A Very Niave Expectant Mum and a Good Job Well Done....

When I think back to when I was expecting DS, I (very stupidly) remember thinking along the lines of "baby will glide easily into my daily routine. I will still be able to keep a nice clean tidy house, visit friends..blah..blah..blah..."
*feel free to laugh out loud now whilst banging fists on table in hysterics*

I actually chuckle to myself when I think of how niave I was! It was definitely more like "baby comes into the world with a loud bang, dominates and controls my days/weeks/months/years. I'm lucky if I manage to finish half a cup of tea"!

I pictured that home would mostly be like this..

 

When in fact, last week it actually resembled this...

Six years on and nothing much has changed. DS still dominates and controls my days, I work everything else around him.
Over several days last week, DS was in a mischievious and destruction mood. He sprinkled a nearly full bag of flour on the kitchen floor! As I was clearing that up, he decided to empty a vase of flowers out. Whilst I clearing the tipped out water he then turned the electricity off by the main switch! This went on and on, I just couldn't keep up with him.
So whilst he was safe (with only flour and flowers accessible to him) I skulked to my bedroom, shut the door and had a mini meltdown of my own!

I screamed into a pillow, composed myself and went back down to the chaos....er..i mean DS. Surprisingly, I felt much better, like I had gotten rid of alot of tension and frustration. I am human at the end of the day and DS did not witness or hear my 'Gggrrr' into the pillow therefore I felt like I had dealt the issue effectively.

I was talking to a parent recently who says that she feels like she fails her child during very difficult and challenging periods because she gets frustrated too. It was this parent that inspired this post and I wanted her and others to know that we all have had times when we have been pushed to our limits and boundaries have been broken. We need to remember that we are doing a very difficult, hugely rewarding at times but still a very difficult job. Our relationships are put under strain, our whole lives are turned upside down and our future plans changed.
Please understand, I am not in anyway complaining about the above in relation to my son,I'm just stating the facts. We also do this job free of charge.

I think as parents we need to be kinder to ourselves in general, we are doing a great job especially with everything considering. Autism awareness is still very limited within society and its only 50 years since the first autism diagnosis - not a long time at all!

To wrap up this post, my plea is to give yourself a hug and pat on the back for doing a fab job! :)