So, this month there are three long weekends and a half-term to contend with. Don’t get me wrong: I love my daughter. I just love her more when she can burn off some of her endless energy at school. We’re actually seriously considering getting a puppy just so they can wear each other out. Then I think about how much energy it took to train a puppy last time, and decide that we just don’t have enough spoons for that. So, we need to find other ways of surviving. And it is survival at the moment: there is no room for anything else. I laugh when people ask where we plan to go on holiday, we can’t remember the last time we took one.
So, we end up in this fugue state, which is some level of exhaustion between genius and insanity. It has lead us to discover many creative solutions to unusual problems that we have encountered. Having a fae child means that you will have to solve issues that parents of more neurotypical children will either never have, or have to a far lesser extent. For example: sensory issues surrounding food. I have written multiple posts on food refusal so I will leave that subject alone and move on to others.
Such as brushing teeth. Most children don’t like brushing their teeth, but for some children it can be a twice daily battle royale: it is no way to start and end the day. We found that giving our daughter her father’s shaving mirror made things vastly easier: she could now see for herself that I wasn’t just being annoying, and there was actually still stuff on her teeth. Since she has a love of things being “clean & shiny”, the mere sight of a speck of food on her teeth was enough to make her clean them. Also, giving her the choice of whether she or I did the actual brushing: She used to want me to, now she invariably wants to do it herself. I don’t care as long as it gets done.
To encourage her to drink more water, we took her to the shops and let her choose a sports bottle (unsurprisingly she chose one with bees on). We store it in the fridge next to mine, she definitely drinks more water now.
We also bought toy hammocks and nets and let her choose where we installed them, and now she happily puts her toys away.
We’re now plotting to introduce her to cooking shows so she will find inspiration for foods to try. Seriously, don’t underestimate the power of television – it’s where we found the rainbow ice lollies, and if you call spaghetti ‘wiggly worm pasta’ she’ll eat that too!
Raising the Modern Fae 