A Rehash: Rose-Coloured Glasses in the ASD World.

Many, many moons back (even more moons than months due to the blue moon last night) I entered a competition on another blog. You may remember from my reference to it in this post.

Since then I have been asked by a number of people to post my actual entry on here. It was a limit of 250 words, and the requirement was to tell your story of rose-coloured glasses... do you or don't you wear them?

This was my tale:

I have a pair of rose-coloured glasses. When they said “your son has autism, he will never socialise or have friends, you need to consider the options” I put on my rose-coloured glasses and told them “Pfft, what do you know?” As he made friends and proved them wrong, my glasses turned a deeper hue of blushing pink. When the educational professionals stated, “You are an obsessive mother who cannot accept your son’s shortcomings and thus will unduly scar him” I grabbed my hot pink glasses and enrolled him in a mainstream class. I knew in my heart of hearts he did NOT have an intellectual impairment and my glasses tinted the darkness of their words into softer hues of manageable pain. When he excelled at school and grew into this unique, confident, happy young man, open and proud of being on the autism spectrum… the glasses glowed in magenta-tinted splendiferous pride. I am going to wear them right to the end of my pessimistic life. Did I not mention the pessimism bit before? Well I am a glass half-empty sort of person, but my rose-coloured glasses thrust me blushingly into an optimistic world. A world called motherhood.

I won.

And my glasses continue to shine brightly with the reflected magnificence of my incredible son.

Fluff, Yeah I did say it: *Fluff* poem!

Blog Days of Bounty

In my first blogging comp

The winner me to be

A camera from Woog & JVC

For the second blogging comp

Specsavers sent to me

A freebie time for glasses

A camera from Woog & JVC

In the second blogging comp

Acknowledged she must be:

Madame Bipolar

With freebie time for glasses

Add to camera from Woog & JVC

For the third blogging comp

Misc – laneous Mum laughed in glee

Sydney Writer’s centre voucher,

Madame Bipolar

With freebie time for glasses

Add to camera from Woog & JVC

For the fourth blogging comp

U_B_ER_KATE!

Sydney Writer’s centre voucher,

Madame Bipolar

With freebie time for glasses

Add to camera from Woog & JVC

With the fourth blogging comp

Wanderlust gave to me:

U_B_ER_KATE!

Sydney Writer’s centre voucher,

Madame Bipolar

With freebie time for glasses

Add to camera from Woog & JVC

In the fifth blogging comp

We will have to wait and see!

As none entered as yet by me!

And to the wonderful ones who ran these comps for me to blitz win:

Go, check out their blogs, though I have no doubt you already do!

Merry Blogging one and all!

Awards, Competitions, and Hoisting Your Own Alpaca...

As Trav seems to have dropped the ball on Memoir Mondays yet again (Trav, consistency, CONSISTENCY!) I am coming in with a bragfest general post. It has been an exciting week so far in Madmother World, and it is only Tuesday!

A lot of you would be followers of the impressive Woogsworld. You may even be one of the seventy odd (yes, and I do mean odd) people who commented in the hope of winning this little beauty:

But being one of the oddest of them all I have to brag to inform you...

I WON!



Me! Who never wins anything! At last, my ability to write greeting card poems has paid off! And the truly tragic ironic moronic funny thing is - what was rhymed is all true! Even Part Deux...

So come on, accolades people. Don't make me hoist my own alpaca all by myself. I think the last thing I won may well be one of those school awards I found stashed in Wise Woman's draw yesterday.

Woohoo - go me! Now to fight off marauding children with plans for blackmail world domination one photo at a time.


So, being full of myself now feeling confident I have decided to put my hand up for Torkona's Aussie Blogger Awards. Mainly because I like the blunt, kickarse tone of Tork's blog and want some honest, brutal feedback. In other words, Tork, I ain't really in it to win it (well, yes, anyone wants to win, would like to win, but I know January has been fraught with pain and grief and totally raw emotions and is not truly representative of the Aussie Mummy blogging world), but maybe you can point me in the right direction to move forwards with this blog. 

I'm coming out of the fog and now need someone to give me clarity. Or a kick up my considerable arse.

Bowing out slowly backwards for now, hand covering said bountiful butt in case of premature arse-kicking, QEII wave perfected...

Your own

Greeting Card Poetry and Other Drivel.

For those unfamiliar with me on here, or even irl, I am a bit of a puerile poem profligate. I call them my greeting card poems - you know, the sort of rhyming drivel that briefly charms then sours like eating a large packet of jelly belly beans in one sitting?

I also have been know to dissect a good song and mutilate transform it into my own little ditty. Prime examples are my Blog This Challenge winning rewrite of a Midnight Oil classic (yes, I did just sit and do spirit fingers dancing in the instrumental bit); and also my rehash of Hey Soul Sister by Train for a friend. The second was bloody difficult I might add. won't be doing THAT in a hurry again, let me tell you.

But it is my little poems of fun that tend to burst forth at the strangest times. Like the comp over at WoogsWorld atm. Don't get me wrong - the comment ditty I entered is all pretty damn accurate, it just is rhymingly accurate. Bit tragic I guess. Oh, and the rude versions of Christmas songs me and kids have made up. Those I best not post, or your view of me as a delicate little petal may be forever tainted. Really.

And of course I cannot leave out my fundraising efforts, and school projects.

Things like the magnet hand cut out with a marble on the thumb:

Happy Mother’s Day Mum,

I thought I’d lend a hand

Cause I know you are so busy

And always in demand.

On it is a marble

For you to have to put away

I KNOW you lose your marbles

As you tell me everyday.

So next time I annoy you,

And make you tear your hair

Just look upon the fridge Mum,

And your marble will be there!

Or the door hanger, again with marble:

Please Do Not Disturb

Do not dare to enter here

Cause inside is a madwoman

Known to you as “Mother Dear”

Today has not been good to me

I’m losing the whole plot

You know I love you dearly

But some space would mean a lot

I think I’m losing all my marbles

Nothing is very clear

But when you feel I’ve lost them all

You can show me this one here!

Oh, and lastly - my interpretation of the Jar of Nothing:

When I asked you what you wanted,

For Father’s Day this year

I know I heard growled: “Nothing!”

It was so very clear.

I’m sure I heard you right,

When at last you made reply,

Did you not say nothing

As I looked you in the eye?

Now, I searched all sorts of places

High and low and here and there

Until I found the perfect gift

(It is all full of air.)

So next time when I ask you

Sincerely what you need

Recall this Jar of Nothing

And answer properly please.

See, I should be writing for a greeting card company! Now, go to Woogsworld and have a go at winning her JVC camera giveaway.

Look at Moi, LOOK AT MOI!

If the day didn't start off badly enough with a 3am invasion by Boy 1 after a nightmare, it rapidly deteriorated with a 5am rat dash. Yes - you read that right: a stinking rat in my bedroom! So, off I run to grab crazy cat 1 (crazy cat 2 is a little toothless, though only young. Ah, the joys of bad teeth and genetic inbreeding). So, cat is in bedroom hunting, searching, pretending to be a big scary predator. I am wide awake after four hours of sleep (not too bad in the scheme of things, though I do have to work today), figure, hey, I'll take advantage of this early rising to do some bloggity blog stuff and what greets me?

Two of my favourites shamelessly hussling for votes in the latest Blog This challenge! Well, I think, if it's good enough for Kellyansapansa and Moragg then it's good enough for me. Having won this with my first ever foray into the comp I constantly yearn to again feel that euphoric adrenalin burst of winning, though knowing I do not have the numbers of some of the entrants daunts me somewhat.

So I am throwing this out to the laps of the blog Gods: if you wish to read my entry, or happened to miss it it is HERE, to go read the list and find the links to the other entrants (after all it is not a true competition unless you have read the others) and or vote then it is here. Poll is on the right hand side of the page, and please note - you can only vote ONCE!

I am not going to shamelessly grovel or beg, or offer gratuitous bribery or incentives. You make like mine, you may prefer another. But anyone can vote, so please do. Great way to find some new blogs for your list too. Oh, and the cutesy puppy dog eyes, mere coincidence...

But he DID vote for my blog...

I will add, was pretty damn happy to see I already had a couple of votes. I confess it is a recurring nightmare that I go check the list, and am the only one to have a big fat zero. Bit like the dream where you go to your kids' school in only your knickers and thongs. Oh, you don't have that one? Ah, okay then, moving on. I don't either. No really, just wanted to put you at ease. Honest. Oh, just bloody well go vote would you!