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The Chronicles of Norman

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, […]

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Dodgeball

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 […]

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The Invisible Thread

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 […]

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The Blame Game

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 […]

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I Want to Stay Here

Me: “N!  Guess what we are doing on Sunday?  We are going to a farm to have a picnic and you can ride a horse!” N: “I don’t want to go”. Me: “But they have a trampoline!” N: “I don’t want to go to the farm” Me: “You can feed the horses and brush them” […]

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Medication Meditation

One of the toughest decisions I anticipated us being faced with so far, is whether and when to start N on Ritalin, Concerta or something similar.  Now that he is almost 5 years old, the decision was thrust upon us 2 weeks ago at our annual appointment with the Developmental Paediatrician.  I am not a […]

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The Plan

Type A.  Perfectionist.  Planner.  Control freak.  I am and have always been all of those things.  From conception to delivery (and further), of all the things I had worried about, those that actually happened had never even occurred to me. While it was a part of my long-term plan to become a mother, it was […]