Super Siblings (Part 1)

Boo has two sisters, one older, one younger.   Peeka is her almost 5-year-old little sister.   Now, it makes sense to me that a child who was born having an older sibling with special needs would be very accepting of the situation, because she has never known any different.  And I think, in the case of Peeka, that would be true.  

Until very recently, our littlest girl didn’t appear to notice that there was anything unusual about her sister.  After all; Boo is Boo: it’s everyday stuff in our house.  I’m still not sure to what extent Peeka has noticed.  I do often hear her shouting at Boo in exasperation,  ‘Are you even listening to me?!’,  getting frustrated when Boo retreats into her head, ignoring the rest of the world.  They play imaginative games together – all on Boo’s terms of course, but Peeka is happy to be led, because she looks up to Boo,  her ‘cool’ big sister.  She has cool toys.  She has big Year 2 friends.  Peeka frequently declares on hair-wash night, that she wants to have hair as long and as straight as Boo’s (which is never going to happen, bless her curly little locks!)  It is sweet to witness her adoration, and yet bittersweet, because one day she’ll be aware that her cool big sister is possibly not all that cool in the eyes of most of the other kids at school.  Which is sad.  I wish those kids knew just how cool she really is. 

 A few months ago, I got this lovely email from the mum of one of Peeka’s little classmates in Reception (names changed):

Bit of a tricky one but I'm just going to come straight to the point!
Sarah was asking questions about Boo today. Why does she speak differently?  She's starting to become a lot more aware of children who might have learning difficulties or a disability and asked a lot of questions when she saw Children in Need things.
I just don't want to say the wrong thing and cause her to maybe say something to Boo. I doubt she would but you never know!
So, is there a way I can explain or do I just say nothing?
I'd really appreciate your thoughts! 

I thought that was so sweet of her.  And I answered as best I could, but you know what?  I don’t really know how to explain Autism to a five year old either.

Oh bless you both xx! I'm no expert but at home we have just said to Peeka & Pips that Boo has Autism which means she has a different kind of brain to them, so she doesn't think the same way or act the same way.
Having Autism means that she sometimes finds easy things hard (like running, jumping, writing, talking, listening) and she sometimes finds hard things easy (like reading, spelling, doing maths in her head and remembering lots of things.)
Boo is super clever but sometimes gets muddled up how to behave (like when to be loud or quiet) and she finds it hard to understand how other people feel, so Mrs Jones helps her when she gets mixed up at school.
Hope that's ok?! I might have a book somewhere I could lend you. So nice of you to ask- it is an awkward one, I am not really sure how to approach it myself to be honest! I sometimes wish they would talk about it at school cos kids aren't daft and know perfectly well there's something odd about the SEN kids!

 (A topic for a future post: why do mainstream schools often pretend that their kids don't notice that some of their classmates have special needs?  It baffles me.)

I didn’t have a plan for introducing the topic of Autism at home.  I’ve been wondering for a while now just exactly when (or whether!) to discuss it with Boo herself.  As it happened, the questions came from my eldest child at the dinner table, which floored me a little since I had ‘nothing prepared!’  Rather than try to sweep it under the carpet, I went for the breezy yet frank approach (see above), which I hoped would work for all three girls.  So now they know.  Significantly, Boo knows.  She knows she has Autism, and has never said another word about it.  When she wants to know more, I’ll be waiting.  But as for Peeka, the information she heard over pasta twists and meatballs that night, is enough for now.

 One of these days, like her little friend Sarah, Peeka will become more aware of the ways in which her big sister is different to other kids, which makes me a little bit sad, but also a little bit excited, because she will then begin to realise how amazing her sister with Autism is, and also, how special she herself is, for loving Boo so beautifully.  Living with a sibling with Autism is not easy.  It is confusing and chaotic.  Much patience is required.  You have to be able to accept that sometimes your turn never comes.  Sometimes there will be no bedtime story because Boo is having a meltdown.  You have to get used to people staring at your family in supermarkets.  Sometimes your mum and dad are mega grumpy because they only had 3 hours sleep.  Sometimes your Disney Princess comic will be drawn in because Boo took it without asking.  Sometimes you will have to get up at 4 in the morning to see why Boo is laughing her head off.  You already know (because your mum says it frequently while brushing Boo’s teeth in the bedroom) that sometimes you have to bring the mountain to Mohammed.   It is not easy to live with an Autistic sibling.  Peeka makes it look easy.  After all, it’s all she’s ever known.

Thankyou to Happy Home Baking for the yummy pasta image!
http://happyhomebaking.blogspot.co.uk/

Seeing the funny side

Flashback; 2010.  Something in the expression on my friend’s face changes so I stop talking and turn to follow her gaze.  Why is everyone in the soft play centre looking over towards the ball pool in utter horror?  And then I see what they see. Er, yes, that is my 4 year old daughter.  Singing at the top of her voice about the Numbertaker’s number sucker-upper.  Whilst wielding a long stick.  Which belongs to the daddy in the ball pool, who is actually blind, and totally unaware that my daughter has claimed his white cane as her own. It’s classic laugh or cry. 

I laugh. I can’t help it. Having a child with Autism has brought out the giggler in me. 

The open-mouthed shock of the other parents in the play den just adds fuel to the giggle-flames.  I know what they are all thinking; something along the lines of OMG I’m so glad it’s not my child who stole and then shamelessly waved around a blind man’s walking aid.  But there’s a certain guilty pleasure in being an onlooker when somebody else’s child is misbehaving, so much the better if the child is mercilessly embarrassing their parents in public!  It’s a deliciously naughty cocktail: part relief that the little monkey is someone else’s problem; part self-satisfaction, (your own child is an angel, of course…well today anyway!) and a generous schlop of curiosity – how on earth will she deal with this?  Mum is shaken and the child is all stirred up…this is fun!  We sit back, take a sip and watch the drama unfold.  We enjoy it.  Because we know that next time it will be our turn to be embarrassed, our child breaking the rules and our moment in the dreaded spotlight of shame.

The trouble with toddlers and kids of all ages on the Autism Spectrum, is that they are unreservedly self-centred, (the word Autism comes from the Greek word autos, meaning self), which means that they do whatever they want to do, without considering the feelings of anyone else.  In fact, most autistic children are totally incapable of imagining how anyone else but themselves might feel, even if they were interested- which they’re not!  This is why my Boo thinks it is perfectly OK to go and sit at another family’s table in a café and take what she fancies from their plates (oh ground, please swallow me up now!) We are lucky that Boo has very good language and communication skills, (some children with ASD have no speech whatsoever), and of course we have explained to her that she shouldn’t take things that don’t belong to her.  But she simply doesn’t give a monkey’s- the compulsion to do what she wants is far stronger than the knowledge that she isn’t supposed to do it!

Tempting though it is to pretend I don’t know her sometimes, I usually find that honesty is the best policy in these situations!  When I explain that Boo has ASD, people are perfectly fine that half their lunch is missing, and most of the time they find the incident rather funny.  This kind of thing happens to us all the time, and after the initial shock at the audacity of the child, laughter usually follows, mine and theirs!

Another of our family’s favourite Boo-isms, was on holiday in Whitby, when she was three.  Caught in a sudden downpour, we boarded an open top tour bus (don’t ask!) to the abbey, and were surprised when, as we were struggling to fold up the pushchair, the voice over the guide’s megaphone sounded just a little bit too familiar… ‘Upsy Daisy!  Upsy Daaaiiisy!!!’  She had the entire bus pretty much rolling in the aisles that day!  Honestly, give the girl a captive audience and there’s no stopping her!

In the same way that we laugh when a toddler removes every last item of clothing and brazenly performs naked tipple-overs on the lawn, there is something inherently joyful in the nature of our children to behave utterly inappropriately. Maybe it reminds us of how we ourselves might be, without all our grown up responsibilities and inhibitions; imagine having the freedom to act on our every whim with pure unadulterated abandon!  I often think that having ASD must be like living life permanently on this wavelength. 

Boo’s antics are often embarrassing, but delightfully funny too.  She makes me laugh and others smile.  It is her gift to us and I am grateful every day for the joy and laughter she brings.  Oh, and when the roofer came recently and Boo greeted him with, ‘Hello, annoying man’, she made his day, too!

Sometimes it's hard

It is impossible to think about our daughter Boo without smiling.  It’s a smile we see reflected in her sisters, her grandparents, her teachers… almost everyone who knows Boo seems a little bit happier for it.  Living with a child who has Autism Spectrum Disorder feels special, and life is never dull.  But occasionally, a little bit of dull would be very welcome.  There are definitely difficult times, and to gloss over these would be doing a disservice to other parents out there with children on the Autism Spectrum, who are dealing with untold stress on a daily basis, and just knuckling down and getting on with it.  The Autism Spectrum covers a very wide range of behaviours and difficulties, and people with the condition can be affected by any number of these to a greater or lesser degree.  By comparison, Boo’s autism could be considered relatively mild, yet can still wreak havoc on everyday life, for her and for us.

 I think the hardest things we’ve had to cope with in our family are lack of sleep and Boo’s prolonged incontinence.  Insomnia is common in people with autism, due to abnormally low levels of melatonin; the hormone which tells the body when it is time to sleep.  Boo has had difficulty sleeping since she was a toddler, when, wide awake and bored in her cot, she would find mischief to get up to.  Toys and blankies were thrown out, clothing and bedding tossed across the room, wallpaper peeled off, nappies (and often their contents) removed, shaken about and examined intricately.  As adorable as Boo was as a toddler, the horror of cleaning up after these episodes makes me glad those days are over.  Thankfully we soon got wise to Boo’s night-time shenanigans and employed gaffer tape on her nappies, covered by vest, onesie, and all zipped up inside a sleepsack.  These measures only worked some of the time, and even if there was no mess, there was no sleep going on either.  Toilet training took over three years, and at times it felt like we’d never get there.  Nowadays, Boo usually uses the bathroom independently and falls asleep with the help of a melatonin capsule at bedtime, but is an early riser.  She sometimes wakes up for the day as early as 3.30am.  She is often happy to read her books, but if she is feeling particularly chipper, then the sound of her joyful dawn chorus can be enjoyed by the entire family.  

Tired parents are never a good thing.  It is a struggle to be patient and jolly when you’ve only had half a good night’s sleep.  Add to the mix a child who doesn’t particularly want to get ready for school, another who wants to but can’t quite do it on her own and then Boo who will only put on each item of clothing after she has fully explained, in infinitesimal detail, the latest goings on in the world of Moshi Monsters.  Everything takes ten times longer than it should.  Autistic people very often have a love of routine and like things to be familiar, predictable and unchanging.  This can result in rigidity of thought about certain routines, which can vary from slight to obsessive-compulsive.  Boo has a few of  her own routines which she is very particular about, such as the order in which she will put on her clothes, especially in the winter when hat, scarf, gloves, coat, then earmuffs have to be put on in that exact order before she will leave the house.  No just chucking them all in the car for Boo.  This tends to be quite a painstaking process, as Boo also has some fine and gross motor difficulties.  And so we wait.  Only for her to take the whole lot off in the car and then go through the same rigmarole again once we arrive at school, usually at the very last minute.  (The alternative to this is frequently a huge meltdown which will make us even later for school.)  Good coffee has become an essential.  As has the occasional school run in PJs under my coat.

Another daily challenge is Boo’s lack of forward-thinking or consideration for other people or property.  When diagnosing ASD, one of the traits that doctors look for is a lack of social imagination; which includes an inability in the individual to predict, understand or empathise with how another person might feel.  Boo lives in the moment, with little regard for the consequences of her actions; she just doesn’t make the connection that she might upset someone, cause a problem or irreversibly damage something.  We learned pretty early on that liquids and substances with a thick, gloopy consistency were just too tempting for Boo to resist, and after several incidents (ahhh, the nappy-cream carpet paintings and the four pint lake of milk on the kitchen floor!), we had to admit defeat and gate off entire rooms for safety and mess-minimising purposes.  Today, feeling frustrated with a game, Boo threw her DS against a chest of drawers.  Recently, my mp3 player suffered a similar fate.  Hardly a day goes by when something isn’t damaged, defaced or destroyed, just because she had the urge to do it, in that moment.  But if it doesn’t upset Boo, then she finds it a challenge to understand why it would upset anyone else. 

Sometimes there is the worry that something more valuable than property will be damaged.  We had to give up walking to school back when Boo was still in Nursery, because she would regularly give me the slip and run into the road.  Often, she will break free of my grip in the supermarket and before I know it she’s gone (usually to be found in the books and toys aisle!)  For a long time, any family outing was a nerve-wracking experience due to the fear that we would, at some point during the day, lose the Boo. Wrist reins were no good – she would either wriggle out of them or scream so much that people would stare and wonder whether to call Social Services.  We kitted her out in a high-visibility vest, a remote-control beeper on her shoe and wrist-bands with our phone numbers on, just in case.  

Most people with ASD have sensory issues to deal with; Boo has extremely sensitive hearing (and yet she is an expert in tuning me out!)  Certain sounds are painful to her, such as sirens, alarms and ‘the noise the TV makes when it’s on standby’.  There are some flavours/tastes which she is simply unable to tolerate, including most medicines, which makes it doubly difficult if she is ever ill.  She hated the taste of toothpaste so much that for years, the only way to brush her teeth was to straddle her, trapping her arms by her sides.  Boo’s first visit to the dentist was extremely traumatic, due to the multiple assaults on her senses and the fear triggered by the unfamiliar.  New situations like this can be frightening for any child, but even more so for a child with sensory processing difficulties.  Even now, some situations are just too much for Boo to bear due to sensory overload and she is prone to bolt, or retreat into her own head, hands over ears, humming or talking quietly to herself.

Living with Boo has taught us not to take anything for granted.  Her autism affects the whole family on some level, so everyday life is rarely straightforward.  I know that there are plenty of other families living with autism who are having a much harder time than we are, so when life feels stressful I try to remember to be thankful.  It could be so much worse.  And thinking about Boo and her sisters - that smile creeps across my face again – it’s easy to be thankful.

This is the same article (pre-edit) which was featured in the Jan/Feb 2013 issue of Families Leeds Magazine.

Grumpy New Year

Here’s January!  Fresh start, new beginning, hopes, dreams possibilities, potential… all laid out like a feast just waiting to be devoured.  Usually this is my bliss – the mystery of future adventure, unknown promise.  But today I’m not feeling it.

 

At Christmas and New Year, I have been known to fall into the age-old trap of wanting everything to be perfect.  Now you would think that with over nine years of child-rearing under my belt (almost seven of those with a child with autism) that I would know better than to expect life to go according to plan, let alone any slightly elaborate plan based on everything slotting neatly into place at exactly the right moment.  But I am only human, and, well, I forgot that planning anything is ridiculous in our family.

So on New Year’s Eve, I had in mind that the kids would have their movie night, eat their popcorn, go to bed and sleep.  Between 9 and 12, Mr BooHoo and I would dine upon whatever delicacy he had prepared, relax on our squishy sofa and watch a silly movie.  He would be charming and wonderful all evening.  At midnight we would wake the girls for the fireworks, after which they would have a mug of warm milk and go straight back to bed.  Their daddy would say something beautiful about the year to come and then we would all fall into a deep, sweet sleep.  However, this did not happen.  (Shakes head and rolls eyes.  Of course it did not happen!)

It was 9.50 by the time the kids were actually settled in their beds.  At 10pm I had to go upstairs to put the smallest one back into bed.  At 10.15, the biggest came down to say the smallest was in her bed again and was being annoying.  (Oh really? Welcome to my world!)  I sent Daddy up to sort it out.  Mistake.  He caved and let them stay in bed together, for a treat, it being New Year’s Eve and all.  The next hour was filled with one of us going up because they were being too noisy, or the eldest coming down to complain about the youngest.  Boo was fast asleep throughout all of this- for the first time in almost two weeks her Melatonin capsule actually seemed to have worked!   (Sings Hallelujah Chorus- but very quietly!)  At 11.20, I stormed up the stairs again, having paused our movie for the umpteenth time, and split up the little blighters, each back to their own beds.  The result was 10 minutes of complaining and back-chat from the eldest, who then had her (brand new from Santa) iPod confiscated.  This was not going well.  At 11.50, the fireworks started.  Eldest shouted to youngest to come and watch the fireworks from her bedroom window.  A sleepy groan was heard from Boo’s room.  That was IT, I had had ENOUGH! 

‘NO FIREWORKS!’ I bellowed. 

‘WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!’ they howled, for the next half hour.  Seriously.  My sense of humour: gone.

Just to make her be quiet, I got in bed with 9 year old Pipsy.  Just to make her be quiet, Daddy let 4 year old Peeka get in bed with him.  Boo slept on, in her Melatonin snooze-cocoon.  And finally we all slept.

  This morning, 6.30, I am forced out of bed by my three happy girls who, apart from the dark circles around the eyes, show no other signs of the chronic lack of sleep over these past couple of weeks.  I can’t say the same for myself.  Frankly, I look like shit.  I feel like shit, too.  I have had YEARS of my kids not sleeping, ergo me not sleeping either.  It has taken its toll.  If I ever found my mojo again, I wouldn't know what it was or what to do with it.  ;-)

 All three of our girls have sleep problems.  We have two who can’t fall asleep and our eldest is regularly awake when we come to bed.  We have the youngest who, since starting school, usually falls asleep ok now, but can’t stay asleep and wakes us repeatedly in the night.  And Boo, whose autism affects her sleep in many ways, the most disruptive now being early waking, so that she gets up for the day sometimes as early as 3.30am. 

Tired parents are grumpy parents, often unproductive parents.  Housework is never top of my list.  Actually it isn’t even on my list.  Nor, sometimes, is being sociable.  We have lost touch with so many friends over the past decade because we were simply too tired to go out, and we don’t feel good asking people to babysit because it is such hard work.  Inviting friends over for dinner is a thing of the past – we spend all our evenings going up and down the stairs dealing with tired children, so what’s the point?  Our kids have never had friends to sleep over (because, frankly, I have enough on dealing with my own children all night long), and they are rarely invited to sleep over at other people’s houses.  I feel bad for them.

My resolution this year is to find out how to get everybody sleeping again.  If anyone out there has any suggestions, I would really like to hear them!

Happy New Year!  I'm off to sneak in a power nap before anyone notices.

Sick Day

As a lovely early Christmas present, our whole family has been given… a nasty virus.  I have been in bed for most of the weekend, Mr BooHoo took to bed midweek and on Wednesday my three small angels were all pitifully flopped on clouds of tissues.  Having all three girls not at school and poorly for the day really highlighted for me the differences between Boo and the rest of us.

I’m sure it’s not a politically correct thing to say, and I don’t mean to offend anyone on the Spectrum, but when she is ill, Boo is so much more Autistic than usual.  She has fully retreated into her own head this week; not one of my questions has been granted with an answer though I know she can hear me.  She will give me the briefest flash of eye contact which speaks volumes: I hear you, I am ignoring you, leave me alone.  She feels happier, maybe even more comforted on her own and I have to respect that.  I am reminded of my cat, who after a trip to the vet would slink off to some cosy, private place and hiss if anyone bothered her.  Contrast this with Boo’s sisters, who want to tell me how awful they feel, want to be cuddled and coddled and have their pillows plumped.  

All have had high temperatures, and so of course out comes the trusty Calpol.  Pipsy and Peeky eagerly turn their faces up for a spoonful of medicine, like little baby birds.  Worryingly they actually love the taste of it, so much so that I have started to buy a cheaper, generic brand which apparently tastes disgusting.  But giving Boo a dose of the pink stuff, whatever the brand, is traumatic for her (and us, to be honest).  Her autism-skewed sense of taste is such that there are certain flavours which are physically intolerable to her, and unfortunately this seems to include every kind of medicine she has ever tried to date.

When Boo was a toddler, we could shoot medicine syringes full of paracetamol syrup into her inner cheek when she was least expecting it.  She got wise fairly quickly, so our next method was to pin her down - though we had to catch her first!  As she grew bigger, it was necessary to actually straddle her, pinning her flailing arms to her sides and holding her head still, while a second person put the medicine into her mouth.  She became expert at pressing her lips so firmly together that we had to hold her nostrils closed, to make her gasp for just long enough.  Quickly we would tip or shoot in the medicine, and just as quickly she would spit it out.  If she swallowed it, she would often vomit moments later.  She would be shaken and upset by the ordeal, and I would feel guilty to have put her through all this just for the sake of a dose of medicine.  In reality, from Boo's point of view, feeling hot, listless and grotty was probably infinitely preferable to enduring this overbearing treatment from her mum and dad.

So we stopped forcing Boo to take medicine, unless it was absolutely necessary.  For a while, the promise of a chocolate coin bought her cooperation, but nowadays that doesn’t really cut it.  Our latest trick is to use the kids’ tablet form of paracetamol (which has a sugary coating) in the same mouthful as a hefty hunk of chocolate, which sometimes works, although it always makes her retch and often results in semi-chewed spittage down her front.  She simply can not stand the taste.  This week we just gave up in the end; put Boo in some thin jammies and gave her plenty of water to drink, crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.  Poor little monkey.  Who would have thought a dose of Calpol could be so difficult?  So when Boo’s sisters take their medicine like good little girls, I never take it for granted.

Another difference between the girls, is their ability to let us know what is wrong.  Pipsy and Peeky don’t think twice about coming to tell me if something hurts, aches, stings or just generally feels funny.  Contrast this with what happened with Boo a couple of nights ago. First we heard wailing in the late hours of the evening, and when Daddy went to see what was wrong, he came back to bed twenty minutes later none the wiser.  So then I tried to find out what was upsetting her.  ‘Does something hurt?’ Wail.  ‘Do you feel sick?’ Wail.  ‘Can you tell Mummy what’s wrong?’  High-pitched screechy wail.  Boo is six and very verbal; intellectually capable of telling us the problem, but all her energy was being used up in feeling awful, so she had nothing left with which to communicate to us whatever the problem was.  After trying to work out what was wrong for about an hour, we had to admit defeat and just give up.  Daddy got in bed beside her for company, and we listened to her scream, howl and wail for about THREE HOURS, still not knowing what was wrong.  It was a blessing that her sisters were poorly and so deeply asleep that she didn’t disturb them, too.  It’s awful to see your child suffering and yet not have a clue how to make it all better, we feel so useless sometimes.

I often hear parents say of their children, ‘Oh I hate it when they’re ill.’  Well I totally relate to that.  But when it comes to Boo, I really really REALLY hate it when she’s ill, because I don’t always know what to do to make her feel better, or whether the things I do will actually make her feel even worse. 

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!

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.