The Bigger Picture

Well, as predicted we have a double dip recession. No one should really feign surprise given the turbulent world economy and the complete failure to date of the Eurozone to make decisive and effective plans for their intra economy. How we dig ourselves out of this mess is becoming more urgent an issue which is going to require action rather than merely babysitting the economy until it gets stronger.

I'm no economist, and thankfully no politician either, but I suspect it's going to take a situation more desperate to precipitate the necessary action for recovery, whatever that may be. Far reaching, bold decisions which focus on the "bigger picture" are rarely popular, neglect the individual and compromise the many "smaller pictures" of which they are composed. Who is to say which is right, let alone preferable, but changing direction with a heavy load in tow - be it massive debt, unemployment, social deprivation or all of the above - is never easy.

Whilst I admire those who take such bold and frankly terrifying decisions I'm not sure I could ever ignore the individual to such an extent. Sir Winston Churchill made a first class leader during wartime Britain because he possessed this attribute - yet not so many years later Britain's electorate was quick to dismiss an apparently uncaring politician. But tough times call for tough measures - the Battle of Britain would never have been won if Churchill and his government had allowed themselves to focus on the individual pilots, giving way to misty eyed sentimentality would have cost us the War - and the future of millions. But how you justify the decisions taken on such a large scale when those very decisions cause the suffering of many individuals is a dilemma as old as time.

Take the Greek debt - the country's people suffer now, will suffer far more if the debt is to be paid off anytime soon but without paying that debt off, at least in part, the future of Greece economically, socially and politically is extremely fragile. Yet who is going to take tough decisions for the many at the expense of the few?

I think the crucial point is support and endorsement. If, as in Britain in 1940 there is a clear and definite threat, an almost certain future which is far less attractive, or more terrifying than any short term or individual sacrifice then there is invariably popular support for decisions aimed at a larger purpose which neglect the individual. But the current economic situation - whilst in desperate need of some far reaching, bold and decisive big plan lacks the social and political support it would need for any hope of success.

History used to be the "History of Great Men", the storytelling Whig History of the nineteenth century. Men like Macaulay and Trevelyan allowed for sweeping generalisations to facilitate their seemingly impossible task of chronicling History to portray the bigger picture. As an historian myself I abhorred the obvious neglect of the less important individual, of social and economic trends and the use of the past to justify the present but undoubtedly without their brave attempts to achieve so much we would have been deprived of the fascinating stories which contributed so much to the understanding and appreciation of our shared past.

Sir Herbert Butterfield pioneered a more rigorous and philosophical approach to History which continues to this day, and my subject has become more vibrant and far reaching as a result, but as it seems with every strand of life political correctness has stifled and devalued any recent attempts to focus on bold and revolutionary strategies to see themes and to "bravely go where no man has gone before"visualising the bigger picture.

What the present economic situation makes abundantly clear however is that we are a society of individuals, with overlapping, similar yet fundamentally different needs, desires and aspirations. Obtaining political consensus today is far more of a challenge than it ever was in the past, yet I shudder to think the desperate situation that might be needed to precipitate the necessary agreement for moving forwards. The bigger picture will eventually take primary importance and must do so if we are to escape the current recession - but I sincerely hope we don't neglect too many individuals in the process.

If this is making you think of the current political situation in the USA, you're not wrong. The Presidential campaign in America makes this clear as the two candidates attempt to bring millions of people together in their support, people from such different states as California and the Carolinas, Kentucky and New York. The bigger picture is at the heart of American politics, as candidates cleverly (or deviously!) hide their bigger goals with heart string twanging slogans to pile everyone on the political bandwagon. For me this is a clear warning of how focussing on the bigger picture must not disenfranchise swathes of people, of individuals in the process. It would take a dire situation indeed to legitimise such a process in the UK and we need to hang on to this thought as we seek a bold and daring strategy to escape our own economic turmoil that does remembers we are not, at least not yet, facing a situation as desperate as that of 1940. Business undoubtedly needs tax breaks, we need to stimulate growth without further burdening the country with debt and spending cuts from the heady days of Labour spending may well be necessary. But when I see those cuts falling disproportionately on the most disadvantaged in society I believe there has to be a better way. I'm all for bold, for brave, for aspiration and growth, for the bigger picture, for progress........ but it does not have to impact unfairly on those least able to speak up. Facebook is awash with comments about Romney's archaic posturing, but we need to stop and think before we do something similar here too.

Rose amongst thorns

It's Wine O'Clock on a Friday night and I am sitting here proud as punch of my youngest child. I say "youngest" because those ten minutes count for something in the sibling pecking order, and can frequently be used against you by an over-controlling elder brother with zero empathy. (See "Sibling Rivalry" )

Being the only girl in a family with three boys can be tough. Initially held in awe and wonder by two adoring older brothers when she was a baby, the novelty wore off once her desire to take on the role as "Mummy's Deputy" kicked in. With one incredibly disorganised brother and two who try hard but often need a little help the temptation was too much to resist. K used to even dress her twin brother on occasion, and has been known to wash his hair and clean his teeth even recently. She is naturally maternal and caring and has a large family of dolls on whom she lavishes her affections, and I still receive daily drawings of cute puppies to try and break down my refusal to allow her one. But this care and concern for her brothers incited huge resentment from H. Being autistic he struggled to relate to twins, needing to "divide and conquer" to have any chance of social success with either. And what is easier than to ally yourself with the sibling you have more in common with? So for years K has endured daily ridicule and a verbal onslaught from H which we have tried to limit and control.

Added to this she has had to cope with her twin excelling in pretty much everything he tries, particularly in the classroom. But the situation is changing, and I couldn't be more pleased. Our little Rose (and that is her middle name too) is showing herself to be quite the artist, more precise and particular than her twin brother who loves making and is extremely good at construction, but she has a real eye for colour, detail and the ability to visualise from 2D to 3D with ease. She also dances beautifully and can sing in tune - which her brothers find more difficult. But none of this impresses H who is far more concerned with Minecraft, Java and the last episode of Tracy Beaker, and has continued to put her down relentlessly.

But today she earned his respect. H has always loved swimming and is pretty good in the water, and although he is perhaps overly optimistic he has aspirations to be the next Michael Phelps. So on learning that in today's Year 1 swimming gala K helped her class win (over the parallel class favourites) as one of the fastest swimmers H stopped in his tracks.

"Really? But you're so little!" he exclaimed.
and then the best bit......

"That's amazing. Wow - you must be really good. Like me! Respect. Much respect."

Indeed. Much respect, and much happiness on hearing her older brother consider and value her achievement. Happy day.

Spontaneous Combustion

 

This is a wonderful phrase (and the title of a play I believe) which I have coined many a time during my adult life. It's not so much that I wish to get OFF, more that it would be nice if the world would just kindly slow down a little, or perhaps even stop for long enough for me to a) make a cup of tea b) allow me to drink it without the usual reheating (twice) and c) perhaps even let me SIT to drink it? 

I am supremely grateful that years ago, when I had one small not-so-demanding child no one told me that I should enjoy the (relative) calm I then enjoyed. Working full-time as a single parent, going to bed at midnight after marking books and preparing lessons, waking to transfer washing to tumble drier (yes, they've ALL had reflux...) at 2am and then finally up at 6am for work I felt as if I was at times struggling to keep the plates spinning. Little did I know then that it was but an oh-so-gentle introduction into the world of additional needs, not even close to the "extreme parenting" I seem to have to hit the ground running with on a daily basis now.

Most of the time it's fine, and fun. Hard work but exactly, totally and utterly what I was made for, I *need* busy like most people need air. And Jelly Snakes... definitely Jelly Snakes too. I thrive on being insanely, frantically busy - but only when I feel in control. Just as well really, considering. The problem with living life on the edge however, is that you have to cling on tight when you get to the hair-pin bends. The moments when the incline suddenly becomes a vertical ascent, which (just for kicks) you have to scale blindfolded with a deafening roar in your ears. I hate those bits.

My sense of humour failed me this week, it's been a full-on month with a lot of highs, good bits to remember, and a load of "stuff" I could really have done without. One good thing about being ridiculously overly-busy is that you can lost the long term perspective and keep your head down. Not much choice really when the here and now takes every ounce of energy and focus to be honest. It IS a useful survival mechanism though and I have used it many times to my advantage, volunteering the few spare minutes I have to others or considering crazy plans such as satisfying my daughter's desperate need for a dog - or even feeling guilty that I am still a full time mum when the children are at school - and maybe I really should consider getting a job. The busier I am the less time I have to ponder the future.

I think that is what has made this past week so difficult. In so many ways I am being forced to look ahead, and I don't have the time or emotional capacity to deal with it right now. There is no need to fill spare minutes to fix myself stubbornly in the present - there are no spare minutes and the future I must face.

Firstly there is the start of the planning process for H's transition to High School. He's only entering Year 6 this September but we have Multi Agency Meetings, Annual Statement Reviews and more with SENCOs and teachers. Transferring a child totally dependent on full time 1:1 support to stay in school  -and hopefully have a positive experience there - is no walk in the park. Ideally I would like to give him and his future my undivided attention... but that isn't possible. We also have quite an important review at GOSH for the twins next week - neither is that well right now and neither can continue as they are long term. More decisions, more.... *thinking*.

Added to all that my parents have FINALLY exchanged contracts and are moving house next week. This is GOOD news, no complaints there, but it has definitely precipitated a few feelings and emotions I am struggling with. They are leaving the house I grew up in, it has been their home for 47 years and my Home with a capital "H" since I came home from hospital at a week old. Twice we have returned as a family to camp on floors whilst waiting to move ourselves, it is where a piece of me most certainly will always be. It is one of the most special places in the world to me, saying goodbye will be a huge wrench. I don't do moving on very well....I think in many ways the past is always more attractive than the unknown future!

So once again I find myself thinking how perfect it would be if I could just press pause for a while, to allow my brain the necessary time and space to process so many thoughts and emotions. But I guess that was never the life I signed up for, and probably not the kind of life I would ever choose either. (There would be at least a couple of dogs resident here and a job application in the post by the end of next week if someone did find that button.) So I am hoping I can find the inner strength to get me through the next couple of weeks (and my poor parents as they move!) and hope I don't spontaneously combust along the way! Normal is way too overrated anyway....

Healthy Eating?

Today K and A's school included in their weekly "newspaper" an editorial on "Healthy Eating", asking parents to support the school's two week drive to improve on an already ongoing campaign.

NHS "Health Eating" Campaign photo

But just what IS Healthy Eating? 

The school in question has twice termly cake sales and hands out sweets in "birthday assembly", which hardly fits the "Healthy Eating" criteria that the school is so keen to promote?

Resilience

Resilience. Not a word I use very much to be honest. And one that was oh-so-painfully overused at H's previous school by the Headteacher who had co-authored a book on "Building Learning Power". Don't get me wrong, there are some inspirational ideas and a lot of good practice in that book, but the nomenclature grated ever.so.slightly. For example focussing on "Brave Spellers" was a useful means of encouraging emergent independent writing but even the children felt it was slightly overdone at times.  But I digress.

Today I am a Resilient Learner however. Today I binned Hope and Trust in a positive move, but somehow "Goodbye Hope and Trust" didn't strike me as a particularly positive title to a Blog post!

Normal in Our House

Renata over at Just Bring the Chocolate has set a little blogging challenge – to define ‘Normal’ family life in our place.

"Anyone who says that their family is normal is lying… or in denial… or just mad. There is no such thing as the normal family, just varying degrees of weirdness. Just like the pile of things that sits hopefully at the bottom of the stairs waiting to be carried up day after day, after a while, we don’t even see our own idiosyncrasies. Parents of special needs children, arguably, embrace this weirdness to a more impressive level than many other families, and, should you come across us, you shouldn’t be surprised if some of it leaks out into everyday life."

Interesting challenge. Some days it would seem there is not much mundane, predictable and "normal" to be had around here. Having spent 4 of the past 7 days in 2 different hospitals, with 2 of the remaining 3 having outpatient appointments, having the cat "admitted" at the Vet's for neurotic senile cat disease doing a good impression of being at Death's Door , and trying to explain to school that gluten as well as dairy, soya and wheat needs to be excluded from K's diet (I provide the lunch but they are fantastic about catering for them in cooking sessions, snack etc) I'm not sure I would know what "normal" looked like if it came up and bit me. But that's the point of this challenge, to show how the seemingly bizarre, unlikely and even impossible becomes the norm for many families with children with additional needs.

Waking at the crack of dawn has always been the norm in our family. Although that should really be the "Shout of Dawn", or "Scream of Dawn". For years our mornings have started like this or this although the screaming and shouting has improved in recent months. H is oh-so-gradually getting the hang of school mornings, and who knows, by the time he leaves Primary School we might manage to leave the house without me feeling the need for valium, a stiff drink and a strong coffee. Mornings are fraught, hectic and noisy, and require careful planning and preparation the night before to avoid resembling a war zone. That's fine when I am on form the night before, but if I am feeling the effects of 2-3 hours sleep in total the previous night the temptation to throw caution to the wind and "wing it" the next day is very seductive. I did that once. Just the once. Won't be doing it EVER again lol...

With two children with autoimmune inflammatory bowel disease (EGID see here) , one with ASD, ADHD, and a whole host of other allegedly identified idiosyncrasies, let alone a teenager in the midst of hormone fluctuations there is considerable potential for trouble. (And that's assuming the cat behaves....) Pumps alarming, feeding tubes needing flushing, everyone's medication laying out/preparing for taking out, emergency kits checked and rechecked, physio done I could all too easily post a picture of the first thing which springs to mind to illustrate our concept of "normal".

A 10ml enteral syringe.

We go through loads of these, for medication and tube feeding. They feature in our "normal" family life. And yet I cannot think of anything less appropriate to illustrate what is "normal" for our family. Yes, our lives do revolve around meeting the additional needs of three of us, but that IS mostly the mundane, predictable and almost invisible much of the time. 

Normal life here is actually making a joke out of almost everything, finding the humour in the most unlikely situations, creating "Thompsonisms" that would never feature in any accepted dictionary but which for us are at the centre of family life. I am blessed with a family with a fabulous sense of humour. (That's pretty potent multiplied by a factor of 6. ) I have my husband to thank for a lot of it, he can singlehandedly reduce A to a giggling, incapable wreck only minutes after starting to cry in pain. He can see the fun in any situation, although I doubt his version of the Bristol Stool Chart will be adopted any time soon!

"Normal" for us is a warped, humorous and not-a-little cynical view of the world and our family's place within it. It's about making each other laugh and see the flip side, it's the glue which binds us together. And should any one of us be feeling low, should the mundane and monotony of our "special" version of normal be too overwhelming, you can be sure there are several at hand to crack a joke and put everything in perspective. We're an IT savvy, gadget loving, future embracing, don't let it get you down (or offload it and move on) kind of family. Feelings matter, but we know when humour can save the day. 

And you know what? That's my kind of normal :)

Wow. Six years.

This time six years ago I was deep in the throes of twin labour. If you think the "twin" bit was tough, think again. That was perhaps the easiest part of the whole "twin experience" to date. In actual fact it turned out to be the most straightforward (with the usual caveats and exclusions) of all my deliveries and our beautiful babies arrived at 3.20am and 3.30am. Text book.

But at that point someone seems to have mislaid the manual, or at least the bulk of it which contained the information and reassurance regarding feeding, weight gain and development. For six months R and I survived on snatches of sleep, constantly dealing with crying babies and incessant vomiting. At three weeks old we had the first of (oh so) many hospital appointments, and such was my exhaustion I arrived in the hospital car park with the new buggy - having failed to cut off the tags to enable the damn thing to actually OPEN properly! Never before had I experienced that all encompassing, inexplicably life-sapping total exhaustion, and I hope I never, ever will again. The concept of a "full nights' sleep" is still a dream, existing only in a parallel universe somewhere across the Galaxy, but at least now it's (usually) enough. Between feed pumps alarming and small people reporting they are uncomfortable/awake/insert any excuse you can come up with (they certainly do!) I am usually up 2-3 times a night, but that is so far removed from those early days.

My photo stream is testimony to a considerable amount of fun and adventure over the past 6 years, with special memories by the score as they grew older. Moving to somewhere without a loft was tough - I struggled to hang on to all my treasures from their early days - and their brothers' too - with so little storage space!

It's been a bumpy ride and we've pretty much written our own twin handbook on the way, which is probably why tomorrow feels like such an incredible milestone. It's taken this long to even start to understand the fundamental difficulties the twins have always had with feeding and digestion, why they suffer so much more than their siblings or the rest of us, and why our family is so absurdly divergent from the text book we all subscribe to.

But that said, on the outside, when feeling well and medicated appropriately, they are the bounciest (that should probably read BOUNCIEST) loudest (definitely LOUDEST, even accounting for hearing loss in one and over compensation in the other) almost-six-year-olds around. The best things come in small packages they say, and when I look at my two youngest I fill with pride, in total agreement. They face everything life throws at them head on, and refuse to let anything (or anyone, which can be rather tiresome at times) get in the way of their chosen path.

It's scary how fast time flies, but so exciting sharing the journey.

Happy 6th Birthday Kitty and Archie, my Mini-Me and Monkey :)