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What if they take so long to decide, some of the papers are outdated and we have to start all over again?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

Morning musings from inside the madness of mumming

Yesterday, two things happened. 1) I listened to Glennon Doyle's new podcast (oh my goodness, go, right now, immediately and get it in your earholes: We Can Do Hard Things) where she described her journey in writing which began by her just writing every morning in her closet. 2) I did an Instagram live with my friend @katywakefield_yoga to discuss mental health and the impact mumming a young child during this pandemic has had.

Both of these things made me think I have things I want to say and I don't actually care if anyone is listening to them, I just know I want to say them. So I'm going to try. 

I have a long and colourful history with various mental health issues and I can honestly say that I know more people who have had some sort of something mental health related in their life than haven't. It seems absolutely bonkers to me, then, that we are NOT talking about it all the time. All. The. Time. Especially now. Especially during this time of absolute world ending, sky falling, nothing solid to hang on to sort of a time. Hands up if you're fed up hearing 'we are in different boats but the same storm'?🙋 Hands up if so many phrases that started off providing comfort have now become cliché to you? 🙋 Hands up if you feel that you're so far into this thing now that you can't keep leaning on the same people you have been because you feel guilty because they are also still battling through? 🙋 Yeah. Sorry for all the 'hands up' ing, but I am a teacher and that's just what we do. Except when we are doing 'no hands up'. Or are on Zoom. In which case you just mute and unmute. I digress. The point is that we are still all dealing with this crazy time and we are all still trying to live through it and survive it with some mental faculties still in tact. We can only speak from our own experiences of how hard it is. We can only understand from our own little place in this giant shitstorm. But by talking about exactly how hard it is, exactly how pushed to our very limits we are, by reaching out and saying 'I CANNOT KEEP DOING THIS', we can try to connect with one another and maybe make each other feel less alone. 

This has been a massive part of my own struggle; the absolute aloneness. Having no actual humans in my house past 5pm who I can have a real conversation with is crushing at times. A lot of the time actually. Having no one to share the burden of how unbelievably difficult this is feels like the most enormous weight pressing on my chest. Not being able to tag team out when Emilio is being difficult. Being the ONLY person, and I do mean that, I am the ONLY person in the whole world who understands what he needs, why he's screaming, though obviously not all the time. When he's tired, when he's just being a twat, when he's losing it because he wants to take his umbrella on a walk and the person taking him for a walk (nanny no.5) doesn't understand him. I am the ONLY person who can help him. The weight of that responsibility is mindblowing and suffocating and overwhelming and anxiety inducing and also special and a privilege and an absolute blessing. The internal struggle I have with those polar opposite feelings is exhausting. These things would probably always have been there but throw in a global pandemic, teaching from home since March 2020, homeschooling since March 2020 and having very, very, very little in person contact with your support group and it is just too much. Oh, and being on the other side of the world from your family and not knowing when you'll see them again. And worrying about the virus and their health. Again, it is too much. 

I think the thing that is getting me the most at the moment is having to be absolutely everything to Emilio. I am his whole world. Sure, he goes to the park with Nanny No.5 (who can hear Mambo No.5 in their head right now?) for a couple of hours a day but that's it. The leaps and bounds progress he's making is exceptional - absolutely exceptional - and I am so grateful to have his twice a week speech therapy because that is a huge part of why he's making that progress. But the rest of it is entirely on me. There is no Early Years education. There are no intervention groups to teach him how to Social. Which, let's face it, is pretty important in life...though not really in current life! The guilt that just envelops me when I'm having a down day and have no motivation to even get out of bed, though out of bed I must get, is crippling. But some days, I. Just. Can't. Some days the T.V. is on from morning till night. Some days I want to throw him in the bin and watch Netflix on my own for that entire day. It is just so, so, so hard. 

And that is all. This is so exhaustingly hard. To anyone out there who feels this, I see you and I hear you and I feel you. Let's talk. 

Mother's Day

What a weird day. This is our third Mother's Day together and, even though I don't really go for novelty days, a weird day it has been nonetheless. Mother's Day is HUGE in Peru. Like, bigger than Christmas. Well, maybe not, but believe me, it is a Big. Deal. My new dentist asked me the other day what I would be doing to celebrate and I said nothing, it really isn't important to me. He was appalled and said but of course your son will make you a present or something? 

Errrr...no. No, he will not. 

And his dad? 

He doesn't have a dad. 

Oh. Well. We will call you then! Hahaha. 

It's been a while since I've had to explain that I'm a Single, that Emilio doesn't have a dad and that he is autistic and has no earthly idea nor care what a Mother's Day is. When I commented to a friend after this exchange that I hadn't had to say that in such a long time, she rightly pointed out that's because we have met no new people for over a year now. Correct. Lockdown has been good for that... Hah. It's just a thing that is, but it was a thing that made me think something when I was having to say it. I haven't really figured out what the something I was feeling was yet.

Anyway. Sunday lockdown in Lima, meaning we cannot go out of our houses, even for exercise. I think this is the third one since the new, new, new, new rules were introduced. In all honesty, I have absolutely no idea what's going on with COVID and rules here anymore but I do know we aren't allowed out. Yet we do go out to walk the dogs and there are other humans on the streets. Not many, right enough, but other humans there are so who knows what the chuff is going on. We had a nice enough day yesterday. I've gone from being lonely as hell all of the time, and craving human contact, which was my state for most of last year, to not wanting to see anyone, ever, pretty much. It's weird. But that is how it is and we had a nice day yesterday, just us two. So today was a bit of a smack in the face when I found myself just feeling really angry and snapping and unable to manage the dogs being annoying, Emilio being annoying, cars being on the street...just normal stuff. I was fuming. Then obviously tearful. I did not relate it to being about Mother's Day until I came home and had a little think and a little text chat with my friend and sure enough, it may possibly be just that it highlights all the aloneness of this. 

I remember our first Mother's Day together - we had two social engagements which was an absolute First Time Mummy Error. FAR. TOO. MUCH. The Tiny Human did not cope and went into fullblown meltdown and it was hideous. However, we had a nice time before that and I felt really special. I can't remember last year's. And today I've just been really down and pissed off. Again, no one really wrote a book on how to handle special days when you're a solo parent with a special needs child in the middle of a pandemic and aren't allowed out of your house. Niche market, much? I think there is indeed a book in there somewhere... Social media is flooded with messages of love for mummies everywhere in whichever form your mummydom takes which is lovely and should really make a person feel connected but I just don't. Just still feel like I'm sailing this wee ship entirely by myself with absolutely no idea where we are going, or when, or if we will be ok. Not very cheery for a day such as today. 

Something I did do was light a wee candle and send a little wish off to my boy's first mum. I hope that's something we can do together if it's a thing he understands later on in life. Things are not as anyone would want them to be right now but at the end of this sucky day, I tucked up my favourite person in the whole universe and sang him our song and kissed him goodnight. Sending gratitude out into the world to the woman who brought him into it and even more gratitude that I'm the one who hears that little voice repeat 'night night, love you' as he drifts off. 

Happy Mother's Day, women warriors of the world. x

Crawling back up from over the edge

So there are all the things now. All the things. I feel like we are in some properly mad Hunger Games-esque scenario. The relative 'evidence' for wanting to come home has been submitted to MP office, which is then passed on to Home Office. It's actually nuts and it kind of makes me quite angry when I think about this too much...if I had given birth over here, Emilio would be a British citizen automatically. If I had been resident in the U.K. when I adopted him, Emilio would be a British citizen automatically. But because I adopted him while living over here, he is not entitled and I have to go through this crazy expensive and LONG process to get him on the same passport as his mum. IT IS MADNESS. And in normal times, this would just be submitted and we would sit and wait the potential 6 months that it might take...but, as previously discussed, I've reached my limit in the coping of the things and I need to get us home. In order for them (Home Office people) to fast-track our application, I have to prove that Emilio is autistic and also prove that I am not ok and really could use some support. Fair enough but also, 'YOU KNOW THERE'S A GLOBAL PANDEMIC, RIGHT?!'. Anyway, these are the things that we have to do. The Hunger Gamesy part of it is that IF this goes well and we are allowed to travel home, then I have about a bajillion things to organise. Dogs being the main thing. All three of them. How in the chuffery do I get them home because things are not normal. Normally (hah!), wee Bobcito travels in the cabin with me because he's wee and he's my Bob. However, in COVID times, it's a bit unclear if this will be doable because also the U.K. do not allow pets to travel in cabin directly into the U.K. in normal times, so obviously they won't in COVID times. I have never understood this rule because they can travel in cabin OUT of the U.K. so what's the diff? I call BS. 

The other bugger is that we need to travel through a not red list country for 2 weeks to avoid hotel quarantine because there is no earthly way we could cope with being stuck in a room for 2 weeks. No. Earthly. Way. So then what about Bobcito? I've accepted Bella and Bridget will need to go by registered freight, rather than try and get them to Europe and then get on a boat or a train to Engerland...remember that Christmas...Lima - Amsterdam - Newcastle - Edinburgh - Largs with my favourite travelling companion, Bobcito Kelly. What an adventure. These is not the times for adventuring. Least of all with my special boy who will require an enormous amount of social storying/visual scheduling/snacking/ipading/whatevering to try and avoid all the meltdowning. This is giving me mad anxiety just thinking about it. 

Anyway. For now, we wait. Having spoken at length to close friends and also my headshrinker about what having no control over, basically, anything at all in these times does to your head, I decided the best way to not continue spiralling into the depths of madness was to pack. It does seem a bit nuts because I have literally (and I do mean literally) no idea when we can leave, if we can go home, where we will go first, etc, etc, etc. But taking a little bit of control and thinking - no, this stuff can all go straight to Oman - that has actually helped. As has deciding to sell all our furniture. That's been a big thing. I got this gorgeous recycled wood furniture here which is made to order, including a bespoke bookcase for E. Sentimental AF over here, I wanted it all shipped to Oman. But that is a ridiculous notion, it transpires, as it is likely to cost about 5 times what it cost to make. Hard, though. Our first stuffs together. But it is only stuffs. 

The boy himself. Well. Speech is super tricky for Emilio, as I've said countless times, but man alive, is he making progress. He has now mastered the art of manipulation (though this was quite some time ago in other respects) and uses 'and then' against me. Very recently, he has learned what 'and then' means. We have been working with a visual schedule pretty much since he came home and this really, really helps to sequence the day and to avoid transition mayhem. Stuff that works for children with special needs tends to work with all early childhooders - visuals are key! So Emilio really gets what's happening in his day and if we change the order, it's ok, as long as he can see the pictures and it's all clear. But recently, I have been trying to introduce a 'now and next' board - so just pictures of what is happening right now and what can be next. I've used this with kids in class before and it really is kind of just if there's something that 'needs' done before the thing they actually want to do happens - a wee carrot and stick if you will. With Emilio, it's been like in response to a want of his, such as 'TV'. I'd say 'no, now brush your teeth and then TV' or the like. It's really working for him and he can pull himself out of a tantrum if it's laid out like that (and it's a reasonable request). But now, if I say 'no, now it's dinner time', what follows from him is, 'and then ice-cream'. I mean, he's figured it out! How do you NOT then give him ice-cream?! Answer me that?! I'm absolutely thrilled with him and think he is the cleverest wee cookie the world ever did see. The progress this child is making is just phenomenal, given his start to life, given how little 'proper' intervention he's had in the last 18 months and given he's been stuck at home with me for 14 months. He is absolutely incredible and never, ever fails to amaze me. Just the other week, he was sitting on the loo and I said, 'Now, tell me why you're yawning? Is that perhaps because you've been up sin ce ten past four??' (yes, I know I shouldn't use sarcasm BUT THERE IS NO ONE ELSE TO TALK TO!!!!!) and he shouts, 'equaaaalllllssss FOURTEEN!'. I mean. 

So. We are doing what we can do and waiting and hoping and clinging back to the edge of that cliff.