Nowie

 A treat for you today: a guest post from my sister Jess about her little boy Nowie, who you may remember from this blog. 

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I didn't know what I was missing. So I never actually missed anything.

I mean, he's perfect. He was born perfect, born in a perfect manner, at the perfect time on a perfect day, and he looked perfect. The first six months, when we had nothing to do except spend long hot days together, in a relaxed cycle of feeding and changing and cuddling, were the happiest time of my life. I didn't notice that he didn't react to toys, didn't interact with my face, didn't lock eyes with me while he was feeding and didn't care when I was gone. That's just my boy.

It's only now, now his baby sister is here, having hysterics at my face and visibly enjoying me talking to her and doing her best already to talk back to me, that I've noticed the difference.

And that feels beautiful to me - that I had them this way round, that we never felt any lack of anything.

Obviously it's got more noticeable as he's got older how delayed he is. He's said a handful of words, then he's stopped saying them. He's learned to play with toys, but the toys I bought him two years ago. I don't care - I love to see him finally getting to grips with them, enjoying the buttons and lights and noises. He makes a lot of noise himself, and it's no longer indistinguishable from baby babble. He has public meltdowns, when all I can do is crouch between him and the traffic and wait for him to calm down and get up again.

We communicate in our own way. I do everything I know how to encourage his speech, but sometimes it's nice to just know what he wants and to give it without making him wail in frustration first. I like that I understand him.

He wraps his arms tight around me and he's started using his legs to hang on now as well. He makes me feel like the best mum in the world.

He likes helping me change the baby. He passes me her nappy, then her vest, then her babygrow. He knows the order they go on.

He climbs up to the window and waits for his daddy to come home and pick him up and spin him around and make him laugh hysterically. Sometimes he sees the neighbours get in their cars and leave, and he cries and cries - I know how he feels.

He likes collecting things: a set of books, or two handfuls of plastic balls, or a bunch of plastic cutlery. He carries them to his window, and lines them up, runs them through his hands, explores their shapes and colours. He always looks at books the right way round. I hope he'll be a great reader.

I can't pretend I wouldn't love it if he started chatting, but otherwise, I wouldn't change a single thing about him.

He has been officially diagnosed with autism today. I'm so relieved, so happy that we'll get some help. I'm autistic myself (undiagnosed), and I struggled mightily with school, and with making friends.

He'll always know vast wellsprings of love at home. I'm so glad to think he might feel safe and looked after and loved at school, too.

Oh God, Not Again

 We thought we had seen the back of homeschooling, but COVID had better ideas.

The first term of 2020/21 was plagued with small quarantines,v Jack in September, with ?covid that ended up being a vicious chest infection, Alex in October and Jack again in November. Neither of them off at the same time (except for the few days of house-quarantine in September) so it wasn't too bad. But a short-term homeschool period is nothing compared to endless weeks of it.

I took it badly. I cried and a had a panic attack, or seven, and then stared bleakly through time while I adjusted to the horror. But I feel better now. Sometimes, you just have to get on with it. 

This week has been...fraught. Jimmy's school closed in the last lockdown, but there's been significant lobbying to get them to stay open this time. They have closed to many pupils, but Jimmy has a place. A place subject to weekly PCR tests which I am sure he is going to LOVE, but this is a major relief. 

You see, since the last lockdown, I've started a PhD, and yes I KNOW YOU KNOW. But doing a PhD is a weird sort of half-job. I'm not technically or legally employed, and I don't pay tax on my income from it. I don't qualify for furlough, and I'm not teaching so I'm not a key worker...but I still have to work. A lot of this work is reading books, and if you know me, you'll know I read constantly. But there's a difference between reading Jilly Cooper on the sofa, and reading a book and distilling notes into two actual notebooks, a bibliography program and two Word docs simultaneously. My concentration is frequently broken by cries of "MUUUUUUM, I'm BOOOORED, I need a YOGHUUUURT, I want to go to OUTSIDE in a SHORT SLEEVED SHIRT even though it's MINUS TWO!" Homeschool takes up most of the morning. With Jim in the mix as well, it would have taken up the entire day and I would have been found frozen in the garden, dead in a pool of rum.

The work the school have given out is much more structured and focused than last time, which is a blessing. "Remember the book you read four months ago? WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?" was not a helpful work suggestion last time around. But this also means that there's less flexibility. On Wednesday, we had no work for the kids until lunch time, so we did a taste test to learn about the senses and I got Jack to write a choose-your-own-adventure story and put it on Twine, which he thought was AMAZING. But there's no room for that sort of thing now we actually have the school work. I try to make it fun, but as I think I've made clear several time, I fucking hate teaching. 

There are more apps now, a maths app for each of them, a classroom app. As with last time, homeschool is not set up for the technology-less family - I've had to borrow a tablet off my ex to make sure the boys have one each to run the classroom app. 

Alex has come on massively since he's been in year one. He can write:

But this does not mean he WANTS to write. "I HATE doing my work, it's STUPID" he told me this morning, as I valiantly attempted to get him to write an equals sign. "I HATE reading, I don't WANT to read" he stomped, before whispering his way through a Biff, Chip and Kipper tale. 

Jack is still a morose child when made to do anything. He is learning algebra, which he has taken against on principle, despite it being THE EASIEST OF MATHS. I am a halfwit who can't do my seven times table, and I can do algebra. He also doesn't get why he needs to show his working, which SAME MATE.

So, that's where we are. The School of the Mad has reopened, albeit with a reduced cohort and a much busier headteacher.