Posts Tagged "Worries"

Right Now

Posted by Josie on Jan 29, 2010 in Uncategorized | 49 comments

You have all been so lovely the last few days. The comments on my post about the Health Visitor’s worries about Kai have been endlessly comforting and supporting and I am so grateful for you taking the time to respond so thoughtfully. Thank you.

I had a bit of bad day with it all yesterday. Actually, I had A LOT of a bad day. There were moments there were I could genuinely have opened the front door and run as fast as my legs could carry me.

I didn’t, obviously. Instead I wrestled the ferocious ball of frustration and bad-temper that is my son till bedtime, put him to bed without a bath and went downstairs and cried. And cried. And cried some more.

I doubted everything yesterday. EVERYTHING about myself, about Kai, about my abilities and suitability as a mother, about my perception of my life and how perhaps that differs from reality.

And do you know what scared me most? That maybe there is absolutely nothing wrong with him at all. That he is just spirited, and wilful and frustrated with the world  – no different from most other toddlers.

And weirdly, this made me feel like shit.

I convinced myself that every toddler is like Kai, that all mums have to manage behaviour like his, and as such, the fact that I’m struggling to cope with it so much means I am just weak, neurotic and failing miserably. You probably have three children like Kai. Ten. And you still manage to do normal things like brush your hair, and eat, and go out.

Everyone tells me he is delightful, and fun, and charming and he IS! Maybe what I endure behind closed doors I have blown vastly out of proportion.

Maybe I am just not cut out for all this at all.

No, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want there to be anything ‘wrong’ with Kai. It’s just that the thought that it is supposed to be like this, supposed to be so impossibly hard and feel so unmanageable ALL THE TIME just made me go cold.

Luckily, I have good friends. Good, kind, honest, supportive friends who listen (and I could list hundreds of you, thank you so much).

I have a husband who has been through it all with me and keeps me grounded.

And after being told an awful lot of sense, I realised this.

Do you know what? Kai is hard work. He is really, really hard work.

I’m not saying its some kind of competition about ‘who has it the hardest’, or that other parents don’t find it hard either,but the reality of life with Kai is incredibly challenging and I don’t think anyone could question that.

He’s always been hard work – early months of constant crying and refusal to be any where but attached to me, followed by endless battles getting him to cope with transitions and change and him resisting everything. The speech delay and the near-constant tantrums and the freak outs at the slightest thing are just a continuation of something that’s been going on from the beginning.

He can be lovely of course. He is obviously bright, and can be so much fun and entertaining. He charms everyone around him and can be fabulous company. He plays beautifully, when in the mood to, and if you get it right with him you get it SO right and it is wonderful.

But this is offset by the most rigid personality I have ever come across. It is offset by moods completely dependent on things being just how he wants them to be and endless frustration and tears and anger when they are not. And I can honestly say? The hard times far outweigh the good times right now.

I am not enjoying motherhood right now. It’s not much fun to be honest.

A vast proportion of my day is spent ‘coping’ with Kai, managing his moods and single-minded determination and enduring the frequent screaming, crying, hitting, pulling, outpouring of his emotions. Every single day involves a good deal of time listening to long bouts of crying. It’s incredibly draining, exhausting. And I defy anyone to not find it hard.

And the speech thing IS worrying. The constant, weird, babbled gobbledegook? The fact that has somehow ‘forgotten’ how to say the odd word he could say a few months back? That he makes NO attempt to imitate words yet will copy the sounds he hears himself making on recordings? Of course it’s worrying. I’m not saying it won’t right itself, I’m sure it will, but obviously it’s going to be a concern to me. What kind of mother would I be if it wasn’t?

Whether he fits some kind of ‘label’ or not, whether he is like other kids or not, whether I find it harder than you or anyone else? It doesn’t really matter. Deep down I know it will be fine. I know that he will be fine, that he will grow out of most stuff, and we will survive. I know that really I am very lucky, he is healthy, so am I. I know it could all be so much worse.

But it doesn’t change how hard it is right now. It doesn’t change how much I am struggling.

What matters is I love him. I love him so much it actually hurts me to think about it. I see so much positive in him, despite all the bad stuff, and I am so enormously proud of him, of his fierce strength and passion.

I know I am doing the best I can, I know I am doing a good job, even, because I care about all this stuff and I think about it and I want to make Kai happy.

I just want to be a better mother for him.

I want to figure out what is he needs that I seem to be missing.

Mostly, I just want to see him happy.

And I want to see me happy too.

Averageness and Appropriate Worry

Posted by Josie on Jan 27, 2010 in Uncategorized | 42 comments

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?

Christmas Break

Posted by Josie on Dec 14, 2009 in Uncategorized | 21 comments

In case you were at all worried that I had suffered some sort of nervous breakdown over the weekend and had been whizzed away to a padded room sans Wi-Fi, I’m here to reassure you: I’m fine. The being whizzed away part was true, although there were fewer men-in-white coats and electric shock treatment and more obese ducks and sitting around drinking tea watching the sunset. Either way, it was good therapy. Dad’s off to China so this weekend marked our family’s pre-Christmas gathering at a beautiful cottage nestled by the canal. The weather was gorgeous, the company witty and entertaining (well, I was anyway), the Christmas tree was only slightly crap looking. There was food, there was cheesy Christmas music, there were long walks in frost. It was fab.

Now I’m home and trying very hard to fight off all the worries that I had thought I’d left behind.

I have a ton of stuff to do before the end of the month. Cleaning is one. Pulling 2,500 words of literary brilliance out my ass is another. Finding a way to survive financially through the toughest two months of the year is pretty high up there too. Oh yeah, and it’s Christmas isn’t it. Which means I should probably write some cards or something.

Apologies if you’ve arrived looking for the Writing Workshop prompts but I’ve decided to close up shop till the New Year. There will still be blogging and twittering, but as-and-when, in between all the other stuff with no added pressure of workshop deadline’s type blogging and twittering.

There is good news though: if you’re REALLY stuck for inspiration this week then you are very welcome to email or tweet me and I will provide you with your very own, customised, one-of-a-kind writing prompt. Call it a Christmas present.

In the meantime, if you fancy looking at some beautiful scenery and some ducks and stuff then click here to be magically transported to the rest of my weekend snaps.

And because this post seems to have a slightly (and unintentionally) melancholy edge, I’m going to finish on a high note. Apologies if you’ve seen these already but it is TOO cute not to share…

So…emm… what am I supposed to be doing again?

Posted by Josie on Nov 19, 2009 in Uncategorized | 32 comments

It’s confession time here at SIFTW. Because I have a guilty secret to share…

I am a rubbish stay-at-home-mum.

This is not me saying that I’m a dreadful mother or anything (well, not VERY dreadful), it’s just that I don’t think this whole SAHM thing particularly suits me. Turns out I’m really not very good at it.

I was ok when Kai was tiny – being a mum then was mostly about keeping him alive and preventing him from drowning in the accumulated pile of his own vomit and poo. Simples. You put milk and food in one end, you clean up the other end, you sing lots of silly songs and pull funny faces and spend long hours just cuddling and cooing gobbledegook at each other. It was exhausting, but there was only a limited amount of potential for screwing up. It was kinda dull but it was a simpler, less complicated time.

These days? Man alive, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

Because these days I have a little person to look after. Who toddles and climbs and chatters earnestly and nonsensically during every waking moment. Who loves Matchbox cars and Thomas the Tank Engine (possibly more than he loves me), and does NOT like broccoli or soup or being asked to do something he doesn’t want to do.

This is a little person that copies, that is learning and changing at a rate of knots, and that has potential bursting out of orifice.

It is exciting and interesting and Kai seems to get more and more fricking adorable by the hour. But it scares the crap out of me.

Suddenly the potential for screwing up now seems lots, lots bigger. I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to DO with this little fierce ball of independent motion.

Am I supposed to be teaching him stuff??

Because here’s the other half of the confession and reason I’m a rubbish SAHM…

I’m not very good at playing.

I’m VERY good a cuddling, and tipping upside down, and playing hide-and-seek, and making Kai laugh until he cries and doing stories with silly voices, and helping him to get covered in food, and romping about in the sunshine, and eating cake together.

I am RUBBISH at structured play.

And the worst thing?

It bores me. Dreadfully.

I thought I would be great at playing. That I would have infinite energy AND WILLINGNESS to invest in making up exciting and educational games for Kai to partake in. But after 10 minutes of block building and car racing and colouring in I’m getting antsy. My lack of enthusiasm after a while must show as Kai usually quickly shuns me and my attention in favour of independent play, embarking on his complicated games of hiding cars under the sofa or trying to post things through the letter box. And I, relived, skulk off back to whatever project I have waiting for me and that I am currently obsessing over.

I do DO stuff with him. We go to at least one playgroup a week, meet up with friends, take lots of walks and trips to the park. We go to the Library (toy and regular) and the sensory room, and sometimes swimming if I can summon up the energy.

But at home? At home I suck.

And it worries me. Should I be doing more? Kai doesn’t know his colours and seems to think all animals go “mooo” or “woof” regardless of what they are. He gets confused between his knees and ears (although gets ‘willy’ right every time – go figure). He barely says any proper words at all.

I worry that that his education now in this kind of thing is down to me and that I am failing him. I feel like I should be taking more responsibility for his learning. I wonder whether he’d be better off at nursery but then hate the thought of it as I would miss him dreadfully.

Mostly I worry that I should WANT to do more ‘stuff’ with him, that I should be motivated and inspired to fill his days with learning and creativity and variation. That I should go to bed full of plans for what ‘enrichment activities’ I might do with Kai tomorrow and NOT my next writing project. That this SHOULD be enough for me.

The fact that it isn’t worries me most of all.

It is official. I am a SHIT stay-at-home-mum.

—————————————————————————

Amendment:

I have loved the comments on this post. Especially as they come from some of the mum’s I have THE most respect for. You tell me that I’m doing fine and I believe you. Thank you.

So I take it back. I am not shit. Because turns out I am just like you and I think you are AWESOME. So I guess that makes me? Well, not shit anyway.

Thanks. Thanks again. And thanks some more.

Is it stupid that I genuinely feel a huge deal better? Cause I really, really do.

x