Nothing prepared me for it. It was, as Blanche from A Streetcar Named Desire describes, all at once and much, much too completely, like suddenly turned a blinding on something that had always been half in shadow. That is how motherhood struck for me. In the last few months of my pregnancy, I was anxious,… Read More
Gorgeous boy – I love you. All of you. Every inch. Every week, I receive messages – from people on the autism spectrum, from other mothers, fathers, neurotypical and neurodivergent. They tell me that I am a good mother. They tell me that I am an example, that they wish their parents had understood them… Read More
Weaning, like so many parenting choices, can be a minefield. Should you puree or try baby led weaning? Give lots of foods to encourage eating everything or avoid some foods because of allergy worries? Should you spoon feed your child or let them get on with it? As with most things, they is no right… Read More
Cooking a meal that can keep the whole family happy is a minefield, especially when you have two children under four. Every meal time, we run the gauntlet. Will they eat? Will I be covered in food at the end? Obviously, we all want our children to eat healthily. We want them to eat vegetables,… Read More
Teaching is more than just a job. I know. I know what it is to mark and lesson plan into the small hours. I know what it is to live in a hollow of exhaustion. I have felt the isolation and dread of a pile of unmarked books that must be marked, felt it deep… Read More
As the children grow, I want to make sure that we have lots of opportunities to spend quality family time together. Sundays are our family day. We always plan an activity – a walk or visit to one of our favourite National Trust Sites, like Croome. I am also very keen that we eat meals… Read More
If you ask most people what their ultimate luxury holiday would involve, I guess that many dream of 5 star hotels, all-inclusive resorts and eating in a different restaurant every night. For us, however, staying in a hotel for more than a day or two can be very difficult. Biggest’s routine enables him to function… Read More
It can be notoriously difficult for children on the spectrum to get to sleep. What’s more, no one really knows why. Some believe it may be related to lower melatonin levels, or perhaps sensory issues, but even doctors do not fully understand what the issue may be. We have been fairly fortunate in that, although Biggest does… Read More
One of the things that surprised me the most about being a parent is how frightened I am, all the time. It was one of the hardest adjustments, one of the things that changed the texture of my life forever. I wasn’t sleepless nights or a lack of freedom. It wasn’t keeping a tiny life… Read More
The world is a wondrous place. There is intricate beauty everywhere, even in the mundane and the repetitive, even in the things you see every day, but never really notice. Recently, I watched an extract from a BBC Wales documentary where a young boy with autism, Jaco, takes delight in repeatedly visiting a market as… Read More
The theme for April’s Bostik Blogger challenge is flying, and so I decided to do some mobile craft. Although the decorations on this mobile are flying creatures, to fit with this month’s theme, I created the mobile to be changeable. The decorations are hung via tiny pegs, meaning you could use the mobile frame to… Read More
Thomas and Friends toys are very popular with Biggest. He loves vehicles with wheels, as I have mentioned before, and very much enjoys the repetitive action of train tracks. He particularly enjoyed Thomas and Friends Adventures Shark Escape set, because it has a dramatic mechanism that propels Thomas through a loop of water, where he… Read More