Let’s talk about bullying

On Saturday morning Daniel and the Sussies hopped into our bed and the 5 of us had a snuggle. Just as we all settle in he pipes up:

‘Did you know, I have a secret hiding place during break time at school’

Etienne and I were shocked. This was our chance to get to the bottom of why he slept in our room for almost 4 months, from right after school started this year.

We managed to extract names of who he hides from, who he hides with and, most importantly WHY.

THIS IS A BIG DEAL.

Why, you may ask?

For 4 months of this year we have seen our vivacious son go from sad to mad. His anxiety was like the big old elephant lurking in the room. He didn’t want to go to school. He didn’t want to leave our sides. It was the single most soul-destroying thing we’ve had to deal with since we became parents.

We got help in the form of a very switched on OT and a play-therapist that have slowly but surely brought him out of his shell. He blocked them, he blocked us. He wouldn’t open up at all.

Until Saturday.

This morning we pitched up at school and refused to leave until we spoke to someone. There was NO way we were going to let him hide for another minute of his precious break time.

Will it happen again? Probably. The world is filled with bullies. I just hope that, along the way, he now has the skills to deal with them and realise that being bullied is not about you, it’s about the other person being a doos. (Yes, still my favourite word)

Here’s what I learnt:
1. Never, and I mean NEVER, show your child that you’re upset. Play it cool, ask questions. Do not, I repeat DO NOT freak out.
2. Create a space for them to talk. Whether it’s lying in bed just before they go to sleep or a casual conversation in the car.
3. Get the facts. Don’t listen to secondhand stories and do not jump to conclusions. This harms not only your child, but potentially other children as well.
4. You are not a drama queen. If you’re child’s behaviour suddenly changes don’t wait. GET HELP.
5. Listen. They may not be ready to disclose when you need to hear it most, but be there to pick up the cues of when they’re ready to talk.

I did all of above wrong, to varying degrees, this year has been ALL about learning the above lessons. They are very hard lessons to learn.

I’ll probably fail them again, but I hope to get better at it.

Did I miss any lessons? What have you learnt?

Ps. Im trying to write this as unemotionally as possible, but trust me, lots of tears were shed. If you were at the entrance of my son’s school this morning, yes, I’m the one that was having a good old cry.
Pps. Stay tuned for the Isabel broken leg drama. Having such fun, wish you were here. If only to pour me wine.

On Ageing

I’ve never really been worried about growing old. I loved 30’s and am LOVING 40’s. I could never understand my friends that had an existential crisis over turning 40. To me it was a license to embrace and accept who I am and not take shit from anyone.

I’ve been a little smug about the fact that I have always taken care of my skin, hardly ever go in the sun with my face and have used proper sun block, eye cream and moisturisers since the age of 20. (thanks Mom for drilling that routine into me)

However.

I suddenly find myself looking in the mirror and noticing an alarming amount of wrinkles. I’m not talking those beautiful laugh lines that women with ever-youthful skin have. I’m talking deep grooves under my EYES. Right under the bags I have suddenly acquired. WTF?

The skin in my neck suddenly resembles that of a plucked chicken. Or really thin tissue paper. With a tinge of pink. What’s with the tinge of pink anyway?

The tops of my hands suddenly look, well, old. Ish.

Let’s not even venture further South to discuss droopy boobage and protruding stomachage (despite slowly losing weight).  Trust me, it could get ugly.

Am I only going through my existential mid-life crisis now? For those of you that are around my age, did you feel yourself getting older or did you also wake up one morning, look at yourself in the mirror and, with horror, realise that you’re suddenly not looking so suave for your age?

Or have I just been in denial all this time?

How do you handle suddenly coming face-to-face (pardon the pun) with your ageing face and décolletage?

The black-eyed bastard

I may want to come back and delete this post at some time, but it needs to be said.

For various reasons I find myself stuck in a cycle of anxiety, sadness, insomnia and worry. If you have yourself or have ever known anyone that suffers from depression you will know how this usually ends. Generally not well, definitely in the company of a lovely therapist, with an arsenal of chemical weapons and some hard-core anti-anxiety meds.

Then, onto the “getting better” stage, followed by the “weaning off” stage. It’s such a bloody pain in the arse.

The worst thing is the self-doubt.

Am I feeling unhappy and sad because of certain events or was I unhappy and sad to start off with? Which came first?

Am I overreacting?

When I feel the need to make some drastic changes I wonder whether it’s because it feels like I’m mumbling from under a pile of blankets or whether I’m just being honest with myself about things I simply cannot accept or keep living with.

Is it these things that are making me feel worse?

Is my sadness transparent? Am I hiding it well enough?

How many people do I know that hide it better than I do, how do they just plod along and get the job done?

I know my son can see it, he asked me the other day when I walked in the door why I looked so sad. (I know, I have no words) I have no idea how to mold my face into an expression that looks like it did several months ago. How do I get back there?

Do I want to be back there? Or is this the cusp of a change that’s been looming anyway?

So, I’m doing what I do best:

I take control

I keep busy

I hug my kids harder

I fix shit

I look for the happy in every day (hence the continuation of my 100 happy days photo project)

I try to be kind(er) to myself

I eliminate toxic people from my life

In the process I’m sure to alienate people, my capacity for dealing with shit in my personal life is greatly diminished. The people that matter will understand and support. The rest?

Well.

So be it.

Do you ever battle with depression? How do you manage?

Weekend thoughts

We were lucky enough to spend this past weekend in Mount Ceder in the Cederberg and came home yesterday full of the sound of silence. There’s a very special kind of silence out there, I love it.

There is NO signal. Zip. Nada. You could pay R30 for 100mb of wifi data if you *really* wanted to, but I preferred to go without. I did feel like a bit of a douche walking around with my phone though as I use it as a camera. Oops.

I’m not going to carry on about how great it is to unplug, because we all know that it’s always awesome and you wish you would do it more. And then we get home and we hug our high-speed uncapped wifi.

Then, randomly, Daniel wanted to print something and our printer had run out of toner, so off we went to Tygervalley yesterday afternoon, just the 2 of us. Whilst I was busy buying the toner at DionWired he politely comes to tell me that the Lego X-box game he has been coveting for absolute ages is *only* R450. I simply nodded and smiled, he will probably get it for his birthday soon, so there was no way I was buying it.

Fast forward through a haphazard zig-zagging through shops, DionWired bag beeping every time we walk in and out of a shop as they didn’t deactivate it properly and lots of funny looks from security guards and customers when, finally, we reach Naartjie.

All his winter pants are too short and they are having a really cool special on long pants (the only ones he wears anyway), so we made a little investment there. The lady behind the counter very politely tells me what the final total is, just shy of the price of a certain Lego X-box game and my darling son pipes up “Mom! Leave the pants and just buy me the X-box game!”

Cue uncomfortable silence and awkward little giggle from the Naartjie employee.

I’m beginning to realise how easy it was to hide things from them when they couldn’t read and had NO idea of the value of money, even the Sussies are starting to catch on and read far too many words already. Not that it’s a bad thing, it’s just disconcerting.

Lastly: I’m not sure my blog is working properly this way, but my WordPress guy has gone awol, so I’m in the market for a WP person if you know of someone. Thanks!

Ok, really lastly: Thank you for reading, thank you for your feedback, thank you for your support. You’re awesome.

Random things our kids know

Tonight Isabel came into the kitchen, pointed at the pot of coconut oil and identified it correctly as coconut oil after a good old sniff.

It just struck me that our kids know a lot more random things about the world than I think we did at their age. Not in a oh-look-we’re-such-fabulous-parents kind of way, more in the way that the world is these days and how I think we all parent differently to our own parents. Not that they did a bad job, it was just different. Life was just a lot simpler back then.

We barely had TV when I was a child (yes, I’m *that* old). We listened to tapes in the car on long roadtrips without aircon from Cape Town to Kimberley. In December.

We were ushered from rooms where adults were talking.

We had to finish every last morsel of food on our plates.

I love that our kids know who Karen Zoid is, I love that they know where they are in the world and have a pretty good idea where they fit in. I love that they are curious, that they have the confidence to ask us a gazillion questions AND expect to get answers. I love that they will try new foods, smell (and later identify) new smells, listen to new music.

I love that we can Google almost anything and the answers are right there.

I love that they speak their minds, that they feel safe enough to express their opinions, whether it pertains to what they have been served for dinner or how stinky a sibling’s fart was. (always a source of great mirth in this household)

It sometimes scares me that they have so MUCH learning to do to keep up with their peers, that there will be enormous pressure on them to stand their ground and just be who they are, regardless.

At the very least I hope that they will passionately curious, that they will not accept the obvious. That they will not compromise their individuality . That they will brighten rooms when they enter and leave joy in their wake.

I hope they will be generous and accepting.

But mostly, I hope they won’t take shit from anyone that hasn’t earned their respect.

Not too much for to wish for nê?

ps. This didn’t turn out anything like what I had in mind when I started writing, but I like it. So I’m keeping it

Best R60 I ever spent

Mignon and Daniel, contemplating chocolate. I couldn't get them all to stand still for long enough!
Mignon and Daniel, contemplating chocolate. I couldn’t get them all to stand still for long enough!

Recently Mignon lost her bottom 2 front teeth and we have been waiting for Isabel to follow suit, especially since the new teeth were ready and waiting to move into place. (and yes, we are saving for the inevitable trips to the Orthodontist..)

On Sunday we had most of the family over for lunch to celebrate my Mom’s birthday and my Dad kindly offered to take out Isabel’s first tooth. With pliers. Don’t even ask, I hid in another room. Instead of wailing Isabel was so chuffed with her first tooth out, she didn’t even care. I’ll just put another few SA Ront in the Therapy jar for later. Just in case.

Moving along to the inevitable delivery by Die Tandemuis and they made me promise I would take them shopping with their R20’s. I’m not sure they believed me when I said that there wasn’t much you could buy with R20, so I suggested we go down to our local Deli. I love the Vineyard Deli, they have the best stuff and there’s always a wide range of things to choose from.*

Daniel came along, so it was 3:1, always fun.

I, of course, went at the busiest time of day, when everyone was popping in to grab something for supper, but this did not deter our children. Oh no, they ran from shelf to shelf, fridge to freezer. They compared prices, added up how much money they would have left and, how many things they could buy.  With EVERYTHING.

I was so completely wrapped up in them and the serious discussion and group calculation of a R15 purchase of Milk Straws vs the 10 Easter Eggs they could each get for their R20 and to see how their minds worked overtime that I didn’t notice how people were watching us until we got to the till. There were some very amused faces as I looked up and even a slightly grumpy old man that tried to push them along at the till. That almost made me go into full Mother-Hen Clucking mode.

I wanted them to put their chosen items down themselves and hand over the money. The looks of joy and pride on their faces were priceless, even the cashier played along when I had to substitute with the odd Rand here and there.

Even the grumpy old man got the message and backed away eventually. I may just have glared a teeny weeny tiny little bit..

It was, in the bigger scheme of things, a tiny little thing to do with them, but I am blown away day after day at how different they are and how they each view the world. They are suddenly all independent and have so much figured out already, it makes me fall in love with them more every single day.

* they SO did not pay me to say that, clearly there’s no benefit in me writing about it here. But, the staff there are always amazing and they will go out of their way to find you anything you ask for, even if it is a random type of yeast from Bulgaria.

It’s complicated

You know how, when you are intensely worried about one of your kids, your entire life feels out of whack? Well, that’s how I am right now.

I’ve written countless posts in my head about our current challenges and nothing feels right. It’s a bit of a damned if I do scenario, but it prevents me from writing, so here goes.

Just briefly (and I have to try and get through this post without crying):

Daniel is not doing well. He is currently seeing a play therapist and an occupational therapist. We suspect bullying, he has some sensory and muscle tone issues, he is very anxious, lacks confidence, has intense separation anxiety from me (partly caused by my traveling for work and apparently my PND, cue the self-flagellation) and sleeps with us most nights.

Looking at him you would NOT say so, he looks like the happiest boy alive, which is why it’s been so hard to get to the point of getting help.

We have good days and bad days. We have normal evenings and we have absolute emotional roller coaster trips when dinner and bedtime rolls around.

We have no labels yet, progress is slow. He doesn’t disclose, he avoids telling us what is wrong. The more upset I get, the worse he gets. It’s a vicious, vicious circle and I spend much of my time and energy trying on bigger girl panties.

I can’t tell you everything, we would be here for ages, but yesterday was a turning point for me. We were at a kiddy party which he insisted I go with him to, which is a double-edged sword: I knew that, if I went, he would most likely be with me the entire time and not engage with the other kids, but would possibly be lost if I didn’t and I just wasn’t willing to take the risk. Besides, he really is such an awesome little man, who wouldn’t want to spend time with him?

As predicted, he was with me most of the time, very happy to have me there.

Toward the end of the party one of the Moms passed a comment along the lines of “He really loves being just with you” and I wasn’t prepared. This is all too new. So I just kind of grunted and probably looked like a complete douche.

It’s taken me all of yesterday and today to process that comment and my terrible response and I’ve come up with “It’s complicated“.

Because it is. It’s fucking complicated. My heart aches for my son, it is the single most difficult parenting thing we’ve ever had to deal with. I’m trying not to get stuck at “it’s somehow all my fault” and rather be pro-active and involved in his well-being without alternating between beating the living shit out the child(ren??) bullying him at school and rocking like a madwoman in a corner, clutching a bottle of Jack.

So, there you have it, now you know why I’ve been so quiet. I know that some of you are battling similar things with your own children. Know that I think of you, I admire how brave you are, even on your difficult days.

Ps: didn’t manage to get through the post without crying, but a little weep is always good for the soul, yes?

About stress

This past weekend we were all in the car and the kids stuck an Alanis Morissette CD in the player that Etienne had found at Checkers. (He gave them a choice between Coldplay and Alanis and they chose Alanis when they were scratching in those boxes of CD’s you find at the tills. I trained them SO well)

We listen to a lot of music at home, but it’s mostly mixes on 8tracks, my favourite app, so I hardly ever get to listen to an entire CD of an artist, but this just rocked my world. Later in the day it was just the sussies and myself in the car and we cranked up the music. Loud.

It was bliss.

It made me think of my days of drowning out feelings and hiding in my room with loud, angry Alanis*.

It also made me think of how I manage being stressed. Some of us drink, some smoke, go to gym, shout or withdraw from life until we have managed to work through whatever is wrong with the world at that particular time in our lives.

Depending on the level of crap I’m going through at any particular moment in time I have employed all of the above, sometimes all at the same time. With the possible exception of gym. I consider going to gym the most mature way of handling stress and sometimes you just don’t feel like being all mature and behaving like an adult.

Sometimes all that helps is getting all shouty with Alanis with a glass of something alcoholic in the one hand and an illegal fag in the other. It makes you feel a little rebellious and lot FU to whatever hurts or stresses you out.

And that is strangely empowering.

Just so you know: I’m not in a terrible space or unhappy, my life is great, there’s just A LOT going on so sometimes it’s good to feel 21 again, even if it’s only for 10 minutes before I have to deal with being 41 again and all grown-up.

What do you do when you feel stressed? How do you make it better for yourself?

* Incidentally, if you search for Alanis Morissette on 8tracks you will find lots of her music hidden in “break-up” type mixes. Go figure.

Catching up

Hello Blog-friends,

I’m BAAAACK.

I’ve written many blog posts in my head the last couple of weeks, so there is some catching up to do. In a nutshell:

Renovations: Etienne and I have *just* managed to not kill each other so far. We have now had builders in our space since October and, even though things are taking shape very nicely, I’m so over it. The dust, the people in my space, Jack (the delinquent dog) that re-marks his territory every day against curtains and furniture. The decisions about tiles and paint and lights and windows and doors. Disagreements because I think (rightly*) that you can find almost anything at a better price somewhere on the Internet. The dust. Did I mention the dust?

Work: Hectic, but in a good way. I’m off to Gauteng again next week for 4 days, second trip this year, so my heart is already crumbling a little at the thought of not seeing my family for 4 days.

Kids: There’s a LOT going on with Daniel at the moment that we are trying to get to the bottom of. Part of it is that he is scared that I won’t come back when I’m away for work (it has taken me 2 weeks of processing and talking myself out of a pit of guilt just to write that sentence without crying btw)

“cries anyway”

I’m not ready to share more about this yet, but as soon as we have a little distance and perspective I will, promise.

Coming up: The sussies turn 6 and the usual OCD party mayhem that goes along with that. Pass the wine please.

Thank you for signing up, thank you for reading. Feel free to comment, or not. Absolutely no pressure.

* sometimes it’s a real pain in the ass to be right. Almost worse than being wrong, because your partner ends up feeling shit.