The end of a chapter...

I'm quite sad tonight... Today, Munchkins tutor broke the news to me that she was leaving in a few weeks time as has been offered a teaching job in her home county and would be starting after the half term. I know how much she is going to be missed, not only by Munchkin, but by our entire family.

When you take on a home tutor, you are not just employing someone to work some hours with your child. They have to be someone you are comfortable sharing your home with as they become an integral part of your extended family. Ursula quickly put all of us at our ease and there were never moments of awkwardness or feeling as if we had to get out of the way while she worked. I think if I was to describe her with two words, it would be "human dynamo!"

Having a tutor that you trust and know cares about your child and not just the paycheck is something more valuable than gold dust. Watching the two of them work together has been amazing and I'm grateful for the months of work she has done with Munchkin. The transformation in that time has been incredible. I know that a huge amount of work and teaching was done before Ursula joined us, but I had burnt out to a degree, and it was lovely to let someone else "take over" and push the program forward. She has a fantastic manner when it comes to teaching and Munchkin responds brilliantly with her and has blossomed and thrived. The children she will be teaching when she goes to her new position will love her as much as my little madam does. I know that I will smile and remember her when my minx comes out with a little Tipperary accent at times, as she has picked up the accent when it comes to a few of the words she says...

I'm happy that Ursula has found a great job and can move back close to her family, and even though I'm sad she's leaving, I know that the foundations she set while she was here are going to stand to good stead and has given Munchkin a great boost, so I'm not worried for the future.

There's no metaphor like a snow metaphor....

I'm snowed in again and starting to feel the frustration at not being able to do everyday tasks like shopping... I know if I could just get to the main road, that there is a remote chance the council have it gritted and I could get into town to restock the cupboards!

As I was lying awake in the small hours, it occurred to me how the situation could be applied to the communication difficulties our children have. We are happy and comfortable in our warm house on the top of the hill. Everything we need is to hand, there is food in the fridge, and some oil in the tank so we are pretty self sufficient. The views are spectacular and apart from a little cabin fever, we are ticking along nicely. However, when the food runs out and the heating isn't working, we are going to find we need to reconnect with the outside world... Herein lies the problem. We know what we need but there is a huge obstacle in the way. Knowing where you need to go, or what you want is one thing, but getting it is another.

Whereas some people are equipped with a 4x4 jeep or snow chains, our children have the equivalent of a Mini with slightly balding tyres so the trip down the snow covered ice impacted hill is a more daunting prospect. Not impossible, but is going to take a lot more planning and a generous dollop of caution. With love and intervention, we throw a bit of sand down so the tyres can take hold and get them moving. A bit more sand, help with the steering and the occasional push and the main road is in sight...

At times we question whether its fair or not to force our kids out of the house and into the snow to get them where they need to go. Jeanie from PlanetOutreach-ASD wrote a thought provoking post on this recently and combined with the comments on the blog, it made for great reading. The general consensus is that while it seems a little unfair at the time, as our kids get older, we want them to reach the gritted road and what lies beyond. Whether they need us to steer the Mini and throw sand under the wheel for as long as it takes, or they manage to get their own 4x4 is fine by us.

Poetry amongst the dust bunnies....

I've been confined to the house since New Year due to lack of gritting on the roads here around me so cabin fever set in and I did what I haven't done in over a year... I had a good clear out of the bits of paper, junk and clutter that seems to magically accumulate over time. I am fascinated how much we hold onto in the chance that someday, we might just use it. Today I was ruthless and decided that the binmen will earn their wages well when they can get the lorry back up the ice impacted hill I live on.

For hours, I sorted and created piles of stuff for binning or recycling (or just putting back where it belonged!) I'm ashamed to say that my inner sloth must have been residing in the utility as there was paperwork dated 07 and clothes that Munchkin couldn't possibly squeeze into pushed into bags which I had intended "putting away later"... Its cathartic when you finish and see the results of your efforts. Where others had to entertain bored children, I found a little silver lining to our ASD cloud... I was free to attack the clutter and Munchkin played happily by herself in her playroom (I now have to do a clear up job in there, but hey, the kitchen and utility look GREAT!)

While clearing a shelf in the kitchen, I came across a poem that had been copied and given to me just after Munchkin was diagnosed, and I smiled as I read the words printed in front of me. It was written by R.S. Thomas and would like to share it with you here.

Children's Song

We live in our own world,
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
The adult subterfuge.
And though you probe and pry
With analytic eye,
And eavesdrop all our talk
With an amused look,
You cannot find the centre
Where we dance, where we play,
Where life is still asleep
Under the closed flower,
Under the smooth shell
Of eggs in the cupped nest
That mock the faded blue
Of your remoter heaven.

I just love the way he portrays the innocence of children, untarnished by the world. I like to believe that its not a world children are trapped in, rather a pure beautiful place that they can seek sanctuary in, as all children do before the harsh realities of growing up change that world to an adult world, with cynicism, responsibilities and stress.

A Rose by Any Other Name...

I'm struggling a lot lately, having to keep explaining the need for labels for my children. Its got to the point where I'm almost starting to believe the people who think I'm looking for things to be wrong, almost "wanting" there to be something there so I can slap a label on my child... It couldn't be further from the truth though. Of course I don't want there to be any reason for my child to be diagnosed with anything else, but in my heart I know that we haven't got to the bottom of my middle child's issues. Therefore, I will don my elephant hide and get her the private help she needs and if that gets her an additional label to wear, so be it.



Trying to explain the need for a label is exhausting. A simple analogy I use is that you have a cupboard full of cans, all with the labels missing. You try to figure out whats in there perhaps by seeing how heavy it is, does it slosh when its shaken, or is it solid. You can really only find out a tiny bit about the contents of that aluminium can without its label... Now stick a label on the can. Whats changed? The can is the same, the contents haven't changed one iota. All that has changed is now we can easily identify what is inside that can without the need to guess or shake it.

So that is the purpose of the label. To identify what is there. Its not a name, or a tattoo that has to be worn on the forehead of your child, but it is essential to get services and the help your child needs and deserves. Don't forget also that labels peel off and can be changed as appropriate if things change.

So where is the real issue that some have with the label? I feel its the stigma of old. Sure don't people label themselves all the time if its something they are proud of? MD, BA, Mrs, Sir, Lord.... So why not come out and say the real reason they don't like certain labels. Yeah, its the stigma, I don't want people knowing there is any mental illness/neurological disorders/disability (delete as appropriate) in our family... Ignoring and shunning the label however, won't change that or make the child neurotypical. It will just deny them services and help.

Munchkin got her label nearly a year and a half ago and in that time has obtained intensive intervention, home tuition and a place in a special needs preschool. Add that to the help she gets from us at home too and you see a totally different child to the one who presented a year ago. As my mum said to me over Christmas, whatever you're doing, keep doing it! She is doing fantastically and I know in my heart, that without the label we wouldn't be doing as well as we are. I just need to sort out my cans in my cupboard and get my middle can relabelled properly so that she too, can move forward....

Tayto Louboutins... Imagine That!

Imagination... its something that has been said is lacking in our children but is something that I have noticed Munchkin does have. Perhaps the countless hours of play therapy I did with her from pre diagnosis days has paid off. It is still something that the SLT said was a problem at her last assessment as she doesn't appropriately play with the toys, ie. she can spend ages setting out a play tea set, but doesn't pretend to feed dolls etc... when she is given toys at SLT she will organise them, tell you what they are, set them out etc., but peers her age will apparently play with them differently. She has an interest in toys and has for a long time, but her attention span can be compared to a goldfish with Alzheimer's at times, preferring to flit from activity to activity, leaving a trail of scattered toys and objects in her path... But she does like toys.




From an early age, Munchkin developed a passion for jigsaws. Strangely though, she never liked to look at the box to see what she was supposed to be making, preferring to work out the picture herself. It was the one thing that could keep her attention for prolonged periods. We started with the usual 2 piece ones and now at 3years and 3months of age, she will happily do 35 piece puzzles. The smaller ones she has now started doing upside down. We have a shelf full of boxes and bags of jigsaws in the kitchen, where if the opportunity arises, she will scale the counter to reach them! Unfortunately, we have a jigsaw munching dog who likes to chew them up so most of our puzzles are missing a piece or if the dog was in a particularly funny humour... the box!



Her love of jigsaws is so strong, that when introduced to them on the computer, mastered the art of dragging and dropping with the mouse to complete them... Only yesterday, when the mouse was missing, she figured out how to use the touch pad on the laptop! She never ceases to amaze me...

When I look at her playing these days, I see a little girls imagination growing and developing. I listen to her "talking" for her toys and realise that she is acting out scenes which she sees at home. I just hope she doesn't act out the fights the Gruesome Twosome have, as social services will be down to check us out ha ha. Can imagination be learned? I'm pretty sure I never taught her to put empty crisp packets on her feet like she did earlier. When I asked what she was doing, she replied "like a shoe." I know that it wasn't what I asked but was blown away by her imagination...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Every year, about a week before Christmas, I drag the tree from the attic and reluctantly chuck a few decorations in the general vicinity of the branches, wrap a few lights around the tree (even the ones that half the bulbs don't work) and say job done... You see, I am convinced that I am a direct descendant of the Grinch and quite possibly a distant relative of Ebenezer Scrooge...



I HATE Christmas, the mad frenzy of shoppers making incredible dents into their already screaming overdrafts for the sake of one day. I'm pretty sure the Three Wise Men didn't have an exorbitant Mastercard bill to pay off when Mary and Joseph trundled off on their donkey with the gifts they were given for their newborn baby...

Mr Hammie recently guest blogged on Hammiesblog that Christmas for them this year had been cancelled in favour of a walk in the forest and an avoidance of all the stresses that family gatherings can bring. I found myself wishing I could do the same as it seemed pointless to go through all the rituals and stresses of church, dinner, presents that no one can afford and entertaining Munchkin, hoping that she will smile and be nice to my elderly grand aunt and grand uncle who adore kids, but may not understand Munchkin ignoring them or pushing them away! Then something incredible happened....

I recently set up a sensory room for Munchkin complete with lights, projectors etc and she adores spending time there, so when I drove to a family I work with one night, she saw houses lit up for Xmas (yes it was November!) and that started her off asking for lights... The tutors, myself and her school have been able to use her obsession with lights to talk about Christmas to prepare her for it. I would hear several dozen times a day her say to herself " I want the lights...it's too early for the lights" over and over...



On Saturday, I decided to bin my Black Bah Humbug Santa hat and drag the tree from the attic several weeks before its usual appearance. I actually discovered a few years back that I can drag it up intact through the loft door so don't have to disassemble it (yes I'm that lazy!) and put the boxes of decorations open on the floor. Nothing happened at first then as I started to put a few old pasta angels that the Elder Lemon and Yani had made years ago in primary school, Munchkin picked up a decoration and started to help :) My heart burst with love right there looking at my little girl putting decoration after decoration excitedly onto the tree (all on one branch but hey, who cares hehe) I started to feel a little tingle of something that has been missing from Christmas since the older two hit the teenage years... I felt the magic!! I really thought this year the silly season would once again float over madams head but she has tentatively grasped the concept that Santa is coming and will bring her a present (thanks to www.portablenorthpole.tv) Now I just have to explain every day that its not actually Christmas yet, and that Santa doesn't get stuck in every chimney like he does in the book in school...

I wonder will I start humming the Coke ad.....

Laughter is indeed the best medicine :)

Recession, budget cuts, job losses and illness were pushed back into the far recesses of our brains last Saturday night as once again, the Facebook Family headed out for a night on the tiles. We had had one night out previously last September which was such a success that another Autie Mom Andra, decided to take the reigns and plan a Christmas party to remember. And remember it we will!













A group of us headed out to the Laughter Lounge on the quays in Dublin for one of their party nights. We had come from all ends of the country, from Sligo, Donegal, Wexford, Cork, Kerry, Monaghan and so on... We were promised laughs and they didn't fail to deliver... Two comedians with sharp wit and the gift of the gab entertained us til we laughed our cotton socks off. At one stage, I feared that I couldn't breathe with the guffaws that were bellowing out past my lips! We sipped cocktails, amongst various other liquid delights that helped us to shed our inhibitions and dance the night away after the show had finished. Regardless of age or gender, our fabulous facebook friends boogied away with jaws sore from laughter and a smile on our faces as we put all other worries aside for the night that was in it. Laughter is indeed a wonderful medicine...



With all that we deal with on a day to day basis, the challenges we face when fighting for services for our children, the endless calls and paperwork we must fill out, it is quite easy to become overwhelmed and slip into depression as we forget to take care of our own mental health. That is why having an online community of friends is so important to help lift us up when we feel down, and to offer support when we need it. Meeting up for coffee occasionally and a night out every so often helps to cement those relationships that have developed. Laughing a night away with people that you have grown to respect and consider true friends is the ultimate therapy session! There are times however, where professional councillors can be the best option, if life has become so complicated and dragged you down so far that you feel there are things you can't talk about openly. Sometimes you need the anonymity of a stranger who is qualified and discreet enough to help you sort through your problems. This is where Solas comes in. I have copied and am pasting a section from the IAA blog regarding this...

From The Solas Centre: Parent Counselling Available

Just wanted to make you aware that we now have additional counsellors providing the service at Solas, with availability during weekday evenings. Katie and Paula have joined us this month and I'd like to welcome them aboard.

If you, or someone close to you, would like to avail of counselling/personal therapy service you are welcome to do so.

Just drop a note to counselling@autismireland.ie and we'll put you in touch.
All the best, Yvonne and The Solas Team