indigo dog

my son is not a "funny looking kid", he was working those babygros from about 3 months old, he was the baby everyone greeted with a "duuuuude". he's seriously popular, and kids can be shallow people.

my son is not "slow". i'm sick of people- of friends-telling me, apropos of nothing, that "it's not important if he doesn't ever go to university", based on their feeble grasp of his diagnosis. wtf? first of all, he's four (4). secondly, he's scary bright and a great communicator with adults. third, he's obsessed with robots and comes from a long line of celebrated engineers on all sides. i had to seriously hold my tongue this morning as someone laid the "so what if he's not academically clever" crap on me whilst her own child had just picked his nose and riffed on bums and willies for a good five minutes.

my son shouldn't be persecuted on his own turf in the interest of "toughening him up". we are currently under siege by neighbouring kids every day after school and on weekends as some fences are down and those responsible can't be bothered to replace them. these kids will stroll into my house and use the play equipment even if my kids aren't around. i'm laid back, but these kids are really really not very nice, and their parents assume the issue is that my kids are "too sensitive". i am turning into an alsation; montana is likely to throw down some cgi werewolf madness this weekend should this continue.

my son is awesome, eerily placid, with a delightful take on the world. ignorant pigeon-holing haters are beginning to rile me. it's bringing out the indigo in me. it's not good.





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processing...

every time we meet with a new professional, the outlook looks bleaker. this week it was a very long occupational therapy assessment; educational psychology and speech and language coming soon. as i've said before, i don't quite understand why this is happening when previously we were all satisfied moving forward i.e.p.-wise with a list of "differences" rather than a solid diagnosis. actually i do, but it seems a little inconsistent. the thing i am attempting to focus upon is how "charming" and "delightful" all these new people profess to find my little boy.

so i've retreated somewhat, as i am apt to do. it can be quite tiring being how i normally am socially, and at the moment i don't really have it in me. i can't really string a sentence together. the phone rings and i can't always pick it up. i'd rather not speak at all than have people be all nice and understanding because that's when i can't keep it together anymore. it's just how i am. i can pull off my usual cheerfulness with the kids (to a point), the school run, and the required amount of interaction involved in day to day living, but no more. the closer someone is to me the more less i have to say to them at times like this. i feel like i'm letting people down and am not very good at articulating what's going on with me.

anyway, being all kinds of done with the "characterful throw", i am cheering myself up looking at ryan reynolds, and suggest that anyone else with a severe predilection for snidely funny bearded beefcake follows suit. here's ryan with multiple ow-ies having suffered some sort of run in with a marvel character. that might be code for something; i'm beyond caring.





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it's not right, and it's not okay.

i used to be so obsessed with this film; travolta's performance remains my number one go-to dinner party oscars injustice. (you know. these things come up.)

anyway.

this doesn't feel right but, two days after the rest of the internet, here it is.

this is what has been on my mind most of the weekend. it's been very quiet.

this, and the fact that a million gossip sites are now full of comments informing their readership that autism is a mental illness.

(i just had to go back and edit because i'd capitalised correctly, this always happens when i'm distracted- when i concentrate it is a humungous fail, hence the usual modus operandi.)

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um!

incredibly, when we got to the doctor's surgery this morning (not paediatrician), my daughter did have an appointment and it was today and it was at the time we turned up!

i am not a completely unorganised delusional sham of a mother!

*raises glass of wine. well it is wednesday!*

the assessment went okay!

no referrals, no interventions, no diagnosis!

yay!

my daughter just experiences life with a literally painful intensity.

boo.




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head/ hands

1. on the phone just a minute ago, i told montana that he has a new name on this blog. that he has a name at all. and he is bitterly disappointed that it is not 'futurecybertron'. honestly.

2. because it is now attempting to be summer, one felt one had to step up the grooming a notch or twelve. i went into lush looking for something that would render me slightly less reptilian and waltzed out with a 'business time' massage bar, which, as you will know because you are so utterly and irrevocably hip, is some sort of 'flight of the conchords' tribute. watching that, i realise that it's supposed to be an aphrodisiac. oh. whatever- i am totally distracted by the smell of my arms. it's so very great that i am going to have to give it up... at least on weekdays, or days in which i have to pull focus of any kind, or not get chased down the road by dogs. honestly, it's like baby powder, or burlap, or freshly printed wedding invitations. ridiculously good.

3. little boy is now on his third (3rd) copy of wall-e. he is literally wearing them out.

4. i'm turning the kitchen into a gigantic chalkboard. right now. don't say anything. just pass me that brush. what do you mean, "regrettably compulsive"?

5. it's my daughter's first assessment tomorrow.

6. there is no espresso in the fridge. there is no espresso in the fridge. there is no espresso in the fridge.

7. everyone, and by everyone i mean everyone in the world that isn't me or you or perhaps some other people you know, is going on holiday this weekend. away. everyone. look at them, with their patrick gale novels and their passports and their sun tan lotion and their hopes of relaxation and/or a good time. quitters.

8. at the end of the month, i get to go clothes shopping. glee. this doesn't happen very often anymore, as i need to keep my children in socks and evacuee-style frocks. i am attempting to resist the urge to spend all my hard saved wedge on one beautiful (ridiculous) item that lives year round in my wardrobe with all of it's glamourous (ridiculous) chums, while i lurch out of the house each morning in tracksuit bottoms with ground in play-doh and some delapidated t-shirt commemorating my wonderful time at the sorbonne (i never went to the sorbonne). exchanging the money into topshop vouchers might be the solution, but then knowing me i'll end up with four identical kate moss maxi dresses and some delusional notion that i have been practical. again. i hate what the fashion industry has done to me.

9. we have five impending blooms on our new papaver orientale, which, as my five year old daughter poppy points out, is fairly 'iconic'.

10. after a weekend of alternating threats and bribes, being screamed at, empty promises, pleading, insults, whining and foot stamping, i have been broken. i am now going to go and clean aforementioned daughter's bedroom, with any luck before environmental health show up.

i don't know where she gets it from.

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nature/ nature

yesterday, r. took the opportunity to avail himself of several episodes of the clone wars. it being quite a cosy sort of day, he fell asleep. because i knew that if i attempted to rouse him i would have to spend the rest of the afternoon with him on my hip, engaging him brightly in my every passing thought just to ensure that he remained conscious, i let him sleep. until 5.30pm. oops.

so by last night, the boy child was in a chatty sort of mood. i put him to bed, and he kept wondering back down again, to talk. i'd take him straight back up again, and then be plead with to stay.

"let's talk about... pistons?" he might say.

"oh, okay," i might respond. what can i say, he sells it well.

so, off he went about pistons, and because i am not particularly technically minded, my contribution to the conversation might have been disappointing but for the fact that rudy sometimes needs his own questions repeated to him before he can be quite sure about things.

i threw him one such question. i can't remember what it was. but in response i got a

"yyyyeargh. and then..."

but he'd lost me. because by that point i was sitting with my mouth hanging open. rudy had just, for a split second, for the duration of that 'yyyyeargh', and for some waving arm movements that followed it, turned into his father.

seeing as the last time rudy saw his father he was only weeks old, it is highly unlikely that he learned those mannerisms from him. and, naturally, his father does not have the monopoly on a protracted 'yeah' and gesticulative communication. but it was more than that. it was, for want of a better word, weird.

and it occurs to me that i, and everyone else in our lives, tend, quite naturally and without affectation, to think of my children as just mine- the product of my family's collective gene pool and no one else's. our faces are fairgrounds of recessive genetic traits. despite the fact that he is incredible with them, it's fairly obvious they are not montana's. they are my kids.

i eventually managed to wrap up the machinery chat and went downstairs. i had company, and soon forgot about it.

but later, on my own, an unspoken "he did that thing that you do" hung in the air, competing with my relief at not being in a situation to say it to him.





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trip

see that pigeon above us, there?

well, if you tried to tempt that pigeon with hovis sliced or a nice scone, he'd probably turn his beak up. he'd want ciabatta, dipped in the finest ligurian oil, probably, as that pigeon up there is italian. that picture was actually taken a stone's throw away from the roman forum on new year's eve, 2007. i know- take me to some beautiful historical ruins, and i'm photographing flying vermin and using the zoom to check out people's terraces. ciao!

anyway, so, because it's like june and stuff, we're discussing at present where to spend new year 2009/10. by we, i mean myself and my man, who might be feeling guilty about setting out from california in a muscle car without me this summer. perhaps. a terrible formative experience in a suburban nightclub has left him with seasonal compulsive wanderlust; new year must be spent in a different place (and for place read country) each and every year. i'm spoiled. the first year that we were together, we spent it on a remote and misty swedish island- we got in about 3 hours of daylight over a 4 day break. the second year, i clambered over roman ruins in 6" heels. we saw in 2009 watching rubber clad gendarms make examples of argentinians with fireworks on the chanse elise, while people inexplicably shouted "tony montana!" at my man (hmm. if tony montana had a beard. and was 6'4". and wasn't a drug lord.) this year, however, i would be quite happy to stay at my house. or his house. or, for that matter, babington house. sigh.

but the problem with this is that once england is done, it's done. i don't know when the current nye mandate is going to come to term, and i'm not really inclined to ask as mr. montana says vague things about the future enough as it is. i am just realising that i am becoming the kind of person that packs earl grey tea bags, is usually bitterly disappointed with the food and misses the pound sterling more than is reasonable. we resent other tourists and get sniffy about their eurotrash accessories. montana and i get stressed out speaking foreign languages in front of eachother. in paris, we spent one whole evening in our 8' wide bed- eating cheese and watching an old episode of jonathon creek, wistfully tearing up at the bbc idents.

obviously, the ideal is to build ourselves a mobile treehouse. montana stipulates hot tub, wi-fi access, a 40" (minimum) screen of some sort, decent pillows and a barbecue. i require hot water and good light. i might suggest we pimp a shed, or buy a winnebago and montana learns to solder, but before you know it, we'll be planning a "waterworld" themed new year, and hopefully my future doesn't have much kevin costner in it.

and so, concluded by a series of kneejerk reactions and 4 minutes of flight research, i'm willing to bet that montana settles for st. petersburg, which is dandy because it gives me the opportunity to shop for mukluks in the off season- which will obviously come in handy, later, for the treehouse.

i love it when a plan comes together.




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the sartorialist 2

so, today there was another straight faced meeting about r.'s asperger's diagnosis. he is shortly to meet with an educational psychologist (not my stress, but i like it, so it stays) and a speech and language therapist. it seems what i was happy to think of as an asperger's 'haze'- like donald trump's hair- is to be made something more tangible. more of a hat, perhaps- an asperger's fedora seems appropriate. we, the adults present, talked earnestly and at length about the validity and ultimate goals of this process. we weighed up the pros and cons of what i am choosing to think of as 'preemptive labelling' (better 'aspergic' than 'lazy', or 'stupid'...*narrows eyes*). we reviewed what specifically in the reception year rudy might need support with. we got to the point where we were repeating ourselves and eachother, justifying the process and each of our roles within it. as per.

"i know, roight, guys, but check out my new chucks?" said the little boy in question, in his startlingly sweet bristol burr, suddenly toes-a-posing in the physical epicentre of our concentration.

ah, levity.



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oc-dc

"it seems that for success in science and art," hans asperger wrote, "a dash of autism is essential."

i recently witnessed someone very dear to me boiling and ironing 20 of her son's handkerchiefs. it was a beautiful day outside. she was being exorted to come outside, put her feet up, and enjoy her beautiful garden and a glass of wine. no, she said, i have to finish these, clean out a cupboard and properly store these cashmere pieces i have just laundered. then i have to polish the bannisters. no, don't worry, i want to do it. i know what i'm doing, so i'll have it done in a couple of hours. no, go you and sit down.

it was her birthday. swear to god.

seems to me, for perfect housekeeping, a dash of ocd is essential.

i don't have ocd.



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*snort*

...yes i realise that i am tragic, tragic individual. and yes, i did stay up last night until 2am (on a school night) to watch the new moon trailer and, yes, i do feel that jake shapeshifting has redeemed the few hours of my life spent gazing at the mediocre smell-the-fart fest that was 'twilight', and, alright, i might have made an actual "squee!" noise when he did it and there might previously have been a bit of a "hubba" too, and, yes, i wrestle with this ethically, yes, but at least i accept that the t-shirts can't be realistically worked into my summer wardrobe of ancient fred perry and kate moss's frocks for topshop which, incidentally, i seem to have solidly budgeted around from may to september for the last three years. it's the weather. honest.

in other news, we are back! we went away for a few days to my boyfriend's 'hood. i have been mostly been drinking wine and have satisfactorily depleted, clearly, many, many brain cells. this is in no way related to the fact that the next few weeks hold both an occupational therapy and mental health assesment for my various children, so... yeah. i might go and watch that boy become a wolf again. don't judge me.




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