It's been a very long time, and all I have in my defence is the school holidays, a little accident, and falling in to that horrible pit called depression!
I'll start at the beginning. Roman broke his leg. Correction, I broke Romans leg! I was carrying him across the nursery school playground, tripped over a box, and landed with his leg kind of under me. Queue a trip to the hospital, an x-ray, a very sympathetic doctor who patted my back as I sobbed over my precious 6 month old, and assured me that "He'll break plenty more!" Why, WHY?! of course he won't, he'll be bubble wrapped from here on in!! He's fine now, the cast was only on for four weeks and there is no lasting damage (other than my emotional scarring, of course.) What it did do was send me in to that downward spiral. I started feeling nervous and panicky, and convinced that everyone would be blaming me and my terrible parenting, not helped by the fact that he reverted back to crying, fussy whinge bag baby, and the onset of school holidays, meaning I was home alone with 4 kids from 8am-5pm, and honestly felt completely incapable. Like unable to rise from the sofa incapable. Made sooooo much worse when my "friend" decided to start up a facebook vendetta about people who moan when they have no "right" to, and made her status a blatant description of my life the way she sees it, and let me assure you, it was mean, nasty and downright uncalled for, and made me feel even more useless. Deleted and blocked, moving swiftly on. Poor Husband didn't know what to do with me. (I do seem to make his life a misery when i'm miserable!) Anyway, I did the brave thing and spoke to my doctor, who is arranging for me to have some therapy to teach me some relaxation techniques and ways to deal with my anxiety (because of course now i'm convinced that we will all die in our beds, or explode in a horrific car crash, or be kidnapped and turned in to a real life human caterpillar, which, yes, i do have nightmares about and i've not even seen the film!!!) I already feel a little better, thanks to Luca receiving respite care in the form of Saskia the angel with invisible wings, and Roman being far more settled.
On to the next topic of interest....Lucas birthday! He turned 7, which quite frankly makes me want to cry, he really should still be a tiny baby. He is totally obsessed with Mr Men, so I bit the bullet and got out my baking equipment to make him a Mr Bump and Mr Tickle cake! The actual cakes came out ok, other than Mr Tickle, who was a little on the um..... hilly side. (totally lopsided, bordering on pissed if you want the truth) The icing was the most fun ever, just buttercream with food colouring. The blue came out perfect and went on like a dream. The orange however....well. It would not go the colour I wanted, and when it finally did, it had so much food dye in there that it just would not harden. I was spreading it over the cake and it was running off, resulting in some very colourful language coming from the kitchen, which by that point was a sea of icing sugar, orange(ish) buttercream icing, and cocktail sticks (in place of paintbrushes, obviously. Improvisation at its finest) My daughter wanted to help, but eventually staggered from the kitchen choking on icing sugar and looking distinctly white. Poor girl. In the end, I stuck with Mr Bump, and put Mr Tickle down to experience. And in the bin. But the cake I did succeed to complete looked cheerful, if not completely professional, and was recognisable, and Lukey loved it! Score 1 to me. Plus, as a little added bonus, everyone who ate a piece ended up with a delightfully blue mouth! I think maybe I need to do some more research in to the correct use of food dye. But anywho, nobody was poisoned, and that to me is a sign of success! We have a wonderful video of Luca sitting having "Happy Birthday" sung to him and blowing out his candle. Sounds very normal, but this is the child who just a year ago would run from the room with his hands over his ears, so tears all round and the progress he's made!
Then, there is the little issue of the letter I received from one of my neighbours. Not sure which one, as they weren't brave enough to say, but long story short, someone is unhappy with the amount of noise Luca is making on his trampoline. Apparently it goes on for hours and hours, and is not like the noise that "normal" children make, and is "something of a nuisance" and "unacceptable" and "needs to be limited or other action will be taken" After i'd finished crying down the phone to my mum in sheer heartbroken racking sobs, I pulled myself together and had a little think. Firstly, yeah, he's noisy. No denying. But if you have ever heard a child with autism (and unless you live in a bunker or under a rock, you probably have) you'll know that the noises made are very repetitive, quite distinctive, and can be very loud. These noises are not exactly voluntary, they are what is know as a "stim" ie a way of stimulating a mind/body that is not stimulated and does not react in the way that a "normal" person would. He needs to make sense of the world around him, and also, often, to cope with the world around him, and bouncing, spinning, rocking, screaming, shouting, etc etc, are the way he does that. I can't make him stop, I can't keep him imprisoned in the house, and I refuse to feel guilty over someone elses prejudice. So out went a little note to all my nearby neighbours, basically explaining, apologising for the inconvenience, and making it quite clear that it wasn't going to change any time soon. Two fingers up to whoever it was that moaned!
Now, you may have noticed, I've written all of this all in one go, (almost) totally undisturbed, thanks to the implementation of what is known as "Romans nap time" It is the most heavenly hour in the morning and afternoon! This morning, during the hour, I swept, mopped, washed up, tidied, put some washing on, and made (and ate!!!!!) lunch. This afternoon, during naptime, I threw together a (pink, i'll explain later) chicken stew, made a large blackcurrant with ice, and settled down to type. I honestly think this naptime malarky has saved my mental health! When he's not napping, he is in my arms or in his sling, being put down is still an extremely risky business it would seem, so naptime is pretty much the only time I have my arms/back/shoulders to myself. I don't mind, not at all, if what he needs is to be close i'm happy to oblige, but omigod yay for nap time!!
Just a few points to finish up with....if you want pink stew, just pour in a tin of whole plum tomatoes. I thought i was pouring in chopped toms, my bad, didn't think it would matter but yeah. Pink! Secondly....shrek is an excellent bargaining tool when trying to persuade your now 7 year old to put his pants on.
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