Thankful Thursday / Letting go of parental envy

A post at AboutABugg made me think today.

Milestones of childhood development. Naplan.. Should a child with Asperger’s participate for the sake of inclusion, fairness or even to have an objective(?) assessment of your child’s academic level through these school tests?

I still haven’t made up my mind about it. We have a year to go before I have to, I guess..
But it made me think about my own competitiveness as a parent.

As a baby, Nemo started sitting at a normal age (is it 6 months?) and went on to crawling. For a quite a while. It always bugged me a little when parents boasted about their kids walking at 8 months and insistently asking me : “does he walk yet ? does he?!” I thought ‘geez, give it time, he certainly will. He’ll be a talker.’

When he was finally walking at 16 months, I still was relieved. Coincidently, he had delayed teeth and was chubby enough to pass as a giant baby (I am only 5’3). Strangers now complimented me on his early steps. Whatever!

Fast forward 6 years and my son is diagnosed Asperger’s, and I know there are certain things he will learn only with difficulty, later than others or never. It does hurt a little. Mostly for him.

But I have to work on myself not to be envious our ungracious with parents that praise their NT kids achievements, or worse, take them for granted. And I thought of my mum..

My mother was a complex creature to say the least, and there were things in her life that she longed for and things she missed out on that she regretted. But these things were always attainable goals or objects that she could have afforded, had she taken the right decisions, or had life not turned another way.
I have never seen or heard my mother envious of a professional position, personal possessions or a relations that were completely out of her reach.
Mum would throw her hands up and – not naively, but sincerely – admire the beautiful villas people had at the waterfront when we were taking a walk through the rich suburbs of my hometown. I would probably mutter something like ‘they got it easy’ or ‘.. should share their wealth!’ as the socially critical and righteous teen I was. And I would not enjoy the view at all.

But the lesson I take from it today, is that I want to be able to enjoy watching other children progress and thrive in ways my son will never do, without comparing him or me to these families, because acceptance is the first step to being able to reach your own goals, your own milestones. At least some of them.

My son deserves this focus. And he will have his very own milestones and his own achievements. And we will praise him for it with all our heart.

I am thankful today to Renee to make me think about that and to my mother for her healthy attitude on other people’s riches.

So I am actually linking this as a Thankful Thursday, even if it’s just after midnight already…

7 things on a Sunday..

Here is a collection of 7 things I want to share today. I am calling it :

It could be a review of the week, or simply a collection of ‘briefs’ that I want to share, I don’t know, I’m still trying it out. So here I go :

The PHOTO
My son dancing away the last hours of 2010.

Who would have known that 2011 would bring, for so many and so soon, so much heartbreak and pain ? I hope we will be dancing all year still.
I have started a project365 Here but am planning to be more present on Flickr again. Here.

The THOUGHT
After the big floods in Queensland (and elsewhere in Australia) and after the big wave of solidarity, volunteers and donations, the Government is proposing a flood tax or levy to help rebuilt the affected regions. Even when nothing more was known about it yet, already a good 70% of the population was against it and the political ‘playas’ were grinding their teeth to shamelessly exploit the discussion about how to handle a natural disaster of incredible dimension to their favour in the game of power. It reminds me a lot of the ugly discussion on the German ‘Solidarity Surcharge’ after the Reunification in 1990. Everybody was happy to knock down the wall, hand out bananas and have the poor East-German relative stay over for a visit in Blingville, but it’s a different thing to be forced to pay. Even when you totally have the means to do so.
Interesting comment on the ‘heartless bastards debate’, here on the ABC website.

The WORD
I have always loved to look up definitions, origins and applications of words that needed clarification. Wikipedia, but also other free (and foreign) dictionaries and knowledge bases are totally my thing.
This week’s word is ‘EMPATHY’ .
In the context of the floods and some totally unrelated (grave) incidents and raw blog posts in the Australian Mummy Blogosphere, the meaning of this word, the impact of the actions it can produce, the change of its value when combined with negative feelings like  egocentricity, envy and fear are incredibly interesting, yet very upsetting to watch. It was worth exploring it to maybe understand a bit more what is going on (with people). For the difference between sympathy & empathy, also here.

The LINK
At Nerdfighters.com, they’re  “about bringing nerdfighters together to increase awesome and decreasing world suck.”
“In the contemporary world where things fall apart and the center can not hold you have to imagine a community where there is no center… A lot of life is about doing things that don’t suck with people who don’t suck.”
“Nerdfighting can be any activity that either helps to remove stress (such as writing an enjoyable novel), or directly helps others (such as moving to Africa to teach the impoverished).”  – I have come across this before and will now check it out a bit more. It sounds quirky but positive and community building. Certainly better than what the trolls do, I say.

The PROJECT
I am trying to quit smoking.
Because my life is too precious to me and to other people to risk to lose it or even shorten it with something that provides only very temporary pleasure and a lot of very concrete disadvantages (that you all know).

It’s as simple as that. Or not.

The SONG
By talented French singer/ songwriter Camille, from the 2005 concept album ‘Le fil’. I was chuffed to see her make it into the TripleJ Hottest 100 of 2006 here in Australia! Interesting video too.
A great, contemporary  song about pain and compassion. Check it out!

The IDEA
So I had the idea to the SUNDAY 7 today, as a writing/posting/thinking prompt. Many people do something special on special days in their blog, right?
Not all Sundays are quiet though, and I don’t think I will do it every week. I am also not ambitious/ consistent/popular enough to start a meme (yet). But I like the idea of sharing 7 things and have at least 7 comments ? ok ? 🙂

We play.. with little ones.

My friend has a 2 yo daughter and I have noticed that Tornado – usually quite the wild child as his nickname suggests -has developed a very knightly or gentlemen like attitude towards her.

This makes me happy as he is a single child (with two part-time teenage siblings though) and I really didn’t want to raise a little dragon child who cannot share, and wants wants wants all to be only about him.

Crafty – Ahoy Pirates ! (cardboxing a pirate ship)

The last months were all about HarrHarr! – Pirates!
For Tornados Birthday, I prepared a treasure hunt, we then went to SeaWorld on the following weekend (pirate show) and by Halloween, first at kindy and then at a neighbour’s party, we knew our dressup/moustache routine. We played A LOT of pirate games with the Lego and the Fisherprice men too, but we only had small or makeshift boats (shoe boxes) ..
Then I started a project and it did not look too bad – but I could not find anything for a stable big mast! This weekend I finally dug out a tube from a (broken) play tent. I think the red sails are a good effect.
Obviously, it’s not a very true reconstruction (oh, Fisherprice has a really awesome set)  but I am very glad to say that Tornado was, again, very happy  with our homemade and recycled cardboard version, especially, because I tried to satisfy his wishes for certain features, like the outlook on top of the mast, an anchor on a string and, a trapdoor for the “cabin part”.

Cheap As Craft – Bow & Arrow

Today, my husband emptied out a sports bag and we recovered two perfectly new shoe laces. Perfect on the day where I had promised Tornado to built him bow and arrow without really knowing what I would use. While he was cutting out the feathers for his headband I worked on his latest weapon :

The idea was of course to spend zero money but still fabricate a reasonably functional, stable toy for him – without danger of injury for either himself or the other inhabitants of the house….

I used a peg from the irrigation system that Dogthing is systematically unearthing and forever chewing on. The plastic has just the right flexibility.
The arrow is fully out of cardboard with stabilising, rolled cardboard inside and relatively heavy. The tension of the shoelace looks strong but allows only for minimal propulsion really. After a little bit of training, the arrow flew far enough to make one little indian VERY happy! 

O Father! Where art thou?

I haven’t quite decided how personal I want this blog to be, but I would like to share some thoughts I had last night about Father’s Day. And fathers in my life.

I have grown up in Germany, where Father’s Day, the ‘Vatertag’, is a much older, somewhat embarrassing tradition, different to any other country in the world. It is celebrated on Ascension Day, a national holiday, and has nothing to do with family but is more  about groups of men getting together for a big drinking binge out in the country side.

Cold pressed

My boy gives me kisses. Lots of kisses.

There is a thing I love about my boy : he’s generous with kisses.

And I know that won’t last. So I enjoy it while it’s still happening.

After living in kiss-country France for a good while, I have made a point to encourage at least the good night hug and kisses for my husband AND his teenage step siblings (i know they hate it but i think it’s good for them although it passes the germs around a bit faster too). But he will also easily kiss other people that are in our life and get close to him. We have managed to direct those kisses more towards the cheeks of people, ever since a 92 year old lady in a nursery home exclaimed after an ‘attack’ of my then 3 year old “Oh dear boy, be careful, you don’t know where my mouth has been !”

My boy has tried kissing girls on the playground, with various success. Fortunately, the mother’s of so harassed girls were either touched by the gesture or missed it. I couldn’t have handled any negative remark about it. (I copped a lot of crap from a mum of a tiny toddler once whom he was hugging and carrying around a bit. It’s better than throwing sand, no ??)

He told me this week that in kindy “hugging is ok, but kissing is not allowed”. He sounded a bit disappointed. I am obviously fine with this, and i think it includes both, the other children and the bunch of more or less butch ‘teachers’ he spends his days with. It’s a wild boy-dominated group of kids and some hugging will do them good at times. And after an accident, I reckon a hug is as powerful as a bandaid with a superhero picture.

In the evening, my boy and me,  we have a ritual – just one of the many to delay me from leaving his room at bedtime – that consists in sending kisses that ‘flutter’ to the other who has to catch it (think “Roger Rabbit” movie when the hot Jessica blows some cartoon lips flying to the detective..). It’s a cute silly game we play. It can take a while and ends in a crazy bombardment of kisses from the bed to the doorframe.

Now my boy starts (prep) school in January. I’ll bring him to school like I bring him to kindy today. While he usually runs off to play quite eagerly  in the morning, my arrival in the afternoon brings on a shrill “Mamiiii!” often followed by a “I missed you so!!!” (really, sometimes I wonder if the teachers think I trained him to say that..) and he’ll run into my arms for a hug and a kiss. It’s our “Little House in the Prairie” moment really.

But with school coming up,  I am starting to wonder if he will be looked at weirdly (and me too, for that matter) because boys are really boys in Australia it seems to me… I don’t want my son to be branded a mommy’s boy by other 5year olds. But I also don’t want him to stop the kisses because I know he will anyway.

How should I handle this, considering that we both don’t want to give it up yet but as much as it is expression of our connection with each other, I don’t want it to  get back on him in the form of some silly remarks by his class mate, or worse, older kids..  How much kissing is too much ??

One sting – two stories.

When I picked up my son at kindy today, one of the teachers called out to me and informed me that he had been “stung at the knee by an ant during afternoon tea” (that’s like a snack they have in the afternoon, where nobody actually drinks tea).

Apparently, he had cried a little but he was ok now. It still looked a bit swollen and red, but they had put an ice pack on it, and it was an hour ago now. They had also made sure, it did not go up his pants. Good.

This is Australia, and Insect bites have to be taken seriously, but we have both made our experiences with big angry ants already, it surely hurts, but if you are not allergic, you’ll get over it.

We picked up his stuff and walked to the car, chatting. Here is what my boy had to say about the incident.

“Yeah, they wanted to know what stinged me and I did not know and then they took of my pants and I was crying and they were shaking the pants but we could not find the bug and then they put an icepack on it. And they were still looking for it. But we did not find it. “

“.. ah?” .. A bug? And.. Nobody actually saw what it was? Argh. So not a good thing in Australia when a child and a stung knee are involved. And especially when you haven’t grown up among deadly spiders, snakes and sharks yourself, and are still.. somewhat easy to scare ?

I’m glad I did not know all that before the swelling went away.
I’m a bit pissed off at the teachers to tell me there was an ant when there wasn’t.