Mummy guilt!

Now we are a few weeks back into the new school term I have been sitting thinking about how hectic our lives are! I was off work for a 9 week break during the Summer when I opted for Term Time Working. As you can imagine, getting back into the swing of work has been a mammoth task! My first day back was filled with trepidation and I actually thought I was gonna puke into my desk drawer! I love work but goodness me it can sometimes fill me with dread. I waited with bated breath to hear what horrendous things had been happening in my cases. Usually the minute I am not about all my lovely clients go on the rampage! However, I was pleased to find that only 2 cases caused any real difficulties during my time off. The rest were adequately managed by the rest of the team. I have a great team! Unfortunately I had enough extra cases that made me wonder why I don't have any vodka hidden in my office!! It was definitely a vodka moment!

Being off work for so long however has made me think about my work/life balance. I loved being off work with my kids. We had time to loiter about in the mornings, have lazy lie-ins and generally do what we liked. Within reason of course! I'm not going to pretend that spending 27/7 for 9 weeks with a special needs kid was easy. It wasn't! At times I wanted to run away and hide. FD found the whole of the summer very stressful and I had to implement a routine of sorts to help her cope. There were times when I hid in the bathroom just so I could have a cuppa and a biscuit in peace! I've moved up a step from hiding in cupboards with my biscuits. Thats progress! Right?

Seeing how much FD depended on me during those summer months made me wonder how she had coped without me all this time. Of course my rational mind tells me that she has coped  perfectly well and suffered no lasting damage from having a working mother. It has taught her to cope and learn new skills. Without my job we wouldn't have the lovely big house we do and all the luxuries we sometimes have. We wouldn't be able to afford to do the special activities my daughter gets to do and buy all the lovely treats we do. However, my manic, guilt-ridden emotional and hormonal side of me decided to think irrationally and the good old 'working mummy guilt' set in! Chatting to a good friend on Twitter last night who is going back to work after the birth of her baby, got me thinking about this again. I can only imagine how hard it is to have to go to work when you have a baby.  I was lucky in that I was able to stay at home until my son was at school and FD was in nursery. We were totally skint of course and if I'm honest being at home with no money to do anything really isn't everything its cracked up to be! However, the shock of suddenly finding myself as a single parent left me with little choice than to get my act together, further my education and get into the world of work again! I did consider the option of sitting at home, wailing all day and stuffing my face with chocolate washed down with a bottle of vodka. That and sticking pins in a voodoo doll of my ex was also an option. I had a massive big pin especially picked out for all those below the waist line stabbings! Though I did kinda think that probably wasn't a good option and losing the plot would ultimately send me over the edge  completely as I definitely would have enjoyed it way too much!!

In an ideal world I would be a stay at home mum again.  Unfortunately with a family to support and enough bills to make Bill Gates take a funny turn, its simply not an option. But, sometimes I like to dream about what life would be like for me if I had the 'stay at home' option.  I can hear those stay at home mums reading this screaming 'Its not that bloody great'! But I do think about how my day might look because it would look different that the days of my past life as a stay at home mummy. I'm a completely different person than I was back then and probably didn't appreciate just how lucky I was at the time.  I think I'd like to start each day Monday-Friday by going to the gym the minute FD left for school. So, that would be me hot-footing it to the gym at 8.30 every morning! My OH laughed when I told him I would do this. Apparently pigs will fly before this ever happened. Oh ye of little faith! He said I would only miss Jeremy Kyle! He's obviously forgotten we have Sky+!!! Dohh!  So, 8.30 - 9.30am = Gym! I'd then rush home, shower and watch Jeremy Kyle while having a well deserved cuppa! Then I started to think, 'do I really need to go to the gym 5 days a week?' I could shop instead! Or visit friends! Or go back to bed!' And already my plan was falling apart!

If I was at home all day I could spread my housework over 5 days instead of rushing around all weekend playing catch up! I wouldn't have to kick the crumbs under the dining table every morning or borrow OH's socks because neither one of us had time to do any laundry! I'd have lovely sparkly windows instead of the smeared, grubby looking ones I have now that look like they have been licked by a herd of runaway camels! I shouldn't really pretend that I do all the housework. I don't. OH does some too and the kids help out around the house so I shouldn't really have such a grubby house. One of these days I'm gonna have the time to completely industrial clean my entire house. There would not be a speck of dust or a window with greasy fingerprints anywhere in my house! There'd be no knickers lying all over the bedroom or mouldy cheese in my fridge! Hell, I might even clean my oven! Actually, lets not get too carried away!

 I'd get to spend a few hours a week in the second hand bookshop. Bliss! I'd need a bigger house though if this was the case because I'd be bringing home tons of books! This could end in divorce!  If I was at home all day I'd even find the time to write. My blog would be so up to date with interesting posts! It might even be popular! I'd be able to write posts at my leisure without having to squeeze in 5 minutes of writing here and there. I'd try my hand at submitting articles to magazines! I've always wanted to write! I'd read books and cook lovely scrumptious belly busting meals! We'd all be fat but happy instead of just fat and exhausted!

I think the biggest and most wonderful thing about being a stay at home mum is that I wouldn't feel guilty about leaving my children when they are sick. I could look after them and fuss over them properly instead of being stressed that I am trying to juggle meetings with a sick child to care for. That sometimes I rush about all over the place trying to make sure other people's children are ok when I can't even spare the time for my own! FD's endless medical appointments totally screw up my diary and sometimes I have to fit in 5 days worth of work into 4 or less! Of course I do mostly tell work to go to hell, refuse to work on reports at home, out of hours, as many social workers do. I prioritise my family over work but it would be easier to be Prime Minister and run the entire country than sort out my day!

What I really really want to be able to do every day is to be the person who my daughter comes home to. I'd be there waiting for her when she got off her bus. I'd be there to listen to her chat about her day or help manage her meltdown instead of sometimes wanting to cry because I'd had such a crappy and exhausting day at work that I really didn't have the energy for either!  I'd be the mummy I really want to be.  Oh hell theres that mummy guilt crap again! So, instead, I'll just keep wearing my Superwoman Knickers and be super multi-tasker, fitting in every thing that needs to be fitted in to try and keep the 'mummy guilt' at bay! Of course, if anyone wants to offer me a stay at home writing job for tons of money go right ahead!

OUR HOSPITAL JOURNEY - PART 3!!

As you all know, FD is to undergo spinal surgery fairly soon. Last week we had our second appointment with the clinical psychologist to discuss her care plan for before and after the op. FD wasn't with us so we were able to speak openly and honestly. During this most recent appointment the psychologist wanted to know everything about her from my pregnancy right up until the present day! Oh heck I thought! That's over 13 years to cover! Would I look like a bad mum if there was stuff I couldn't remember? This time OH would be no help to me because he only came into FD's life when she was 3. I was really anxious about trying to remember details because sometimes there's just certain parts of that period of my life were just too painful to think about. But I had to face my demons!

We chatted about my pregnancy and I remembered that time being so exciting despite the awful morning sickness. Yes I was that woman you saw puking into someones wheelie bin whilst walking her son to school. Not very glam days! We chatted about FD's birth and I remembered the fear when she wasn't breathing when she was born and had to be resuscitated. I will never forget waiting to hear her cry. The longest minute of my life!

We talked about how FD never slept during the day at all as a newborn. Why didn't I think that strange then? I think at that time I just put it down to the fact she was a girl and just so different from her brother! I was just happy that from 2 weeks old she slept all night! Why would I complain!!!?? I thought that was great! Whilst the other new mums at the mums and tots groups were walking around trailing their eyeballs behind them through lack of sleep I was looking bloody marvellous!

Why did it not occur to me that my daughter was not the usual run of the mill little girl when she preferred sitting in her pram rather than being held by me. She loved being taken for walks in the pram for hours and hours and always cried when the pram stopped. Again, I thought, she was just different than her brother who was just a textbook baby. In a way I thought it was good that she was different, almost assertive already at such a young age! Was this really what I thought or was this the ostrich approach of sticking ones head in the sand!

FD cried every time Teletubbies finished. She screamed blue bloody murder so we bought a video of the series ( yes ok I know I'm showing my age here), and constantly played it over and over again in a vain attempt to keep her happy. She would be furious if some other programme was on the television. By this point she was 18 months old and I was beginning to tear my hair out in frustration, finding her a very difficult toddler. I had sought help from my health visitor who told me she was reaching the Terrible Twos stage a little earlier. Her development was a little delayed but that didn't appear to ring any alarm bells for my health visitor either. By this point FD was screaming for at least 3 hours a day! She had stopped sleeping a full night and cried if it rained at night! I had no idea why she only cried if it rained at night!!! It was the strangest of things. No one had any answers! Then, we realised it was because she was in a bedroom with a velux window and the noise of the rain on the window when she was in bed terrified her! Her father just thought she was being overly sensitive! Those doubts that had been niggling in the recesses of my brain just wouldn't go away!!

And so we struggled like this until she was 3 years old when she went to playgroup. After only a few weeks there the staff called me in for a chat and told me they thought she might be autistic. I thought they were over reacting. Or did I? Ostrich impersonation again. The next day my marriage fell apart with the discovery that FD's father was having an affair and I blamed a lot of her behaviours on the breakup of my marriage. She was not diagnosed with Autism and a learning disability until she was 5 years old. It took a lot of fighting and hissy fits before we could get professionals to take us seriously! By us I mean OH cos FD's father didn't want to know!

Having to chat about what life was like during that time was really difficult and the psychologist was very sensitive. During the car journey back to the house I struggled not to cry. OH was his usual wonderful self and we chatted about how difficult I had found the appointment. I managed to make it all the way back to collect my car from the house without spilling a single tear. Then whilst I was driving myself to work I had such a vivid memory that I almost ran the car off the road. When my son was small we used to play a game on a rainy day called Teddy Bears picnic. We'd put a picnic blanket on the living room floor, get all his cuddly toys and we'd all have a picnic lunch! He would love this game so much. It made lunch time fun and he asked for it every day! I remember trying to encourage FD to take part in the Teddy Bear's picnic and she sat looking at me blankly, totally uninterested, totally confused and totally detached from the game. I cried my head off in the car like a total loon and I'm pretty sure I got some strange looks from other drivers as by this point my mascara had run down my face and my nose had ballooned to the size and colour of a plum! Again, not a glam moment for me! I had to get my superwoman knickers out of my handbag and blow my nose!

I'm sorry if this post seems a bit gloom and doom. Its not meant to be. I think that during early diagnosis of special needs the pain is almost unbearable but you know that once you get over this really difficult initial hurdle you can learn to cope. Learn to manage and Learn to accept. If there are any professionals out there reading this please please please try and be sensitive to parents when they are talking about their kids as not only are they reliving painful parts of their lives but they are also realising that they might be missing out on a lot and the grieving process for them may only be just beginning. Having to talk about it all over again caught me off guard and opened up all those old wounds. But, like the past, I dealt with it again. I'm sure I'll deal with it  many times in the future. Hey, I'm Superwoman after all with a limitless supply of those magic knickers!

MY FIRST PRODUCT REVIEW!!!....The Real Cupcake Co!

Well, I'm very excited to be writing my first product review!! I hope its the first of many but we shall see. Because FD just loves to spend time in the kitchen baking buns I jumped at the chance to review a product from The Cupcake Company. Now, it should be noted that whilst at school, my Home Economics teacher uttered the words, 'God help the man you marry because you can't cook, sew and definitely can't bake'!! Those words haunted me as I opened the parcel from The Cupcake Company! What could possibly go wrong!

Held within the slim little box that arrived was a bag of ready made cupcake batter, icing, instructions, icing bags, nozzles, sweeties to decorate the cupcakes and bun cases! I was so excited about trying this out that I had kinda hoped that FD would leave me alone so I could play by myself, but no, she wanted to bake! So bake we did.

 What was in the box!

The instructions in the little booklet were pretty clear and we emptied the bag of batter into a mixing bowl as directed. FD really enjoyed squeezing the batter out of the bag as she said it was 'squidgy'! She did however try to eat the batter so it was a case of keeping it out of her mouth and making sure most of it went in the bowl! All we then had to do was add 2 eggs and mix! Simple! FD really enjoys the cracking eggs part of baking so that was a huge success. She stood for a few minutes with her whisk and happily mixed her batter!

The Cupcake company had provided in their box of delights, some lovely big bun cases and of course everyone knows that the fun of baking is slopping the mix into the bun cases. This proves a huge hit with FD every time and she spends ages methodically trying to get the same amount of mixture into each case. The only snag we hit here was that in our instruction booklet it recommended we use a muffin / pudding tray .I had neither so just put the bun cases in a bog standard bun tray.

Once in the oven it is very hard not to keep checking on whether the buns are rising. The smell was lovely and it was so tempting to open the oven door! Once they came out of the oven we had the agonising wait for them to cool so we could decorate them.

I was quite pleased with how they came out because I cannot bake to save my life!!! They were lovely and spongey!

When they had cooled suitably we attempted to do fancy swirly icing with the piping bags and nozzles. Now this is where I hit a snag. I've never used piped icing before in my life and as you can see from the pics, it shows! But the most important thing out of it all was that FD totally enjoyed doing it. Yes we messed up and yes Delia would have had a heartattack at our piping efforts but we enjoyed ourselves immensely and I think this was surely the whole point of the exercise! Maybe with a bit of practice we can make our cupcakes look professional! Just didn't happen this time. More down to my lack of skill rather than the product! Those of you who are really good at baking are probably laughing at my efforts! Please have pity! And, of course, the cupcakes passed the taste test. Lovely with a cuppa or a big glass of milk! FD found the lemon icing a little too zesty but I thought it was lovely! Would love to try the strawberry icing next time I think and decorate with real Strawberries. Yum!

Now, a little about the Real Cup Cake Company. They can be found at www.therealcupcakecompany.co.uk where their kits can be purchased online. The kit we were provided with was from the NICE range and had Lemon icing. which was very zesty!!! Was scrummy! This one was priced at £9.99. Other kits start at £4.99.  Pretty good value for money I thought as I had bought some similar cupcakes a few weeks ago from a bakery and they cost me a fortune! I would really recommend buying one of these kits. The company offer a great range of products so go and check them out! The website offers great advice / instructions with videos too! Its all pretty cool! Their products are dairy free so ideal for those with specific diet requirements. Real fruit is used and there are no artificial colourings or flavourings. Sounds pretty perfect to me!

*I did not receive any payment for writing this review. The kit was provided by The Real Cupcake Company.*

Special Saturday post.....Has your child with Special Needs changed your life?

Todays post is following the theme of the week from SPECIAL SATURDAY. The theme as you might have guessed is 'Has your child with Special Needs changed your life?

I suppose for me the way my life has changed is I now have a more positive spin on things. I don't stress about the small stuff the way I used to. I appreciate the simplest of pleasures. Whilst most people don't get terribly excited about the fact that their child can tie their shoe laces at 13 years old, or have started to shower semi independently. For me, these were momentous occasions! I suppose these are possibly things that other parents don't give much thought to. For typical kids, these skills are just normal transitions into growing up. 

I now get angry at people who stress about uneccesary things and put pressure on their 'normal' kids, especially around school issues. I have been known to shout at people who get cross at their children because they haven't come top of the class or scored the highest grades in exams. I've told them they should be thankful that their children don't have the problems my child does and cherish the children they do have. This is probably wrong of me but I do feel very strongly about it.

My special needs child has changed my life in giving me a confidence I never used to have. I think having children does that anyway, but when you have a special needs child who needs you to advocate on their behalf all their life, then you delve deep into yourself to find the courage to speak up, even when  inside you just want to hide away. After all, we are all our kids have. We need to find courage for them!

Having a special needs child has also taught me how to cope under extreme stress. As a social worker I work under a great deal of stress but I tend to cope with it okish. I think this is because I live with stress day in and day out and therefore my coping skills have improved dramatically. So, I suppose you could say that having a special needs kid has made me stronger.

Irregardless of whether our children are special needs or not they change us, shape us and in a way, define us. The greatest way any child, special needs or not has changed our lives is that they have brought love, patience and courage through the most difficult of times, to help us see the wondeful gifts we have in our lives.  I  try not to have a 'oh my life is awful....' approach, but try to look upon the difficulties that we sometimes have with a humourous eye. Rather than focusing on what I don't  have, I try to focus on what I do have and  look for the funny side of life. My special needs child has changed my life..............in more ways than I can count. I love her with every breath.

Decisions, decisions, decisions!!! Getting back to school!

With the school holidays drawing to an end, there seems to have been a fever of activity from parents all over the country, frantically trying to sort out school uniforms etc. The shops have been full of tired, stressed and financially broke mums and dads all at the end of their tethers as they stand in queues longer than those into the Vatican and dish out enough money on school crap to wipe out third world debt! Yes, its that time of year when we have to endure herds of children in shops all having temper tantrums or huffy fits because wee Jimmy got a different schoolbag to wee Flo's! Children whinging because they are bored, tired or hungry or simply just want to be at home playing in the back garden on on their Nintendo, instead of stuck shopping! And who could blame them! I sat and watched one particular child in a shoe shop a few weeks ago pick his nose and stick the boogers to the wall through sheer boredom. Either that, or he was just a dirty wee sproglet! Keeping children in check during this time has been about as easy as herding cats!

Then, there was the battle of the bargains when desperate mums almost knocked each other out to grab at the last reduced schoolbag or pair of gym shoes in their child's size! Buying school stuff is a vicious game and there are just no rules! One of these days I am pretty sure I will see someone being dragged around the shop by the hair as two uber mummies battle it out! Nothing surprises me anymore! I wonder if other mums are like me and during this time their wine or G&T intake increases overnight!!! Sometimes desperate times call for extra measures of the alcoholic type!

So, all you parents out there who can relate to this mass hysteria, take a few moments to think about what all of this madness has been like for a child with special needs. Of course, when I took FD out I tried to be as organised as possible, looking through some catalogues so she had an idea of what she wanted. Like many autistic kids, FD has real difficulty making decisions when presented with too many choices. A perfect of example was the dreaded choosing of a new schoolbag and lunch box! I hate this bit every year. It makes me want to stick pens in my eyes and carry a hip flask in my handbag! FD wants something stylish! She wants something pink! She really wants something with cute animals on it but also doesn't want to look like a baby. Very difficult for a teen who is functioning as a 7 year old! Arghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

 So, the schoolbag hunt usually lasts for weeks. We visit every shop within a 10 mile radius. We have tears. We have stamping of feet. And that's just me!!! If I pick something out for her she just says 'yes that's alright', which really means, 'I don't like it but don't know how to say I don't like it.' During these times I put my Superwoman Knickers on and use my  'autism translation' powers! 'Thats nice' usually means 'I hate it' and 'lets look in the next shop' usually means 'hate hate hate' or  'I am just about to lose the plot and have a meltdown'. I live for the words 'Is this one popular'? This means ' I really like it so just tell me its a good one.' Mission accomplished! Well almost. Next, we have to find a lunch box. And thus, the whole process begins again. We can't just buy any old lunchbox when we see it. We have to wait until the schoolbag is bought. Heaven forbid the lunchbox is bought first!!!

 Next comes the pencil case. FD insists on a new pencil case every year despite the fact that she has at least 20 in her bedroom. She never throws them out! She buys new ones throughout the year just because she likes them. But, the one specifically for school has to be bought AFTER the lunchbox! By this point in the proceedings I am ready to throw myself under the nearest granny and her zimmer frame!! Once everything has been bought we head home where FD will either have a full blown meltdown because she has been trying so hard to keep it together during the shopping trip, or she will go to her room for ages and just look at her new purchases and find a special place for them in her room. Anyone that moves them dies instantly!

I could rant on for a lifetime about the hours spent looking for a school uniform. It's soul destroying. It's energy zapping. It makes us both cry! FD hates this whole process. It stresses her out more than me running out of wine does to my entire family! The problems we have trying to find trousers to fit a child with NO waist is just crazy, so every pair of trousers always has to be altered! And, as I can't sew to save my life, that means a trip to those nice clothes alteration people, who kinda have to try and guess just how much the trousers need altered because FD won't try the trousers on and let anyone touch them! She's very touch sensitive and barely lets me do it. So, now, we just get belt loops sewn onto the trousers. So much easier! The difficulties we have getting a school jumper and coat just make me sob because she has a very pronounced hump in her back because of her spinal problems. Nothing fits properly.

So, there you have it!!! The joys of school stuff shopping with a teen on the Autistic Spectrum. Its during those times when my Superwoman knickers are riding up my bum and I am being trodden on by manic mothers and their wailing children, that I think of the nice cold glass of wine that will be waiting on me later that night.