Marshmallow Vlog Part 2: Ant Steps Up

I needed a bit of cheering up tonight, and, as always, my very fabulicious husband has stepped up to the plate. Following my rather pathetic attempt at beating Heather’s Marshmallow Challenge, Ant decided to have a go himself.

Watch this competitive marshmallow-face-stuffing wannabees. Watch this and weep at your relative inadequacy…

Averageness and Appropriate Worry

I’m not  a neurotic mother.

Ok, I’m a slightly neurotic mother but generally I think I have my head screwed on OK. If I’ve learnt one thing as a parent it’s that children tend to do things in their own time, in their own way and there’s not an awful lot you can do to change that.

I try not to worry about stuff. Or I try and worry an appropriate amount anyway.

But for a while now there have been some concerns about Kai’s speech. I’ve had that awful balancing act of not over-reacting and accepting his speech was developing slower than other children but that it would all happen in its own time, but at the same time not burying my head in the sand and missing the opportunity to pick up any REAL problems nice and early.

I was told a few months back to get in contact with my health visitor if Kai hadn’t shown any progression in his speech development by 18 months. And he hasn’t to be honest, at least, not in terms of recognisable words. Ironically he is the most chatty child you could ever hope meet and babble and sings in his nonsensical language all day long. But at nearly 19 months he doesn’t really say ANY proper words. And the odd ‘real’ word he used to say he’s now stopped saying at all, or says them once and twice and then not since.

So I phoned the health visitor this morning, and after a few questions she asked to come over this afternoon.

She stayed for over an hour, observing his play and our interaction and asking lots and lots of questions. And she tells me she is concerned, not so much about his speech but about his speech coupled with his behaviour, wanting to see him again in six weeks and possibly regular checks after that.

I don’t know how to feel. On one hand I think she’s probably just being very cautious, wanting to stay vigilant and ensure any problem is picked up early – that she’s doing a good job. On the other hand I think she’s hugely over-reacting, that surely 19 months is way too young to be worrying seriously about this kind of thing, and that most things can be explained by Kai’s temperament and personality and will work themselves right in time.

Either way I’m left feeling a little worried and upset.

On the positive side she thinks that Kai is very bright, and that his comprehension, imaginative play and concentration is very advanced for his age. He has an excellent internal vocabulary, understands very complex instructions and ideas, and a very good memory for detail. She suspects that he may actually be perfectly capable of talking properly if he wanted, but can’t see the need, or doesn’t want to. Despite knowing what a huge number of words mean he makes absolutely no attempt to say them and has no interest in trying to imitate word sounds. In fact, he just laughs if you try and ask him to.

She predicts he will talk when he decides to, and that he may need some help in the future but that long term he’ll be absolutely fine.

What she’s worried about his disinterest in speech coupled with his behaviour, more specifically his very obsessive and hyper-attentive nature, his complete inflexibility and fixation with things having to go a certain way and refusal to compromise or be distracted, and his general anger and frustration when things don’t go how he wants (which is most of the time!).

She’s also worried about his difficulty socialising. Admittedly he does find socialising with children very difficult, getting very easily overwhelmed and upset. He’s fine with younger babies where he feels safe and in control, but really struggles to handle and relate to older children that do their own thing. He tends to keep away from them, rarely if ever initiates play, and is usually that child at playgroup sobbing hysterically because someone else is playing on the bike that day. He barely last more than an hour before getting completely overwhelmed and asking to go.

I don’t know whether any of these are real ‘problems’.

I don’t know why this is concerning.

I thought all these things were just Kai, part of all the things that make him unique and special and wonderful. I LIKE that he’s different and quirky and strong willed.

I don’t want to change him.

I don’t want to be neurotic.

But I also want to be responsible. If there IS a problem I DO want it picked up early.

I guess we just have to do as the health visitor suggested. Watch, wait, and see. And try not to worry too much. She says we’re doing everything right, which is reassuring, and that we shouldn’t force anything. Just wait. She was lovely actually.

But I’m a little sad that already, at not even 2, my boy is being told he doesn’t ‘fit’ and that he is different. Why must we insist that all children fit a certain box? That they all be the same? Is there no room for individuality, personality, temperament? Or is everything ‘not average’ a ‘problem’?

Do I really want an average child anyway?

Vlog: Marshmallow Challenge

Take that Heather from Notes in Lapland (who’s challenge you HAVE to watch)

Let it never be said that I won’t humiliate myself in public for the sake of your entertainment…

Yes that’s right, I said YOU

Karin at Cafe Bebe

Kathryn at I Know I Need to Stop Talking

Resistance is futile….

Writing Workshop #11 – Voices in your head & false assumptions

Welcome to Monday’s Writing Workshop prompts! There’s going to be a slightly different format this week as I’ve decided to give you all an extra day to respond to the prompts. Our workshop will now be held on a THURSDAY so I, umm, I mean you all have a bit of extra time to write. What do you reckon? Good idea?

For any  newbies (and it’s never to late to join in), here’s how it works… I’m going to give you 5 writing/blogging prompts. Pick one, pick two, or do them all if you’re really keen – it’s up to you. How you respond is your choice. You could share a real-life story, or make one up. You could write a poem or just free-write without thinking too hard and see what happens. It can be funny; it can be serious; it can be emotional. It can be whatever you want it to be. The only rule is to have fun with it!

Prompts each week will take their inspiration from blogs, current affairs, daily life, or just whatever everyone happened to be talking about that week. If you’d like to suggest a prompt then send me an email or catch me on Twitter – I would love to hear your ideas.

So here they are:

1. Tell me about a time where you refused to compromise. What was it about? Do you regret your decision?
- Inspired by Jo at Slummy Single Mummy and her post: ‘The sacrifices you make as a parent – and the ones you won’t…’

2. What do people always wrongly assume about you? Time to set the record straight people!!!
- Inspired by Bare-Naked Mummy’s fab post on why, unequivocally, DEFINITELY Welsh people are NOT posh!

3. What have the voices in your head been saying lately? Write a conversation with yourself.
- Inspired by Manic Mummy’s blog post: ‘Is it me, or…’

4. Your prompt is ‘Together’. Share a scene or write something that encapsulates this feeling for you.
- Inspired by Noble Savage’s beautiful post: ‘Sunday Mothering’

5. What exciting job would you like to do for a day?
- Inspired by my poetical musings this week.

Now here’s what you have to do. Write your post and publish it on your blog between now and THURSDAY. On Thursday come back and use the widget that will be up to paste in the URL of your post to share. Then take some time to read some of the other entries and leave some comment love! We’re not here to critique – just to have fun and support each other in our writing experiments. So be kind please.

Anyone who would like to submit something via email, or even anonymously will be more than welcome to do so. I’ll post them on the site here and include the link in Thursday’s round-up.

Feel free to use the Workshop badge on your blog or as part of your post if you like. Code is here:

<a href=”http://sleepisfortheweak.org.uk”><img src=”http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj90/flowerfairy82/WritingWorkshopBadge.jpg”></a>

Note: I’m told Blogger does something a bit funny with the code so you’ll need to copy and paste it and then retype the quotation marks (“) as Blogger changes them for some reason.

See you Thursday then!

P.S. And if you fancy plugging this workshop on the social network of your choice? Then that would be fan-frigging-tastic.

——————————————————–

This Writing Workshop is brought to you in association with Mama Kat’s Losin’ It – who’s lovely author came up with the concept and runs her own workshop over in the U.S.

Growing Up – a shiny happy people post

Last week the very lovely pink coiffured Rosie Scribble tagged me in a meme thingy that she started to inject a bit of happiness across the bloggosphere.

There’s been quite a lot of negative stuff happening in this lovely bloggy community of mine lately, and, as I tend to with this sort of thing, I take it all very personally and get far more upset about it all than I should do. So it was nice to do this tonight, to lay aside all the crappy stuff and focus on things that are lovely and good and positive.

The rules of Rosie’s Shiny Happy People meme are thus:

Name a song that makes you happy -  a song you would listen to if you needed a sudden injection of happiness.

Post an image that makes you smile,  it can be anything  – a silly photo, an image taken from the internet,  anything at all that puts a smile on your face (and isn’t too rude!)

So. First a little intro. As most of you know it’s been a bit of a tough journey for me at times. Motherhood hasn’t been easy, in fact, in some respects, its something I struggle with more and more. But I do love it. I love the person that it’s making me, the way that it’s challenging me, forcing me to evolve and change and adapt. It’s teaching me new things about myself every day and although I still battle with a lot of inner demons and feel I have a long way to go, I really believe it’s taking me somewhere good and exciting and fulfilling.

I feel like I’m finally growing up. Feel like I’m finally BECOMING someone. And I love that.

This song really captures that feeling for me. The feeling of growing into myself. And it never, ever fails to lift my spirits.

(Apologies for the weird large box – clueless how to make this smaller!)

Next some photos. I never thought I’d be the sort of mother that endlessly bores people with pictures of my children, but sorry, I really really am. Here’s a few funny and sweet ones from Kai’s very early months that never fail to make me smile and show me just how far we’ve come. Hope you enjoy…

Make a Smilebox slideshow

So, tag time. I tag:

The Life of Wendy Wife

Madmother

Make Do Mum

Battleplan

Vegemitevix

P.S. I’ve had a few memes lately and to be honest I’m starting to forget who tagged me in what so my apologies if I’ve not responded right away but thank you and I’ll be working round to as many as I can! I don’t want to give you meme overload. Just that word is weird. meeee meeee. Ok I’ll stop now…

Trying Techorati again (because it hates me…*sob*)

F8KFHDMDCQP4

Writing Workshop: Oh Bother

Welcome back to the Wednesday Writing Workshop link-up! At the bottom of this post you’ll find the widget to post the link to your workshop posts. It’s my turn first though, of course.

____________________________________

Now I must apologise this morning. As most of you know, sometimes my body doesn’t play nice and this morning is one of those mornings. I’d wondered why I was so tired this week… hmm. Anyway, it’s a quick entry from me today then. Just time to introduce you to the character I think I most resemble, at least some of the time anyway, and share with you some of his words of wisdom from the wonderful book by A.A. Milne:

“The old grey donkey, Eeyore stood by himself in a thistly corner of the Forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought about things. Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, “Why?” and sometimes he thought, “Wherefore?” and sometimes he thought, “Inasmuch as which?” and sometimes he didn’t quite know what he was thinking about.”

I find it all too easy to slip into Eeyore mode. I think too much. And I tend to feel a little overwhelmed and lonely in a very bustly forest full of Tiggers that bounce you, surrounded by very big rivers to fall in. And then I get all self-deprecating and start feeling a bit sorry for myself.

“It isn’t as if there were anything very wonderful about my little corner. Of course or people that like cold, wet, ugly bits it is something rather special.”

Luckily, I have some lovely friends that always help stick my tail back on when it falls off, or make me a new house when mine persists on falling down around my ears, and maybe even fetch me a thistle or two.

Those friends are you lot.

Thank you, all of you, for always taking the time to visit my own little corner. For leaving so many supportive and encouraging comments and for brightening up my day every time you do.

That is all x

____________________________________

So now it’s your turn!

1. Write something to say thank you to some who has made a difference to your life,
- Inspired by the Moiderer’s ‘People I’d like to thank‘

2. What cartoon character are you?
- Pinched from Mummy Pig’s, oops I mean Mummy Mania’s brilliant recent post

3. What are you guilty of viewing through rose-coloured spectacles?
- Inspired by Maternal Tales’ conversation with her mother

4. Tell me about a time you did something yourself that may have been better done by a professional and went a bit, well, wrong…
- Inspired by Insomniac Mummy’s ‘When home hair-cuts go bad’

5. If you haven’t already, please please consider writing a post about the horrific loss and suffering of the Haitian people due to last week’s earthquake, encouraging people to give to disaster relief charities such as the DEC, or support campaigns such as the Bloggers for Haiti in raising money for life saving Shelter Boxes
- Inspired by the dozens and dozens of bloggers who have already done so and helped to make a real difference.

Leave your name and the URL to your post in the MckLinky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) andleave me a comment to let me know you’ve taken part. If you have the time it would be great if you could try and read and comment on at least two other entries. And be kind! It’s supposed to be a bit of fun – we’re not looking for the next Booker Prize winner here!

If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve still got today! Or just wait till next week, when there’ll be five brand new prompts to get you thinking.

This Writing Workshop is brought to you in association with Mama Kat’s Losin’ It – who’s lovely author came up with the concept and runs her own workshop over in the U.S.

Day Off

Can I not be a mum today?
I fear it’s not my calling.
The hours are crap for starters
And the job description’s boring.

I’d rather be an astronaut.
At least it’s quiet up there.
My wobbly bits would suit no-grav,
Suspended in the air.

Or I could try out espionage.
I’d be great at fearless guile:
“Yes sweetheart this is REALLY fun!”
I’d lie through sugared smile.

I could train wild animals,
Poo wouldn’t make me queasy.
I’ve braved a toddler cutting canines
So a lion would be easy.

I hear Human Research pays well,
Volunteering’s all the rage.
And you get to lie down everyday
In an aesthetic haze.

Even prison inmate
Seems more attractive by the hour.
At least I’d get my meals served
And time to take a shower.

Can I not be a mum today?
One day, that’s all I ask!
I promise then I won’t resent
My normal humdrum tasks.

One day of something different
To be adventurous, inspiring.
After all, I’m over qualified:
Is anybody hiring?!

Writing Workshop #10 – Cartoon Characters & Rose-coloured Specs

Welcome to Monday’s Writing Workshop prompts! Sorry they’re a bit late today. I definitely didn’t spend my free time snoozing in bed today. Oh no, I wouldn’t do that… *cough*

Thank you for all the wonderful entries last week, especially to all the new people joining in for the first time. It is lovely to have so many people on board all supporting each other’s efforts – thank you to everyone who takes the time to comment on other people’s posts, it really is much appreciated.

For any more newbies (and it’s never to late to join in), here’s how it works… I’m going to give you 5 writing/blogging prompts. Pick one, pick two, or do them all if you’re really keen – it’s up to you. How you respond is your choice. You could share a real-life story, or make one up. You could write a poem or just free-write without thinking too hard and see what happens. It can be funny; it can be serious; it can be emotional. It can be whatever you want it to be. The only rule is to have fun with it!

Prompts each week will take their inspiration from blogs, current affairs, daily life, or just whatever everyone happened to be talking about that week. If you’d like to suggest a prompt then send me an email or catch me on Twitter – I would love to hear your ideas.

So here they are:

1. Write something to say thank you to some who has made a difference to your life, whether from your past or present.
- Inspired by the Moiderer’s ‘People I’d like to thank‘

2. What cartoon character are you?
- Pinched from Mummy Pig’s, oops I mean Mummy Mania’s brilliant recent post

3. What are you guilty of viewing through rose-coloured spectacles? What may not be QUITE as good or perfect as you make it out to be? A memory? A person?
- Inspired by Maternal Tales’ conversation with her mother

4. Tell me about a time you did something yourself that may have been better done by a professional and went a bit, well, wrong…
- Inspired by Insomniac Mummy’s ‘When home hair-cuts go bad’ (although Big E really does look very cute!)

5. If you haven’t already, please please consider writing a post about the horrific loss and suffering of the Haitian people due to last week’s earthquake, encouraging people to give to disaster relief charities such as the DEC, or support campaigns such as the Bloggers for Haiti in raising money for life saving Shelter Boxes
- Inspired by the dozens and dozens of bloggers who have already done so and helped to make a real difference.

Now here’s what you have to do. Write your post and publish it on your blog between now and Wednesday. On Wednesday come back and use the widget that will be up to paste in the URL of your post to share. Then take some time to read some of the other entries and leave some comment love! We’re not here to critique – just to have fun and support each other in our writing experiments. So be kind please.

Anyone who would like to submit something via email, or even anonymously will be more than welcome to do so. I’ll post them on the site here and include the link in Wednesday’s round-up.

Feel free to use the Workshop badge on your blog or as part of your post if you like. Code is here:

<a href=”http://sleepisfortheweak.org.uk”><img src=”http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj90/flowerfairy82/WritingWorkshopBadge.jpg”></a>

Note: I’m told Blogger does something a bit funny with the code so you’ll need to copy and paste it and then retype the quotation marks (“) as Blogger changes them for some reason.

See you Wednesday then!

P.S. And if you fancy plugging this workshop on the social network of your choice? Then that would be fan-frigging-tastic.

——————————————————–

This Writing Workshop is brought to you in association with Mama Kat’s Losin’ It – who’s lovely author came up with the concept and runs her own workshop over in the U.S.

Bloggers for Haiti – Pink Ribbons in the Dawn

I have been unborn into an under place

Shaken from my play to be buried deep.

Bright candles slowly snuffed out, crushed out.

Till all is dark and still.

There is a monster here

That growls with my stomach’s empty growl.

Its breath is hot upon my face, loud in this space.

It smells of dirt and death.

The ground still moves and trembles in my insides,

Tongue rasps on crackled lips as I call to empty air.

I search and find a hand to hold. Unfriendly, cold.

I sleep and drift away.

I dream I hear my father’s voice above

Shouts low and deep, the world shifts and moves.

Arms reach through mud and stone, they find my home.

An eye opens, all is white.

At last I am reborn, borne up and out

Delivered to my mother’s waiting breast.

Eyes burning, dust is in the air, my hair.

Pink ribbons in the dawn.

_______________________________________

I am so upset tonight. Tonight I sat and made myself look at some of the images from the Haiti earthquake. I read accounts of conditions there. I read of people’s terrible, unimaginable loss. I read of the injured and dying. The homeless, the displaced. Little or no food or water or medicine.

It is so easy to turn our backs on the horror. To figure that the tragedy has already happened and that we no longer need to think about it. It is so easy to be consumed by so much sadness and helplessness that we do nothing.

I have realised you have to look for hope. Tiny glimmers of light in so much darkness. Like a two year old girl, Mia Charlotte, pulled from the wreckage of her kindergraten virtually unscathed after being trapped for 72 hours and for whom I wrote my poem.

Hope frees us from inaction and paralysis. So many lives have been lost, but so many lives could still be saved if we act now. We can be these people’s hope if only we get off our asses and do something. NOW.

I have little money, but what I have I have given. I give my words too, and my thoughts and my prayers for what they are worth.

Give. It doesn’t need to be much, it just needs to be something.

Please.