0 comment Sunday, June 15, 2014 | admin
My kingdom for a velvet chaise lounge....
I woke up this morning and knew it was going to be a Languish day - the sun is shining, but I can feel that barometric pressure change trying to happen, with a cold-snap at nights. It always strikes me rather ridiculous when I wake up feeling like hell when it looks lovely outside; according to old tales, you're supposed to only feel twinges when it's going to rain or snow. Everything hurts, but I want to be outside taking a walk with sprog and Ludo. Fat chance of that. If I had a sauna, whirlpool bath and steam shower I'd practically live in heat and water the whole day, and sprog could come with me - but I don't. So I make do.
The biggest splurge I can do for myself is buy some takeaway and not attempt to cook. My son is a pizza addict, and so a pizza with double-pepperoni, olives, and extra cheese will be forthcoming. I'll be getting dimsum later from a very passable Chinese takeaway. This is a rare luxury for me, but on days like today, energy reserves are important, and so is the need to eat. In the past, I'd just skip meals, sometimes not even eat for the entire day. But sacrificing health for principles is stupid, and I need to eat, and so does sprog.
This is about the pinnacle of my extra-spending, however, and so that's that. One of the biggest perks of running my own (very small, barely successful) business is I can make my own bath products. Sea salt, rose geranium and peppermint EO dropped into a hot bath can banish quite a few of these aches and ouches.
My son's Omega 3,6,9 oil which he gets daily for concentration can also come in handy for myself, though it's expensive stuff so I only take the smaller doses. Calcium comes next, as well as sea kelp tablets and the daily vitamin. Supplements aren't cheap but I've found I function a lot worse without them. The hope for the year, however, is I'll be able to grow purslane - which contains Omega 3,6,9 oil in its leaves in a much fresher form. Adding this to meals (and somehow stealthily doing so to sprog's food as well) may cut my supplement bills down considerably.
Child is getting a bit bored cooped up in the house, and unfortunately the back garden isn't exactly teeming with interest just yet. Keeping him entertained when I'm creaking about is the biggest challenge I face; the one thing my son shares with all children is how he can be surrounded by video games, books, toys, and videos and be "bored". I attribute this to a very photographic memory and a short attention span - he's seen the same video once before already, knows how it starts, knows how it ends. Why would he want to watch it twice? And yet, if he's in an obsessive mode, he can watch something over and over again for a week (currently, that's The Gruffalo short film). My son has never watched much pop-culture stuff, and he veers between wanting to be a racecar driver and a scientist, to which I've said "Why not be both?" Therefore, our video storage is packed with Formula 1 and Sir David Attenborough. I'm leaning toward scientist myself, but I've seen my son behind the wheel of a go-kart, and it's uncanny how good he is.
I can tell sprog is coming to the point of sensory-stimulation overload - he runs back and forth in his room, slamming against the door over and over again. It's his own form of "headbanging" - needing external sensory stimuli. This is why the matting is on the floor, why he has a giant beanbag, to fling himself down upon, repeatedly. Usually I wrap him in a blanket and this helps to "reset" his brain - he thinks being made into a Wumpy-Roll is hilarious, but I can't lift and turn him today, so the running/stomping/flinging/falling will have to suffice for him. Yes, I know, it's weird. But it's just Sprog.
We do colouring and videos and eat popcorn and I doze off on the rather lumpy daybed downstairs. Sprog will eat his own weight in pizza today and probably some homemade ice cream as well (raspberry is the current favourite). Maintenance mode; I ignore the dust and the dishes and the laundry and my own rather hole-filled clothes that desperately need repair. Working a needle today is beyond me, though tomorrow I should be able to get sprog to help.
And my son, with the strange blend of non-empathy and incredible kindness in him, will sit next to me and gently hold my hand and say "I'm going to care you." His sentences are still poorly structured, but he knows what "care" means. He may be parrottng what he's heard other people say - echolalia is often discouraged in autistic children, but I honestly think he learned a lot of language this way - or he might actually know what it means. In any event, while he often doesn't care overmuch if I'm feeling rubbish, sometimes I will say "Mummy is tired, sweetie" and he will immediately come to my side and stroke my hands. "I'm going to care you." He'll sit quietly for a bit, or want to watch a video with him, and for a few minutes he'll be on best behaviour - only a few minutes, but he is actually putting the effort in. The rest of the time he has free rein to run around like a mad thing in his room, or - soon, very soon - outside without me having to worry what he's getting into.
I'm a bit worried, if I'm feeling this rubbish even when it's a decent day, whether this is a sign of things to come. The tests came back with arthritis in my hands, wrists, ankles, knees, and one hip. For some reason this was considered to not be a big deal - possibly due to my GP maybe not being clued up that if you have a heel spur, arthritic ankle, knee and hip all on the same leg, it's collectively going to be a bit painful. Not exactly filling me with confidence here. I've already discussed with ex the necessity of him taking sprog a bit sooner rather than later, though that's not a fun scenario. I've even considered claiming for disability myself. I have learned the hard way that pride in staying off benefits even if you need them is, in the end, stupid pride. A lot of money worries disappeared when I finally got disability for sproggo, and I should have done it sooner. I have nothing to prove to anyone by toughing it out; it only makes life more difficult, and more difficult is not something I need right now.
Just another five years...that's all I'm asking, O Universe. If I never get out of a chair again after that, fine, do your worst.
I woke up this morning and knew it was going to be a Languish day - the sun is shining, but I can feel that barometric pressure change trying to happen, with a cold-snap at nights. It always strikes me rather ridiculous when I wake up feeling like hell when it looks lovely outside; according to old tales, you're supposed to only feel twinges when it's going to rain or snow. Everything hurts, but I want to be outside taking a walk with sprog and Ludo. Fat chance of that. If I had a sauna, whirlpool bath and steam shower I'd practically live in heat and water the whole day, and sprog could come with me - but I don't. So I make do.
The biggest splurge I can do for myself is buy some takeaway and not attempt to cook. My son is a pizza addict, and so a pizza with double-pepperoni, olives, and extra cheese will be forthcoming. I'll be getting dimsum later from a very passable Chinese takeaway. This is a rare luxury for me, but on days like today, energy reserves are important, and so is the need to eat. In the past, I'd just skip meals, sometimes not even eat for the entire day. But sacrificing health for principles is stupid, and I need to eat, and so does sprog.
This is about the pinnacle of my extra-spending, however, and so that's that. One of the biggest perks of running my own (very small, barely successful) business is I can make my own bath products. Sea salt, rose geranium and peppermint EO dropped into a hot bath can banish quite a few of these aches and ouches.
My son's Omega 3,6,9 oil which he gets daily for concentration can also come in handy for myself, though it's expensive stuff so I only take the smaller doses. Calcium comes next, as well as sea kelp tablets and the daily vitamin. Supplements aren't cheap but I've found I function a lot worse without them. The hope for the year, however, is I'll be able to grow purslane - which contains Omega 3,6,9 oil in its leaves in a much fresher form. Adding this to meals (and somehow stealthily doing so to sprog's food as well) may cut my supplement bills down considerably.
Child is getting a bit bored cooped up in the house, and unfortunately the back garden isn't exactly teeming with interest just yet. Keeping him entertained when I'm creaking about is the biggest challenge I face; the one thing my son shares with all children is how he can be surrounded by video games, books, toys, and videos and be "bored". I attribute this to a very photographic memory and a short attention span - he's seen the same video once before already, knows how it starts, knows how it ends. Why would he want to watch it twice? And yet, if he's in an obsessive mode, he can watch something over and over again for a week (currently, that's The Gruffalo short film). My son has never watched much pop-culture stuff, and he veers between wanting to be a racecar driver and a scientist, to which I've said "Why not be both?" Therefore, our video storage is packed with Formula 1 and Sir David Attenborough. I'm leaning toward scientist myself, but I've seen my son behind the wheel of a go-kart, and it's uncanny how good he is.
I can tell sprog is coming to the point of sensory-stimulation overload - he runs back and forth in his room, slamming against the door over and over again. It's his own form of "headbanging" - needing external sensory stimuli. This is why the matting is on the floor, why he has a giant beanbag, to fling himself down upon, repeatedly. Usually I wrap him in a blanket and this helps to "reset" his brain - he thinks being made into a Wumpy-Roll is hilarious, but I can't lift and turn him today, so the running/stomping/flinging/falling will have to suffice for him. Yes, I know, it's weird. But it's just Sprog.
We do colouring and videos and eat popcorn and I doze off on the rather lumpy daybed downstairs. Sprog will eat his own weight in pizza today and probably some homemade ice cream as well (raspberry is the current favourite). Maintenance mode; I ignore the dust and the dishes and the laundry and my own rather hole-filled clothes that desperately need repair. Working a needle today is beyond me, though tomorrow I should be able to get sprog to help.
And my son, with the strange blend of non-empathy and incredible kindness in him, will sit next to me and gently hold my hand and say "I'm going to care you." His sentences are still poorly structured, but he knows what "care" means. He may be parrottng what he's heard other people say - echolalia is often discouraged in autistic children, but I honestly think he learned a lot of language this way - or he might actually know what it means. In any event, while he often doesn't care overmuch if I'm feeling rubbish, sometimes I will say "Mummy is tired, sweetie" and he will immediately come to my side and stroke my hands. "I'm going to care you." He'll sit quietly for a bit, or want to watch a video with him, and for a few minutes he'll be on best behaviour - only a few minutes, but he is actually putting the effort in. The rest of the time he has free rein to run around like a mad thing in his room, or - soon, very soon - outside without me having to worry what he's getting into.
I'm a bit worried, if I'm feeling this rubbish even when it's a decent day, whether this is a sign of things to come. The tests came back with arthritis in my hands, wrists, ankles, knees, and one hip. For some reason this was considered to not be a big deal - possibly due to my GP maybe not being clued up that if you have a heel spur, arthritic ankle, knee and hip all on the same leg, it's collectively going to be a bit painful. Not exactly filling me with confidence here. I've already discussed with ex the necessity of him taking sprog a bit sooner rather than later, though that's not a fun scenario. I've even considered claiming for disability myself. I have learned the hard way that pride in staying off benefits even if you need them is, in the end, stupid pride. A lot of money worries disappeared when I finally got disability for sproggo, and I should have done it sooner. I have nothing to prove to anyone by toughing it out; it only makes life more difficult, and more difficult is not something I need right now.
Just another five years...that's all I'm asking, O Universe. If I never get out of a chair again after that, fine, do your worst.
Labels: Languishment