"Jamie can be a girl or a boy's name. Like Shirley."

He bursts into laughter. "Shirley? Don't be silly, Mummy!"

I consider running through other names past Big Daddy, like Marian for John Wayne, but leave it there.

He nudges me again "Are you sure she's a girl?"

I bend down and whisper very carefully "Yes, because she looks like a girl, doesn't she? She's got boobies like Mummy."

He nods sagely, then blurts out, very loudly "Yes, but she's also got a moustache. Look Mummy! Jamie's got a moustache, so she must be a boy!"

Jamie can hear us. I smile and shush The Boy.

He goes up and points at Jamie's upper lip "Look Mummy! There it is! Just there! I told you she has a moustache! She's a boy, isn't she?"

Of all the times when The Boy's expressive language makes a sudden leap to catch up with his comprehensive language...

He's Not Naughty, He's Got Autism : Part 2

2010-03-22T11:58:00.000Z

The positive side of The Boy's recent run of extremely violent behaviour has been an influx of professional input to assist him. This has mainly consisted of an entirely new body of health professionals, none of whom I can praise highly enough. Their contributions, although late, may well help "rescue" The Boy, and mean that he doesn't get lost in the system, which is a big fear of mine.

The down side is that I have to drag myself along to meet new people, though this has not been a trial with the new set as all have been extremely positive about The Boy which has instantly endeared them to me.
Today, I met with The Boy's speech and language therapist (SLT).

SLT's play a huge role in helping autistic children, especially those with behavioural problems. The poor behaviour generally stems because they either do not understand what they are doing, or they cannot express themselves.

We know, for example, that a lot of The Boy's "acting out" is because he can't express himself. Finally, the management within his school is also coming round to the idea that he isn't naughty though volition, it is because of his autism.

Whilst speaking with the SLT today, I am told that The Boy's comprehension skills are those of an 8-9 year old. His reading skills match those of an average 11 year old. His ability to express himself falls significantly lower than this, averaging at the 3-4 year old mark.

Now that this has been established, the lightbulbs are starting to click on for those within his school. They can finally see that it isn't insolence, it isn't a child that is naughty, rather a young disabled lad who cannot express his frustration at other's inability to understand him, thus he reacts in a way that warrants attention and questioning.

He can't say what wants as he literally does not have the expressive language to do so, nor the skill to construct the sentence, but he can provoke adults into questioning him until we hit the jackpot for the reasoning behind his behaviour. Which shows exactly how clever the wee sausage is.

A huge weight has been lifted for me. Finally, what I have been maintaining for the longest time is being recognised - he's not naughty, he's got autism.

Jelly Babies

2010-03-21T00:50:00.000Z

The Boy and I are having our nightly cuddle, and today we are playing letter games.

One of us will pick a letter, and then we say as many words as we can that start with that letter. He always wins as I forget what letters words start with, on account I am lying down so therefore only the files marked "Male Misdemeanours" are at the forefront of my mind, rather than anything intelligent.

Once a word has been said, it must be used in context, or it is disqualified or as The Boy deigns, it is "denied".

Tonight, we have done "X" (extremely hard, especially in the context of phonics), "C", "M" (which included my Spanish name, which is apparently Mum), "D" (with Daddy's Spanish name being Dad), "L" (Lidster's being Lid - you get the idea), and we are now doing "B".

Mummy : "Brain, as in you have brains in your head"

Mummy (On a roll) : "Bum, as in you do stinky farts through your bum"

The Boy : "Boobies." (followed by hysterical laughter) "Because you have boobies Mummy, and they make Insert Classmate's Dads eyes go wibbly. He told Insert Classmate that they are in a wibbly wobbly world of their own."

This is followed by more hysterical laughter, and a hearty ping at my bosom.

Naturally, I am horrified. And totally chuffed.

Careless

2010-03-16T14:23:00.000Z

I have a tendency to be careless with the things that I own.

When changed out of for bed, my jeans tend to stay on the part of the floor they land on until reaching the washing bag the nexy day.

My clean clothes don't get ironed as they will only get creased.

I don't save anything for "best", because one cannot tell when "best" is, or indeed if it will ever come. Better to live in the now and enjoy our possessions than to have a relative find the things we kept and never used on our passing.

I am, as I say, careless with the things that I own because they are only things. I use them often, I enjoy them, and I have fun with what I have (which after several evictions and a number of moves is not a great deal).

I am not careless with the things that I do not own. When I am loaned something, I am extremely careful with it because it does not belong to me, and as I have been entrusted with it it is my duty to ensure that it is kept with care and in the same state with which I received it.

It saddens me when other people do not have the same attitude to things that do not belong to them.

For example, I often say that I "have" t'midgets on borrow. This is to remind me that they are not mine to keep, they belong to themselves, and that my job is to feed and water them until they are ready to get out there on their own.

I take great care with them because they do not belong to me. Whilst I am not a good parent by a great distance, it is highly unlikely that you would ever find my three year old wandering the corridors of a hotel at 11pm at night in urine sodden in their day clothes.

There is no danger that a strange woman in a hotel will be the one to comfort my child as they cry inconsolably for their mother, tired and confused, nor that she will end up covered in my child's urine and be unable to change them because they are not her child and she is told not to do so. I cannot conceive of a situation whereby this strange woman will hold my child close and tell them that it is ok, that she will help them, where she will struggle to return the child to its parent and room only to find two other children, the eldest of whom is 10, sleeping alone in a hotel room, all fully clothed, with a television brought from blaring out cartoons.

I can't think why I would leave my children in a room in such disarray and squalor that, despite having been there for two days it appears to have been lived in for many more than that. I do not believe that the strange woman would have to make what appears to be increasingly hysterical and unreasonable demands to contact the police to the managers on duty who are more concerned with getting themselves home for the night, delaying taking the action that they know they need to take by repeating what the strange lady has told her about the legal age for leaving children unsupervised whilst the other fiddles with the cross around their neck being anything but christian in their actions. That the strange woman will be telling her duty manager to phone all the managers above him to confirm that he should call the police, that she will have to tell him to call an inhouse manager, nor that she will end up shouting over her superior's voice as he leaves increasingly confused messages, that he will tell her to shut up and she will tell him that she will not.

I will not return to the hotel at 12.15am to be confronted by someone who has pulled from their bed, who does so with such grace and calm that the strange woman thinks that if her child turns out like that she will burst with pride? Who then ensures that the matter is passed to the relevant authority, because it is the right thing to do and because they are a decent human being.

I don't believe that any of these things could ever happen with something that didn't belong to me.

In a time when children are disappearing, when a parent is not prosecuted for their neglect because they are "professionals" or because they paid the ultimate price of leaving their child, that of their child's life, I don't see how any of us could knowingly be careless with something that does not belong to us ever again.

Tonight, I will hold my children tight and be grateful that I know the value of everything and the price of nothing, and that the cost of carelessness is not something that I am acquainted with.

Fridge

2010-03-16T12:54:00.000Z

I like my fridge. It constitutes one of the many microcosms of the bigger world. In many ways, I would argue that people are a lot like the contents of a fridge.

Sometimes, whilst rooting through for something to have for tea, you'll find a surprise that you stashed and had forgotten - a chocolate bar maybe, or a nice bit of cheese.

Other times, you go in to look for something specific only to find that it has rotted beyond recognition and is no longer something that you want.

It could be that you used to really like chocolate muffins, then you had so many that the mere thought turns your stomach. Perhaps you had brie once when you were a bit drunk and really liked it, but sober it's intolerable. Possibly you had asparagus cooked in a certain way and it was delicious, but any other way does not suit your tastes.

The surprises, whether good or bad, are somehow pleasing, if rather irritating at times.

What is horrifying is when you stop being surprised, by both the contents of your fridge and by the larger world. On that day, something inside you dies a little which can never be replaced, regardless of how hard you try to resuscitate it.

R.I.P. that part of me that died at 12.15 this morning.

Happy Mother's Day

2010-03-15T08:34:00.000Z

When I am not shouting at my children, sitting on my bum eating sweets or idly picking fluff from my naval, I work nights at a hotel.

This past weekend has seen a rather large science fiction event being held on site. As well as The Doctor (and you know which one I mean - the scarfy one with the hat) and some other ones who are Most Definitely Not The Doctor, there were a lot of extremely dedicated fans, amongst whom were a number of very devoted autistic adults.

I wasn't working for much of the weekend and missed the most exciting parts (which included a large blue policeman's box, a small man in a robot outfit shouting out a four syllable word, both of which The Boy would have adored and, of course, THE DOCTOR himself, ).

I had been "warned" that "they" were a "pain", that they were "weird" and someone even rather stupidly said that it was ok for the autistic people to dress up and pretend to be characters, but not "the normal ones."

People can't help being idiotic and crass. It still hurts because even though right now my children are little, they will eventually become "weird adults". I expect that others will respect and remember that I have disabled children, especially the people I work with, some of whom I find to be, frankly, more than a bit odd themselves.

Last night, a number of our guests came up to show me the photographs they had had taken with "their" doctor. Most had the same expression of complete disbelief, but the fact that they were so excited was infectious, to me at least. They had taken on various poses; various guises; various characters. All were delighted, and it genuinely affected me.

My favourite point is the young man who comes to see me at 3am this morning, with his mum. He is 21, and dressed as the most flamboyant Most Definitely Not The Doctor. He shows me a number of pictures that have been taken of him with both The Doctor and Most Definitely Not The Doctors, him inside a blue policebox, etc. He speaks very little, apart from to do a number of very accurate impressions, and to tell me, most insistently, that today is Mother's Day and that this is his mum. He then gives his mum a small stroke of the arm and goes to look at the water in the fountain.

His mum tells me that her son is autistic, mostly non verbal. He is suffering from extreme depression, and regularly tries to hurt himself. He dreams of dying. He can lock into his own world and not acknowledge her for days at a time. She is her son's only support, and they have been locked out of the system.

She tells me that this is the first year he has even had it in mind that it is Mother's Day, and only because there was a sign by the signing point that said "Happy Mother's Day". She tells me that he does not usually touch her, that his speech is very limited, but that through coming to events like these, he has learnt to expand his vocabulary, found many like minded people, and that the stars themselves know how to interact with children like ours as they know that many of them are fans. She is visibly both over joyed and struggling.

As a friend of mine put it, for parents of special children, we try harder and are overjoyed with seemingly less.

It's not less, not really. It's so much more than those with neurotypical, or able bodied children can ever possibly imagine, or could ever hope to experience. The work we put in, the exhaustion we get back, the tantrums; it's worth it.

To all of you who parent, aunt, sister, grandparent, whether biologically or not - happy day. May you never give up, may you never be discouraged, and if you ever are, may a look at your small person, whatever their age or size, help you to keep going.

Avatar

2010-03-15T05:31:00.002Z

I wondered if anyone had mentioned your avatar to you? No, not "Avatar", your avatar. You know, the picture thingy that you have on your profile.

It's just, well, I don't want to be rude, but someone has to tell you.

In that picture, your face is puffy and bloated, your eyebrows looked plucked beyond all belief and reason, and I suppose in many ways it's a flattering picture considering it's your face. I'm guessing that you're using that for your online dating profile too, so really you should have been told before now. It may even be the reason that you're single. Well, that and your poor excuse for a personality, obviously.

I imagine that you wanted to project smouldering intellect, humour, good looks, bedroom prowess and masculine heterosexuality.

Unfortunately, your avatar presents a pre op transexual currently living as a woman with a penchant for serial killing.

I'm just saying...

The Hard Stuff

2010-03-15T05:10:00.000Z

When I was a nipper, back when Iceland was Bejams and the idea of an entire shop full of freezers containing food was utterly mad, you could buy a sauce to go on top of your ice cream.

It wasn't any sort of sauce - it was a magic sauce. It was contained within a mystical bottle, fashioned around a discombobulated Wizbit, with various horrifying "chocolate flavours", each with a conical lid fashioned to look like a penis exploding with ejaculate in a variety of bizarre colours.

You poured it on to the ice cream of your choice, and upon contact with the frozen good stuff, it would solidify (to a fashion) into a greasy, sickening hard "chocolate flavoured chocolate". Sort of.

When utterly desperate for chocolate, you could pour it in to one of those heavy bottomed brown glass bowls your Nan always had in her cupboard, and pop it in the fridge, where it would refuse to harden in any way, shape or form. You'd then give it 5 minutes in the freezer where, if the bowl hadn't cracked under the pressure, it would be utterly unmalleable and inedible, so you would have to heat it back to its runny form. Which again rendered it inedible.

If you were lucky, a bottle would appear in your household twice a year. If you were unlucky, it would make its way into your cupboard many more times than that.

I hear that they still make it. That makes me smile in the same way as when I remember Edd the Duck or Andy Peters. It wasn't the Derek Griffiths or Brian Cant of after dinner treats, but it was ok. I still remember it fondly and with a good degree of horror, whilst recoiling at the thought of seeing it again.

Happy days.

It wasn't my child

2010-03-09T05:44:00.000Z

In 1993, when I was 19 with a two year old niece, another two year old was the victim of a particularly horrifying murder.  The vileness of the case wasn't just because a life was taken. It was because it was such a young life, that such a level of violence had been endured by the baby before his death (which was nothing short of horrific); and that the perpetrators were mere children themselves.

Our reaction as a society should cause us shame. We railed on these children, and they were only children, called for their lives in exchange, threatened them, banged on the sides of the vans that transported them to and from their trials, persecuted their families, and became obsessive with seeing "justice be done." It was a damnation of us that they had been allowed to live in the shocking conditions that they both did; that they had "fallen down the cracks"; that nobody cared what had prompted their disengagement from the societal norm.

It has been interesting (if, by interesting, you mean utterly abhorrent) to read the differing interpretations of the reasons for Venables' behaviour that led to his recall under licence.

Whereas some areas of the media have seen his revelations of his actual identity as part of a breakdown, symptomatic of a person who cannot reconcile who they are and what they have done other, more sickening, areas have postulated him as revealing his identity due to a messiah complex, that he is revelling in his notoriety.

I have no idea which of these is true. It would give me comfort, as I imagine it would most of us, to think it is the former; comfort because it would mean that he did care about what he did, that he was feeling an inordinate amount of remorse for his actions. The idea that he would be lauding his crime does not ring true when, as a 10 year old, he sought and was denied the comfort of his mother whilst at trial.

What I am very aware of is that we do not know what happened for him to be recalled. The number of crimes for which you can be recalled under licence are wide. Their description of "serious allegations" is one to be determined on investigation, and we should all remember that, at this point, they are allegations.

It is wrong, both morally and legally, for the media to speculate on what has occurred. The witch hunters should bear in mind that any information that is revealed will ensure that not only Venables' trial will go awry but others will also.  If a male of 27 years with dark hair is set before a jury, it will not take long for them to add 2 + 2 to make 5. It seems odd that a nation, so suddenly obsessed with "seeing justice done", would want this to occur.

I did not know who Venables or Thompson were then, what sort of children they were. We do not know how they have adjusted to who they were, if they understand what they did, if they can comprehend the devastation their actions caused. We do not know them as adults, we do not know if the horror of their past has made them spiral into mental disintegration, or whether they have evolved into serial abusers. We do not know, and to pretend otherwise is supposition based on minimal information, information that is potentially damaging and harmful to all involved.

We do not know who James Bulger would have been either, and the tragedy is that his family never knew what sort of child he would have been, or teenager. They suffered a brutal loss, and one that is unimaginable to any who have not lived through it. They did not just lose a child, one was taken from them; subjected to torture, and whose hours on the earth were filled with terror, pain, and upset.

At the time that it happened, I was working as a press reader, reading the stories and the material daily until I couldn't ingest any more.  Every night I went to see my niece, I held her close, and was grateful that it hadn't been her. Every night, I would scrub my skin in the bath, because I couldn't reconcile how two babies could have done this to another baby, I couldn't comprehend how we, allegedly cogent and evolved, could bay for their blood.

Now, as it re-enters our hive consciousness in a way that, for some, it has never left, I am a parent. When I look at my children, the idea that anyone would hurt them causes me physical pain.  To think any further past that leaves me inconsolable. I couldn't conceive what my feelings would be were I in Bulgers' parents position. I suspect I would act with substantially less dignity than they have.

I like to think that, regardless of what my children do, I will always love and support them. I don't know what sort of adults they will become; I can speculate on it, but that doesn't mean that it will come true. We like to think that our offspring will reflect us in all our glory; we never think that they may not.

According to stereotype, there is strong evidence that my children will commit crime (single parent family, different fathers, living in a "socially deprived" area as per OfSted, lack of money, they have learning difficulties etc).  So did my own childhood, yet the worst I have done thus far is to absent mindedly stick a pen in my pony tail before leaving the office for the day.

I suppose what I have taken many rambling paragraphs to say is that I am a hypocrite.

I want for this boy, this victim in his own right, unequivocal justice. I want for him, should it be warranted, to have a fair trial. I want for him not to be hounded. I want him, should he be suffering psychologically, to receive treatment. I want for him to be afforded the same rights as anyone else who is accused.

I also want for James Bulger to still be alive.

We can all sit; make judgements, decisions, based on minimal information and poor journalism. We can scream liberally or illiberally, but the only fact that we have at our disposal is this.

It wasn't our child. It wasn't our children. We do not know. And how can we ever even pretend to?

Cake

2010-03-09T04:40:00.000Z

Today, The Boy is going on a school trip to The Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood. Whilst it is not his first school trip, it is the first one he has made without me as his personal co-hort. I am horribly nervous for him.

Despite my insistence that I wanted to accompany the group, I have been politely turned down. There are, I am told, enough grown ups going that my presence is not required. This includes the awful Miss Poo, whom The Boy now associates with all things related to punishment at school, so you can imagine the affect that's going to have on his behaviour.

Instead, I will spend my time today pacing nervously, and hoping that The Boy can cope.

In preparation for this school trip, we visited the museum during half term. Although he initially enjoyed it, his interest waned. There is a higher proportion of "things behind glass" than one would hope for at a museum that must see its audience as children, the areas for designated play aren't very large, and the acoustics are awful.

He found it so loud that, on the arrival of Auntie Hazel an hour or so after we had been inside, he looked at her, and seeing how distressed she was by the obvious volume and crowding said "it's really loud in there. Shall we go and get some cake instead?"

Today then, whilst I pace and worry; whilst I castigate myself for not just taking the trip to the museum under my own steam to make sure he is ok (for fear that I am not letting him go into the world his own way); I will hope that there will be someone sensible enough to spot and intervene before he gets agitated, help him when it gets too noisy; who will look him, see his discomfort and offer to bring him for cake instead.

Six Ans

2010-03-06T06:55:00.000Z

Cela fait six ans aujourd'hui.

Joyeux anniversaire, Matey.

Merci. Just - Je vous remercie.

Lid-isms

2010-03-06T06:41:00.000Z

Thusday was a tough day with Lid. She was particularly sensitive, and the walk that takes 15 minutes from Nursery to home took just over three hours due to her consistent tantrums and screaming. By the time we got home, we needed to leave again to collect her brother, which saw another set of screaming ensue.

Although these incidents are lessening, they're not uncommon, and they weigh heavily on me. It makes me believe that I am a terrible parent I think I am, that she hates me, that I can't get anything right and neither will I ever be able to. I feel terrible that the children are saddled with me as a parent, and I wish I could understand what they needed with more ease.

The mood rolled through to the evening, where everything was terrible, and she screamed and screamed despite everything I and her brother (who has a much better understanding than me) tried to do to help. After a day like that, I was relieved that the next day was a Friday, if only so that we could escape from each other for a few hours in the morning.

Friday rolls round and once The Boy has been dropped off at school, Lid and I make the short walk to her Nursery. Outside we play and as a result we are often surrounded by small children whose parents are more interested in talking to each other.

As I drop her off and we have our farewell kiss and cuddle, I am taken to one side and asked if I can stay for a bit. The benefit of working nights because you are, to all intents and purposes, practically unemployable anywhere else means that I can easily accomodate any such short notice request.

I am passed a folder with some drawings and paintings she has done, and her learning journal. Whilst her group continue with their "Meet and Greet" session (the class is split into four smaller groups, and each is led by a member of teaching staff in an activity), I look at her journal.

Inside are photos of my bonkers Lid, being bonkers. She is playing and concentrating hard. She is laughing and pretending. She is playing group games. She is dancing with her friends. She is fearless. She is learning.

She is doing things that I have taught her at home, things that we have done, things that her brother has shown her. I am told that she is a good reader, that she knows the phonic sounds and can recognise the names of her peers. I grin broadly, because I know The Boy taught her that.

There is a picture of her building up bricks and blowing them down to the ground, pretending that she is the Big Bad Wolf. I laugh, because this is a story that we "did" at home, following themes and acting it out.

She is riding a scooter, which she pretends she can't do in the garden at home, unless she is out there "alone" with The Boy, who has painstakingly shown her how to ride it, by dragging it along by the handles, walking behind her whilst she does it herself, making sure she is balancing, making sure she is ok.

There is a painting. It is an elephant covered in poo, and when I say that that is what it is to her teacher, I receive an odd look. When I ask Lid, she tells me, quite clearly that yes, it is an elephant and yes that is his poo. "He rolled in it" she says, and off she goes to play with her friends whilst shaking her head that I am so very silly.

I am told that she looks after her peers, is caring and kind, and that she takes time with others. She "grasses" if she sees someone be mean to her brother over the fence in his "big school". She's been known to try to climb over to help him. She's definitely thrown the odd item at the head of perpetrators of unkindness.

She is gentle, sweet, and all the things that she is outside of school. In short, she is utterly fabulous.

As I make to leave, I am told that, every day, her teacher and an assistant share a "Lid-ism". I smile, because I know what she means by that, as will any of you have a smaller person that you hang out with. I think of the elephant painting, the one where he has rolled in his own poo, and grin.

I trot out to say goodbye to her, and she confidently tells me she will see me later, as she is a bit busy playing at the moment. I am worried I am embarrassing her in front of her friends, so I think I will wave and leave her to it.

"Mummy!" she shrieks. I come back, and she grabs me for a cuddle and a kiss, saying that she will see me later. She then asks, in a moment that throws me slightly off guard, if I can guess how much she loves me. This is something I say to both kids at home, and ask them if it is a little or a lot.

I smile at her, expecting a "moment". She grins, picks her nose, wipes it on me and says "I love you a snot!" We both pig snort with laughter.

A classic Lid-ism if ever there was one.

Kindness

2010-03-05T02:18:00.000Z

I am in the midst of an experiment. We could pretend that it is scientifically based, but it isn't.

I look at my children, and find them wonderful. They think of others, they act on their feelings, they are unafraid to tell people that they love them, they generously distribute their cuddles and kisses, and they will not flinch at the idea of asking for affection if they want it.

What we have decided, between us, is that we will send letters, postcards and parcels to people that help us, to those we love, to those who make us laugh.

So far, it is going rather well.

It is just a little reminder ; "Don't Be Yourself : Be Someone a Little Nicer" Mignon McLaughlin.

Have a lovely weekend all. Pass it on.

The Great Crisp Caper

2010-03-05T01:39:00.000Z

I am reminded of the reason that Wiltshire Towers is a crisp free zone, and why coming to work, although dull, tiring and hateful means that I may, at the very least, scoff crisps to my heart's content.

Where t'midgets' diet is concerned, I am a "bit" of a nutrition nazi, or as much as I am able to be (autism brings its very special slant on eating due to sensory issues with taste, textures et al).

However, the rules are that, at least three times a year, the kids can eat what they want all day. This is generally on Christmas Day and on their birthdays (the pressure of a Christmas dinner is too much for both of them, so we feast on tinned Roses' sweets and party snacks for the duration).

This year, The Boy picked a 36 bag multipack of blue crisps, blue quite literally being the only colour for him at present.

These were carefully stashed away in the secret Christmas snack cabinet. I was careful never to be seen entering or leaving the area by either midget, who are eagle eyed where contraband is concerned. The cupboard's contents expanded, and there was a plentiful supply of empty calories and sugar within reach od our collective clammy paws.

The last day of school comes around, and we return to Wiltshire Towers.

It Is Time. The stash may be started, and it can be distributed (in drips and drabs) through the holiday period, remembering of course that it is to last the entire time.

I move into the room and return with a packet of crisps for The Boy and Lid. I am not aware that Lid has seen me. I suppose I should have seen it coming from there, but of course I didn't. I pass Lid her crisps, she thanks me, and tells me she wants to put them in a bowl.

Into the kitchen she trots. The Boy and I are talking about the philosphical issues surrounding Father Christmas, his questions rapidly fired in my direction. He is only missing a bright light to shine into my face as he questions me. I am suddenly aware of the worst sound a parent can hear; silence. I dash into the kitchen, and there she is.

A very hyperactive three year old, full of cheese and onion MSG, surrounded by 35 crisp packets. She has a slightly stoned look, and it is clear that all she can see are multitudes of crisp packets dancing before her eyes in a hallucugenic haze.

It is a valiant effort on her part. She has dragged a chair to the room, climbed up on it, balanced on it to retrieve the contraband, made her way down and painstakingly opened and scoffed the bloody lot. In less than ten minutes, which is particularly impressive. All that is missing is her rolling around on the packets, like Demi Moore in "Indecent Proposal".

I can't tell her off for this, as it's my fault for not keeping an eye on her. I do put a mini ban on crisps at Wiltshire Towers as a result.

I pick her up, and she mumbles something incoherent. I can't be sure, but I think she has just said that she loves me and I am her beeesssht mate...

OK

2010-03-01T02:56:00.000Z

Himself and I are talking in the kitchen. It has been an emotional few days; I have had a number of lumps removed following a cancer scare and am in a fair bit of denial, Lid has just had her provisional autism diagnosis made, and I have run out of mentalism tablets.

Himself is finding Lid's diagnosis easy to accept. She is still, to his mind, a pain in the arse, she is now merely an autistic pain in the arse. He cannot understand why I am upset by it, he has no idea why it is bothering me as we "knew" that she was autistic when we went for the appointment.

My attempts to explain to him that it is the loss of hope that is killing me; that before it was said aloud by a paedeatrician it was merely a supposition, a theory as to why she behaves like she does are met with baffled looks. I tell him I blame myself for ruining my kids' lives, because what other explanation can there be? Both share my DNA and not paternal DNA, so it must be my fault that they are like this, that they are autistic and, because of that, I have stopped them from having the lives they might have had if they weren't.

I say that I have seen how The Boy has suffered, and he has suffered, make no mistake, from his diagnosis, and the idea that his sister will also go through it is unbearable.

In a very quiet voice, Himself tells me I am being a dollop. He reminds me, very sternly, that of course it isn't my fault, that there is no proof of a genetic link "causing" autism, and that some children just are. He says that actually, I have done an amazing job with our children, that if I weren't their Mum they really would have suffered. He tells me that he admires that I don't give up, that if they have gotten anything from me it is this, that I have given them the "Wiltshire's Don't Quit" spirit. He tells me that it will all be ok.

I am cross with him for being so nice, and I am cross at myself for being affected by what he says. I drag my sleeve under my nose, because I want him to understand that, I want him to plumb the depths that he outwardly refuses to. I want him to be me.

"And what" I ask, "if it isn't ok?"

There is a palpable silence, during which he looks at me, holds my hand and tells me in a most un-Himself manner "Why wouldn't it be ok? Of course it'll be ok. It'll be better than ok, because you're their Mum. Wiltshire's don't quit, do they? Dollop."

My hair is ruffled. I am dragging my sleeve across my face to mop up the various parts of it that are leaking.

OK? It better be.

Hangman

2010-03-01T02:39:00.000Z

Nanna and The Boy are playing Hangman.

It is a "new" game for The Boy, one that we have been practising for a while to improve his interest in spelling (which he is extremely gifted at but refuses to do), in much the same way we used to play noughts and crosses to improve his fine motor skills and his problem solving ability.

The Boy draws four lines next to each other, and the game begins. Nanna makes the classic move of guessing the vowels first.

"A?" she asks. A shake of the head, and a line is drawn by The Boy.

"E?". Again she is incorrect, and he makes another mark.

"I?". He reaches for his pen to draw more lines.

"O?" He nods ascent, and puts the 'O' in; _ O _ _.

Nanna starts with consonants, starting with "B". The Boy shakes his head. "C?" A nod, and he amends the word.

C O C _.

"Now Nanna," he says, "the last letter sounds a lot like two of the other ones, but it is different. Can you guess?"

In the background, I am trying extremely hard not to laugh. Nanna says she doesn't know what the word is. The Boy announces loudly "It's COCK Nanna, COCK. See? I'll write it for you!"

I am rolling on the floor. I squeak up "yes, a cock is like a chicken isn't it?"

A squawk of laughter comes from The Boy, who it appears is very aware of what a cock is "No Mummy. A cock is like a penis." He is rolling on the floor laughing, whilst a red faced Nanna excuses herself.

Kids eh?

Custard Creams

2010-03-01T02:26:00.000Z

I am spending the night away from both midgets, going to a friend's party in Oxford. It is a long boring journey, improved no end by TfL choosing to close almost every line for improvements (pffft!), queuing for ten minutes to get onto the Central Line platform, and by the general ennui of my fellow tube passengers, some of whom appear to have forgotten they are travelling for pleasure rather than to work (that'd be you, overly made up cunt in the faux fur coat who jostled a kid in the face to get on to the tube with her mum. You should note that she in no way looked like she had been to the Beaumont Society. Ahem).

Once at Paddington, I happily mill about, revelling in the luxury of being without a miniature escort and going to shops that don't sell anything I need. I buy the World's Worst Hot Chocolate (TM), a concoction so vile tasting I want to scrape my tongue with a dead rodent to improve the flavour it's left behind.

The train arrives and I lumber aboard, smiling and talking to my fellow passengers, and generally scaring the shit out of them by being humane and pleasant.

I settle down and play catch up on my phone. A fit of pig snorts brought on by successively more hilarious messages from a friend puts paid to that, and I take to people watching. I worry about the man who has been in the toilet since departure, through Slough and Reading. I stare out of the window. I grin broadly at others.

An automated announcement comes over the tannoy. We are arriving at Didcot.

When I was 20 or so, I used to make this journey with semi regularity. After my Nan died, I wanted to re-connect with my past and part of that had been to "find" my biological father, to see if what I remembered was right; if he had been so awful, so violent.

The first time I saw him, I hated him but the stubborness that my children show, that I deny has any root or derivative from me kicks in, and I have to continue to be in contact with him so that I do not lose face.

He had not changed. He remained as controlling as he had always been over those around him, still displaying the levels of violence and unplesantness; the same cloying degree of malicious malevolence and manipulation.

His nature takes hold, and he is soon acting in the ways that make me uncomfortable. That level of discomfort soon makes way for his attempt to supply his own particularly twisted brand of fatherly love. The four year old me is bigger now, stronger, and no longer in a position where she has to comply. She is in a position to help herself. Neither she nor I will ever see him again.

That, really, was the end of that. He tried to contact me a few times to "explain" himself. I wasn't interested.

It is a shining example of a case being closed, an event that happened and would not happen again. Not for this a series of imaginary boxes labeled with emotional post it notes in a wardrobe that was kept in my memory. It was done, over, and I did my best to protect others that he could have access as I shut the door on it.

My deadpan report that I had arrived at Didcot, that I hadn't been there in ages, that I had heard that my father had died a few years back was correctly described as an Alan Bennet moment. At the time I found out about it through a phonecall from my sbbing mother whom he treated appallingly, several years after he had died and some time back, my response was "oh".

His existence or not is of no consequence to me, bar the fact that he put me on the road to distrusting all adults, espcially male ones, and it has taken me many, many years to deviate from that path even slightly.

I would ask then, should we chose to take it as an Alan Bennet moment, that when you pass the custard creams that you place a sparkler atop the pile, not to celebrate his life, nor what he did, neither to mourn his passing, instead to celebrate the exit of an evil bastard who can't hurt anyone anymore.

Once

2010-02-26T14:10:00.000Z

Outwardly I am hapy and fluffy and all is well. On here I don't have to be, so I'll admit I'm not handling the reality of two disabled children very well. Probably hasn't been the most favourable time to run out of mental tablets, but there goes.

I'll cope, of course I will. I always do. I'm used to it. Just indulge me a small amount of self pity for a time because, just fucking once, something should have really gone my way and the fucking cosmos could have cut me a cunting break. Just fucking once.

Not making anything of myself and being a failure and being a shit human being and not having proper relationships and just generally being wholly and indescribedly shit, I can handle that. Just once would have been nice for it to be the Disney ending.

Because it isn't fair. I can't even guarantee how long I'll be about and mobile can I? What's going to happen to them?

And no, it doesn't mean that I resent my kids, which I don't, or that I'm a hateful person (which I am) but for fuck's sake. Cut me some cunting slack. Just the once.

Genius

2010-02-25T15:44:00.000Z

A parcel has arrived at Wiltshire Towers for The Boy. I collect him from school, and tell him that there has been a delivery for him.

He is extremely excited that he has been sent a package, and on the way home, we discuss what it might be. He questions me consistently as to the contents.

I ask him what he thinks is inside. He thinks hard, then tells me in his most decisive voice that he thinks that it will be what it is.

As with post, as in life. Good work, The Boy.

Fine

2010-02-25T10:54:00.000Z

Wiltshire Towers is in limbo. Lid had her "special" CDC yesterday. The one where I had hoped that the paedeatrician would laugh at me, tell me I am an over anxious mother and that of course she wasn't autistic, it was merely my imagination. The knowledge deep within me that yes, she is autistic and always has been, had been stamped down. We waited for the verdict.

The paedeatrician spent an hour questioning me about her "developmental milestones", whilst Lid endured two hours of tests to see how she was developing. The staff congratulated her with every mistake she made, cheered her on regardless of her success. I could see how many things she "couldn't" do, and my heart was sinking.

There was nothing left but for it to be provisionally confirmed. Lid is autistic. The doctor was jolly and upbeat, congratulating me on how well she has learnt to do things. Inside, I hated myself a little more.

It will now be a long uphill struggle to get that diagnosis made formally. It will be hard to get help for her. It will be more fighting, more shouting, more crying.

The fact remains that there is nothing to do here but suck it up and crack on.

I joke that at least this means I won't have any grandchildren, as everyone knows how I much I hate midgets, that I won't have to worry about their furture boyfriends or girlfriends. We will chuckle as to how we won't have to fork out money to buy presents for them to go to birthday parties, when the fact remains that they are actually asked to very few.

We will ignore that it hurts to see them isolated and unable to interact with others. We will pretend that I don't cry when I think about how lonely they are, how lonely I know The Boy is because he has told me. We don't kick the professionals who tell us that actually, the kids don't realise that they're different, so it doesn't "bother" them.

We will accept that they won't have the "normal" childhood experiences of their peers, and we will pretend that it doesn't matter, that it is fine. We will pretend that not being able to have a "normal" child is not cutting at my heart like the sharpest knife, that it doesn't make me fucking angry that I am such a shit parent that I have failed them in being able to supply them with the simplest task of decent DNA.

We will pretend that everything is peachy, everything is well, and I will not be awake at horrible hours worrying for them, for both now and the future. We will pretend that, when they are asleep, I don't hold them and cry in to their hair at what I perceive to be the unfairness that it is they and not other children who are autistic.

We will be quiet and we will be still. When you ask me if I am ok, I will say that I am fine. When you are not looking, I will stare off to the middle distance, and try to think about nothing. I will take pride in achievements that they get that you think are not important, because for them it was harder and took longer. I will love them, and I will be proud of them. I will continue because that is how it has to be, and I will be the one that has to explain again and again that no, it won't get better, no, they cannot help it, no, I do not need your input.

I will cry, I will scream, not for the diagnosis, not for me, but for the loss of the dreams.

It is not the diagnosis that causes the pain, it is the death of the dreams. And it is they; the hopes and aspirations that I had for her, that I had for him, the ones that need to be amended, the ones that can now realistically never have though should they have them for themselves they will attain them; that the loss of can never, ever be fine.

Tickling

2010-02-24T09:06:00.000Z

Something I have always promised myself that I will deliver to The Boy and Lid is complete honesty. At time, this has been challenging. There have been what we will write off as fibs, where fingers are crossed behind the back ("Of course Bob eats carrots"), a subject avoided to avoid disappointment to the questioner, an adult "has gone on holiday" indefinitely when they inevitably let them down.

This was going well, until the subject of death encroached. This appeared with Remembrance Sunday, where the school clumsily fed him references to "the fallen" and "baddies dying". To his mind, this meant people died when they fell over, leading him to panic every time I fall over, which is with increasing regularity as the moronic ME progresses. He screams in panic, cries heavily, urging me to jump up whilst shouing at me that I have not died and need to get up.

We started to find ways to quell it; elongated games of "Twister" where we collapse in heaps, countless renditions of "Ring a ring a roses"; trampoline games where we fell and he could see that we were ok.

The falling equalling death disappated in his mind. The subject, I thought, was closed.

I had been writing a post on here about Ella, my eldest child, who died. The Boy read it over my shoulder, and asked me who Ella was. I explained. He read further, and his eyes widened. He looked frightened. Then he asked me the question that no one else ever had, because nobody else talks to me about it. I've either cut out the people who knew me then, or I disappeared so they wouldn't know. "Why did she die?"

Something caught in my throat, something got in my eyes. For the briefest of times, I was silent.

"Because, sometimes, people just die. They get old, or they get sick, or they just can't keep living. Something happens, and they can't run around and play with us anymore, but they're always here. So long as we remember them, so long as we carry them inside us and speak about them, they haven't really gone. And Ella, well, Ella just died."

The Boy is not pleased with this answer, and is clearly thinking very hard. "So, will you die?" he asks. This is too awful for words, so I tell him the truth, as much as I can. I say yes, I will die, but it won't be until he is very old, when he is a grown up boy, when he won't need me anymore. He is filled with panic, and cries that I am not to die, that I am not to go, that he won't get older than 5, that he won't grow up, and that he will always need me, that the time will never come when he doesn't need me. I tell him that I will be very old, that he will be very old, that he will be 200 when I die. He tells me that this is not old enough. He will always need me. He tells me he isn't going to die, neither is Lily, so I will have to not die to look after them.

To be honest, it's not going well.

He fixes me with the hard stare that he has learnt from too many Paddington books. He looks me in the eye. He holds my hand. He tells me that I am not to die. He asks me to promise that I will not to die.

When I look at him, it is not just him I see. It is my own fears. That of leaving the kids alone. It is the all consuming fear that they will die before me. The fear that sneaks up and pokes me in the head on days when the depression is bad, the ME is being an utter shit and the autism at its worst. It is my chance to not pass a fear on. I lie.

"'Course I won't, mate. Who'd tickle you if I died?"

He is happy. We have a tickle fight. I wish that this were the end of it, both the subject matter and the lying. It won't be.

Letter

2010-02-24T09:05:00.000Z

                                                                                                     East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust

                                                                                                     Queen Elizabeth II Hospital
                                                                                                     Hope Department
                                                                                                     Faith City
                                                                                                     Near Possibly Crushed Heart. 2AN Y1

Parent / Guardian of The Lidster
Wiltshire Towers
The One With The Wonky Hedge
Heart Still Hopeful

Dear Parent / Guardian of Lidster Mad Cow Bonkers Wiltshire

An appointment has been made for The Lid to be seen at Dr Hopehe's Over-Thirty's Clinic at 9:45am in The Clinic We Finally Diagnosed Your Son As Autistic At After Three Years Of Saying He Was Ok.

I have been asked by the health visitor at your SureStart Centre, whom you harangued for a year after being unable to get a named health visitor via your doctor, to see your child at a special appointment where I can spend rather more time with them. The session may last 1 - 2 hours. This appointment has needed to be made as your local health system is being bled dry, and thousands of children with learning disabilities are falling through the net. Of those children on "the cusp", only the parents who continually bother us will have their children seen, and even then it will be a long, uphill struggle for you to get any help. Said help will only be available once diagnosis is finally made.

In fact, we are so frightened of being sued, we would rather not give a definite diagnosis, even when we know that your child does have a named condition under the excuse that we don't want to "label" your child. We will, of course, ignore the fact that without that label, your child will be unable to access vital services that could assist with their development, especially in the early years when that intervention is essential for your child's very survival.

Both parents or guardians are invited to attend but, as usual, Mummy will end up doing it and will then shout at Daddy later when he refuses to understand what is going on as he is, once more, in a state of denial. You will be expected to carry the burden of diagnosis, acceptance, and do all the work to help your child until we can access funding to assist your child from council coffers. You should note that, even with a diagnosis in hand, you will be unable to easily get a Statutory Assessment for a Statement of Educational Needs. You will need to approach various authorities, most of whom are funded by disillusioned individuals who gave up the fight due to previous administrations legislation and enforcement of unnecessary paperwork.

If this appointment fills you with fear; if you secretly hope that this child won't get the diagnosis of autism not through delay but because this one gets to be your mad little cow rather than your mad autistic little cow, however much you pretend that that isn't the case and that actually, it's fine, be aware that you will judge yourself more than we will.

If at all possible, all hopes and dreams should be left at home as shattering may occur if brought to the appointment.

If the diagnosis of autism is not convenient to you, please note that there are mentals out there who believe that your child's disability is through their god's wrath, your badness, or your child being weaker and therefore needing to be removed from society. Please feel free to treat these people with the contempt that they deserve.

If your heart is on your sleeve where your children are concerned, it may be best to put it in your pocket, but do bring it to the appointment as you may need to shout at us and tell us to do more. Note that it will be ok, whatever happpens, and that you will continue because someone has to, and that someone is you.

Yours sincerely

Women and Children's Directorate
Children's Services

Eh? What the Focker?

2010-02-22T05:55:00.000Z

I have just spent a (very) long night shift being told how "that bloke that got killed in Eastenders" was also "the grandad in Meet The Fockers."

I can't be sure, but I think my work colleague was telling me that either Dustin Hoffman or Robert De Niro was in Eastenders, that they were killed off by, in his words "some ginger tosser that jumped off a bus but it wasn't him it was that tarty one", and then he started to tell me about something utterly unrelated.

What. The. Fuck?

Input, anyone? Please?

Not Bad

2010-02-22T04:31:00.000Z

12th April, 2004

I am lying in bed with my paramor, heavily pregnant with another man's baby (by whom you should note I was dumped several months before). It is Easter. I have two weeks left until leaving work (and three until giving birth).  I am extremely grateful to Courtney Love posing pregnant in a baby doll nightdress.

A slight twinge in my back makes me think "how odd, I'm pregnant and yet getting my period." I decide that chips and mushy peas will solve all, so trot off to the local fish and chip emporium across the street, whilst Himself (for it is he) has a bath. I return, and we scoff chips in bed. He is supposed to go home that night, but decides to hang around as he is worried about me. Despite my protestations that I will be fine and all is ok, I am extremely grateful that he is staying.  Naturally, I cannot say this to him and instead grunt through what I assume is either indigestion from too many chips or, as above, my period.

The pain in my lower back ache and stomach provokes me into having a bath. Whilst in there. I am slightly horrifed that my stomach visibly moves and is, temporarily, in the shape of a triangle. It is an Alien moment and I am, frankly, freaked out. The sight of a limb poking through under my ribs gives me what can only be described as the collywobbles, and I jump out of the bath as quickly as a 38 week pregnant bird can.

13th April 2004

At around 1am, it becomes apparent that I am most likely not having a period, and neither do I have indigestion. The sensation of someone tightening and releasing an elastic band the size of Streatham in my womb increases, and it is clearly time to head off to the hospital. My mum is called, who tells me that I can probably just wait until the morning.  *That* ex (or, as he will herein be referred to, Rat Face) is called, a message left that the baby is coming. Himself and I hug, and he promises to look after Furry Boo. Furry Boo, understandably, scowls at me from on top of the wardrobe, and flashes me her "whatever" look (a Furry Boo classic).

Mum rolls up, and I precariously make my way down the several flights of stairs from my current slum residence, past the kid downstairs who is having (another) party, down the poorly attached fire escape, and gingerly into Mum's car. She fusses about my putting a seat belt on. I, ridiculously, have a small hand held battery powered fan that I am attempting to keep cool with. I cannot sit on the seat as the sensation of my bowels escaping through my uretha doesn't appear to be lessening. We bicker, and I start what will be come to be known as not only the day The Boy was born, but the Night Wiltshire Called All The Staff On The Maternity Ward Cunts.

We arrive at the hospital, and I have a message on my phone stating that Rat Face has decided to go to my flat. I ask my mum to call him to tell him to go to the hospital, but she has a petulant on and is in the midst of a show down telling me he shouldn't have been asked to come anyway. I block her out, and because I am so worried that Rat Face will start a scene with Himself and upset Furry Boo, I call to advise him that we are at the hospital. Rat Face then starts a 5 minute diatribe, demanding to know why I will not be there to greet him at my flat, how I could be so selfish to get to the hospital without him, that he doesn't know where the hospital is etc. At this point, the pain is starting to take hold and I desperately need to vomit, or poo, or possibly both. I mumble and shuffle to get in to the maternity ward. I am buzzed in, and am ushered in to a room to "change". Halfway through, and I dash as quickly as I can to the toilet where I duly "evacuate".

I am moved to a larger room, where I am examined. I am 1 centimetre dilated, and it will take a substantially long time for the baby to shift its arse out. I proudly show them my birth plan (which is the legend "EPIDURAL" written in uppercase letters five centremetres high), and am told that this is not something for me to concern myself about at this time. I am offered a sleeping drug, which I take. I say at this point that I was a very quick delivery, and am told that it this is not a concern.

10 minutes later...

My waters break, I am 10 centimetres dilated and I do not have a fucking clue what is going on. The contractions come in fours, and I should be pushing on each one. Instead, the first one is waking me up, the second one registers the pain, the third one sees me grab for gas and air, and the last one I give a tiny, pathetic push. During the second set of contractions, Rat Face rolls in wearing a new jacket. He tells me I am lucky that he was in, as he was going to go to the pub that evening but decided not to.  I am pretty out of it, though I still manage to verbally castigate him for spending money on himself rather than his kid, and call him a fuck faced cunt for good measure.

I am told to "calm down" by the midwife, who I call a cunt and also tell to fuck off. Rat Face tells me I must be calm for the baby. I hit him with the gas and air inhaler, and tell him he is a faithless cunt as I jab it near his face. I am crying quite heavily, not because it is particularly painful or because Rat Face has desperately upset me, but because I actually don't have a clue what is going on and I am already exhausted.

A group of medical students come in. I shout at them to fuck off. I threaten that if they do not fuck off, I will get off the table and kick them in their collective cunts. They shuffle nervously. I make a vague "I fucking mean it" move. They fuck off.

I send Mum down to the business end. I want to destroy Rat Face's hand in the way my sister did when my neice was born, but the idea of touching him is pretty repellant, so I hit him with the gas and air inhaler again. At this point, it is taken off of me.

5 minutes later

The midwife from the next room comes in to tell me that I am putting the other women off. I scream "well it does fucking well hurt, you know." She leaves. Quickly.

Another 15 minutes later...

The baby is crowning. I have no idea what to do. I sob to Mum that I can't do this, and that she'll have to do it for me. The midwife tells me that I am making a fuss about nothing, that she has had five children and not made the fuss I am. I tell her to fuck off, and tell her she must have a cunt the size of the Blackwell tunnel if giving birth didn't hurt her. I re-tell my mum that I cannot do it, that she will have to, and tearfully announce to the maternity room that I am going outside to have a fag. I get one leg on the floor, and Rat Face tries to restrain me. I tell him that he is a cunt and to fuck off.

There is now a crowd gathered around my vagina, staring at it. I am shouted at by the midwife that I am not doing it right. Naturally, I tell her to fuck off.

20 minutes on...

I am trying to do the pushing thing, but keep dozing off. I start to question Rat Face as to why he was unfaithful, why he left me pregnant and alone, why he did these things, and sob that I loved him. Then I call him a cunt. The medical staff around my vagina tell me to concentrate on having the baby. Rat Face is given a collection of very dirty looks.

3 minutes later...

The Boy has arrived. He is taken off to be weighed, cleaned, checked. I look at the clock. It feels like it has been longer than it has. I am then told I have to deliver the placenta. I tell the midwife to fuck off.

10 minutes on...

I am being checked and stitched. The woman working on me appears to be constructing the Bayeux Tapestry on my vagina. She says that she will need to put her finger in my rectum to check for cuts. I enquire why this is, asking her "you want to put your fucking finger up my fucking what? Fuck off." She does it anyway. Apparently, that's not a kosher move.

30 minutes later...

The room has emptied. Rat Face has gone to phone news of The Boy's arrival. Mum has gone home. The hospital staff have left the room. There is toast and tea on the table next to me.

The Boy is beautiful. I will not need to name him Lord Justice, as he will clearly attain this title anyway. Old ladies will clamour to peer at him. Old men will produce coins from behind his ears.

The fact that I will not sit down comfortably for a week, that I will be scared to wee, is not even present in my mind. The pain fades to nothing. There should be some sort of animated baboon holding him aloft to a song being badly sung by a bald man.

This is my baby, and he is fucking amazing. Wiltshire Towers has been established with his birth. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Advice To Those With A Womb With A View

2010-02-14T02:46:00.000Z

I currently know a number of women who are baby smuggling, and it is delightful to watch their excitement as the prawn in their womb turns into a real life actual human being (or human bean as they are also known).

What is not so charming is to listen to them recount the horror stories that they have been told by other mothers, tales of ripped pereniums (look, it happens but it is incredibly rare), nipples that explode (never seen a documented case), an inability to sit down (again, never read a case) and various other horrible, extremely rare occurances that nobody has experienced but everybody "knows" somebody who "knows" somebody that it happened to.

The looks on their faces, the terror that it invokes, removes what should be a beautiful and happy time for them. Therefore, I will tell you the absolute truth as I experienced it about childbirth, parenting, and the all that bollocks.

If your first question is "does it hurt" the answer is, quite obviously, yes. Of course it does, it has to - look at the logistics for a start. However, it's not as bad as they say. Honestly. When I had The Boy, I was given a sleeping drug as I was 1 centimetre dilated. Ten minutes later, I was fully dilated, and giving birth. That was truly terrifying, and I wasn't prepared, I wasn't ready. But - he was born (there was a hairy moment due to the fact I hadn't a clue what was going on and was essentially off my tits), he was there, all present and correct. The stitches hurt much more than the labour (and apparently, as I found out with my second one, the person stitching you up should not be inserting their finger up your rectum to check for tears), but it is do-able. Really.

When I had Lid, I had no pain relief at all, due to the fact that the bitch took five days to be ready to pop out, was two and a half weeks late and then decided to almost be born in the car park (and, when asked to "hop up" on the bed by the midwife, I restrained myself better than I had with The Boy and was polite instead). Again, the stitches hurt, but honestly the pain is nothing compared to meeting the mini person you grew in your stomach. Truly.

Giving birth? It's like having the biggest, most beautiful life changing poo you will ever, ever have, so use all those muscles and push the bugger out like you're having a giant shit.

As far as pain relief goes, remember there aren't any medals awarded for not having any. Far from it. If you need it, have it. If you have allowed yourself to be caught up in the natural childbirth ideal whereby you do not allow yourself the possibility that you may need medication to help you through, please re-consider. I cannot stress enough that you need to look after yourself, and that includes making sure that you are ok during childbirth. Just think on it, ok?

Where breastfeeding is concerned, not everyone can do it, not everyone wants to do it. So, here's the deal - if you can't, if you don't want to, I give you permission not to. With The Boy, I tried. I tried really hard, tortured myself over it, and he lost a lot of weight. So much that that I had to combine breast feeding with bottle feeding.

I was on my own, I was terrified, and in the end after he demanded more and more bizarre positions to be fed, I stopped breastfeeding altogether. You should note that I only managed to do that because my midwife, a marvelous woman of many decades experience and a great many of her own children, gave me permission to do so. With Lid, who used to insert her fingers into my nipples and pull them open, scratching and ripping at them, I gave myself permission (she was constantly hungry and extremely violent, my breasts were bleeding so it made sense to stop and I trusted myself).

You will get extremely tired, and about 5 days after the baby is born, the hormones kick in and you feel utterly, utterly crap. This is all perfectly normal, as is crying because you feel rubbish and you don't know what you're doing (and so you know, neither did your mum when she had you, or your nan when she had your mum, and so on and so forth back through the ages, regardless of what they may claim). However, if you find that you are crying more than you think is normal for you (and your partner or close friends will be good at helping you judge this), you may want to see your doctor. For me, it was when I had been crying for 5 days non stop after my second that I realised things may be a "tad" wrong, but that was my story and it isn't necessarily going to be yours, but just be aware that it could happen and that it is nothing to be ashamed of. Honest.

People will offer you help, not because they think you are shit and that you are not coping, rather because they love you and want to make sure that you are ok. You are the priority, because if you are well then you can look after the baby.

"They" say that you should sleep when the baby sleeps. I could never do that myself, I was too paranoid that I was being judged as a crap parent if the flat was dirty (seriously!) or if the baby slept in the same sleepsuit for two nights, or if everything wasn't sparkling. I can't remember if I was even offered help (I shouldn't have thought anyone would have dared), but how I wish they had. How I wish I had rested more with both of them, and been kinder to myself. I wish that I had had the courage to ask for help, and at times it does genuinely take courage, as your pride mis-advises you that asking for help signifies weakness. It doesn't. It indicates strength. Remember this.

Let me tell you a story. With The Boy, I once had to re-dress him five times because he poo-ed, or vomited, or posseted, or weed over the outfit he was in. It took me 6 hours to get out of the flat. I was utterly deranged with determination that we would go out, and we would attend groups, and we would do this, that and the other. With Lid, I dressed her almost exclusively in sleepsuits for the first month. We went out, but when I fancied it. It was much more relaxing, merely because I took the pressure off myself.

Groups are great for making friends, but you won't like everyone there as you may only have a baby in common. I was in the strange situation that I was the only one amongst my peers who had a baby, and (seemingly) even stranger was that I was single which appeared to make me a threat to the more deranged amongst my female friends. I would go to these groups and be accused of seeking out other women's husbands when I couldn't have been less interested. Of the women I met there, I am still in contact with three of them as we shared a sense of humour and disgust at the other parents.

There is no reason to force yourself to go out every day. If you're knackered, sleep. You're under no obligation to get out of your pyjamas if you don't have the energy to. Slob about, just make sure you all eat properly. Try not to pressure yourself to be perfect, because no one actually is, regardless of what they tell you or pretend to be.

The baby will get bigger, and you love for them will grow as they do. As they get bigger, often they will ignore you, disobey you, but be perfectly behaved for your friends or worse random strangers.

It is a long, long journey, and there are many sides that can be perceived as being terrible but please believe me when I tell you that all of that evaporates when your baby looks at you, when they smile at you, when they tell you they love you, when they call you mummy, when they do their first poo (in a pottty or a nappy), when their eyes twinkle, when they write their name, when they appear in the first play, and so on and so forth.

Everything unpleasant, everything physically painful becomes dust, and from that dust a diamond sparkles, and it is a diamond that you made.

Just try to ensure that you eat, rest as much as you can, and that you look after yourself. Ask for help, and mostly enjoy yourself. Once you relax, it all becomes a lot better, a lot easier.

What I can't prepare you for, what nobody prepared me for and even if they had I wouldn't have believed them, is how you feel about your child, and it is this. Nothing will ever compare to how you feel about your child. Nothing. It is unconditional. It is absolute. It is incomparable. It is the neutralisation of everything about you that is bad and awful and wrong. It is proof that goodness exists. It is overwhelming in its completeness. It is a shock to find that everything you thought was love before is merely piss in the wind compared to this. It can take time. It can be immediate.

When it hits, you will never, ever recover. When it hits, that is when you are truly a parent. And every bad thing, every awful thing, every painful thing is swept away by the power of it. You lucky, lucky sods. Enjoy.

My Bloody Valentine

2010-02-14T01:26:00.000Z

At the moment, I am at work.

Tonight was "Valentine's Night" at the hotel where I work.

For a set fee, couples could wine and dine their loved ones, whilst listening to harpsichord music. They could sup champagne and toast their love for each other.

Technically, it should have been an extremely easy night because really, what is easier than love, right?

Therefore, if any one of you could explain to me why I have just had to pull a bloke off of his girlfriend, whom he was hitting whilst she screamed for help, or why not one person from the adjoining rooms rang for help, I would be most grateful.

Seriously people - not fucking cool.

WOMEN'S AID FREE 24HOUR NATIONAL HELPLINE IS : 0808 2000 247

Should you know of anyone who maybe suffering from domestic violence, you can find the Women's Aid web page here.

It is recommended that women who may need to use this website learn how to cover their tracks online, which you can read more about here, but you should note that it is recommended in cases where an individual is being abused that they access information from a safe space such as a local library that has web access, an internet cafe, a friend's house, a SureStart centre.

You should note that it is not your fault, it is sadly more common than you think, and that you do not deserve it.

Please stay safe, and help those whom you know or think may need it.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Glass houses

2010-02-13T20:21:00.000Z

Some of you will be aware of the recent sad death of an 11 year old autistic boy in Barking. His death was caused by the ingestion of a caustic liquid, believed to be bleach. He is said to have had visible injuries.

His mother, who has been arrested on suspicion of his murder, was believed to have drunk the same liquid, but was released from hospital without treatment.

There was a younger sibling to the deceased, who was said to have neither ingested the liquid nor to have had any visible injuries.

It is a terribly sad story.

What I write here is clearly neither a political nor a legal blog. If it were, I doubt that those of you who read it would, as there are a great many excellently assembled blogs that fill that need. It is, in essence, merely a very subjective opinion page, nothing more and nothing less, and thus what follows should be regarded as that; an opinion.

At present, we do not know the facts to the case, other than a young man who was severely disabled by autism died from ingesting bleach. There is no evidence, only suspicion, that his mother gave him the bleach. I would be surprised if his mother could have "made" him drink the liquid if he were in a mind not to. Certainly my five year old autistic son has knocked me to my feet when I have attempted to give him the less posionous but equally foul tasting fish oil that he takes each day to help homepathically calm his behavioural problems.

The injuries that he sustained may well have been caused by his mother, but they may well also have been caused by what would be his own incredible strength as he threw himself about. My own children, both of whom have varyring degress of behavioural issues, are incredibly violent at times, and can lash out so hard that they injure themselves. I have no way of proving that I don't hurt them other than my word, and were the injuries they sustained to be examined properly, it would be found that some of them are self inflicted through their self harm bouts.

For me, the most shocking aspect of this case is that it is not the first time that such a sad situation has occured.

What I shan't entertain, not even for a moment, is some sad, snidey opine that such a desperate situation only arises when the parent of the child is doing it alone. Trust me, single parents are tougher than paired ones, because we have to be.

What I find unfathomable is that we, as a society, have failed another parent and their child. We are not talking about women who have committed what can only be described as evil, a pre meditated, tortuitous death played out upon their young for their own sick amusement. Rather we are looking at women living in a desperate situation, where little or no help or support is available, and that help often only springs up when the situation is hellishly near a tragic conclusion. Even then, as these cases show, it is not always timely.

Don't think, not even for a moment, that those of us with disabled children wish that we didn't have them. We don't. On the whole, on a good day, on an average day, we are happy and joyous with our lot.

Consider then a day when your depression has hit you hard. Consider a day when you have been pummeled constantly; your child has done nothing but hum loudly all day; they have shaken a rattle all day; they have picked at their until they hands are a scabby mess of blood; they have hit their head on a wooden floor until they are bruised and dazed despite your trying to stop them, and all you want is for a moment of normality, a short time when you can be you and your child be "normal".

Consider a society where getting help for your child is ridiculously difficult, where they will be allowed to drown at mainstream school, where getting a statement is ludicrously troublesome, where accessing specialist services takes time, sometimes money, where getting a speech and language therapist appointment is one of the hardest things you can do, where you have to beg for help with your child's violence, where the finger is always pointing at you, where you are ultimately responsible and the baby that you had, the baby you still see when you look at your child, has nothing like the life you had hoped for them, or that you had hoped for you.

Whilst I can't condone the act, I can't and won't condemn the women who did it, because the desperation that they feel is at such a level that you should all wish you never experience it.

I have no more to say on it, but I would ask that you don't judge the woman accused, as she is as much a victim as her son, and remember the proverb you were told as youngsters about those in glass houses not throwing stones.

Not so much

2010-02-10T07:16:00.000Z

For a long time, I assumed that I was very liberal in my world view, tolerant of others and their behaviour, and quite forgiving of people.

Turns out - not so much.

Just saying.

*Fixes no one in particular with an extremely hard stare.*

Feline Groovy

2010-02-09T04:46:00.000Z

From the day I was born until four years ago, I had always had cats. As a child that was plural, as a teenager onwards, singular.

You'll naturally be surprised to hear that all my cats were quite odd chaps and chapettes.

There was Puzzle, who purred like a buzzsaw, liked to perch on your head, had a definite look of the "fuck off" to her which she liked to direct at all and sundry, and acted as an efficient (if extremely violent) guard cat.

There was Puss, who had an unfeasibly long "show name", liked to drape himself around your neck like a furry scarf, enjoyed being dressed up in clothing whilst being pushed round by a demonic toddler in a pram (*coughs* clearly, I have no idea where Lid gets that sort of behaviour from), would sleep cuddling you and spent his twilight years stealing meat from various inaccessible places which he carried away clenched between both his teeth.

Then there was Burra, or Bod as she became affectionately known (due to her disproportionately large cranium, which no doubt housed her plans to take over the planet). She was a tabby, rescued from a pet shop along with her brother and sisters, a pet shop that we went on to get closed down due to the appalling conditions they kept their animals in.

After Puss I did not want another cat, and these kittens that were residing at my house were only doing so until I could find them homes. I had no desire to have another, especially one that wouldn't sit near anyone, disliked being cuddled, distrusted humans, and took no nonsense from anyone that came across her path, be that human, canine, or toddler. She was the smallest, the youngest, the weakest and the most temperamental.

It would be ludicrous for me to pretend that it was anything other than love at first sight on my part.

The Furry Boo was a much adored part of my life. She came with me when I went to University, when I moved out of home, when I changed address. She wasn't a family cat that I pretended I had ownership of. She was very much "my" cat (or rather I was very much her human), for whom considerations had to be made before any plan was crystalised.

She was mean. She hated people. She sometimes crept up and slept on my stomach, purring steadily as she did so, and the first day she let me tickle her ears and cuddle her was when she was two years old.

We travelled around the country together, visiting friends, with her carry box accumulating stickers of the places we visited. When I went home from college, or visited overnight from a different home, she came with me.

She was glorious. She was bonkers. She was clearly Aspergers.

When I had The Boy, it was the first time she had been left alone overnight, and she was utterly disgusted with me for leaving her. As I climbed up the stairs to the flat, she came to the door and her mews chastised me; "and where do you think you've been? I've been up all night worrying you know. Well, okay, let's have a sit down and a cuddle and you can tell me how wonderful I am."

We walked through to the living room, whilst my mum carried The Boy in his car seat. I sat on the sofa, Bod jumped on my lap. I started to tickle her ears as she spotted The Boy.

She swished her tail in my face, jumped up from my lap and went to look at him. The face she presented me with quite clearly expressed her annoyance, and in the angry meow she yowled in my direction, I could clearly hear her accusation; "What. The fuck. Is that? I said I wanted a dog."

For the next six weeks, whenever The Boy was brought into a room, she left it. Bod was displeased with this new fur-less thing that made strange noises and took up my attention. She would look sniffily down on us from on top of the wardrobe every night. In short, had she been larger, she would have eaten us.

Then, I had a very long day. New babies can be tiring. When you are flying solo and literally have no clue what you are doing, when you are operating on sheer terror and caffeine, when no one appears to be offering you kindness, just critical opinion after critical opinion, you are worn down.

The Boy had taken to that wailing, brain melting screech throughout the day. His biological father was due to visit him that evening, and would either be very late or not turn up at all as was his wont. I could not foresee a way that I could get through this day, or the days like this that I knew would follow, and I suppose I didn't want to.

I walked to the bathroom and sat on the toilet and sobbed. Not just for the lousy living conditions, and the lousy ex partner situation, but also for myself. I perched out the window, having a fag, trying to calm down. Bod entered, and fixed me with one of her hard stares. She glared at me, and walked out again. In the other room, The Boy had stopped crying.

I remembered hearing stories of cats sitting on babies' faces, and had dismissed it as nonsense. His silence made me query if I had been correct. I went into the living room, and found The Boy blithely trying to hold on to Bod's tail in that blind, unseeing way of the small baby, whilst she purred and moved around him. When she saw me, she admonished me with a filthy look of "well, he was crying you know." Bod elicited his first high pitched squeal of delight, and he afforded her that, as she afforded him a fondness that she bestowed on very few humans, every time he saw her. Hers was the first name he learnt to say, despite my constant "Where's Mummy? What's Mummy doing?". She would sit near him at night when he was afraid, we would all sleep in the same bed together (just don't tell the NCT), and she would run to him when he came into a room.

When Bod stopped being there, he refused to go into the house, and cried outside for thirty minutes. He knew she wasn't there anymore, and as a result he told me, quite firmly, that there would not be another cat for us.

Time has passed, and we are moving through a period where The Boy was terrified of animals. He is open to the idea of a cat, and his sister desperately wants one, possibly so that she can team up with it and create a super breed of furry humans that will do her evil bidding, steal sausages for her, look disdainfully at others etc.

I suspect we shall find one for us, one with a leg missing, or its ear torn, or one with chronic flatulence which would fit smoothly and fluidly into Wiltshire Towers. Four years on, although she is still missed and remains irreplaceable the rancid, fetid, purring mad wee furry tart, it is time to start feline groovy again.

Things that have made me smile this weekend

2010-02-08T04:45:00.000Z

Being presented with a packet of cheese and onion crisps for my consumption at 5am Saturday morning, despite there not being any crisps of that flavour in the house, then being told by Lid to "eat it Mummy. In your mouth. Quick quick."

The Boy and Lid playing with her doll's house, and making it up as they went along ("This is Mario's room, he shares it with Luigi and Sonic. Oh, tell Lotte and Lola to get off of the toilet, Lid.").

Bringing Lid for some Mummy and Lid time, whereby I was dragged into every shop that featured anything even vaguely pink by an insatiable toddler who proceeded to baffle the shop assistants by being extremely fussy.

Having a cake with Lid, where she wiped icing all over my face and I couldn't stop laughing, regardless of the horror of other patrons (whom we blew raspberries at).

Teaching The Boy a magic trick (the eponymous colouring book), with hand movements, and his delight at being able to baffle Himself.

Listening to The Boy go through all the vowels and consonent sounds individually, then launching into a monologue about how some words are not spelt right because they don't match phonics (he's right), and his explanations of how they should and would be spelt, were it to be done properly.

Lid jumping into bed with me at 3am, snuggling her freezing cold feet into my back, then sighing happily and murmuring "Mummy" with a clear smile in her voice.

The squabble that broke out between the two midgets over who liked Mummy more, and not in the Simpson-esque argument between Lisa and Bart ("You like her more." "No, *you* like her more.")

The Boy swimming, and absolutely adoring every second.

The realisation that he started punching me when we were getting changed out of our costumes wasn't because he hated me, or because I had fucked up, or because I am a shit parent, rather because he was pissed off that he had to come out of the swimming pool. So, really he was hitting me because he likes me, he enjoyed spending time with me, he didn't want that time to end, I had done right and I am a good parent (although I admit that that caused me some conceptual trouble to get my head round).

On getting home, The Boy walking up to Lid, giving her a big cuddle and saying "See? I told you I wouldn't be a minute didn't I? Did you have a good time with Daddy?" Then, after ruffling her hair, saying "I missed you" to her, before trotting off to raid the kitchen.

Lid, when she spies me, tapping her legs to beckon me, and calling, with outstretched arms "Mummy! You're back! Come here and give me a cuddle!", then delivering threefold with an engulfing cuddle.

The Boy telling Himself that he has liked going swimming with Mummy, even though she makes him try, but really, he likes that she makes him try "because it means that she won't give up and neither can I. I'm not being beaten by a girl" (italics said with utter contempt).

The big kiss The Boy gave me before he went to bed, as he told me he loved swimming and loved me.

Lid getting up at 8pm again, so even though I missed out on a few hours sleep before work, I got a big cuddle instead.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Why?

2010-02-08T01:50:00.000Z

My question today is why?

Why, when I have been on mentalism tablets for three years on and off, when I've had counselling for a decade, when I have done everything I can to escape the black dog am I still being chased by it? Why can't I fucking escape it? Why does it have me by the ankle, chewing at my clothes, when everyone else can get away from it.

Why are others, who have been on medication for a little while, had a few sessions of counselling, why are they "better"? Why aren't I getting any better? Why am I slowly getting worse?

Why am I so intrinsically rubbish that I can't deal with things when everyone else can?

Why, why why?

Unless of course, I am on the slow "learn those life lessons" road, which apparently will take substantially longer, where I will continue to make the same idiotic mistakes time and time again until I actually bloody learn. Which I may well never do. But I'm hopeful.

Why? I just am. Why not?

Trying

2010-02-08T01:39:00.001Z

Today, in an effort to build bridges with The Boy (whom I have spent the last few months arguing with more and more), it was decreed that we would have some Mummy and The Boy time.

After much debate, it was decided that we would go swimming at our local pool, which fantastically offers free swimming for those with special needs and their families on Sundays.

It is agreed that just Mummy and The Boy will attend. The build up has been ongoing for several days, including buying a swimming costume (blue, Victorian-esque with a large orange octopus on the front), purchasing swimming goggles (blue, naturally), sorting out a swimming bag (obviously, a blue one) and practicing our swimming moves at every opportunity (in the bath, on the floor, in the mirror, in the street).

The Boy is extremely excited about going swimming. It is his first time, and it will open up a world of possibilities for us both.

I am worried about how he will react - will it be too noisy, will he get upset about the water or if he gets splashed, will he like getting his head wet, will he get angry and aggressive, will I have to spend my time apologising to other parents like I so often do when we are out?

I am so worked up that I let my mind wander and become narcissistic, suddenly seized with terror that people I am not about to have sex with will see me in a state of undress, in only a swimming costume, the first time I will have been in such clothing in two decades. I am also reminded of how terrible a swimmer I am - my mother, never having been confident in the water, has passed on a distrust to all of us, but the lack of ability is all my own.

I am determined not to pass on the fear, I am determined that it will not matter whether he likes it or not, but that we will try, because that is how we do things at Wiltshire Towers - we try. If he does not like it, we will leave, if he does we will stay.

We prepare at home, putting our costumes on under our clothes. He is dancing with joy, he is so happy to be going swimming. On the walk to the swimming pool, he is telling me how he will put his face under the water, that he will swim for miles and that he is really excited. I am excited for him, but worried that it will not be what he thinks it will be, that he will be disheartened if he cannot do it, that he will not want to come again and this will be another door closed of things we can do that "normal" families do.

We arrive at the pool, and we race to the changing rooms. He is ready quickly, and we walk through to the pool. He is giggling with happiness, and cannot wait to swim. The special needs swimming instructor kits him out with arm bands, finds him some floats, and encourages him to play. I attempt (and fail) nonchalence, hovering near by when I should be keeping my distance, impeded in my desire to rush to him when he stumbles by the sensation of walking through treacle.

An incident occurs - he splashes another child with water. I think I should tell him off and am told not to worry, it isn't a problem. All the parents here have children who are special, so they understand. I don't have to launch into a big explanation of The Boy's autism.

I can, bar the fear of The Boy drowning, relax a little, not feel self conscious, and just enjoy being with my son with a group of people who are not judging us. It is freeing. It feels marvelous.

Watching my boy laughing, playing, interacting, being silly causes my eyes to get wet, and it is more than the chlorine that is causing them to water. My grin is getting wider and wider.

He tells me he has never been happier. He tells me that he loves swimming, that he wants to come again. He tells me that he will come here, then he will learn to swim, and then he will scuba dive. He shows me how he will scuba dive, and in the process learns that he cannot breathe under water. It causes his mother concern, but he is ok, coughing and spluttering, and tells me that he is just trying. The he fixes me with his blue eyes and tells me, quite sternly, that we must never, ever give up trying. Then he tells me that I was the one that told him that, that he believes me, and that he will never stop trying because Wiltshire's keep trying.

Bloody chlorine...

Adjective Failure

2010-02-08T00:56:00.000Z

I have gone for coffee with some people I went to school with. Primary school. On average, we meet together as a group every five years or so. Get togethers consist of two factions - the failures and the successes.

Both groups apply this label to themselves due to their life circumstances, or events that have happened to them. It's interesting to watch which group we each, discreetly and some less so, align ourselves to.

Here I am, at another gathering, hurtling towards 36 years of age. I still don't and never have had a mortgage. I don't drive and again, never have and never will own a car. My television is ancient. My furniture is second hand. I've never had a facial and the idea terrifies me, I last had my hair cut in 2008 and I don't own a single garment (excluding underwear) that hasn't been previously loved. I chose to side step what may have been viewed as a high profile career rather than "just a job", taking substantially lower paid work, and then binned the whole thing to hang out with my kids. I have had a number of relationships that haven't lasted. I have two children by two dads. I've been homeless, I've been (and still am) mental, I've been skint, I've got two kids who I have mostly raised on my own.

I have always thought that that signified failure, and of the highest order. Can't keep a relationship. Can't get back into work. Don't do girlie stuff. Can't supply new stuff for my kids.

And then, as I came away, having sat and smiled at them, a thought ran through my head. One of the group is very high up in a named corporation. He owns a very large house. He visits a tailor. He has an extremely good car. He is, outwardly, extremely successful

He has also been single for 14 years, spending that time sniffing after any female that so much as flashes him a grin, having grim flirtations that never materialise into anything more. He's never lived with a woman that wasn't his mum. He has a big house that he has no idea what to do in, that he rattles around in accumulating (expensive) stuff that he doesn't use or need, has a flash car and nice suits.

I have had several failed relationships, but at least I was in the game to begin with. I've had terrible relationships, but I trusted myself to try again. I have two lovely kids that appreciate the value of money, and appreciate time doing things more. I've lived in lots of places, all over the country, and have made friends in areas that I wouldn't otherwise have made. I've been far outside my comfort zone, and I've survived.

If you're still in the same place you were ten years ago; emotionally, physically, socially; if you're still making the same psychological mistakes, if you don't at the least know why you are how you are, why you do what you do, I'd seriously suggest you enrobe yourself with an adjective that isn't success.

And no. I don't fancy him. He's a loser.

Me! Me! Look at Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

2010-02-03T01:05:00.000Z

Today, we had a meeting at The Boy's school. It was to discuss his worsening physical aggression, his now solemn refusal to do any work whatsoever at school, and was under the heading of a Team Around The Child meeting (which is where all the relevant professionals gather to give input and advocacy for the disabled child).

The violence is a matter that has been brought up several times over the last few months, and has seen us (Himself and I) trailing back and forth, writing letters of complaint, making telephone calls in order to get some resolution for him.

I am going to write about this properly at some point, because I really need to get out of my system the sheer incompetence that we are constantly encountering, the refusal of the school to assist, their ability to pass the buck quite spectacularly, and their inability to just admit that they do not want my son there anymore and assist us in placing him into a more agreeable learning environment for him.

I just need, at this point, to be extremely spiteful about one of the school's representatives, a woman who is employed to be well versed in the educational needs of special children.

As such, one assumes that she would have, at least, a minimal understanding of the conditions of the children she is paid to assist. As those of us with children on the spectrum know, it is one hell of a condition to get diagnosed and get assistance with, due to its tells. It is a varied condition, affecting each child with it in a completely different way, and no two children are the same.

The only people that usually have a good handle on it are the people the autistic person spends the most time with; teachers, parents, siblings. Thus it is always an excellent idea to accept input from parents, as they serve as the best advocates for their child.

Therefore, if a parent suggests a way that they believe will work, a way that they have tested at home, one would assume that said suggestions would be welcomed and taken on board. If that is the assumption, one would be oh so very, very wrong.

Apparently, in the teaching profression just as in real life, there are those who have to be the centre of attention, who everyone has to look at, and who have to claim success and victory in areas where there is none.

For example, try explaining to someone who, as I said above, is the employed to co ordinate the needs of those children with special edcuational needs (let's say they had some sort of job title to that effect), what the theory of mind is in relation to an autistic child.

Let's then say that said person, who is clearly hypothetical and, were they to exist which they clearly don't, wasn't even at the meeting (which possibly didn't even happen), decided that they were the authority on your son, and knew more than you, your son's step dad (who has been brought up by him), a teacher from a specialist autism advisary service and The Boy's teacher.

You explain what your son understands about emotions (from years of you doing work using The Transporters, looking at photos, doing social stories). You try to explain that he has always recognised when he is sad because he has been hit, that he understands that other people can be made sad by someone else hitting them, but that he has no concept of him ever causing another person to be sad by hitting them as he enjoys the action of hitting them and therefore assumes that they must also. You explain this in deviated forms several times. Then the representative from the advisary service that specialises in your son's disability explains the same thing, and your son's teacher has also said the same thing, said special needs co-ordinator states that your child does understand that what they have done is wrong because they dislike having to go to their room as part of their punishment, and declare that emotional literacy classes that they put in place (which were actually suggested and arranged by yourself) have taught him same, you need to make a choice.

Do you explain again that he doesn't understand that his actions affect other people's emotions? Do you explain again that his upset is caused by his perception of punishment (having a sticker taken away from his chart) and not his action?

Or do you, as his teacher did, just tell the SENCo that his upset is because he doesn't like the SENCo?

Would you then, as a parent, having endured a boorish pompous imbecile blustering on incessantly for several hours about how any and all acheivements that your son has made are down to her (disregarding that she has "known" him for three months, and has committed a cacophony of incompetencies that should have seen her dismissed from her post for same), and that all failures are down to your inability to parent and youre son's teacher's inability to teach, would you or rather could you, let that be?

Or would you embark upon a monologue of five minutes whereby you made it extremely clear to everyone gathered at the meeting that your child despises said SENCo? Would you embellish it to such a degree that everyone else present at the meeting sniggered childishly behind their hands, as the SENCo turned increasingly red and became increasingly frustrated that you refuse to stop?

I would adore to be able to tell you that I resisted the urge, but here is the one place I tell the absolute truth.

I was fairly unstoppable. I called her incompetent several times during the meeting. I pulled her up on her mistakes, and the extremely bad way she has handled my son's case, and her refusal to accept any responsibility, and her inability to accept that it wasn't about her, it was about The Boy.

When I collected The Boy that, I explained to him that, from now on, he should associate bad behaviour with having to go and see the SENCo. If he wanted to not see her (or Mrs Poo as we are currently not correcting him in calling her), he needed to ensure that he gets all of his stamps, and absolutely no lines. Because a line didn't just signify bad behaviour, it meant having to go and see Mrs Poo.

Who wants to place bets as to how much more successful this is going to be?

I'll chuck a £20 on it...

Reviews

2010-02-01T15:12:00.000Z

Post an evening out, my first in a while, (and after I have apologised to everyone present), I am sent a text message.

It advises me that I am "categorically banned" from unsupervised contact with a person in attendance, and further describes said person as pompous, boring, rude, with no sense of humour or self depracation, who "treats me like crap", and described as "not just a cunt, but a dull cunt, which is much much worse." Best of all, this is not just one person's opinion, but several.

I have been merrily sitting here pissing myself with laughter, not just because of the "two children hence bladder incontinence" thing, but also because, for the longest time, everytime that person was upset I took full and complete blame.

I kept blaming myself for my horrible crime, long since over but always dragged out like the obligatory stereotyped working class bloke on Radio 4, screws turned to make me feel shit about it, a hundred years later when the pulse had ended on it so long ago it just needed to be buried because it was just stinking up the room.

I always thought that it was me that was the cunt. Turns out - not so much.

It's a small thing, but it may have just bolstered my confidence as much as it deflated it at the time. Even? I reckon, though I doubt I'll hear the end of this as it's pretty uncomfortable to take a proper look at yourself. Isn't it?

It may be time

2010-02-01T14:53:00.000Z

Following a meeting at The Boy's school today, the consensus has finally been reached that it "may be time" to look at bring in the behavioural referral team, and placing The Boy at another educational institution.

It has been admitted that he is not learning anything as he refuses to do so.

His violence is ever escalating, his temper is worsening, my bruises are getting bigger. He is attacking and threatening adults as well as children. Teaching staff and support staff alike are afraid of him. He is now at a point where none of the other children will play or associate with him, as his mood swings are so violent and unpredictable.

It has been vocalised that "mainstream school may no longer be appropriate for him."

The thing is, whilst I am happy for him to go to a "special school", and in many ways, this has been what we have wanted for a very long time, he is not. The very real problem is that it is not something that he wants, and therein lies the issue. He adores having friends, but now he has very few, if any.

He is so isolated, so alone, so frightened, and I have no idea how to satiate that. I used to have the key to get to him, but he's changed all the locks and now none of us know how to reach him anymore.

I'm not ready to quit, and I never will be, but tell me; how do we deal with this? Anyone? Please?