Thursday 22 November 2012

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Yes I know, I KNOW we don’t do Thanksgiving here in the UK but we darn well SHOULD!  Why?  Just because celebrating gratitude and being thankful for what we have feels so, so good. 


We lived in the suburbs of Chicago for three years which was a character building experience to say the least.  BooHooDaddy was out at work doing his Very Important IT thing, and there I was by myself with nothing much to do except the all-consuming job of growing babies and raising them.  I was busy, lonely and not good at reaching out to other people, particularly when Boo came along and life became more complicated.  We went to Gymboree and little ‘Mommy and Me’ classes, but I didn’t really fit in, and if I’m being honest I didn’t really try to, because I knew we weren’t going to be staying there.  I do wonder now why I didn’t make more of an effort with people, but as it happened, the few friends I did make were absolute diamonds.  Fran, Marie, B-A and Ms Tina (Pipsy’s first daycare teacher) – you will never know how grateful I am that you were in my life in those long, long lonely days!  I loved that you were keep-it-realists; not putting up a huge façade of perfection.  If things didn’t go to plan, you admitted it and laughed about it, just like my best friends in the UK would have done.  You didn’t try to feed me a load of flaky rubbish about how we would do this or that together – you actually meant it, or else you didn’t say it at all.  I knew where I was with you, didn’t have to read between the lines or second guess anything.
Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou, so so much.


Our first Thanksgiving in the US was a bitterly cold day.  BooHooDaddy had two days off work (as is the tradition, so that the celebration really extends to four days), so we began with a walk to Lovelace Park to feed the ducks.  It was so cold that the lake had frozen over and the ducks were nowhere to be seen.  To add to the general discomfort of the biting air, two year old Pips was screaming in her pushchair and I was wearing a belly-bra (or as my darling husband called it, a ‘gut strap’) due to my uncomfortable baby-bump, which, we had found out the day before, contained a rather large baby girl.  
We had been invited to share Thanksgiving with a colleague of my husband’s, Patty, and her family.  I was dreading it (due to my social ineptitude and pregnancy induced sobriety) but actually that day is one of my happiest memories from our entire time in America.  There were candles, peaceful music, cinnamony-clovey-berry smells, Patty’s boys entertaining Pipsy and the rest of us by being a raucous hoot, their extended family sitting around chit-chatting, and much bustle and deliciousness in the kitchen… all in all a very cosy, very ‘Christmassy’ experience.  The actual Thanksgiving meal was a meal like I have never seen, smelt or tasted before, complete with heartfelt Grace being said at the beginning, which was a new one on me.  Pips had her first ever taste of pumpkin pie.  I felt priviledged to be part of such a special gathering; someone else’s special gathering, and yet we were whole-heartedly welcomed and included, as if they had known us forever.  After dinner, I sat sipping a warm, spiced apple cider (non-alcoholic) and listening to Patty’s dad tell the story of how, every year on the Saturday after Thanksgiving they would get up early and drive to Wisconsin to get a Christmas tree from the same Christmas tree farm they had been going to for years and years… Remembering that day, it felt as if a strong but gentle energy enveloped us; scooped our little family up into its arms and gave us a big, long hug.  Thankyou Patty :-)


Now, with nearly five years back home in the UK under our belts, we have found that aside from affectionately remembering the lovely people we met, the thing we miss more than anything else about living in the USA is Thanksgiving Day.  We did try to keep up the tradition for a couple of years once we got back here, since Boo and Peeky were born out there, and, let’s be honest; you can’t really argue with a day off work, a fine meal of roast turkey with all the trimmings and a cosy family cuddle watching Charlie Brown movies!  But, as lovely as it was, it wasn’t really the same.  It doesn’t feel the same if you’re the only ones doing it.  It felt, well- a bit pointless really.  So we stopped having our little English Thanksgiving, left the kids in school and nursery and me and the hubby just went out for a slap-up carvery lunch.  Nice.  But a bit… blah.

But we have kept up the tradition of beginning our Christmas early, the weekend after Thanksgiving.  In fact, the girls have begged and begged me this year to get the decorations out today, on Thanksgiving day itself - much against the grumbles of their daddy, the old Scrooger!  So after his carvery belly has deflated a little, I shall send him down to the garage to get out a little fake tree and some fairy lights which will absolutely make the girls’ day.  This is our own little Thanksgiving Day.  They will be thankful for the pretty little fake tree, while I will be thankful for my sweet memories of kind, funny Americans.  And thankful for my happy kids.  And their daddy will be thankful to have them out of his hair for a couple of hours while we decorate the little tree.  

If you are one of those families who like to get your tree up and start Christmas, then YAY for you, I say!  Follow your own traditions and ignore all the grumps who say it’s too early.  It’s not about commercialism.  It’s about making your own traditions, being excited, twinkly lights, pretty things, and enjoying seeing your kids with huge beaming smiles on their faces.  There is no greater gift to be thankful for.  Happy Thanksgiving!


Friday 9 November 2012

Well, here we are :-)

Or, more likely, here I am.  Possibly all by myself.  I have no idea what I am doing here, or where this is going, but I think it could be fun.  At the very least, it will keep my hands occupied, which can only be a good thing with a 'more for sharing' pack of Malteasers in the fridge.

So, starting a blog was easy peasy and a little bit exciting.  Feeling very pleased with myself, I googled 'The Boo Files' and discovered, dagnammit, that a lovely and very dedicated lady in Ireland had beaten me to it, several years ago, with her gorgeous blog about...what else?...living with her autistic child, who she calls her 'Boo Boy'.

http://hammie-hammiesays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/boo-files.html

Strange coincidence.  That will teach me to believe I am in any way original!  So I have tweaked the name of my blog, which is never going to be in the same league (because I would like to have a life and this is just my new hobby), and I am now calling it, as you can see, The BooHooMama Files.

Another strange happening was waiting in my inbox when I checked my email.  I subscribe to 'The Daily Flame', which I find to be a great source of comfort and wisdom, in the occasional absence of best friends, the Dalai Lama, Old Moore's Almanac, Oprah Winfrey, guardian angels, or husbands who give a monkeys.

http://www.owningpink.com/dailyflame.html

It pretty much said: don't get too big for your boots; always remember what really matters and don't let that get lost along the way.

OK then.

So I want to speak up for autistic kids, who are often written off by their neuro-typical peers, struggling with hidden sensory issues, usually misunderstood and regularly gawped at as part of their daily existance. 
But I also want to speak up for their families; their parents who -as if being heartbroken by a diagnosis of ASD wasn't enough- have to navigate their way through life with these baffling, beautiful children and all that that entails.  It is not easy.  And the siblings of Autistic children do not have it easy either.  My two neuro-typical kids are affected every single day by their sister's autism, no matter how hard we try to smooth things over for them.

We can moan about it or we can celebrate our uniqueness.  I intend to do both, as the mood takes me.