R U OK?

My friend, R U OK? You don't seem yourself and you've lost your lovely tigger bounciness of late.

Hey darling, R U OK? I know you always worry, but something feels a little darker around you right now, can I help lighten the skies?

Hi you, R U OK? Stupid question as I can see you are in a pickle. How about you let us all help you out of this? Or let us in to help you out?

After all, that's what friends are for.

All Pooh Bear pictures copyright Disney

I am here. And I really do want to know... R U OK?

The Mother

I wrote this in a note on Facebook, and then decided to share here too. Sorry for the double up for those who are on my FB list. Am also linking for both weekend grateful and FYBF. It's been THAT sort of week.

The mother walked, bent double under her load. On her back were her children, her career, her aging parents, her friends - though who, when and what changed as needed. Her face pale with perspiration, her legs shaking with effort, she put one foot in front of the other, constantly moving forward though sometimes at a snail's pace. Some days her children were dead weights, exhausted, stressed, the pressures of school, social acceptance, conforming wearing them out.
Other days they were as light as feathers, and she needed to tie a string from her heart to theirs so they did not float away with happiness and laughter. And on the terrible, black, heavy days when she thought her back would break, the load would suddenly lighten and the pain lessen and she would look to her side where she had not realised her loving partner or a dear friend had appeared, and they would say: "Hey, I'm here. Do not worry, let me carry some of it for a while whilst you learn to breathe freely again."

Thank you my friends and husband for allowing me to exhale.

Ah Yes, The Autism Hasn't Miraculously Vanished You Know...

I sing his praises so much you could be forgiven in thinking he was out of the spectrum, but of course he is not. He is doing well, so very well BUT it is incredibly frustrating when the fact he has Asperger Syndrome, will ALWAYS have Asperger Syndrome (AS), seems to be forgotten. Or ignored.

Big Boy & Boy 1 - Byron Bay
Copyright Madmother

The pressure at the moment is immense. We are coming up to the last week of third term and the work is snowballing. Why they do this is beyond me. Even Boy 2, who does the same work as Boy 1 though is in the grade below, Grade 6 (in a composite 6/7), is finding it terribly stressful. Tears of frustration are becoming the norm in this house.

Last weekend we had meltdowns, trigger tempers, tears. This week has been much the same. And it could have been avoided with a little forethought.

Boy 1 had a week off, the week before last. The whole family went down with some nasty virus, but he was hit the hardest. The school knew, because it was from school I picked him up on the Monday, green as the grass.  So he missed a week.

On his return the following week this is what he was hit with:

• Poster for his marketing/technology poster due on the Wednesday, he found out Monday afternoon. Given extension to Friday.
• Rough draft of debate due Friday - AND they put him in as THIRD speaker for the negative! WTF? Who in there right mind would do this to a child on the spectrum? Debating is hard enough, but THIRD SPEAKER? First speaker, maybe he would cope, but never in the think on your feet last rebuttal final speaker position...
• Science experiment parachute construction due Wednesday.
• Thursday off school at college orientation day.
• Assessments and class withdrawal by education department OT and also another session of assessment by physio.
• LOTE test on Friday sprung on him as he missed it the previous Friday.

Yes, I picked up a boy in tears on Friday afternoon having missed first break and part of second (thus not eating as much as he usually does - which is a part of his routine which keeps him settled).


Boy 1 Sept 2011
Copyright Madmother

 I just cannot comprehend how a school could not see this was setting him up to FAIL. There is no way possible for us to have managed or prevented such, and to be honest I really felt like letting them reap what they have sown for I feel they forget he is still a young man on the spectrum. Yes, he is amazing and doing so very well this year - so what? You want to bring him back down? You want to pull all the struggles back into the light?

And they wonder why I get frustrated with the system. The bloody system doesn't work!

Note: Big Boy and I went in first thing Monday morning. Big Boy was very proud of me for no teacher was harmed in the making of this post. Yes, I kept my cool. On the outside.

Write on Wednesday - The Great One Liner...

I'm back! Life took over for a while but am finally jumping back on board Write On Wednesdays.






The Write On Wednesday Rules: Get creative with the writing exercises - there isn't a right or wrong. Please do try to visit the other members of Write On Wednesdays and leave a comment. You can grab the button for Write On Wednesdays from IPP sidebar.
 Write On Wednesdays Exercise 13 - A Great One Liner...
This week you need to come up with one good line to describe a part of your day. It can be 'real life' or fiction. But it must tell us 'who did what'. It has to be an amazing line, like a tiny little paper plane that must travel a big distance (figuratively speaking) with only a few folds ... Every word in that line must earn its place, or be cut as excess baggage. Let's get thinking about each sentence as though every word counts, like working one group of muscles to show how much weight they can carry.

Mine:

Was she the only one present who was aware this elephant in the room lent an unsurpassed new meaning to the term mammoth?

Go for it, rip it to shreds and thrust some feedback at me!
 
Off to read the others so far.
 

I want to be just like Dad...

Happy Fathers Day 2011!

Weekend Grateful: Love What You Have, Do Not Crave What You Have Not.

It is Weekend Grateful time once more, and this weekend it is being guest hosted! Wow, incredibly brave of Maxabella to let her baby out of her hands.

Even though I should be doing a Dad grateful on this Father's Day weekend, I am not. For the sun is shining, the air is sweet and the birds are singing up here in mountain magicland. And so I have decided to let you in on my wondrous place of life... I am so grateful to live here surrounded by nature, laughter and friends.

Drive on in...

Come on down...

Don't trip on the fountain, just make your way round.

We've cleaned up the garden

Pondered the post...

Excuse the nude lady, some think she's a ghost.

We've pixies a chattin'

And glorious trees

And as I sit writing, my view is of these.

Welcome.



FYBF and Trying To Wangle My Way to a Meet...

Well, am going to join in FYBF this week. Haven't jumped on for ages and as I also haven't blogged much of late may have to link an oldie rather than a newie. Am going way back as it approaches the first anniversary of my Mother's death. This time a year ago things were bleak, but this post I wrote not long after I lost her still resonates today. For her voice echoes in my head on the days I am sinking below the waves of grief. And her love still pulls me above the turbulent sea of pain and reminds me of how very lucky I am, and how truly blessed I was to have her as my mother.

Life is Too Short.

I am also trying to con manoeuvre bribe charm my family into going up to Brisbane tomorrow. Considering Big Boy and I were up there today it is a little more difficult than usual, though the discovery of an amazing crystal shop in West End is swaying Boy 1. Boy 2 and his father are a little trickier to convince, but I am working my way around to it.

Because there is a bloggers' meet with all the lovelies I would so like to catch up with! And for some reason (and I now know I am not alone in this) the events do not show on my facebook page anymore.

Just think - you lot may be able to meet my sweet, well-behaved boys! I promise, you won't even know they are there... 

Quiet just like their mother.