Chicken Little

more commonly known as James.
Newly turned 10 in March this year.

My little sunshine - the child I knew I was put on this earth to create, grow, give birth to, nurture and encourage to become an amazing human being. I Love both my children equally but so differently. I have a connection with this little person I cannot explain nor do I think I could ever re-create.

The chubbiest little boy with the ocean blue eyes that only had eyes for his mummy soon turned into a green eyed little boy who was disconnected from life and lost. By the time he was in pre-school, we knew something was very wrong.  Our happy boy had a bad temper and no way to express himself - he refused to speak or even try different ways of communicating.  

We sent him to kindergarten to be taught by one of the best kindy teachers we could find - she was renowned for helping kids like James to turn that corner. By the end of kindy, despite massive improvement, he was still struggling.

I could feel our beautiful little boy slipping away. At the start of year 1 we managed to get a referral for a developmental Paediatrician, but 6 months away. 

 

We started him in weekly speech therapy, had his hearing tested, had him visit with an OT regularly.  Officially diagnosed in July 2012 after a particularly horrific 6 months with a teacher who lacked patience and insight to bother considering there was something more to his behaviour rather than her presumption that he was a spoilt brat who deserved to be beaten and punished for his inability to focus or complete school work. (She really is someone I hope Karma catches up with).  Its hard to believe that someone who is meant to understand kids could be so far detached from those kids.

 

To say I was dead-against medication (aka Ritalin) is THE understatement of the century. Nothing good had been read about or heard about this "evil tablet", but after much coaxing, my husband and the paediatrician had me agreeing to a 1 month trial of a quick release, short acting version of the drug.  2 days later I felt like the worst mother on the planet - not for any negative reason but for the fact that in 2 days, the impact of the medication was so severe, I'm sure I would have opted for James to take a DNA test to confirm he was still our child - the difference was remarkable.

 

We soon discovered that with every gain, there is a cost. My chubby happy little eater started wasting away as his appetite went on permanent vacation. Suddenly my life became ALL about getting food into this kid. Suddenly all the foods he loved, made him feel "icky". Gone was the dairy (milk, cheese and yogurt) gone was any form of sauce on food - dry is best, but most of all gone was his zest and enthusiasm to try new foods. Meal times also changed - gone were breakfast, lunch and dinner - suddenly his breakfast time featured around 10-11am, lunch at about 4-5pm and dinner anywhere from 9-10pm.

 

Along with the appetite went the sleep.  Gone were the 12 hours sleep per night, he now averages 4-6 hours at the best of times, despite using melatonin tablets to try an assist with his insomnia. 

 

As a parent you always make sure your kids eat first and go to bed before you but when one of your kids is out of "normal" schedule, the guilt of eating my own dinner as late as I can stand to do so as to try fit in with his schedule is overwhelming. There is also nothing worse than watching the clock, waiting for kids' bedtime so you too can climb into bed because you're exhausted beyond words.

 

Mood swings and changes to personality ... phew! where to begin....

 

Firstly, the potential for sensory overload in everything and anything is ALWAYS a possibility.  Light sensitivity, noise levels too high, tastes too strong, feeling too scratchy, smells too strong ..... and that's just the tips of the iceberg.

What amazes me though is that the solution to sensory overload (or so we have discovered) is usually an opposite form of sensory overload.

 

James will have a meltdown because its too noisy and because he is having a meltdown now everyone is staring and pointing and talking about him.

The solution to this, me taking him aside quietly, letting him climb onto my lap and cling to me like a baby koala while I gently rock him side to side, singing or humming him his favourite rhyme while squeezing him as hard as I can (which horrifies me every time because I feel like I'm going to crush him but he insists on "harder" if I'm not squeezing tight enough).

 

I think he feels that he has had all this negative attention on him his entire life because of the struggles he has had to endure, that he avoids being in the spotlight at all costs.  James likes one-on-one situations. He likes to focus on one person and aims to please.  Give this beautiful boy a chance to do something for you and you will forever have a little person seeking to assist with him main priority of aiming to please. He is seeking the positive response - its just such a shame that most people cannot see this or offer this freely to him without him having to do something for them.  It costs us nothing to smile at each other to say "hello, how are you?" or "thank you" for just about anything. How about thanking him for being such a happy boy or thanking him simply for being there - imagine if every kids felt special every day of their life, their entire world would change and their goals and aims would be that much higher.

So in summation of this ADHD label.... most of us are running a Windows operating system upstairs, James is simply running a MAC.... same job, just differently.

 

All I ask of people.... just give him a chance - allow him an opportunity to show you just how gorgeous his little soul is - he is after all a normal little boy who just happens to struggle with a few things in life.

Somewhere in the middle...

Lets be brutally honest...

I've been wanting to write a blog (and continue writing in said blog) for ages. And by ages I mean years. 

Looking back I suppose its one of those awesome letter combination traits of my personality that has, I wouldn't say stopped (because this would mean I actually started) and I wouldn't say prevented (because hey lets face it, we're all in charge of our own actions/decisions) but hindered my successful click-click-post-publish. Not being "officially" diagnosed myself, its quite possible that the OCD perfectionist in me was bothered by the lack of ordered thoughts and structure to said blog.

It could very well have been the extremes of my bipolar tendencies that I didn't find my blogging-happy-medium, though I strongly suspect my ASD tendencies and fear of putting myself out there (despite this initially being a private blog) may have had the upper hand in my start-blogging-demise.

One would think that my defiant side related to my ODD tendencies would win-out at some point, but alas, here I find myself possibly closer to 13 years of delayed-blogging, finally putting finger to keyboard to pen, what I'm sure is going to be the most god-awful drivel-coated blog you will ever read.

For starters, my stats... (or claims to fame LOL)
36, married for 16 years, South African born but Aussie-living now, full time working mum of 2 ADHD diagnosed boys (10 and nearly 14), with a congenital eye disease that is slowly sucking the life out of my sight, migraine suffering, Gemini with a what my husband will tell you is a severe case of multiple personality disorder that ranges between resting-bitch-face and Satan herself.

I pride myself in being open, honest upfront, witty and sarcastic with a wicked sense of humour though I hesitate to admit I am a softie on the inside who loves love and happiness, giving and helping. I love and trust easily but more often than not and left disappointed when my expectations of mutual giving and sharing in relationships and friendships aren't met.

I love arts and crafts, cooking and photography but never seem to find the time for much of any. I've been classed as having an "addictive personality" (no, that does not mean people swarm to me like mozzies to the light) it simply means I lack motivation to start maintain and finish the important things, I find myself constantly doing things I probably shouldn't (yes I am NOW an ex-smoker, ((again)) but who knows how long that will last for) - I can hole up in bed for days watching a TV series and buy a packet of Red Skins EVERY.SINGLE.TIME I go into IGA even though I tell myself EVERY.SINGLE.TIME that I shouldn't because my ass doesn't appreciate it.  So basically I'm addicted to the bad behaviours and not the good ones.

My own ADHD tendencies are to be accredited for my drastic change in career over the last few years, that combined with the OCD in liking 'round numbers' each of these ;career endeavours; have lasted precisely 2 years.

In 2009 it began with Project Management, to-the-day a 6 month stint with one firm then resulted in exactly 2 years with another PM firm, fast bored of that and thought I'd try my hand at Managing at an insurance broker firm in 2012 (where I soon learnt that the GenY and Millennial mentality of "eat or be eaten" was in fact a 'thing') this too lasted exactly 2 years. I'm currently almost 1 year into another adventure within the fleet management sector doing finance (yeah I'm good with numbers but they aren't my passion).  I honestly can't peg-down if its due to boredom or simply my ODD with authority that has me changing jobs more often than I should be. (I suspect its to do with my annoyance at the lack of competence but lets stick with interest and need to explore and build my career opportunities - I need to save face in any way I can given just how brutally honest this has ended up being)

So back to where this should be heading, my family.

I am married to a wonderful man who lets face it, deserves a medal having to put up with all of the above and then some. He is no picnic to live with, but I'd pick him over and over again. He has the grace and patience to accept and love me as I am. He makes me happy and keeps me smiling. He challenges me to be the best version of myself that I can. His eyes are the colour of the sky, a soft blue that draws you in and calms you. He has a few annoying qualities but hey, lets face it, 16 years together, we're bound to find out things about each other we dislike, but we learn to live with them. (Though I will openly admit to losing my shit with him quite often over some of these annoying things - he in return tells me I'm beautiful and that he loves me) What he lacks in emotional capacity (yes, that of a teaspoon in comparison to my ocean) he makes up for in his strength and patience (though I have referred to these as his boy-ability-to-turn-off-and-ignore).

I think more than anything, we've made it through the thick and thin still together because we're all that each other have had. Immigrating to Australia away from family and life-long friends was massive. Given that we did that not long after getting married and having our first child together, we were not only navigating marriage and parenthood together, we had to navigate our new life in this country... together. We have gone through some really tough times, times I thought would surely be the end of "us" but somehow we managed to get through it all and I strongly believe that its because of our amazing children.

Yes life has thrown us a few curve balls with our boys, but our mutual need for them to be successful human beings no matter the cost is what has driven us this close. Yes, we have two ADHD diagnosed boys who share a few quirks but for the most part are so very different, it feels like a whole new journey with our eldest (who was only diagnosed 3 months ago) as apposed to our youngest (who was diagnosed in 2012). Our life is so very full of ups and downs trying to navigate the challenges and find our victory's, but we do it together and with a smile on our face.