Autism Awareness Month Day 13

I woke up to a shout from Nae-Nae. As soon as she called out “mummy” I remembered what I had forgotten to do… Her tooth! The tooth fairy job! Heck lol. However I quickly went to my purse got £1 and went to her aid. She explained that the tooth was still there and she’s been looking everywhere for the coin but can’t find one. I offered to help her look. Time to put my cunning plan into force… I asked her whether she wrapped the tooth in tissue? I could see that she didn’t. She said no so I suggested maybe they needed the aid of the tissue to pick it up and they might have picked it up with their tools and dropped it by mistake. I had the coin in my hand, pretended that I had found it in a corner she didn’t look and watched her face light up again. JJ just rolled his eyes at me and tried not to laugh. He thought it was clever really lol. I took the tooth away and peace was restored.
I know people have often wondered why I would go along with that knowing it’s not true but it’s ok children with ASD are allowed to have those childhood fantasies too. JJ had them like many others and now he is at the age where he knows. I never told him either way he just gathered it for himself and I suspect Nae-Nae will too. Besides do we 100% know that fairies don’t exist? I don’t know the answer to that. They might not be fairies but angels which I know to exist (a story for another day) but those artists that drew them drew them small? It will all be revealed one day. For now Nae-Nae is having fun with it. Father Christmas doesn’t take the glory in our house at Christmas though. Nae-Nae still likes to believe that he visits but I tell her straight the presents have come from Mummy and Daddy’s income not Father Christmas. He might just put something little in her stocking bag and she’s fine with that. Nah why should he get the thanks for the gifts that they greatly value? No sorry but no!
Anyway I got ready for work and as I was doing that JJ walked in my room all sheepishly and said “good morning.” like it was the first time he had seen me today. I reminded him that we’d already said good morning and just a few minutes earlier I was performing the tooth fairy scam in his presence so him walking in like that saying good morning again is because he either wants to tell me something else or he is anxious about something. I guess what it was and he just looked at me and asked “How did you know?” I reminded him of my super mum powers. We know our children and sometimes we can read their minds. He was very impressed. We spoke about the issue and we explored different options to overcome it. I made him realise it wasn’t the end of the world and he felt loads better.
We set off to school and work leaving Nae-Nae with MrJK for another day of fun together. As we arrived at JJ’s friend’s house he did that thing with the phone again on cue. This time I thought I’d point out to him what he does. He looked at me like really is that what I do? It’s so built into his life it’s like second nature and he now does it without thinking about it. I wonder if he will now change the pattern no he knows I’m watching to prove that he can be a bit more flexible? We shall see tomorrow.
Busy day at work again and I had to do an exit interview with a client. She had achieved the goals we were working on and for now feels empowered to continue independently. She told me something that made me want to cry but I kept my composure. Her exact words were “You were the light in the dark tunnel that I thought I would never get out of. You were sent to rescue me and now I’m in daylight again.” Yeah I almost choked too! I must say it is an amazing story which I can’t share for confidentiality reasons but I also can’t really take all the glory for it like Father Christmas tries to do lol. My job was to empower her to improve her life chances and that’s exactly what I did but she had to make choices too and accept the help and she did.
I think that is key for us as human beings as a whole but particularly as parents. We have to make choices for ourselves but we also have to make choices on behalf of our children. Do we choose to get them the support they need, provide them with the support they need or just go through the motions because sometimes it seems too hard? Do we set good examples that they can follow or just not worry about the implications our actions have on them too? Well I know which ones I choose to do now. We as a family are still on a journey but we are definitely out of the dark tunnel too and that was also down to our choices.
My client asked me what I planned to do when I moved on (I’m leaving that organisation soon) and I just gave her a brief overview of one of the plans which isn’t close to what I do now, well not really. She was so excited and said “You were born to do that and you will be the one that they will never forget.” I thought huh? How would she even know that? Throughout the time I have worked with her I hardly gave off anything of myself, well that’s what I thought but she probably tuned into my characteristics when supporting her and came up with that conclusion. I was a bit gob-smacked to be honest but it was like another confirmation message that I am on the right path.

We said our farewells and I got into my car and sucked back the water that was trying to fill around my eyeballs. I drove to my next appointment in a real reflective state. Looking at where we was as a family to where we are now. All things are possible for those who believe.
When I got home, dinner was cooked and being served so I had a munch and went to my room for more reflection time, however Nae-Nae was bored and when she’s bored she starts antagonising JJ. He was trying to do his homework peacefully so he was getting annoyed and a fight was likely to break out so MrJK went to the rescue.
Nae-Nae came into my room and I broke my reflective state to suggest we play a game together. She agreed and I suggested we play ‘Awari’ which is a mathematical, scientific bean game originated in West Africa. My relatives taught me how to play it when I was younger and MrJK and I taught the kids some years ago. At the time Nae-Nae didn’t completely get the rules so I thought it would be a nice time to revisit it. I demonstrated the rules but half way through she said she remembered so we started playing. It’s a competitive game but it is good training for her need to always win. She created a paper score board with black smiley faces for a win and red sad face for a loss and a green straight face for a draw. She put ‘mum’ at the top of the board and her name underneath which was a surprise. She used to always want to be on top, the first name on the score board but obviously she’s gone passed that need now.
I got ready to win a few and draw a few but wrong! She floored me twice and we drew once. So the score board had black smiley faces next to her name and red sad faces next to mine. She cracked up as she drew these faces. She was so pleased with herself asking me whether I’m sad like the sad faces and proper belly laughing. But it’s ok I will get her back tomorrow. MrJK suggested that we play ludo together tomorrow and I liked the idea of that as the four of us can play. We usually have family games night on a Tuesday but we haven’t done it for a few weeks because I usually have a lot one those evenings and looking at my diary I have several Tuesday meetings to attend for the next month so we need to change things around a bit.
I think it’s really important to schedule in that time to do something specific at least once a week when all the family can join in. I could see MrJK wanting to take over from me when we were playing Awari but I didn’t let him lol. JJ is at the age where he would be fixed to the computer playing with his friends via Skype all evening if we let him but it’s really important for him to have fun things to do away from the computer with his family or socially outside. He goes to the church youth club once a week and attends all the clubs I run which is really good for him and his social development/maintenance.
I had a bath, Nae-Nae retired to her room once I’d read a story and I chilled with MrJK. At random he asked me to google the writer of the hymn “It is well with my soul.” He thought this writer must have really had struggles in order to write that so he wanted us to research him. Trust me MrJK might not always say much but you know the saying “Quiet waters run deep.” Well that was written for him! I read aloud about the writer’s life and MrJK wasn’t wrong, gosh that poor man! There was a message for me in all of this too. Some of my best songs have been written through my pain or reflecting on the journey of struggles to freedom. Sometimes we have to go through certain things because when we get to the other side we can produce stuff that will be encouraging for others. If my children weren’t diagnosed with ASD would I be able to write a blog entry every single day for a month without running out of things to say?
We went to bed playing the song “It is well with my soul.” I slept soundly and peacefully all night! It is well!!

Peace and Love

MrsJK