In the last decade I have experienced just about the full gambit. From engagement to marriage; moving house and navigating married life. Realising that falling pregnant does not happen to plan or to schedule; having pregnancy and birth complications and a premature baby in NICU. Discovering my child had (has) significant developmental delays including a […]
N never had a teddy or a dudu or anything that he was specifically attached to as a small baby. He had phases of preference for various stuffed animals, but nothing really stuck until the arrival of Norman. Norman came on the scene in January 2022 – he is a small grey elephant and no, […]
There it was again. That wave that simultaneously knocks you off your feet and sucks you under the water where you can’t breathe or get your bearings. This is the thing with parenting a neurodiverse child. Your anxiety simmers constantly just at the surface, waiting for the next thing to happen. Yet, when it does […]
It has been a while. A lot has happened and unhappened. I am still wrapping my head around most of it. We started Grade 1. And like most of our journey, everything was great until it wasn’t. Around mid-February the wheels completely fell off. All the wheels. At once. A team meeting – he’s in […]
N has always possessed astute insight and a sharp power to anticipate errors – both became apparent to me around the time he was 2 years old. I believe these skills to be double edged swords. I have always said in my own work that I believe that a high level of insight can cause […]
I wrote a piece in the lockdown about the importance of our “village”. This year we joined a new village as N moved into a new school for Grade R. A beautiful new community of special little people and their strong, brave parents. There is an invisible thread that connects the mothers of ‘atypical’ children […]
Recently on a Saturday morning I went to a ladies’ only function. The first thing someone asked me (while we were waiting to go inside) was whether my husband was babysitting our son. I replied that no, it’s not babysitting when it is actually your own child. The conversation died a swift death and we […]
MONKEY BEAR On a Tuesday night a few weeks ago, I listened to a talk by a fellow mom of a child with special needs. She beautifully and accurately described this form of parenting as a wave that ebbs and flows and never goes away. On the Wednesday morning I was hit by a tidal […]
We did it. It all brought us here. My little boy sat through a cumulative 4.5 hours of educational psychology assessments involving EQ, IQ and an educational battery (thank you Ritalin). We made it through a parent interview and a feedback without 1 tear shed. For the first time ever, I wasn’t blindsided or surprised […]
Once you know that your child has some sort of difficulty or challenge, no assessment or evaluation will ever feel the same way again. You will never see it in the same light as you did before and you will now experience emotions on a spectrum ranging from anxious anticipation to utter dread. You will […]