World Autism Awareness Day 2013

Today, April 2nd, in fact EVERY April 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day. It is a day specifically set aside to educate, inform, share autism awareness.


The thing about having a child diagnosed with autism is beyond the grief, shock and disbelief, you get the "he/she will never" list. For this special day I thought I'd share you some of ours:

• "Shame it was not 20 years ago and you could place him in care and start afresh" Speech Therapist when he was 3. This was less of a "He will never" and more of a "He is so badly broken you may regret him..."

• "You are an overbearing, obsessive mother who cannot admit her son's shortcomings and is unduly scarring him in the process. He cannot learn." District Head for Special Needs for our area in a placement meeting when he was 6.

• "Why does my child have to put up with a special needs child in his class? It is a drain on resources we could use to push him higher." Parent to teacher, Grade 6. He was 12 and puberty had hit. Anxiety and meltdowns were occurring on a weekly basis. Weekly, not daily. AND we had funded an aide OURSELVES to help and to lessen any impact on the other children

• "No, we didn't put him in the Eduquest team because of his autism. He would not have coped." Grade 7 teacher who should have known better by then as he was achieving amazing things. As the principal of the school this competition was held at said to me a year later "You do realise he probably could have won?" ... yes, yes we do. We knew that at the time but you pick the battles you will win, and not the ones where ignorance will never be changed.

And then we come to the now. All those dark times where you wonder "Is it worth it?" "Is this making a difference?" "Are we doing right or are we putting him and us through all this stress for nothing?"... let me tell you in our case, and yes we wondered all of that many times, and other's words echoed consistently through our minds, it is a resounding "YES!"

This is what I posted on a Facebook group page earlier this week:

This is the boy who was told he could never learn, would never socialise, had an intellectual impairment, and whose sensory meltdowns were legendary and incindiary. This is the boy whose family always believed in him, treated Asperger Syndrome as differing abilities not a disability, who always set the bar higher so he could soar...

This is my now 15 year old performing a monologue in front of an audience of 60, a monologue he chose, directed, acted and blocked. This is my Super Aspie Boy:



My son. My amazing, compassionate, talented, confident just turned 15 in January son who has Asperger Syndrome.

Is it all worth it? You tell me.

World Autism Awareness Day april 2, 2013. Differing abilities, not disability.

A very, very proud and totally in AWE of her boys (cause her youngest rocks too)

COUGAR? Hell NO... PREDATOR!

Please watch A Current Affair tonight @ 6.30pm.


One of the most beautiful people I know is fighting for her son. A mere child, he has been manipulated and lied to, seduced and corrupted, poisoned and twisted by a serial predator. They are calling her a cougar.

Up here in our small community the teenagers call her Shrek. The media are calling her Ronald MacDonald on steroids. We call her Jabba the Hutt.


She is beyond foul and finally, in desperation, after DOCS, the police and lawyers have all gone "too hard", a loving mother has resorted to trial by media.

I will be able to write more AFTER the show, when all is out in the open...

A Valentine's Day Disaster - or Why We Won't Be Eating Here No More!

“We don’t get out much anymore” is the anthem of parents everywhere. Once children enter your life there never seems to be enough hours in the day and eating out goes to the bottom of the priority list. As the children grow you would think dining in restaurants could become a little easier, but it is then THEIR commitments which prevent such transpiring as you become the world’s busiest transport system for them and their mates.

Which is why, on the rare occasion you do manage to dine out, a bad experience magnifies into gigantic proportions. We had a restaurant, a favourite place to dine. One that served a choice of meals the children would happily devour - a very important requirement. One that also offered us a variety of culinary delights that made braving the night out more than worthwhile for the adults. Living in a small community we heard rumbles of discontent with the service, but figured, ‘Hey – you cannot please all of the people all of the time!’

Over the past twelve months this restaurant became THE place for us… you know; the birthday place, the anniversary place, the celebration place. Then IT happened. On one of the family nights three of the four of us dined as usual, with abandonment and sensory joy, whilst the fourth sat and waited, and waited, and waited. The head of our family, unable to eat with us as his order had been forgotten. Forty minutes after the rest of his family had satisfied their hunger, and only after we chased the waitress to ask the chef, his order arrived. ‘Okay’, we thought, ‘everyone is entitled to one stuff up’. 

It remained OUR place. The next time we were dining with another family. Laughter echoed around the table, wine flowed freely, conversation continued without falter… and my husband was forgotten once more. A little embarrassing when it was your suggestion of venue and you had talked the place up to the others. Again we waited, his meal finally arriving but by then the chatter had dried up somewhat and awkward pauses had infiltrated the scene.

Yet still we returned; until the 14th of February this year. We do not traditionally celebrate Valentine’s Day. Like many, we feel it is an over-commercialised American money-spinner, but this year, with one of the kids’ after school commitments ending at 7pm, we figured why not? Booked. Arrived. Ordered. Being a school night, and as one had a mass of homework awaiting his return, we opted for the quick choice on the menu, or so we thought. Pizzas. Not that difficult or time-consuming, right? Wrong. Entrees came, though mine was only lukewarm, not good with prawns; kids’ meals came. After quite a bit we asked the waitress how long the pizzas would be. It became very obvious they had not even been started as we watched her race to the kitchen, grab our order and run it out to the pizza chef. She returns to say they won’t be long. “How long?” I ask. “Five minutes.” she replies, “The oven is hot, it will be quick.”

Five minutes pass, then ten. I tell my husband to take the boys home to let the fifteen year old start on his homework, and I will ask for them as takeaway. He leaves, I move from the table to the front counter. And wait. Another five minutes goes by, the owner’s wife asks me what am I waiting for? “My pizzas”, I tell her. The waitress comes to the front, and I ask “Where are they?” She grabs the order which is still THREE BEHIND on the pizza bar, and tells the chef it is urgent. He mutters something about the others in front of us. She tells him we have been forgotten and should be first. At this point I tell them not to bother and that finally we have had enough and will not be returning. The chef then turns and grabs two plated pizzas and tells her to box these as I am saying we are never coming back. The waitress grabs them and telling him he cannot do this. They are not even what we ordered.

During this farce not once did we get an apology from the owners. The waitress yes, it was obvious she was mortified, the pizza chef/owner nor his wife did not appear to give a damn. As I said in the beginning of this article, once you become parents you become time poor. A restaurant is a customer service driven business, and it is an industry where many fail. No matter how good your food may be, total disdain for customers and the arrogance in believing you can treat people anyway you want and they will still be your customer is not only unacceptable, it is sheer stupidity. You will eventually fail.

As for us and our Valentine’s Day dinner? We came home, made tasty, home-cooked pizzas which we devoured whilst like any good, modern day writer I vented on Facebook. Then I sat back and read and read of other’s bad experiences at this same place. But this time I understood exactly why those rumbles had begun, and why they were turning into a roar.

ASD Awesomeness

I should have thought up a better title, I should have been writing of this earlier. Actually, no, I couldn't as today is the first of the performances and who knew where this would end?

My son, my oldest, my glorious 14 year old Aspie has one of the main roles in his youth theatre group's play.

My oldest son has seven performances in this very professional production. Today, tonight, tomorrow, tomorrow night, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

SEVEN!

Did I mention his role really is one of the most important in the play?

He plays The Beast.

To top this off, starting Monday he has EIGHT exams - his finals for Grade 8.

Pressure? Hell yes, for any child. For one on the autism spectrum? Overwhelming for most.

But not for this boy.

I AM SO DAMN PROUD I COULD BURST!

He aced the first performance, and as we walked away when I picked him up two little girls were talking to the director and excitedly whisper "Is that The Beast? We liked him best."

I cannot wait to see him in action tonight, but even without having witnessed him in action yet I could not be on a greater high.

And he is self-assured and calm about his exams (which strangely is how he has been all year - stresses over assignments, relaxed and  confident in his intelligence and knowledge for exams... go figure) without a sign of anxiety.


This was undreamt of EVER!



 ~Refer early years posts~

Oh Dear Lord.

Today was meant to be a day spent with my partner in life, my husband.

The first day after the school holidays, the day school went back.

Dropped both boys, went and had brekky together, found message on mobile on return to the car (yes, I should have taken it with me).

Boy 1 frantically calling, trying to find one of us (Big Boy had left his mobile at home charging) to tell THERE WAS NO SCHOOL UNTIL TOMORROW!

Whoops, parenting fail. But hell, you know, every other school on the planet, including Boy 2's, WENT BACK TODAY!

So off we trot to humbly pick up our child. Our son, who thought it hilarious we had stuffed it so badly. Our son, who once upon a time, would have been in massive meltdown mode for hours because of this.

Our son, who came home, got changed, and happily came down the coast with us.

Where, in one of the shops, a lovely lady who meant no harm spoke of her teacher husband and dealing with these kids. You know, these autistic ones with PROBLEMS and ISSUES and as much as she meant NO HARM, it was really quite harmful to hear, and listen to her condescending words.


Ignorance still runs rampant in this world... Next time I just may comment about how lucky it is for someone like her not to have to worry about their level of intellect or any real challenges in her sweet little shop job.

Yeah, ignorance is not pretty to deal with.

Who Knew?

Knees, apparently, are essential in life. When knees refuse to perform their function all of a sudden the things you took for granted are gone. *Poof* vanished.

Walking becomes a major issue, climbing stairs an impossibility, gardening a dream from the past.

My knees have decided, very suddenly, to do this. We had been diving into the jungle we call our garden (though on 3 acres on the top of an extremely fertile mountain it is a little bigger and more overgrown than most), slashing, pulling and poisoning. My asthma was not happy at the lantana dancing, my body was creaking and moaning at the unexpected exertion.

Then one morning my left knee decided not to co-operate. My LEFT knee. Not my *twenty years of pain and problems but totally ignored because I am a tough bitch push on through the pain sorta wench* RIGHT knee. My good *hey let me take on the extra we'll be fine just let's get on with it* LEFT KNEE.

Which meant both knees were fucked.

So, off to my local, very tolerant GP me and my knees trotted (with dibber-dobber Big Boy shadowing closely). Like me, she suspected cartilage *time to do some basic clean-up work* damage, inconvenient but not too bad. Off to x-ray I go.

Results came back quickly.

Moderate osteo-arthritis in both, right worse than left, bone-on-bone you need TWO knee replacements within the next couple of years if we can pain manage and string it out that long result from hell.

The usual lose weight and exercise plan forcefully suggested (did you know that for each kilo you lose, four to five kilos of pressure is removed from your knees? I didn't), appointments with dietician, exercise physiologist and orthopedic surgeon put in place.

Rest for left knee to recover demanded.

I listened, for once. Well, sort of listened and capitulated to a degree.

Until Saturday all seemed to be getting better. We had a family playdate planned for that night, so being keen I kept my feet up most of the day.

And disaster struck. For some insane reason, when I went to arise to leave my RIGHT knee decided that twenty years and it was done. Could not put foot to floor without tears of agony. Honestly, it takes a lot to make me cry from physical pain, I have a truly high pain threshold (emotional stuff, well, Telstra ads can set me off) but this was off the richter scale.

So now the situation is as follows. Appointments are not until mid-October, the surgeon is mid-November. My GP is away for this week.

I cannot walk. Seriously.

Am taking my x-rays off to the physio this morning, if I can manage to hobble there.

I had no idea my 14 year old is so strong, and can nearly balance his mother with one hand. I did not dream that my 13 year old's shoulder was exactly the right height to allow him to be a human crutch. I did know that they love their Madmother very much and will do anything to help.

Both knees. Fucked.

Not happy Jan.

Bloody derby drops... something tells me they had more than a little to do with this. Who says exercise is healthy?

FYBF - The Early Hours

I have no idea what the theme will be for today's FYBF. I have no inkling of what I should be writing of. It is 4.30 in the morning and I am up insolently insomniacing again.




I do not suffer from this as frequently as I once did, or maybe it is a lull in my slackening sleep cycle... a minute respite in the big scheme of my life? But it does not matter, for here and now I am awake once more.

I am not here often nowadays. The driven need for the written word has left me; well, that and the fact that I am quite aware of the poisonous eyes who peruse these pages, yearning for a tainted titbit, a morsel of information they can take and twist, a last minute grasp of evil to be used before we leave the school by which we are connected.
 *Waves* Grins* Laughs at how powerless and small these amoeba women are*

My life and the joy in it must seriously frustrate the fuck out of those two.

Life moves on.

It is 4.30am.

My younger son, for all the turmoil of this year and the actions of those who should know better, aced his Year 7 NAPLAN. Seriously ACED. My older son is blossoming more and more, thriving in the hothouse nature of his small private high school, the nurturing, student-focused, positive atmosphere suiting him to a tee. And he has a lead role in the local drama group's play. My son with ASD has a LEAD ROLE IN A PROFESSIONAL PRODUCTION.

I still miss my mum.

Oh, and my body is aging faster than my paper years. Which is why I wrote this:

*Madmother Ode*

I went off to me doctor

To get me bits all right

She prodded and she poked

Those bits all outa sight

Made me go have pictures

Of inside and of out

Drained me of my blood stuff

(All Twilight fans be proud)

Then she sat me down hard

Solemn and so glum

Told me I was broken

And need to stop me fun

Revealed my knees are dodgy

Some new ones needed soon

And no more derby dancing…

Well, that threw me into gloom

She hauled me off my grog too

Many, many months ago

But whilst my liver smiles more

There’s still a way to go

But I ain’t some little fairy

Not delicate and such

Not gonna go so quietly

It’s time to make a fuss

So, knees just suck it up loves

And liver, you’ll be fine

And if the pain is too much

I’ll just increase the wine!

~Copyright Madmother~

Apologies to those who already read it on FB.

Enough of the drivel. It is now nearly 5am and I am waiting for the sun to rise. We need to order water. We need to go to work. We need to ready the boys for the last day of the second last term of the year.

That is all folks. Toodles!