The Scotland Edition

Chapter 4593

A whole new book!

It's been a minute since I've felt even close to being able to unscramble our last few months onto the old blog. And really, I'm not convinced of it making the blindest bit of sense right now either but here we are and so here it is. 

After our mad exit from Peru into the Land of Uncertainty in NYC, there was a whole load of backwardsing and forwardsing about whether we could get to Oman or what was going to happen. An enormous amount of stress and anxiety coupled with E's very understandable meltdowning behaviour (rip his whole life out from under him, transport him to a giant new city and expect no consequences, did ya??) and it was all just getting too much. So I took it upon myself to move heaven and earth and get him the Emergency Travel Document and get us home to Scotland. HUGE big up to the UK Embassy in NYC - that there vice consul did do an amazing job and got the seemingly impossible made possible and to that we got on our plane and flew to London. Although this was only 2.5 months ago, it already feels like several different lives ago...so much has happened in the interim and E has been through so many ups and downs, we could actually have written a book just about these few months since leaving Peru! 

All the parenting everything about adopted children or those with any kind of trauma sing the same song - consistency, routine, structure, safe space, familiarity, etc, etc, etc. If you could put a wee window into the minds of those who suffer with parent guilt, you'd see the mental bashing most of us give ourselves. Add in 2 long haul flights, ripping away everything that's familiar to E, not actually knowing what was going to be next and no real way to communicate what was happening or what would happen next (even if I had known!), and you can maybe get a wee picture of the chaos and doubt and guilt, guilt, guilt that's been whirling around inside this wee head for the last few months. To say it's been difficult is to say the pandemic has been mildly inconvenient for us all. The effect all of this moving around and changing and lack of routine and consistency and familiarity has had on E was pretty devastating for about 10 weeks or so. I really thought I'd broken him. But more about that later...

So we flew to London, still thinking that we would end up going to Oman once I was double vaccinated and had had a minute to stop and get my feet on the ground and have a cup of tea! Onwards to Scotland! My favouritist Plummy Plum came to our rescue and was our Knight in Shining Unicorn Onesie who gave us a home as well as said cup of tea and a hug and love. It was to her safe haven we drove and geared up for our 10 day isolation station...holy actual moly...to those with young children who did the hotel quarantine: you are superhuman. I honestly don't know how ANYONE survived that! Being in a house with a garden was hard. Being in a hotel room with no outdoor access except for scheduled half hour slots??!?! I can't even. I just kept thinking, 'this isn't normal, it will be better when we can get out, this isn't normal, it will be better when we can get out' but poor Plum must have been wondering what in the name of all that was evil in the world she had let herself in for. Stratospheric meltdowns. The craziest waking hours. Stuff everywhere. All the screaming. ALL. THE. SCREAMING. Tough going for all of us. And during all of this, I think it's fair to say I was an anxious, nervous wreck of a human. My end game was always to give E a happy and safe life with a good school, people who understood him and lots of opportunities - most of which felt impossible in Scotland mid-pandemic because we had nowhere to live, I had no job and teaching jobs are almost as hard to get as when I left 12 years ago, no school for him and therefore not really much going in favour of that move which is why I took another contract. To wait it out until the pandemic was over and life had sort of righted itself again. But the horror show of the last, by that stage, 18 months, was just too much and there was absolutely nothing in my being that wanted to go to yet another new country, on another plane, with another nightmare travel situation, to absolutely no support, straight into full time work and having to set up from scratch all over again completely on my own. It felt very much rock and hard place. Choosing between a job, somewhere to live, an income, school for E, easy to find childcare, etc but no friends, no family, no support and no job, nowhere to live, no income, no school, no childcare but an entire ecosystem of support in my own country where life at least felt familiar and 'normal' was a tough, tough call. The stress that making that decision was causing felt overwhelming and completely unmanageable, as well as dealing with all of E's stuff. 

Thanks to Plum for giving a home, the decision was made and ultimately, we stayed. And it was the absolutely right decision to make. It has been more than a person should have to handle, and continues to be but man alive, am I unbelievably delighted to be in the Motherland, with my people, knowing that I can just go and visit those people who love us at the drop of a hat? You can 100% bet your actual bottom dollar, as they say. And that's not even to mention AUTUMN! THE COLOURS!! The glorious, stunning, vivid colours that autumn brings to the trees and the skies are just out of this world. Giving my boy the chance to play in fallen leaves and find conkers and get totally muddy and run free in huge parks WITH FENCES ROUND THEM has made all of the anguish so, so worth it. 

There's so much still to sort and it has been such a difficult path to get as much sorted as we already have but, like my guru Glennon says, we CAN do hard things. We, though. Not I. I need my people. Grateful for you all xxxx

Start spreading the news

We are in New York, baby! Oh yes we are. Sitting here actually still a bit in disbelief that this is where we are, even though we landed a week ago. It has all been a bit of a blur. After passports arrived and citizenship was granted and shipping went off to wait to be summoned to Oman and we were waiting to be summoned to Oman, it just all got a bit 'WHAT IS GOING ON?'. Well, it has been that way for a long time but I was reaching the end of my ability to live in the limbotown so I decided to make my own plan; namely, go to New York. 

Why New York, you may ask! Why not? I spent a weekend chasing the Pfizer vaccine in my wee car upstairs, downstairs and in his nightgown, having found out that Oman do not accept the Sinopharm vaccine going around Peru *just* at the moment they got to my age group for the vacunaton. Neither do the U.K. (Load of Big Pharma political nonsense if you ask me - surely a vaccine is a vaccine is a vaccine and we just want them in us so this absolute madness can stop and people can stop dying and we can all hug our parents? Surely?) So, I decided that we had to get the hell out of Peru and get me vaccinated and then see what the plan was from there to get to Oman. Back up plan was to stay in New York for three weeks, get double Pfizered and then go home to Scotland to wait it out there. (Obviously, secretly, I was hoping that the back up plan would be *the* plan because I'm oh so homesick and desperate to see our family.)

A genius plan, well received by friends, family and new employer. 

However. OF COURSE nothing is that bloody simple. Emilio, being declared a British citizen, does not have a British passport so cannot enter the U.K. What to do, what to do? Advice from the Home Office? Apply for an emergency travel document so that we can get back to Scotland quick smart and then we can do the passport application from there because it will take longer than normal, him being a new applicant and all. You'd think we would be used to waiting for stuff. *EYE ROLL*

So. Got in touch with British Embassy in Peru who told me to apply for his normal passport and, helpfully, informed me that he wouldn't be eligible for a visa now because he's allowed to get a passport. Thanks. I knew that and the bloody visa office is closed anyway! Can't wait for normal passport as it will take too long and we are travelling like, right now. 

'We will be in touch as soon as there is a decision.'

This has now been going on for three weeks and we are in New York and now the Embassy here is helping me because the Embassy in Peru are an actual joke. The lady here called me today to tell me that basically, E can't get this emergency document because he's not got a British passport to start with. WTAF?! I knew that and we had been through that and all the communication I've been getting from the Peru end was that the 'London colleagues hadn't come to a decision yet'. At no point had they said it's not possible. Nor that I should put in an application for his normal passport in the meantime because that is a requirement. THREE WEEKS OF THIS NONSENSE. WHAT CONSTITUTES AN EMERGENCY FOR YOU THEN, EMBASSY???? 

I am trying to be chill. But it is increasingly impossible to be chill because no one can do their job properly, the U.K seem determined to keep us out and all I want to do is go and see my mum and dad, for the love of sweet holy heaven, and get a cuddle and someone to make me a cup of flipping tea!!

Once again, I feel surrounded by inadequacy. 

So. Here we are in NYC, trying to 'holiday' but not really feeling like it because I have no idea what's going on, I'm haemorraging money and there is no end in sight to any of it. 

Oman remain closed it seems and have announced new rules starting September 1st re: being fully vaccinated (2nd dose plus 2 weeks) to be allowed to enter the country and all of its buildings. So unless they get us out of here and into there in the next week, we are looking at the end of September. I can't work from NYC, 8 hours behind and with no childcare, so I don't know what is going to happen there either. The dogs are in the doggy hotel but are being separated into different socialising groups in the day which was enough to tip me over the edge and dissolve into floods of tears the other morning. Enough has changed, they should be together. And Emilio is being Emilio but on a New York scale which is just so unbelievably difficult and terrifying but that's chat for another blog (insta ramble here). So it all just keeps being hard and we just keep living in the limbo and bureaucracy seems determined to beat me but it really needs to learn who it's dealing with, doesn't it? I will not be beaten. I WILL win this. And we WILL get home. And also hopefully to our new home.

But if anyone wants to come and give me a hug and make me a cup of tea to keep the fight in me going, that'd be awesome, thanks. 

x

HOLY GUACAMOLE!

Two things: 

Emilio has been granted British citizenship!

I am now in possession of BOTH of our passports!

IIIIIII KNNOOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!!

Fair to say it has been a bit of a rough old ride of late, no? A wee touch of coronacoaster, citizenshipcoaster, passportgatecoaster and your actual regular solo parenting coaster. Well. After being assured that our passports were on their way back from the Home Office in England, and chasing said claim through my exceptionally helpful MP's office (BIG shout out to Ian Murray's office - Lesley there has been so helpful and tried her very best to get things moving for us), I was informed this week that our passports had been sent. A week and a half ago!

Well, where in the chuffery are they then?? 

They've been sent by regular post. Signed for, sure, but by a regular Royal Mail postie. To Peru. From England. In a pandemic. When all kinds of shit has been going wrong. And I had asked for their urgent return. Couldn't have DHLd them back like I did to get them there, could you? ARE. YOU. ACTUALLY. KIDDING. ME. ON????!??!!

Needless to say, my belief that I would ever see those guys again was dimming away away down like wee Tinkerbell's light when no one believes in her. A sad, sad day indeed. 

So I have busied myself this week packing, getting ready for the shippers to arrive and take most of our stuff to store in their facility because I can't get the export licence sorted until I have my passport. Packing, packing, stressing, stressing, trying to remain calm and help E understand what was going on. Failing at pretty much all of the above. But. Shippers came yesterday and took the most of our stuff away - a huge amount more than they had expected and another bit of bill for me (I'm never moving again!!) - and were just so kind and helpful and excellent at their packing job. Totally recommend these guys - Gil International - just so professional and efficient. This is something I would, and do, monumentally SUCK at, as demonstrated today when I then tried to move us out of our house where we have been living for 8 months! We have way too much stuff to be getting on any planes anywhere, should we ever actually be able to get on any planes anywhere. As IF we have moved house three times in a pandemic...so far. Josie Jump. 

Anyway. This morning, I was mindlessly scrolling through the socials, inhaling coffee after having been woken up at stupid o'clock by Sir Kelly, King of the Ridiculous Hours. This was after a troublesome sleep due to a rude awakening around 1am by a policeman buzzing my buzzer and waking up the whole house (dogs x 3 going MENTAL) to inform me that I'd left my car window open (see photo of sticker on window as to why this may have caught random policeman's attention) and that I better sort it right now or I could be robbed. In my not-quite-awake-state, I had answered the door, having seen a dude on the camera, genuinely thinking this might be our passports. Dismayed that it was not, I wasn't quite able to form sentences in any language - threw some Italian words into an English sentence with some Spanish grammar I think, whilst nearly crying because I couldn't understand why everything was so wet and also why I couldn't get the window to go up. Thank you, other kind policeman, for pointing out I had the window lock on, hence why it had not been up in the first place!! 'It never rains in Lima'...well, it never USED TO rain in Lima. Climate change, people.  

So, point is, I wasn't very 'with' it this morning when I opened my email and found one from someone or other citizenship related with, and I kid you not, A WORD DOCUMENT attached declaring that my beautiful boy has been granted British citizenship!!!!! This means he can get a British passport, live in the U.K. if we ever actually get home and I don't need to worry about visas or us travelling on different passports etc, etc, etc. It's the BEST news. 

How it was presented to me, however, is actually hilarious. A word document, with random red writing in places (possibly the standard letter and the red words you change), attached to an email. Not a PDF. Not all the same coloured text. A WORD. DOCUMENT. I mean, my first graders know how to convert to a PDF. So, thank you, government, for realising that my child, regardless of the fact that he is adopted, is my child and should have the same right to live in the country I'm from as I do!! I'll say it again for the cheap seats...on A WORD DOCUMENT. Give me strength. 

And then, as if that wasn't enough, INCOMING PASSPORTS. I did what I was told and hotfooted it to Serpost to ask for my missed item. 8am opening time, it said on the website. My wee pooches all went off to their holiday home (waaaaaaaahhhh) at 7.30am and then Emilio and I were outside the office at 8.30am to find it didn't open till 9am. Of course. Anyway, they didn't have it. But they did have a what's app number to ask the courier to deliver it back to me urgently (they have 3 days to redeliver) and lo and behold, I text that wee postie (who loves emoji-ing a postie!) and I had a response within 5 minutes and our passports showed up, at our door, at the right time! WHAAAAAATTTT??? Well, actually they were a half hour early so thank goodness for Kellaroo sitting waiting in my house whilst we were out delivering dog crates to be stored and whatnot. 

So. After almost 5 months out of the stated 'up to' 6 month processing time for a citizenship application, with more than 4 months involvement from my MP to get our case prioritised because of all of our extenuating circumstances, another 2 and a bit begging for them to send our passports back so we can leave the country...we have our decision AND we have our passports. On. The. Same. Day. I mean! Hello stars! Or potentially the very lovely man I spoke to on the phone a couple of days ago whose name I'm not sure if I'm allowed to mention so I won't, but if indeed he was something to do with this, I couldn't be more grateful. Or to my beautiful friend for making that happen. 

Where does that leave us now? 

I'm not sure. Safer in my mind because we can leave. Happier long term because we can properly not worry about all the visa schmuk and can visit our family together! But in terms of what's next, I don't know! Offices in Oman are still shut to my knowledge. So we might be leaving in 2 weeks and we might not. Watch this space. 

What I do know is this: we shouldn't have had to go through this. Emilio is my son the same as any of my friends who have had their children here. I shouldn't have had to pay £1012 to the U.K. government and go through this hell of waiting, in a pandemic, when I was really close to losing my mind completely, for them to FINALLY decide that E can have a passport. It is not right, it is discrimination and there is no justification for it. 

So. I am going to take this on. I don't want anyone else to come behind me and have to go through this. It needs to change and I'm going to make it happen. But just now, I'm going to have a cup of tea and read my book. 

As always, thank you for the love and support you all give us. As well as postal advice!! My heart is full and warm and my mind is fuzzy. Oh, wait...what??!

Heehee. 

x

Can 'limbo' be FINISHED now? Please?

On and on and on it goes. Almost five months have passed since I applied for Emilio's U.K. citizenship, that which is supposed to take up to six months to process. That which I sent further paperwork for to plead our case for expediting it. You know, so we could get on a plane and get home to Scotland and have a bit of support, see our family, get something of a 'normal' existence in this pandemic after an enormous amount of time of just being us two. Well, here we are almost five of those six months down the line absolutely no further forward whatsoever. When I started writing this blog, it was a way for me to document the bureaucracy leading up to becoming a mum; a Single, a Foreign and an Altogether Unlikely Candidate for being accepted as an adoptive parent over here in Peru. I can remember exactly the night I sat down and started typing. I knew, then, that this was going to happen for me and I wanted to share my experience and have something to look back on and maybe something to show my future child. It then morphed into the process of matching with Emilio, bringing him home and starting our lives together. 

Not once, in any of that time, in any of the moments of fear, of uncertainty, of feeling like at any second they would reject me, did I think THIS is where we would be a few years down the line! (Actually, it is right around this time three years ago that I found out I had been accepted. How funny.) Never did I think that I would be sitting in a house in Miraflores, my beautiful boy asleep, my three dogs sleeping by my side, wondering when on Earth we would be getting our passports back. Flipping out about where we are going to be living in a couple of weeks. Stressing like a stresshead about the vague possibility of not getting to our next country and having to teach online from Peru, nine hours behind our new country. Agonising over whether to put the dogs into an hospedaje when we move to our temporary Air BnB, even though we are still going to be in Lima, or to keep them with us because, even though it will be a nightmare in the tiny apartment, they are our family. I think we all know what I'm going to decide and no, it's not the sensible option. (Having flashbacks to a conversation with my mum and dad when I was trying to decide between Vietnam and Venezuela...My dad said, 'At some point, Marianne, you're going to have to grow up a bit and start listening to your head and not your heart.' And my mum said, 'But we know that this is not that moment and you're going to choose your heart so just accept the job in Venezuela now.' Where would I be if I'd listened to my head, Daddy Kelly?!).

Anyway, the point is, this is not where I thought we would be and I am finding it all far too much, most of the time. Feeling this powerless is not something I think many people are comfortable with but I am particularly used to sorting my own shit out. You spend a life getting into all sorts of predicaments, you develop a certain skillset. But my skillset is rendered useless at the moment and it is not sitting well at all...so, Home Office, be a doll and JUST SEND US BACK OUR PASSPORTS SO WE CAN LEAVE THE FRIGGIN' COUNTRY, INNIT?!

The advice I'm being given is mainly about making lists and doing one thing at a time and chunking things and all that. Great. First step - get passports back. Excellent. Right. Nope. So... 

Second step. Wait for confirmation that visa offices have opened in Oman and we can get those visas and get on a plane and go to Oman. Nope. Because first step is still negative. And visa offices are, indeed, still shut.

Third step. Figure out what the deal is now with Emilio going in on his Peruvian passport and not a British one because, oh, that's right, WE DON'T HAVE OUR PASSPORTS AND HE ISN'T YET APPROVED AS A U.K. CITIZEN. Mother of all that is holy in the world.

Fourth step. Sort dogs travel. Can't do that either because of the first two. Absolutely no idea when/if we are leaving Peru and getting to Oman so absolutely no idea when to get them on a plane either. 

Jesus, Mary and Joseph and all of his carpenter friends (line stolen from a hilarious Irish comedian whose name I've forgotten). Really, though. Really. And if I hear one more time that 'it'll all come together', I will actually punch something. I know it bloody will. I successfully navigated the Peruvian adoption system on my own and have managed to keep us relatively safe and mostly happy (hah!) through a global pandemic, with next to no physical support: I am fully aware of how many mountains I can move (she says absolutely cockily!). IT DOES NOT MAKE IT ANY EASIER TO DEAL WITH. Being told you're strong doesn't make you feel any frigging stronger when you are literally the only person you can rely on to do all the stuff. Every single bit of the stuff is up to me. Never before have I felt the weight and the loneliness of that than right now. Solo Mumming is brilliant most of the time and I love our wee team - I would not change this for a single second. But man alive, I've had enough. I just want to go home and see my mum and dad and have a cup of tea and let my wee boy play with his cousins while I hug the bejesus out of my sister. I just want to be held up for a tiny wee while so I can catch my breath and carry on because this is the hardest thing I've ever done. Ever. All these blogs and groups I read about being a single parent...there aren't too many (none) who are stuck on the other side of the world with an autistic child who hasn't set foot inside a school since March 2020, having spent the Christmas/summer vacation already together 24/7. That's the other thing about being on the southern hemisphere in this pandemic. We had just started back to school so we have basically been in each other's pockets since December 2019. No wonder we are losing the plot. 

Anyway. This has just become a bit of a WTF outpouring of nonsense and that is ok. Maybe not that interesting, but stuff I wanted to get out of my head. Onto better things. 

What's the boy up to at the moment? Well, I have gone from being 'Nunny' to 'Monny' which I'm trying hard not to relate to the amount of American TV he watches...but if the shoe fits... 

He is absolutely obsessed with Lego right now, a surprise to exactly no one, and nearly lost his mind when we went to the Lego store a couple of weeks ago. The utter joy! Obviously, the instructions were just slowing him down so they have been abandoned and there is so much creativity and engineering going on that I feel a little less guilty about everything he's missed from school and activities and just bask in his brilliance instead. 

'There you go!' is a current favourite phrase which is the cutest thing ever and also makes me ever so much more aware of his copycatting (F button OFF, Maz). 

We have a new show on the go but generally introducing new things is an absolute NOPE at the moment; choose your battles. This is not the right one for the moment. 

Park trips are still hard but have actually been a LOT better since the last blog...though some dog walks, I have been offering his new wee buggy thing I got for travelling (PAHAHAHA!) because I'm just exhausted with the trying to keep everyone from dying on the streets of Lima. 

He's a negotiator extrordinaire! 'TV is going off, Emilio,' says I...'Five more minutes and then shoes on,' says he. How can I argue?? 

There's a whole lot more but I'm losing the will to type right now. It is mighty hard and I'm mighty exhausted and some days, so is he. But as we drove up past his 'first home' on Saturday, something we haven't done before, and I thought about that tiny little boy who was locked far away in another little world...there aren't really words. What a brilliant light he is and I'm going to make sure he keeps shining through the hard stuff. Go and someone send me a wee torch for myself though, eh?! 

xxxx

Why going to the park is NEVER just going to the park

Hands up if you are a parent who is absolutely, completely and utterly SICK of going to the freaking park? ☝I mean, I should be grateful, and I am most of the time, that we are actually able to get out and go to the park - those first three months in lockdown last year were HIDEOUS. We would have given anything and everything to be allowed out with our children who were held captive for a crazy amount of time. It is fully mental thinking about that; our kids weren't allowed outside. At all. And when you live in a city, mainly in apartment buildings with no gardens, it literally meant not going outside of your house. Blows my mind now. During that time, I just had to chuck E in his buggy and hoof it to the shop with the dogs in tow and hope beyond hope that we wouldn't get arrested, walking dogs anywhere past your own street also being prohibited. Madness.

 

Anyway, we were really lucky to move to the beach, just when kids were allowed out for a whole half hour per day. Autistic people had also been allowed out for a 15 minute walk per day. Again, mind blowing to think about it now but that was the life we were living. Being at the beach was amazing as the security people/police were quite happy for us just to go out and run around and use all that space and freedom - brilliant for a wee dude with developmental delays in all areas to tank up and down the stairs beside our house, having been cooped up for 3 months. It was awesome until they shut the beaches again from Friday-Sundays..then it was pretty shit again! When we moved back to Miraflores in the city, I did have major anxiety about how it was going to be trying to go for walks with the dogs and E and all the traffic and general hazards seemingly intent on killing one of my pack, having been so used to just letting everyone run free! I've mentioned before that ALL the parks near us are surrounded by roads or a massive cliff. Fences and gates are not a thing in these parts and cause no end of stress and anxiety. However, we have managed and are managing but it has become increasingly difficult lately and resulted in us both in tears the other day when we were out for a walk. 

See, the other thing that's happened as a result of COVID is that the parks are now used for all the things. Art classes, music classes, gym classes, yoga classes, birthday parties, picnics; you name it, it is happening in one or all parks and this is delightful, of course. The problem we encounter is that all of these things are extremely exciting for my guy and he sees no reason whatsoever why he shouldn't be part of such fun and loveliness. All of it. Again, a problem we have been having for a long time now... E sees something he fancies and so, logically, he runs after it/toward said object, gets it and runs away with his treasure. It has become harder to 'explain' to disgusted looking parents (and trust me, they are disgusted) why a boy of 5 is grabbing their 2 year old's snack/truck/balloon (oh the motherloving balloons!!!!!!) and it has become almost impossible to catch him and return stolen item as he is FAST, man. Anyway, this has all been getting harder and harder to manage, coupled with some major sensory things going on for him that I wasn't managing, and on top of the last 16 months of torture - it just got too much. I found myself crying whilst trying to catch him and stop him running backwards and forwards through a toddler's music class, with ALL eyes on me, him shrieking with delight as he absolutely LOVES chasing. He doesn't get it. I know that. He can't help it. I also know that. But do I respond the way I should and try to help him get the sensory input he's seeking? Nope. I either blow up or cry. Good one, Maz. 

Thankfully, I have amazing resources in the form of our SALT who has amazing resources in the form of an OT friend, and both of these wonderful ladies have given me some things to try and help ease the hell of going to the freaking park. 

Sensory diet: he needs running, spinning, jumping, climbing, pushing and pulling, weight baring stuff, jumping on the trampoline, amongst other things. I can do this. I can make sure he gets this incorporated into his day and I can see when he needs something and now, with this advice, I can try to figure out which 'bit' he needs at that moment. Check. 

Social story and the evil Behaviourism: I HATE BEHAVIOURISM!!!!! But, for his safety and to try and help him learn that he cannot just take children's cookies/toys/bags out of their hands, run away from me and not come back (EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. WE. GO. OUT.), I'm going to try a little tick chart with a reward for each time he comes back when I ask him to/scream across the park. Would I ever, in a month of Sundays, recommend to any of my parents that they reward their children with sweets for doing something right? NOPE. But, I'm desperate, he is not safe and I am losing my mind. So this is our only option for now.

And there ends the story of why going to the park is never, EVER, just going to the park. Every single time I step out of my house with my child, I have to have my own backpack, physically and metophorically, rammed full of: snacks, distractions, calming toys, fidget toys, strategies to teach him how to stay safe, strategies to teach him social communication skills and rules that we just take for granted, things to fulfil his sensory needs, and a whole load of other stuff. It is exhausting. And it feels utterly hopeless at times. BUT. Then I see him absolutely giggling his head off, playing with other children, chasing after them, sliding down together, climbing trees together, drawing together, building together and no, it's not the whole time and yes, it looks different from a neurotypical child's play but he is doing it. Despite how unbelievably bloody hard it is for this boy to exist in this world, and I am only just at the tip of the iceberg of my learning about this, he is bloody well doing it. And I could not be any prouder or love him any more than I do. 

We can do hard things. He can do harder things. 

xxxx

Stuff clicking and the bureaucracy continues

Where are we in the endless pit of paperwork? Exactly where we have been for going on 4 months now. So, when something says it could take up to 6 months, it really means it will take exactly all of those 6 months and maybe more. So completely over living in this mad, mad limbo; will we get to go home? Will we even be able to leave Peru? Will we get to Oman? Will we be at school? Will I be starting over in a brand new country with no support whatsoever and still fecking teaching through a fecking screen?!? Ah, life. You've shown no sign of making things easy for a bit, have you? 

It's been somewhat exciting over here. We are now on Nanny Number Six. That's right. Last Nanny was a 'loan' so to speak and her actual family came back to Peru and I was DREADING this because E loved her and was really settled again. But, BUT, lo and bloody behold, I made him a social story, talked it all through, visual-ed the bejesus out of it and he has been Absolutely Fine. He's asked for her lots of times and I just say she's gone to play with Baby B and he's grand. WHAT???? Waiting for the shit to hit the fan, obviously. Honestly, the boy takes resilience to a whole new level. So we have another lovely lady who is just doing part-time now and we are back to living just he, me and dogs times three. Isn't that lovely? I much prefer this. I think E does, too. So let's see but for now it is working for us. 

Re when the actual chuff we are actually moving...who the hell knows? It is proper mad trying to leave a place and go to a new place to start a new job when you are in the middle of a pandemic. Just in case anyone was wondering. Nothing is certain whatsoever and it's actually impossible to plan. We are staying in our lovely house till the end of July then we need to move...to where, who knows? I thought about maybe doing a little trip before we fly to Oman but then COVID keeps still killing people and I don't have my vaccine and I also don't have my passport so I can't even go on a vaccin-cation to the States...so then I think, no, stay in Lima and stay safe. Then I found out that Oman aren't actually issuing visas at the moment so there is a possibility that we won't even be able to actually go there in August in which case, what? We stay in Lima and I start teaching online 9 hours behind their day?! NOOOOOOOOO thank you! It is one giant headmesser. I just want Emilio to have British citizenship and get a UK passport so that at the very least, wherever we go and whenever we go, we are on the same visa requirements and that will be one less thing to fret about. COME ON, HOME OFFICE. Maybe we should send in the lady looking for Jose Luis #whoisjoseluis #exactly.

In other news, something is happening with my boy. Things are just starting to click for him. I've mentioned before, I think, that abstract conversation/concepts are difficult for him. For example, do you 'like' this? What in the chuff does that mean really? I've been trying for a while to get this across to him by basically sticking a thumbs up in E's face when he's having something he likes (mainly ice-cream) or doesn't like (anything new ever) and relating it to 'good' and 'bad'. So last week, he was doing something (now I can't remember what it was and I'm sad) and I said 'do you like this?' and he said 'Yeah. Good.' and put his wee thumb up. I nearly cried. Except it wasn't nearly. Anything 'yes' used to be 'ee-ee' which I think is from 'si' and only recently it's changed to 'yeah'. He's also started linking more words together - 'I'm sorry, Nunny', 'See you later, Nunny', 'Nunny Eniyo walk yoghurt'. It's amazing. Thank you, Nisha! And, now this is HUGE, I took him to a new park the other day and he was having the time of his life with all these wee pals who were chasing after him. Sure, he wasn't engaged all the time, but they didn't care and called after him to run and chase anyway. The most amazing thing was that there were 3 of them on slides all next to one another, E in the middle, and he looked to his friends and said 'uno, dos, tres' for them to all slide down together. My boy. Leading the game. WHAT THE WHAT IS HAPPENING?? Absolutely incredible moment and the image of his enormous smile, laughing his head off as they all slid down, will likely stay with me forever. Given how very, very little social interaction he's had with other children over the last 16 months, this totally blew my mind. 

I just started another course about autism and it is equally blowing my mind. I thought I knew some stuff. It turns out that I know absolutely nothing. Still digesting last week's session and once I've got some of it figured out, I'll try and share what I'm learning. Until then, please send good thoughts our way that papers start moving so we can get moving and hopefully get my little superhero into school so he can start blowing more people's minds. 

xxxx

 

Social what now?

And just like that, life has become a teensy bit more manageable again. Those mad meltdowns I could not figure out have decreased with the introduction of, shockingly, some more visuals. Sometimes I forget what I know, if that makes sense. Like, I know that the boy works best when he knows what's happening in his day and, from what I understand, this is a double whammy of his autistic brain and his developmental trauma-ed brain. He just needs to know what is going down and he's grand. Mostly. I forget because at times he is so ridiculously flexible and just kind of goes with the flow so I think it's all ok that we don't really have a plan for the weekend, we will just see what happens. But, I think, as the last few weeks have demonstrated, this is just not ok. Not one bit. I also forget that he's bigger, knows a lot more and can cope with a lot more. So before it was ok just to have a day to day plan because I suspect time didn't really make a huge amount of sense to him in terms of how we organise ourselves in days, weeks, months and years - just like any child. But he is older and he does know more stuff and he needs to know what his week looks like, goddammit! A very simple Twinkl chart to show him which days he can have the full of sugar yoghurt crap from the shop and which days his beloved Nisha is coming and when football is, etc, etc. And when it's just Eniyo and Nunny. And, what do you know, life becomes more manageable for him again! Duh, Marianne. Really. Big, fat DUH. 

There is something I keep on learning and keep on learning - stop assuming you know what he knows or can cope with, Marianne. You cannot. I am the loudest, shoutiest advocate for children who don't fit in a box; you can ask pretty much anyone that. (Not an actual box, you understand. The figurative kind. Just to be clear). But I am so, so guilty of trying to cotton wool everything around my son and even admitting that I do that is tough. Something I knew almost immediately was how clever he is and how quickly he can learn something new. Well, actually, that bit came a bit later but it was obvious from the get go that his brain is something to marvel so why do I constantly try and cushion everything for him? Think he doesn't understand days of the week? Wrong. Think he doesn't understand when he can have something and when he can't? Wrong. Think he can't cope in a social setting? Wrong. He is constantly showing me that our world can be bigger, once the world opens up again that is, and that it is me who is scared of that. We have had a few visitors over the last couple of weeks - people coming to collect things they've bought from my moving sale, people coming for brunch, etc, and Emilio clings to them and shuts the door so they can't escape. Regardless of who it is (sorry, Auntie Sharon, but it is true!). He so desperately wants our little unit to grow and be the village I promised him and it just makes me so proud and so sad at the same time but mainly it makes me want to broadcast to those who like to stereotype our little superheroes: YES, SOCIAL COMMUNICATION CAN BE A CHALLENGE FOR ME. BUT I LOVE HUMANS AND I WANT TO HOLD HANDS AND CUDDLE AND TICKLE AND TALK AND PLAY. 

VERY Important Note: this is about my own specific little superhero. Not all the autistic superheroes. For some, touch is the very idea of hell. People in your grill is the very idea of hell. Just...we are all different and that goes for all autistic people as well. Should be obvious, but there are a great many people who think 'he doesn't look autistic'. Cue massive eye rolly stuff from yours truly. 

However, now that things are a wee bit more open and we are a wee bit seeing people and stuff, a whole other set of 'things' to 'deal with' are emerging. These things relate directly to social situations and social communication and just how much we take for granted about how we just know how to behave at a picnic, for example. We being the neurotypicals of the world. Food has always been a big motivator for this guy; he loves it. All of it. Except for tomatoes and things that are a bit squishy - prefers a raw vegetable, for example. So any time we have had any kind of social situation where there is food, friends over for the day, going to people's houses (BC: Before COVID), it's always been a bit 'oh, I'm sorry, he just doesn't know' as E dives in head first to whatever is there and eats like he's never seen food before. As my over analysis kicks in, I wonder if this is an autism thing or a trauma thing or maybe a bit of both. Food issues are common theme in adopted children, hoarding particularly, and from my understanding, linked to the neuro pathway that has been constructed signalling to the child that there might not be enough food the next day or for days to come. Understanding E's life before me is crucial and I know how food worked in his orphanage - rigid and if you spilled it, tough luck. 💔 Pretty sure his obsession with the fridge/kitchen is because he had never been allowed to see in one before he came home. So, it's always been a 'thing', but BC, he was still a bit teeny enough to get away with it. Now...

Now it's a whole other thing because he's big and the expectations we put on our children are that they 'know' how to behave and if they don't, they'll get quickly redirected by their parents. It's something that I have felt so strongly about in my professional capacity; we are happy to teach children maths and literacy and science but we expect them to behave. Grrr. Just loads of grrrrrr. Fortunately, our friends know the score and wouldn't ever judge, but it's another story for the general public. Basically, every single trip to the park (I AM SO OVER GOING TO THE PARK!!!!!!!) is stressful if there are other people there. And obviously, there are always other people there. A child with a bag of crisps means E is going to try and take that bag of crisps. A child with a football means he'll do the same. Anyone with a bag of goodies is a target. Anyone with any possessions whatsoever is a target. It is EXHAUSTING. But now my wee brain is in overdrive - how do I teach these things that we just sort of learn by osmosis, or by it being modelled and spoken about when you're a Tiny Human? E doesn't get it. He doesn't understand to just take one strawberry and not the whole lot. Or that you can't take the balloons from that wee girl's birthday party over there. Or that we don't know those people, so you can't have their picnic. And many, many other things that you might take for granted if you're the parent of a neurotypical child. It is something that needs serious intervention and explicit instruction in a wee social group, where there is plenty opportunity to practise - something that we might have had at school perhaps. But as we don't have that and haven't had that for 18 months, it's such an ad hoc scenario and hard to do an intervention for and so it just runs round my head in a constant 'what do I do?' loop. As I was just saying to my friend, I am so guilty of saying/thinking 'oh, E wouldn't be able to do that' and then chastising myself as this child constantly proves me wrong and shows me he is capable of handling pretty much whatever the world throws at him. So I suppose for now, I just need to put a pin in this, do whatever is possible in our current situation and hope that when we actually get to our new school (HOPING that it it's in person), opportunities for learning these tricky, tricky aspects of how to function in this world will be more forthcoming! A world, that is, still expecting those different to the 'norm' to fit in with the way it works and not the other way about. I suppose that is part of why I write this blog still. In hope that more awareness will lead to a more accepting world. One that will strive to learn and understand how our neurodivergent humans see and interact with their environment and ultimately change and bend to a different way of being. 

We can but hope. 

More behaviour stuff

Life is merrily dancing along right now, as we await decisions about paperwork and, ultimately, whether E is going to be granted British citizenship or not. Everything is wonderful and I have truly never loved being a Solo Parent more!

Well, clearly that's not true at all but it's nice to start with a bit of positivity, no? 

Yes, we have hit a bit of an even keel in terms of managing life - I no longer feel like I'm circling a big, black hole with no way out (YAY!) and E is settled with Nanny No.5, more or less (TRIPLE YAY!), work are being unbelievably supportive of my recent battle with said big, black hole and everything feels just a bit brighter. However, the mad uncertainty of what the hang we are doing and when we are doing it remains an endless, roaring and thundering storm in my head. 

What if the Home Office say no? Then what? We can NEVER live in the U.K. 

What if they take so long to decide, some of the papers are outdated and we have to start all over again? 

What if they take so long to decide, and keep our passports, that we cannot get the chuff out of Peru and off to Oman (have I mentioned that we are moving to Oman? I can't remember. We are, in fact, moving to Oman.)?

Sooooo many questions, soooo much anxiety, sooooo much uncertainty and lack of control over every single area of life at the moment. It's exhausting. And terrifying. I do realise that the whole world is living this global pandemic, I do. But how many of that world decided to move house twice and then MOVE COUNTRY in the middle of it? I suspect not many. My coping strategy is do what I can do, in tiny little chunks. Such as: 

• sell some stuff (this is proving harder than expected due to Toddler Graffiti - see Quarantine Chaos 2020 for reference - and Daft Dog Damage)
• pack some stuff
• throw out some stuff
• donate loads of stuff
• meditation - who knew??
• reading A LOT
• making endless lists
• offloading to the poor, not unsuspecting village

It's working, more or less...

Dealing with the boy, however...Jeez. Just when I think I've nailed it and we are in The Zone, he's sleeping mercifully better again, happy with Nanny No.5 and all is relatively calm...BOOM! There it is! Another week of waking at 4am, some mad meltdowns for reasons I cannot fathom and the heavy weight of feeling like a failure, again, with no idea and no business attempting this Solo Parenting gig. 

Take, for example, yesterday's momumental meltdowns. Plural. I cannot figure out what is going on because they have hijacked some of today, as well as other parts of the week. It's all fine and happy and tickles and painting and blocks and adding and all the things and then I say no to something and THE WORLD IS ENDING. Yesterday, I said 'no' to going to buy yoghurt. Admittedly, sometimes I allow this and sometimes I don't and I have berated myself over this whimsical way of parenting many times; it's not fair to a neurodivergent Tiny Human who requires rules and routines and understanding reason. It's not fair for it sometimes to be ok and sometimes not. I know I should have done the visual schedule months and months ago to say 'ok' on 'treat' days and I know that would work for him; he's a visual guy. But because he mostly accepts it when I say no, mostly, I haven't. So it's my fault. But yesterday, the Actual. World. Was. Ending. Combined with me having work to do, just let's say that I did not handle it well. At. All. 

But it got me back to my usual tennis match/pinball machine in my head; is this the autism, is it some sort of trauma something, is it just being 5, is he just having a bad day/week, is it because I'm stressed? Because, of course, ALL behaviour is communication so WHAT AM I MISSING?? And do I, for example, just cave in every single time he wants something and throws a hissy fit when he doesn't get it? Or am I supposed to be teaching him that he doesn't always get what he wants? 

What does that even mean when your brain doesn't work that way? It means nothing. It is completely and utterly useless, abstract nonsense that has no place in his world. So why, oh why, can I not just remember that every time he's going nuts and respond in the right way? Man alive, this is hard. 

I've started reading 'The A-Z of Therapeutic Parenting', having joined The National Association of Therapeutic Parents (NATP) some time ago when we were going through the Nanny Abandoment Hell (see here for a trip down that particular memory lane...only if you're a bit of a sadist though) and I really wasn't coping with my poor boy's reaction. Since then, I have dabbled in learning about it, but have failed to do any solid work in becoming a therapeutic parent, though I so desperately want to. It's back to the top of my priority list because surely someone, somewhere has some answers to some of this stuff?? Surely? 

In the meantime, I'll just keep making the mistakes and trying to learn from them and learn from him and hope beyond hope that at some point, this will become a teensy bit clearer and I will become a teensy bit wiser and life will be a teensy bit more manageable. 

Peace out. 

xxxx

The Guilt

This morning's musings/ramblings come from a place of feeling all of the Guilt, all of the time. Like, literally. All. Of. The. Time. So, you know the Guilt of which I speak; when you left the TV on a bit too long, when you couldn't be bothered doing the jigsaw puzzle so you just sort of half-heartedly 'encourage' from the sofa, when you made sandwiches for lunch and dinner. Three days in a row. You know? I was still a newbie at this parenting gig when the pandemic hit - I don't think you get your 'Parenting Badge' till you're a good few years into this journey (Hey, Duggee, can you clear that up for me?). And Pandemic Parenting is just next level shit, isn't it? If getting a fully formed, running around, pulling all the stuff out the cupboards, eating all the things from the fridge, having all the tantrums, two year old human home to all of a sudden keep alive and nurture and, you know, parent, was a baptism by fire, then what in the chuff do we call throwing a pandemic and stay-at-home order into the mix? Hm? What's the name for that perfect shitstorm?? My point is that I still knew very little/nothing about how to do this thing. And then the world made me do it entirely by myself. 

It really has been all about survival. At the start, Chapter 1 if you will, I was still trying to do the things - setting up sand and water play, loads of sensory play, making car tracks on the floor play, building tents, making shit out of cardboard - I really was trying and I know loads of parents who were. But as this continued and still continues, the mental exhaustion, the physical exhaustion, the parenting fatigue, the pandemic fatigue; it is all just too much. And we cannot be bothered. No, I don't want to play trains. No, I don't want to read a book. No, I DEFINITELY do not want to do baking. Or painting. Or cars. Or dressing up. Or dolls. Or any kind of small world, role play, imaginative play. I mean, E playing in the way that he does means that I'm largely excused from some of this...but there is exactly where the Guilt rears its head and mocks me from the back of my brain. While my friend is trying desperately to escape from a game of dragon vets taking a trip to the moon with the entire population of the zoo (I mean, I wouldn't play this game on the principle of animal welfare), the Guilt is slowly eating away at me for not trying to engage E in such a game. Social communication is the biggest area of intervention he will need - learning how to play a game with other humans, that there even are other humans interested in what he's doing, to understand that you can actually interact/have an interest in that interaction and that it's fun. It's huge and it's something there would have been heavy intervention in, had we been in school for the last year. But that is not the case and so everything, as I said previously, has fallen on me. And man alive, have I failed big time in trying to do those things. Because I just cannot. I can't motivate myself to set up the stuff and try to teach him in a way that he'll understand because all of it is just exhausting. And I know I'm not alone in this. I know we are all feeling that lack of motivation. The feeling of just 'make it all stop' or 'send them to school' or 'can someone ELSE just do this thing please?'. The mental exhaustion of being all of the things, all of the time, for SO LONG is far too much. But if we understand this and we know that there are gazillions of other parents feeling the same, why can't we just accept it? What do you do with the Guilt then? 

Having chatted with my gorgeous friend the other night about her burnout and fedupness of the whole thing, I realised that there is still a crazy amount of pressure on us. What I don't know is where it's coming from. I don't think it's just internal pressure. All those 'just sit with your feelings' people can, quite frankly, f off. Same to the 'self-care' people. What in the name of all that is holy on the planet does 'self-care' look like when you're trying to keep other hearts beating in your home, manage the emotions of those other lives, teach them stuff, nurture them, attention them, feed them, play with them, all of the things them. What on Earth does 'self-care' look like then, people? Coz if one more suggestion comes at me in the form of a long, hot bath, I will scream. Loud. And man, I'm loud anyway. My 'bath' is a blow up paddling pool in an inexplicably huge shower space, full of pegs (pegs?!), foam letters, all manner of plastic sea creatures and a Little Tikes car. I shit you not. So baths are out. What else? Read a book, you say? Go for a walk? Exercise? Nice cup of tea? WHAT ABOUT ANY OF THOSE THINGS STOPS MY BRAIN FROM TELLING ME THAT I'M A CRAP PARENT AND SHOULD BE DOING SOMETHING MORE, PLEASE? The 'be kind to yourself' camp are out in full force but they do not exist separately from fact that you are hard wired for Parental Guilt in the Normal Times. And we are still not in the Normal Times. Saying that you should have a break and you then trying to have that break does not, for some torturous reason, stop your head from thinking of the trazillion things that you should be doing instead of having that break. This is not exclusive to being a parent, by the way. It also takes the form of doing more exercise, eating better, losing the quarantine kilos, being better at your job, at keeping the house clean and tidy, at being a better friend/sister/daughter/whatever, of doing self-improvement, learning something new, etc, etc, ETC. It is a relentless, sick, warped carousel of suffering. And I see no way way to make it stop. 

So. I will continue to 'sit with' my feelings of being a failure, of thinking I should be doing more, being more, doing better and being better until someone invents a magic solution for this and gives us all a chuffing break from the relentlessness of being a parent in a pandemic. 

Love xxxx