Spring

Just a quick post from my phone. It's been ages since I blogged and there is a lot blossoming in my life at the moment besides the spring weather, but as growing and flowering begins in the natural I wanted to share some pics. We had an overgrown patch that looks like it used to be a veggie garden so we cleared it out and it's ready to add manure and get planting some veggies of our own, yay!! We also have some daffodils growing that were given to my girls as bulbs at my church sisterhood meetings after colour conference this year to carry on the theme of flourishing as we're planted in the house of the Lord. We planted them when we moved to this new house and the girls have been very excited to watch them grow. Spring is such an exciting season and as the weather warms up hopefully we will soon be able to try out our pool as well :-)
Ps. It put the pics in random order and I have no idea how to change it on my phone, it's meant to be before and after shots but doesn't seem to have quite worked that way.

Ch, ch, changes...

Back in May a whole lot of upheaval started in our family and the pieces are still falling into place. It all started with conversations about school. Bethany will be starting school in 1 1/2 years and we knew that if we wanted her to go to a Christian school we should've already had her name down, where did we want her to go, did we want her in prep? These were the questions we were pondering. The easy choice would've been to send her to Bethel where Jaden was, but crunching numbers put that idea out of reach. A private school was already stretching the budget with 1 child and with an impending 3 year overlap of having all 3 children at school the scales were tipped to public school for the girls. This decision then prompted discussion of the local schools where we were living and that I wasn't happy with them and so began the idea of moving.

The plan was to move by the end of this year but God seemed to have a whirlwind in mind instead. We decided on the area we would like to go, which is the suburb where Brett grew up, and so I started browsing the rentals there just to get an idea of price range. I saw an ad for a house, thought it sounded way too good for the price and must have something really wrong with it, and so I didn't enquire about it. But it  niggled at me for a couple of days till I finally rang up and the inspection was an hour later, so I decided it was worth a look and got the kids organised for a house inspection right at dinner time. When we were looking at moving last year we went to inspections where 30 families would show up, but this time there was just me and 1 other family and I loved the house. I walked in and thought 'wow I can see us living here'. I went home, told Brett I loved it and had butterflies in my stomach as we decided to apply for it cause I had not planned on moving for months but we prayed and both felt it was the right thing to do, so we applied, got approved (we got knocked back for several house applications last year) and moved a week and a half later. For someone like me who likes to be planned and organised that was way out of my comfort zone, but within a week of moving this place was feeling like home and we love it here. That week also just happened to be when the local public school started taking applications for their pre-school next year and so because we were now local Bethy's paperwork went in for their 2 1/2 day a week year before school program for next year.

Moving house though was just the first change. It became evident quite quickly that more change was needed as I was doing a lot of driving, using a lot of petrol, mornings were crazy because we had to leave earlier due to the distance and we realised that we are surrounded here by closer options and perhaps we should look at those. So I made enquiries and things just fell into place. The girls got a space at a lovely pre-school that is just around the corner from our house, and even though they were very happy at their old pre-school we made the change and they have adjusted well and their new pre-school is lovely. The next step was school for Jaden. That one was a very heart wrenching decision as he was very happy at Bethel, but the logistics of distance were wearing on the family and so I made an appointment to meet with the principal, counsellor and head of learning support at our local public high school and came away quite peaceful that the school knew what they were doing with aspergers and that he would be ok there.

So last week Jaden changed schools and so far it has gone well. It is less then 5 minutes drive so mornings are much less stressful, the uniform is more comfortable and less fiddly (no itchy pants, button up shirts or ties and no ironing for mummy yay) so Jaden is not struggling as much to get ready. He loves their big library, he loves that it has a canteen, he loves the independence factor as he is going to start walking home next week. I love the fact that the yearly contribution is less than I was paying a fortnight in fees at his old school and we have hardly gone through any petrol in a week. He said the workload is easier, he has found lots of people who love minecraft like he does, and best of all he has found a couple of friends in his class. We were also blown away by the subject choices for his electives for next year, he has chosen mythbusters, forensic science, film making and unsolved mysteries of history, they all sound awesome, the benefits of a bigger school.

We also made another change today inside the house by separating the girls into their own bedrooms. We didn't do it when we moved because although the house has 4 bedrooms 2 of them are actually joined together and we weren't sure how it would work, so we had kept the girls in a big room together and the 2 joined rooms became our room and a study. We decided to try shifting though because Bethany really needs some space to be able to sit and do the imaginative play she loves without a 2 year old demolishing it all. So the study got dismantled today, bookshelves got crammed into our bedroom, my desk couldn't fit in the house so it has gone down to the garage, my stationery got organised into my wardrobe instead, and Elora is now in the room that is joined to ours. It means we have to sneak through Elora's room to get to our bedroom and will take some getting used to, but she slept in our room as a baby so it will just be a bit of deja vu.

And so there has been a lot of change for our family in recent weeks but each time we have chosen a new path we have had a peace that it is God leading us. There have been times when it's been stressful and very emotional but there is also a contentment at knowing we are right where we are meant to be and that it has all been orchestrated by someone who knows what's best for each member of our family.

Jaden ready for his first day at his new school.

Jaden's new school, much bigger than what he's used to!

The girls relaxing in our new home, love the fireplace and the cosy living space.

The rollercoaster

The last 13 years have been a rollercoaster. Parenting a child on the autism spectrum has been quite a challenge, more than half of those years I did it on my own, then there was step parenting added to the mix and more siblings. There have been times when things start to go smoothly for a while and you think you've found what works, until all of a sudden it just doesn't work anymore. You deal with everyone else's opinions, criticsims and judgements and always feel completely misunderstood. You constantly second guess whther your decisions are right and feel inadequate for the task of parenting this child pretty much all the time. I wondered if it was just me who felt like this, until I found an autism discussion site on facebook today and read this:

"How can a little child make everyone feel so incompetent!

In all my years in the helping profession I have never seen emotions so intense as I experience when helping children’s and families on the spectrum. Whether it be fighting among parents and caregivers, battling between families and schools, struggles with professionals, or battles with government agencies and insurance providers, the frustrations for all parties become strong and emotions high.. People point fingers, throw names and accusations around, and threaten action against each other.

What I realized quiet early, is nothing makes parents, professionals, and teachers feel more incompetent than a challenging child with autism. These children often do not respond as favorably to the typical parenting, teaching, and treatment strategies that work so well with other children. Their behaviors are so often difficult to read, and their needs are often hidden and inconsistent. They process information differently than us, so their judgment and reasoning does not match ours. They respond well to one strategy this week, to fight against it the next. Just when they begin to show progress, they suddenly regress and fall backwards. They can be excited with glee one minute, and screaming for their life the next. They can be so unpredictable, that the best of minds become flustered in confusion. Nothing makes us adults feel more vulnerable than (1) not being in control, (2) not knowing what to do, and (3) having others demanding that we change.

Whether it be parents who feel the stares, the negative comments, and accusations that the child’s behavior is the result of their poor parenting, or the teacher who has to somehow provide strong individual accommodations for one child, while trying to meet the needs of the total classroom (especially when no one may know what the problems are), or the professional who exhausts all the common therapy tricks in their tool boxes, we all have to admit, that no one can make us feel more vulnerable and inadequate than children on the spectrum. They are so consistently inconsistent, and fluctuate from what they need from one minute to the next. We all have a great need to feel “safe, accepted, and competent”, and the challenging child on the spectrum threatens that need all the time.

The principle often spoken by Dr. Ross Greene, that all children “do the best that they can, given the demands that they are under, and their ability to effectively deal with them” applies to all of us. If someone (parent, teacher, professional) is frustrated, angry, and acting inappropriately, we should immediately assume that they do not feel competent in dealing with the demands they are currently dealing with. Just like we do not want everyone to do with our children (demand, scold, punish), we do with each other. We demand, direct, and pressure others into doing something that they do not know how to provide. They feel inadequate and threaten, then they fight back (just like our children). This is a natural reaction as human beings, rather they be adults or children, on or off the spectrum. When we are faced with uncertainty and anxiety, we feel vulnerable and want to escape and avoid. When pressured, our “fight or flight” response kicks in and emotions fly.

We all need to remember that this vulnerability effects all of us, and we need to take a deep breath, assume that others are feeling just as frustrated and inadequate as us, and validate and support each other. Focus on what each other is doing right, and foster our strengths. Find a common ground and facilitate the positive. Understand and validate, before we demand change. Acknowledge that we do not have the answers, and that is ok! If we collaborate together in understanding the child, we will eventually find the path to help. Assume that the journey will be filled with hills and valleys, triumphs and backslides, and that no matter how competent you are, they can always bring you to your knees. This is the life of children on the spectrum, as well as for all of us that love them so much. Let’s look behind all the negative actions to understand the vulnerabilities in all of us. In order for us to effectively collaborate we need to be working partners with each other."

 

I cried reading that because it made so much sense of my life. I am finding Jaden to be a whole new challenge as a teenager and have never felt so incomptetent or lost as a parent. I have had many well meaning comments from other parents of teens saying they understand but i'm gonna be brutally honest here, throw polictical correctness out the window and say straight up that i'm sorry but if your teen is not on the spectrum then  please don't tell me you understand because you don't. Watching a teenager have a meltdown like a 2 year old is scary, it's not a tantrum, he's not being naughty, he is just overwhelmed and not coping, but calming that down is so much harder with added hormone agro now. And the things that cause meltdowns have changed. It's not as sensory related as it used to be, it's him feeling overwhelmed with things expected of him at this age, like the amount of schoolwork for example or being told that the way he has interpreted an assignment question is not actually what it is saying. And so often I am guilty of causing him frustration because I expect him to 'act his age' or behave a certain way because he is 13 and forget that his brain is on a different planet to mine and his emotional understanding will never be what I want it to be and no amount of me yelling at him will change that, in fact it just makes it worse!!! 

 

I know that people say it's normal for teenagers to struggle to get out of bed and ready for school in the morning, but it's not normal for those teenagers to sit on the bed in their pyjamas for half an hour because they simply can't remember the next step is to get dressed even though it's been the same routine every day for years. I know that people say it's normal for teenagers to not want to do their homework, but it's not normal for those teenagers to read an assignment question, fixate on 1 word and decide to do an assignment on that even though it's not the actual task and then be so immovable that what they have in their head isn't right that they meltdown and then cannot be coaxed to touch the assignment again. Do you see the difference??? Normal strategies that used to work in helping Jaden deal with frustrations just aren't doing the trick anymore as he is finding a whole new hormone charged emotional side and the world just seems all too hard for him right now and consequently for me too.

 

I have questioned whether he really can cope with school and have had to readjust my expectations of what his future might look like. He lives so much in his own world that I have no idea how he will ever have a job or live an adult life out in the big world unless he is with people who understand that he is simply wired differently. I know that is a few years away but I am beginning to truly grasp that I have never really understood him for who he is but rather hoped he would change as he got older and become someone who fitted better in the world. Every parent wants their child to be accepted and happy and I am realising that deep down I always just hoped he would one day figure out how to fit in. I have gotten to the end of myself so many times simply because I expected something that is just not reality.

 

And now I face decisions about his life that I feel inadequate to make. Logistically he will probably have to change schols next year because I just can't be in 2 places at once and Bethany is starting prep at the local school and so I am juggling the needs of different children trying to figure out what's best for everyone and it's hard. I have moments of being tempted to home school him again but am really not sure i'm up to the challenge, but is that just because I was focussing too much on academic stuff when really what he needs is life skills??!! I can't simply make him into who he needs to be to fit in the world and I am seeing that now. I heard so many times from people criticising home schooling that he was too sheltered and needed to learn to cope out in the world, but guess what, he is who he is and no amount of schooling is going to make him fit any better in the world.

 

I am tired of pople's opinions and judgements, tired of well meaning comments, and just wish I could figure out how to help my son navigate life without it being so scary for him all the time. I am the exhausted, confused and overwhelmed mother of a teenager on the autism spectrum and I need to be able to honestly share how i'm feeling, so please just listen, pray, hug, but do not assume you have all the answers for me. The quote above talked of kids on the spectrum bringing us to our knees and that's where I am, but it's a good place to be to seek the one who created my Son and so it's where I will stay for now as I learn to ride the rollercoaster of the teen years with this child and know that i'm not alone!

Visiting the fishes

Brett has been on holidays this week so that we could spend some family time together and we decided to have an outing to Manly oceanworld. It was Elora's first train ride and Bethany hasn't been on a train since she was 1 and neither of them had been on a ferry before so even the travelling was exciting for them. It was supposed to be raining but ended up being a beautiful day and we had a great time seeing the sea creatures, playing in the sand on the little beach nearby, eating the best gelato ever at Manly wharf and enjoying gorgeous views of the harbour from the ferry!!!

Very excited to be on a train!

Learning to be gentle.

Can you tell these girls are big fans of mermaids!! (thanks to Barbie)

Would not like to meet this fellow without glass in between!!!

They LOVED the walk through section, we went round the cirle several times.

This blurry pic was from my phone but I love the up close shot, it looks like there's a sting ray on Brett's head lol.

Spending time on the beach.

Enjoying a ferry ride and Bethy was looking for pirates on all the boats we passed (we saw Ice Age 4 the day before so I think it put pirates in her head lol).

Our beautiful harbour.

The best backyard in the world!!

One of the things I LOVE about our new house is the massive backyard. It's an old fashioned 1/4 acre block and it makes me realise that the reason they say times have changed and kids aren't out in backyards like they used to be is because backyards have shrunk, if everyone still lived on blocks this size they couldn't help but play outside, and given the beautiful winter weather we've been having we have been soaking up the sunshine, playing on the equipment, riding bikes, kicking balls, and loving every minute of it. Here are a few snapshots of our 'park' over the past month that we've lived here. Massively blessed is all I can say :-)

space to run

morning tea in the sunshine

view from the mummy who is being jumped on as part of the trampoline fun lol

wheelbarrow rides while helping daddy sort timber for our fireplace

sand mermaids

view of the yard, we've moved the trampoline over near the fence since we took this and added a sandpit and cubby house as well.

A time to grieve.

I love willow tree figurines and we have lots in this house. The one pictured above I bought last year when we decided to try for a 4th baby, we were so excited and I saw this and couldn't resist it. We got pregnant the first month we tried and I was very much looking forward to holding our little baby as this statue represents, but so quickly that dream was dashed when I lost the baby and this little statue instead became a memorial for something that wasn't to be. In the months since that time there have been ups and downs and unknown to most people we have actually been trying again for a few months now and I have been ok and content with whether another baby joined our family on Earth or not, but last weekend (1st July) was the due date for our little angel in heaven and my grief snuck up and hit me all over again. It was also compounded by getting my period to confirm yet again we aren't pregnant for another month and I also found out that day another friend is pregnant with her 4th child and it just overwhelmed me. I am really, really happy for the several friends I have who are pregnant, it just all got to me that weekend thinking of babies coming to bless other families while I was so sad about not being able to hold my own. I am so very blessed with the beautiful children I already have and am very thankful that I have been able to hold my sweet babies in my arms 3 times over, but that doesn't make it any less painful to have empty arms for the child I lost and I am finding I need time to grieve that loss again here in the month when that bubba was due.

 I have also been very deeply affected by the loss of another woman's baby, one that she held in her arms for 7 months and had to bury last weekend after a family tragedy which also involved her husband not being able to come home and although I only knew the family through their blog and never met them in person what has happened has broken my heart for her and I have been burdened to pray for her and the 4 little girls she must now raise on her own. It has made a lot of the mundane stuff that people whinge about seem so shallow to me at the moment and I want to spend my time praying for those who are hurting, loving and being with my precious family, and remembering to be thankful and content with the life that I have, while I also work though the grief I am still dealing with. I guess it's just a time to refocus my life and get my priorities straight as God reminds me each day to rest in Him as I walk through this season with Him.

A revolution!!

I made a decision yesterday, to take a major step back from facebook. I have found that it consumes so much of my time because it is on my phone and it has become a habit to gravitate towards it several times a day. While i'm there I also find my headspace affected more than it should be. I am a words person and sometimes words on there get to me more than I care to admit, words that don't mean to criticise but hurt me anyway, words that also have nothing to do with me but are just negative, whinging, whining, and they drag me down till I forget i'm actually having a good day and 1 little thing going wrong shouldn't change that!!! I want my day to be focused on God and the family He has given me, I shouldn't be reaching for my phone like the morning paper to read, I should be reaching for my Bible, and so a revolution in my life is called for. I have deleted facebook off my phone, and will only periodically be checking it on my computer  (since we have a study at the new house my computer is safely tucked away out of sight during the day and is getting a lot less use!!). My mind is a battlefield and I am making better choices to keep that mind in a healthy place. Today I spent all afternoon playing outside with the kids, kicking a ball around, jumping on the trampoline, and remembering that there is life outside the cyber world and I don't need to know what everyone else is doing all day either. So here's to a social media revolution in my world!!!

Life

I have had several blog posts in my head lately but have been too busy living my life to blog about it so thought I would do a test run post on my phone to see how phone blogging works for someone who rarely sits down with my laptop these days. I am not very tech savvy so we'll see how this goes!! So what have I been busy doing? Moving house and enjoying life in our new home with my family, celebrating Brett's birthday, starting the girls at swimming lessons and a new pre-school 1 day a week, getting back into cooking from scratch and back to healthy basics (except Brett's birthday cake!!) and just embracing motherhood.

The value of women

Have you ever had a brief moment where you saw or heard something in passing that disturbed you and you just kept thinking about it? I was watching tv the other day and an ad came on for a new movie coming out called the dictator. It is not a movie I would go to see anyway since It's not my kind of humour and i'm not a fan of Sacha Baron Cohen, but the ad got my attention. It was a lady giving birth and this 'dictator' was helping her, the baby was born and he said i'm sorry it's a girl where's the trash can, the American family were saying no that's what we wanted and i'm sure it was supposed to funny in some dark sort of way as it's a spoof kind of movie from what I can tell, but those few seconds on my tv screen made me want to cry!!!!

In Australia we take it for granted that women are equal citizens, who can access education, have careers, and are valued as human beings, but in so much of the world that is just not the case. "It's a girl where's the trash can" is the mentality that sees babies aborted or abandoned because they are girls, that sees honor killings, that sees genital mutilations, that sees women married off as young girls then left in desperation when their young bodies can't handle childbirth and they end up with fistulas. That throw away line in a movie ad summed up the lack of value that is placed on so many precious women on this Earth and it breaks my heart!!

At sisterhood yesterday at my church the lady speaking was one of the pastors who went over to Kiev for the recent colour women's conference. A gathering of that sort that values women is a very new thing in that region of the world and women having value is a message that they have not heard or grown up with. She spoke of meeting orphans who were abandoned because they were girls, of meeting rescued victims of human trafficking ( a trade that flourishes on the objectification and devaluing of women so that they can be the sexual property of men), and of how these lives have been transformed through Jesus, through the prayers of His followers opening doors in those regions, through the love and concern of His people reaching out and I was brought to tears again but this time because of people seeing the value of women. I am so grateful that I am part of a sisterhood of women that want to share that message of value, dignity and Christ's love, not just the sisterhood at my church, but a global sisterhood of Christian women bringing a revolution of peace, light and love, caring for orphans, widows, the oppressed and being a voice for those who would otherwise end up in that trash can.

I wanted to share some things out of the amazing prayer journal we were given as a gift at colour conference earlier this year. This is a snippet of what Bobbie Houston wrote in the front "this simple book and visual expression seeks to position our beloved global sisters before us.. it captures a tiny glimpse of their beauty, potential and value. Many of these precious women face cultural, social and political challenge and many are assailed by forces that need to incite concern and outrage. Like us they have hopes and dreams for their children and families"..... women just like us that need to know that God sees them and loves them, that they have value and beauty!! Throughout the journal as prayer needs for all the regions of the world are presented there are photos of women from all sorts of places and all walks of life and I wanted to share a few:

 

Aren't they all so different and yet all so beautiful!! We are our sisters keepers, so let's not be silent about the value of women, let's not laugh at what is actually a tragedy, let's instead embrace God's message of love and value to all people on the Earth and in the words of Bobbie Houston "believe that prayer will displace darkness, open the heavens and cause His love to prevail." Let's use what's in our hand to "make a difference, raise awareness, stand in the gap and find solution for those who have no voice or those who need a helping hand." Because every woman on this Earth is important to God!!!

I am a mummy!!

Yesterday was mother's day which was very fitting as it has only been in the last couple of weeks that I have finally found peace in my job as a mum. I have to admit that motherhood has been one of my greatest challenges and has taken me to the edge of myself many times. The clincher was a Thursday morning a couple of weeks ago when the morning was pure chaos, no-one would co-operate getting out the door on time, the house looked like a cyclone went through it and I felt like a complete and utter failure as a mother. The thought went through my head that morning 'if I can't even be a mum then i'm no good for anything, these kids are better off without me I should just go drive off a cliff'. Needless to say I was not in a good head space and felt like dark clouds were engulfing me!!! I knew I was on thin ice and scared myself so I made a decision that changed everything and decided I needed to be where other Christian women could help me and despite running late I went to sisterhood at my church.

That morning was a divine appointment because the message that morning was by a psychologist all about our thought lives and amongst the many things he said that impacted me were his comments that he sees a lot of women with postnatal depression and something they all have in common is checklists in their heads of how everything should be and I gasped, cause that describes me and I always just thought it was normal but realised it was my own insane expectations that were crushing me!!! I went from having 1 child, to having 3 children all within 14 months which was quite a whirlwind and I never adjusted my expectations from when I had 1 child. I was getting myself so frustrated because things were just never as they 'should be' in the perfect world I pictured in my head, without grasping the reality that things would never be the same again!! Of course there is more mess, of course there is more to do and more to remember and i'm more tired, because there are more children, it doesn't make me a failure, it's simple maths and I just hadn't grasped it. I realised that morning that my mental checklists had to go before I really lost the plot. If I leave the house in the morning and the beds aren't made will the world end?? If my folding is days behind and I choose to do puzzles with the girls instead what would please my kids and my God more, that I invested time in my precious little treasures or that my chores were up to date?

After the message that Thursday morning I burst into tears with 2 amazing women from my church and ended up going back to the house of 1 of them where the 3 of us and our kiddies had lunch. I sat there with these women who also both have 3 children each and realised that they 'get it' about what's important and about the value of people over perfection. Her house was a mess and she invited us over anyway, and I didn't care at all about her house, I loved that she invited me and valued time with me and that had an eternal impact on me that day!!! And so I am on a new journey in my thought life and in my mothering. I tested that out last Friday when I invited some women over for a mother's day morning tea. I cooked yummy treats and decorated the room, but ran out of time to clean the house and decided it didn't matter and didn't stress about it. The ladies came, had a lovely time, they loved the decorations and food and I don't think anyone even noticed I hadn't cleaned the toilet cause they felt blessed to be invited, besides the kids squashed cupcakes on the floor and I had to vacuum afterwards anyway so it would've been a waste of energy to do it beforehand.

And so I have engaged in warfare in my mind, to fill it with God's expectations and valuing of me and not my own perfectionist expectations! It has changed my perspective to actually enjoy motherhood not just to endure it. My life is crazy, full of mess, noise, poop, chaos, but it is so beautiful, to watch my little ones learn new things about the world around them and want to play and dance with mummy, to watch my boy settling into high school, making friends and feeling so proud of how far he's come. To see how excited my girls were on mother's day to give presents and kisses to mummy just melted my heart. I don't want to miss the beauty in my own life because I have let darkness fill my head, when my kids are grown I want their memories to be of a mummy that was kind, of a mummy who spent time with them and made them feel valued, not of a mummy who was stressed and yelling all the time cause nothing ever went to plan! And so I am going to enjoy being a mummy, chaos and all, and I will happily have you over for coffee and cake just try not to trip over the toys on the floor!!

 The beautiful family I am blessed with :-)

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog, I am back in blogging land and very excited about it!! I had to create a completely new email address, profile and blog because of the issues I was having with blogger but here I am ready to start a new blogging chapter about my crazy, beautiful life as a mum and passionate follower of Jesus. This is just a quick intro post for now, I will start up properly later in the week. Nice to see you here :-)