But, on occasions, it pours fire and brimstone with a side of erupting volcanoes and magma pools everywhere.
Some days, I do second guess myself: do we really need all the provisions that I have fought to get for my daughter? I mean we have a lot: blue badge, respite care, special school allocation, to name but a few.
Today was not one of those days. Today her grandparents picked her up at three in the afternoon. By 4:30 she had a tantrum because their mind reading powers had failed, and they hadn’t realised that she would want ice cream at their house. Having never wanted ice cream with them before, and positively turned her nose up at it when it had been offered. Today though it was obviously their fault for not picking up on the mental signals that she was giving out that she expected there to be ice cream. So she then demanded my immediate presence.
I arrived 10 mins later, because unfortunately I don’t have access to a Star Trek transporter, so have to make do with a car. Ten minutes was long enough for her to forget all about her demands for me and ice cream until it was mentioned that both were wanted.
She also managed to convince her school teachers she was tired. My daughter is NEVER tired. She can go four weeks on 30 mins of sleep and still run rings both figuratively and literally around people. So on careful interrogation I discovered that they had changed her PE lesson to dance. Not the type of dancing she is used to where they climb on each other and make interesting pyramids but the more sedate country dancing way of prancing around with flags. So she had Noped out of it and refused to participate.
Needless to say, today was not her day and with it being Children in need and hence off routine with regards to uniform, she was already out of whack. By the time I picked her up from her grandparents, she was running on tomorrow’s spoons. So, arriving at the gym and finding all the disabled bays in use by people that don’t have blue badges and were frankly just being lazy (Come on people you are going to a gym but you can’t walk the extra 10 yards of car park?!) really didn’t help. My daughter has an aversion to walking on tarmac. She can walk on yellow lines and white lines but not black tarmac. Getting her into the building from the disabled bays is a challenge, from anywhere else it’s almost impossible. I had to wait for one of these asses to leave so we could park. By which time she is frantic that she is going to be late to the class that we arrived half an hour early for. No amount of trying to explain we have 30 minutes will help, as she has no concept of time.
It was a relief to get into the building, and for the time for class to come around. Only to discover in the last 20 mins she has misplaced her emotional support stuffed animal. She has been to the changing rooms, soft play, the car park and basically everywhere on site. We don’t have time to look. I finally convince her to go to her cheerleading class and I will look for the stuffed lamb. Which I do, but I don’t find it. I even ask at reception before resigning myself to the meltdown that will come when I collect her. Only to discover it under the chair where she was sitting.
So do we need all those accommodations for her autism? YES and I need a bottle or wine.
Raising the Modern Fae 