Decisions – Fri 9th May 2014

Oh decisions…we have made many already in T and D’s lives.

The biggest for D so far being mainstream versus special needs education (ie exams versus life skills) and whether to put her on a (probable) two year course of yucky monthly injections (we did).

For T, it’s been whether we travel along the autism diagnosis route after years of “knowing” that he was more-than-likely also on the spectrum (he is, at the high functioning end, diagnosed last year) and, more recently, whether to appeal his refused secondary school place or stick with the allocated one (we are currently awaiting an appeal date).

The decisions above are big ones, ones that in D’s case we made for her and, in T’s in conjunction with him because he is 11 and has a right to a say in issues that affect him. In D’s, we made them with her happiness and best interests at heart and in the case of a transference to SN school, she was a happier D from the very first afternoon and has flourished far beyond our expectations.

Recently, D has become more involved in her day-to-day decisions, she will now choose the clothes she wears (as opposed to me choosing) and when we’re shopping for her clothes, I’ll ask her what she’d prefer, the answer is now usually pink/sparkly/glittery, she is in a very girlie phase. It’s nice to see, we didn’t have the princess-y phase when she was 4 or 5 and she’s definitely making up for it now!

Today we had a bit of upset over a decision, one that would normally (I never like using that word, normal) have been brushed aside by anyone else.

The weather has been a bit daft this week, hasn’t it? One minute, bright sunshine, birds chirping happily and then the winds bring in a cloud-burst, sudden and extremely wet! Bound to happen and it can make the school run difficult, we’ll start off in sunshine and 20 minutes walk later, it’s brolly time amidst puddles!

For this reason, I took both D’s raincoat and her gap hoodie with us.

Extreme resistance from D as to carrying her coat upstairs (parents/carers aren’t allowed to accompany to encourage independence) and any suggestions that it would be a good idea in case the weather changed, was not popular. I guess in her eyes, it was sunny outside, why would she need a raincoat?

In the end, D’s TA and a bit of humour from us both got D (and the coat) upstairs and I did the “walk of shame” away, fortunately these instances are far fewer than they used to be but it’s still a tad embarrassing when it does.

After all that, they’ve both had a decent end to the week and extremely glad all round it’s the weekend. For T, it’s a relief that the SATs will be undertaken next week and therefore be out of the way, they have been catching some angst this week.

Please consider clicking on the badge above or here and giving me a vote in the Health category (category 15) of the Brilliance in Blogging awards. Voting closes next Friday (16th May) and it would be fantastic for autism awareness if I could go further. (Yes, I do keep plugging but I am over the moon to be included in the shortlist!)

Thanks for reading, I hope everyone’s day has gone well, comments/RTs/shares welcomed Jx

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