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Summer school holidays-Well earned break or just too long?

Don’t get me wrong..the smiles in these photos are real. The moments were fun and we made amazing memories..but always remember what you see on social media is only what people want you to see.

So here we are right at the end of the loooong 6 week torture fest I mean school holidays and it has me wondering is it a well earned rest of just too long? Don’t get me wrong the teachers and others definitely deserve the break and I’m not suggesting we shorten it or anything I just wanted to have a big old whinge really.

Days filled making beautiful memories spending time with our gorgeous mini me’s or 6 long drawn out days of counting down the hours until you can pop that bottle once that clock hits 7pm (pm..definitely pm..most days)

I’m seeing a common theme on social media. I’m noticing in the parents of special needs kids community mums and dads are experiencing carers burn out or at very least are stressed out of their minds counting the days until school starts back. I’m not saying the other parents aren’t also experiencing this or having similar feelings but I definitely didn’t see any ‘so happy to be able to spend the days with my kids’ posts or ‘Its so nice to sleep in and not rush off to school in the mornings’ posts from special needs kids parents. It definitely wasn’t the parents of Autistic kiddies talking about sleep ins now that’s for sure.

Now let this be a big lesson to you if you don’t already know this..on social media people show you what they want you to see.

They create their own narrative and you fall for it every-time (as my mum would say..you fell for it ‘Hook line and sinker’. Old people and their sayings am I right? Yes I may have written that last bit just to see if my mum actually reads my blogs. Her font on her phone is definitely large enough for her to see it that’s for sure.)

These holidays were one of the hardest we’ve had with Mase but you wouldn’t be able to tell that from these precious pics. Look at those smiles and happy faces. Surely that mumma has had the time of her life right?

What you can’t see is the ice packs on faces after melt downs at home getting out of hand. You can’t see our stained carpet from the constant food throwing when moods change in an instant like a light switch being flicked. Us on the cold hard floor with Mase trying to calm him by squeezing him tight or holding him so he doesn’t hurt himself while usually ignoring the pain we are feeling from the lack of impulse control he had when throwing something at us or the knuckles that connected with our face when we were unfortunately in the firing line.

I bet you can’t even hear his brother crying in his room because most of the time the start of it all was Mase destroying something of his brothers because he couldn’t express himself or maybe Mase was suddenly loud and his brother having Misophonia ( when certain sounds trigger an emotional or physiological reaction that may seem unreasonable) lost it.

Everyone has their own battles going on at home and I’m really looking forward to things improving once school goes back so my liver can have a bit of a break because that wine when the kids are finally in bed each night has never tasted so good lately.

I sympathise with all the parents and kids that have had a tough summer holidays. Unfortunately the lack of routine that comes along with no school can be a huge problem for kids that need that constant routine in their lives.

We’ve made it to the end and now we have a year to recover until we do it all again.

Congrats..we did it!!

BB Xxxx

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Where it all begun

Hello Hello,

Sit down, put your feet up and pause what you’re watching on Netflix just for five.

Ill be straight up with you…I have no idea what I’m doing….in life….in motherhood….with this blog or quite frankly for dinner??! So come along for the ride while I fake it until I make it.

I’m Bec and here’s my journey over the past 10 years

When I was 20 and thought about becoming a mum, I thought how amazing I was going to be at it. I had so much love to give and couldn’t wait to have kids to give them a fun and exciting life.

I was 21 when I had my first son and it wasn’t all butterflies and rainbows like you see in the movies. It went horribly wrong. It’s something that will stick with me forever even though my boy came out of it reasonably well considering.

I guess that’s when I changed. All I know is that I was different.

I felt everything in my life much deeper from that day on.

We were young and we had to grow up the day he was born because it wasn’t about us anymore. 

Skip ahead 9 years and we have a healthy boy who has an intellectual disability and Microcephaly but completely perfect in our eyes.

We also have a 6-year-old boy who has had a few issues at the beginning (nothing like our first) and has an intellectual disability also.

After our first son I suffered from post natal depression which I was told after everything that happened was more than understandable. 

I’ve always thought of myself as a fairly happy person. I can’t even remember being down and sad as a child or teenager so this was something completely shattering for me but it was under control and it was mainly anxiety that was the one thing I remember. Heart palpitations and the sweats when I’d leave the house but it was manageable.

2 years later I was still suffering with depression so I went back to my GP.

I started to see a counsellor which was a great outlet for me. 

We talked about the child birth and also my anxiety when I go out. It turns out I care too much what people think of me haha I wish there was an off switch to that because on the surface I couldn’t careless but buried under something it turns out I do. Who would’ve thought? 

I had about 10 sessions and was magically healed!! No not really but she was happy with my progress so she was happy for me to finish.

A few years passed and they were pretty hard. My son was a terrible two year old and a terrible threenanger and really made life a little bit more tough for me.

He was constantly throwing tantrums and banging his head on the ground. He would bite and hit me but it was completely normal for him apparently but a nightmare none the less. We tried time out, the naughty spot ect and nothing ever really worked. The main problem was that he couldn’t express to us what he wanted or needed because he was so delayed with his speech so he’s constant outbursts were mainly from frustration.

There were so many days where I’d call my husband Josh crying telling him I couldn’t handle him and that I felt I’d lost control. 

I felt like such a failure every time. 

Then along came our youngest boy.

Our now 6 year old.

Yeah…turns out my oldest is actually a saint in comparison. He did/does all of the above and then some. Long story short we’ve had two broken tv’s in two years just to give you a rough idea.

Because of my depression I find my emotions sit pretty close to the surface. I have a short fuse. I cry literally over spilt milk some days. The worst part well my least favourite part is I have no patience. I always thought when you become a parent you develop the patience of a saint. I don’t know if it’s because I have two very testing boys but boy they can push my buttons and quickly. I feel so horrible when I snap at them and to be honest it could also be the fact that hubby and I have been sleep deprived since Mason was 4 months old and started waking 85,000 times a night. Ok yes a little exaggerated I know but it’s a lot, that’s a story for another time.

So why am I starting this blog?

I want to bring awareness to parents who are battling mental illness behind closed doors and trying to keep it all together for the sake of their kids.

I want to help parents with kids that have special needs feel less alone.

I hope I can help just one person going through a rough time by sharing my stories and my journey.

Enjoy

BB xx

Never look back unless it’s to see how far you’ve come.

As I see social media flooded with comparison photos of their kids starting the start of the school year and last day of the school year today I can’t help but feel on the outter (as most parents of special needs kids do quite often I would think)

Some parents are probably reflecting on the achievements and progress their kids made throughout the year. The levels of reading their kids went up through the year or how far they came with telling the time.How their times tables improved so much and how impressed they were with their NAPLAN scores.

Not as many will be reflecting on the fact that at the beginning of the year their grade 2 child could hardly write the first letter of their name but now they’ve not only mastered that first letter but almost every letter of their name is readable at the end of the year. They couldn’t read any word other than their name but they now can recognise a few.

Not many will be proudly thinking of how their grade 5 son made a real friendship this year and also felt he fitted in because he mastered how to play Minecraft like the rest of the boys in his year level.

No, my kids may not get academic awards or win sports competitions on weekends in competitive sports like other kids their age do. They don’t get invited to sleepovers or play dates like most would at their age or have birthday party invites on the fridge all throughout the year. They do however continue to keep moving forward and kicking their own goals every year and becoming more and more who they are meant to be.

This year our achievements go like this- Our 9 year old has finally dealt with his separation anxiety and started sleeping in his own bed at night after 9 years of needing us by his side and sleeping in our bed. Mr almost 12 didn’t play on his own at lunchtime for the first year at his new school. He found a love in basketball which meant he always had kids to play with.

The past 12 years have taught me a lot about parenting kids with special needs and the biggest lesson I’ve learnt is to stop comparing my kids to others their age. Comparing will eat you up inside. I am guilty of doing it early on with my oldest. He didn’t walk when they say they should. He didn’t say 50 words at the age he was meant to or wave at the expected age. It consumed me you got me no where. It’s painful. It’s confusing and just down right shit all round.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. When your kid turns 16 and goes for their first job interview I promise you their employer will not ask what age they walked or what age they could sit up. They definitely won’t ask if they were breast or bottle fed and don’t quote me on this one but I’m betting they don’t even need to know when they first cracked their first smile.

So STOP COMPARING!!!

When you watch athletes running the 500 metres are they continuously looking behind or around to see if anyone’s coming up along side them? Nope. They keep looking forward and focusing on theirselves until they reach the end.

There’s nothing wrong with being happy for other kids achievements around you. I don’t feel I’m ever bitter or jealous of others kids achieving goals. I just know their situations and capabilities are different but definitely no less deserving of celebrating then any other kids including my own.

Seeing others reach milestones makes ours all that much more special in my eyes. Some things come easy to others or even naturally but knowing the hard work that’s gone in to get to a certain place makes the celebration at the end so much more sweeter.

My boys may have struggles and hurdles each year but they are resilient, happy and kind people and I am so incredibly proud to call myself their mum. No matter what the boys futures hold they will always know their parents love them more than anything and they are incredible people with lots to offer the world.

Keep kicking your own goals in your own time kiddies. Unless if you’re standing still you’ll be moving forward.

BB xxx

The part no one talks about.

There’s something that’s not talked about when it comes to parenting kids with special needs. It’s not talked about at all and it needs to be.

Love. Marriage. Relationships.

After seeing everyone’s beautiful social media posts on Valentine’s Day I thought about putting up the generic pic of me and hubby but it actually got me thinking about our situation and all the others just like us.

Parents of kids with additional needs and disabilities.

By posting a cutie patootie V-Day pic I didn’t want to pretend that it’s all butterflies and rainbows over here in our world. By ‘our’ world I mean all the relationships trying to make it while putting all our time and energy into our kids with disabilities.

What we go through. (no we don’t always GROW through what we GO through like the quote says..sometimes we just survive and that’s ok). It’s different and it’s hard. No it’s harder than hard..it’s almost impossible most days.

They say it will make you or break you. What if it fractures you instead?

It’s the lack of talking because you’re both so exhausted mentally and physically. The lack of sleep from ASD kids being up at all hours or more specific to us being in our bed for 8 years. It’s the situations that make you turn on each other and fight because you can’t take your frustrations out on the kids. (We are only human after all)

Most relationships are consumed by their kids there’s no difference there but these relationships are consumed by Specialist appointments, medication convos, school meetings and NDIS on top of it.

There’s no guide book or YouTube tutorial for the relationship side of it all ( no seriously..I’ve checked).

It’s easy to say make your marriage a priority but is that really a possibility when you have kids with additional needs? Where do we pencil that in? I can’t see an opening anytime soon. Is there a waiting list we could go on? I just don’t think it can be a priority in our situation. But it doesn’t mean we give up.

We’ve been through the bad news, the diagnosis and the emotional roller coasters of the early years. We now live the reality. We are all just riding the waves and hope things get easier one day soon.

You’re not alone and you are legends.

BB Xxxxx

Ups and downs

The ups and downs are exhausting.

What I mean by ups and downs is the times where life is going smooth (ok maybe not smooth but at least crunchy). You know, pleasant with a few rough bits. When something has just clicked.

I’ve cried many happy tears before when things have been working with Mase. It’s such a relief when you feel like everyday is a battle and then it stops long enough for you to catch your breath.

But then out of no where *Bam* Meds stop working or are not working as effectively anymore, a change in routine has set him off or something. Whatever it is..life isn’t crunchy anymore..the whole bag of peanuts has hit the fan. You feel like you’re right back where you were before.

I find the summer school holidays do that. It’s so hard to keep routine when we want to do different things everyday or myself or Josh are working so the boys go to a holiday program or their grandparents.

We have had a pretty rough time these past couple of months and it’s definitely broken us a few times I’m not going to lie.

Before Christmas things got so bad that I took Kaeden to my in laws one afternoon after an incident with Mason to let him get away and cool off. When we went to leave he broke down and didn’t want to go home. It absolutely broke me.

I felt like I had failed as a parent not making my kid feel safe in his own home.

I let him stay there the night which killed me but I knew I had to just let him have some space.

He’s such an amazing kid who is so resilient.

He understands that his brothers brain works differently to his and that he doesn’t mean to do or say the things he does.

March we see a new paediatrician which is a huge relief.

We’ve waited months for this appointment so I’m hoping for something positive to come from it or just a different perspective on everything would be helpful.

Great news!!! Next week Kaeden will be 1 year seizure free. I can’t believe we made it. It’s a good feeling to have come full circle after such a scary time. It took a little while to get the right help but I feel we have a really good Neurologist on our side.

Congrats on making it through the summer holidays Mums and Dads. Now to poke cotton tips up our kids nostrils and send them back to school.

BB xoxo

Sleeving the old me behind-surgery Day

I couldn’t decide whether to share this or not ( what? The over sharer wasn’t going to overshare? Thats shocking)

As you know I’ve struggled with my mental health for 10 years and have had Sleep Apnea that has become quite bad the past couple of years.

My constant exhaustion has had a really negative impact with my mental health over the years especially the past few.

I have tried ever since i started to have kids 10 years ago to loose weight and keep it off. Unfortunately I have never been able to succeed and always managed to put even more back on every time.

Last year instead of giving up and just accepting things would never get better, I decided I would do something that would give me a really good chance of success.. Gastric Sleeve surgery (weight loss surgery)

What’s that? I hear you ask. It’s where they cut out 80% of your stomach so you can no longer overeat (guilty as charged). They do it by keyhole surgery which is quite amazing.

Now this was no Dr Nick behind the dumpster situation (did you say Hiii Doctor Nick in your head when reading that?). I researched the crap out of Melbourne surgeons ( was a little disappointed no one from Greys Anatomy were available..looking at you Meredith. But I found a goodie after asking around in the WLS community (weight loss surgery..yep I’m down with the lingo now)

It’s never been about being a certain dress size for me. There is nothing wrong with being big/curvy/fat. I’ve worked in plus size fashion and I learnt so much about body positivity and how to love myself no matter what a number on a tag says.

For me It’s about improving my Sleep Apnea(or fingers crossed getting rid of it all together) and not having to look like Darth Vader every night with the ugly mask. As well as working on my mental health to be the best version of myself possible so I can be a better Mum and Wife.

I don’t want my kids to constantly see me napping on the weekends because i can’t keep my eyes open or being snappy moody cow to them if I don’t get a nap.

I have taken every step possible to ensure I succeed at this. I’ve been having weekly psychologist sessions and have invested in an Emotional Eating Coach and Dietitian. Despite what people think about it being a quick fix or an easy way out I still have to put in the hard work otherwise it will all have been for nothing. It’s a major surgery to help me get on the right path and succeed in bettering myself.

My husband (being the legend he is) did the two week pre op diet with me where we could only have protein shakes and certain veggies (no potato’s, only the boring ones). No sugars, no fats..no fun.

I can’t even put into words how supportive he has been throughout all of this. Josh even joined himself up to FB pages for supporting spouses through weight loss surgery before I had even joined any myself. He educated himself on everything he needed to know and just blew me away with how amazing he is to me.

He’s lived every bad day,week and month that I’ve had right along side me. He knows when I’m about to go through a depressive episode before I even do. (Some may say he’s like a sniffer dog for depression)

He never gets frustrated or upset with me when I withdraw myself from life. He just lets me do what I need to survive and get through it. He takes on everything from the kids, all the appointments, house work..everything. Just so there’s one thing less on my mind.

My friends are such a great support too. They always check in on me when I’m not doing great and understand when I cancel plans or don’t pick up their calls. My friendship circle is pretty small now but it’s made up of beautiful people that have known me for between 10-15 years and have stuck by me through thick and thin. It’s about quality not quantity with mates. As you get older you’ll realise that.

So I may be a bit high on Endone right now as I write this so it may sound a bit different to my usual blogs but thanks for reading.

So here I am starting a new chapter in my life..watch this space.

BB

Xxx

There once was a young boy who swallowed a battery

It was a Friday morning around 6am when my 7 year old Mason was annoying me with how much energy he had already (ironic) so I told him to go wake his brother so we could start our morning and make it to the bus stop by 7am.

Bracing myself for the screams from Kaeden telling his brother to get out of his room I was surprised when Mase returned back to my bed. As I tried to find the energy to get out of bed(maybe my battery was low) Mase mentioned casually that he had a battery in his tummy. Taking a few moments for his sentence to register in my brain I asked him to repeat what he said even though I was pretty certain I got it the first time.

I thought he’s obviously mistaken or joking so I casually continued to ask him Changing up my wording to see if I could trip him up but every time he returned the same answer. I know what you’re thinking *panic*

But I must admit it was such an odd and strange thing to have supposedly happened that I still wasn’t convinced. I went and grabbed two batteries which were different sizes and asked him which one and he pointed to the AA and says ‘like this one’

Yeah that wasn’t the answer I was after.

Still feeling like it’s not really what has happened I still knew I had to act like it had just incase.

I then tried to scare the truth out of him (interrogation style like I’d seen on NCIS) by telling him he’d need a needle if he really did swallow a battery. That back fired because he then became really upset about the needle but still said there was a battery in his tummy so I then just had a hysterically crying 7 year old with a suspected battery inside of him which could be giving him the energy to cry all day for all I knew.

So off we went to emergency to ‘take a photo of your tummy then go to school’ is what I told him. In my mind we were just making sure there was nothing there then I’d drop him to school and I could enjoy my day off.

Sure enough we are sent straight to X-RAY where I stand next to the screen that the X-RAY picture is displayed.

Before the technician even turned her head to look at the screen after clicking the button I had gasped and thrown my hands up to my mouth to muffle the sounds of me saying ‘oh my god, oh my god’. I point to the image of my 7 year olds boney little body and said ‘there’s a battery in his stomach, shit, there’s really a battery in his stomach’

I had been wrong. Boy did I feel like a giant clown( not the kind of clown that you have at a kids party because they rock at making balloon animals. The clown that the other clowns play tricks on like making them sniff their lapel flower that squirts them in the eye with water)

He really did swallow a battery. How?? How on earth did my kid who refuses to even eat breakfast manage to swallow a battery?

Sure you won’t have a piece of toast but you’ll happily help yourself to a battery!!

We had to go back to emergency to tell them that he really has swallowed one as to my defence the triage nurse had not thought it was true either.

I wasn’t going to line back up because in my eyes my son had just ingested a grenade that was going to explode at any minute.So I just kind of blurted it out for everyone to hear. It went something like this. ‘He really did!! It looks like a AAA!!!!’

The line of people at the front desk turned and looked at me and battery boy with a variety of surprised and impressed facial expressions. One lady picked her jaw up from the ground and said ‘oh my god, impressive’

Yes lady impressive. Impressive that at his age I couldn’t even swallow tablets but he has passed that stage and has moved on to batteries.

We were extremely lucky that it was safe to leave and let it pass naturally..naturally? There’s nothing natural about that.

As much as I did enjoy thinking up as many battery related jokes that could (‘at least if I sold him I could say batteries included’ was my fav)

We were pretty relived that after the third day a beautiful healthy AAA was born.

Now when I gag while trying to take my large Swisse multi vitamin I’ll remember that if my son can down a battery without a chaser..I’ve got this.

In all seriousness batteries are extremely dangerous especially button batteries.

Keep them out of reach of kids.

Now we have a great story for his 21st and a great pic for his photo board.

BB

Xxx

New year, new diagnosis

I’ve been asked a lot lately why I havnt been doing my blogs.

I’m not entirely sure why but I think it’s a combination of reasons.

It’s been a crazy start to the year with our oldest Kaeden being diagnosed with focal epilepsy after having his third seizure.

In total he had two during his sleep and the last one was at school where the whole right side of his body went floppy and he zoned out.

I was in my first week of my new job and flew out of there like someone had lit a fire under my bum (I was surprised to learn this chubby girl can move when she needs to)

It was such a stressful time with starting medication, seeing a neurologists and getting tests.

I went out and bought the most expensive baby monitor on the market. It even has a camera that follows every move he makes like he’s an animal on a David Attenborough doco (you know the ones they build into a fake animal that they try to fool the others into thinking was always apart of the pack..it’s creepy right)

He is such a resilient kid though. He was actually excited to start medication strangely enough. He was happy to be having medicine just like his little brother does. There was even one day when we were still trying to get in the routine of giving his meds twice a day we forgot one morning before school so I raced to school in time to catch him still on the school bus waiting to get off when I ran on and made him take it in front of a packed bus. I know what you’re thinking..how embarrassing(am you’re right. I have no idea what I was thinking)

But Nope..he loved it because all his friends got to see him take his awesomely cool medication. (If you think white sneakers are trendy try having regular medication. It’s so fetch). I can still remember his brothers confused face as I disappeared as quickly as I’d appeared and hearing him say ‘what was mum doing on my bus?’

I was still so worried he’d have another seizure though. I would stay up until crazy hours watching my baby monitor screen( glued to it like I was watching Mafs waiting for the next stupid thing Bryce was going to say) thinking any minute I’d see him convulsing and have to sprint in there to move his pillows away from his head.

I have only just recently stopped obsessing over it. I even had to get prescribed a sedative at night at one point as I couldn’t sleep. (It didn’t help that every time the house creaked it came through the monitor louder than a fire cracker being let off by teenagers an hour before midnight New Year’s Eve) I swear I got whiplash from turned my neck so fast to check the monitor.

I then received the two things I’d been fearing when he came home from school one day. A notice for camp AND a notice for swimming. Two of Epilepsy’s worst enemies….swimming and being away from mum. Ok ok maybe it’s not epilepsy’s worst enemy, it’s my worst enemy but still…arghh. Usually I just fear camp notices because of the cost.

Another layer of emotions with Kaedens seizures for myself and Josh was that it brought back a lot of emotions from Kaedens birth. His brain damage is what is causing the seizures and now he is also having a problem with his eyes turning in. Not both at the same time, they seem to have different shifts. Right eye one day then the left the next. (I’m always teaching the kids to share so it’s only fair his eyes do too)

When we got legal advice in regards to his birth and the negligence we were told that even though we had an MRI to show the brain damage we had to be able to prove permanent disability within three years to pursue anything.

When he started to grow and it was clear he had learning difficulties and microcephaly (a small and slow growing brain) we counted our lucky stars that it wasn’t worse considering what his prognosis was.

So I think this was just a kick in the guts.

We are so proud of how he just takes everything in his stride and keeps being the crazy ball of energy and personality that he has always been.

BB xxx

Lockdown with special needs kids

I honestly will never know how I made it through home schooling 2.0.

The last day of homeschooling for me was such a bag of emotions. I think mostly because I couldn’t believe I’d made it. There’s nothing worse than going through something insanely difficult and not having a date you know it’ll end. I find it really had to stay motivated with things without having some kind of carrot dangling in front of me like a holiday or event.

My mental health has been the worst it’s ever been during lockdown and I’m really hoping when everything’s back to not I can get myself back on track. I really hope that my kids have not suffered because of it or their school work but I had to do what I needed and have days to myself when I couldn’t cope.

I wish school starting again meant the end of lockdown but us Melbournians can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel now which has been what we’ve needed.

Every day was filled with melt downs, doors slamming and glass breaking.

Unfortunately we are still in the process of finding the right medication for our youngest with ASD and ADHD so lockdown has been quite unbearable for the most part as his behaviour is at its worst at home and not being able to leave a 5km radius really made things a lot more difficult.

I’ve learnt how resilient my boys are through all of this and I’m so proud of them. I can’t imagine how confusing it’s been for kids to all of a sudden have all the things you find fun just taken away one day with the reason being something you’d never even heard of.

We’ve been trying to deal with issues the boys are both having while not being able to get the support we needed so I’m hoping things will start to go back to normal soon and we can really start to work on them getting the help they need.

When your’e a parent failing or giving up isn’t really an option. As much as this lockdown broke me I still didn’t give up and hubby didn’t give up on me (I would’ve given up on me if roles were reversed..I’m a nightmare)

There were days I didnt want to get out of bed and days I was a mess but I did what I had to do to get through. I leaned on my family and wasn’t ashamed to say I wasn’t coping.

I don’t know if I’d go as far as saying we are coming out of this stronger but after a break or holiday I think we’ll be back with a better mindset.

I’m proud of you Victoria

Next year is going to be our year..

BB xx

Calling ‘000’

In my 30 years of life I’ve had quite a few scary and traumatic nights. My very first memory of a child was the night my Dad died of a massive heart attack. Unfortunately that’s something that I’ll always remember and I relive every time I see an ambulance. I then remember vividly the night I knew something bad had happened to my boyfriend(now husband). I had this awful gut feeling and thought I was just being dramatic until I received the call he’d been in a horrible car accident. Then you all know the night I gave birth to my Kaeden who wasn’t breathing.

All pretty bad nights but let’s be honest no where near as bad as most people experience in their lives but they are definitely events that will stick in my memory for as long as I live.

Unfortunately last Saturday night hubby and I added another one to the list.

We were watching a movie and we heart a noise one of the kids crying.(Not unusual at all it’s actually normal for us. It which generally means Mr 6 is awake for the one of many times during the night or Mr 9 is crying because he misses his friends from his old school) Hubby is first into Kaeden(our oldest) room and I’m very close behind. We were not prepared for what we saw. Kaeden was laying in bed and had vomit on his shoulder and was crying, actually he was almost howling. My first thoughts were oh great please don’t be gastro, that’s all we’d need right now during lockdown. We started to get him out of bed and that’s when we both realised something was very wrong. He could hardly walk. Kaeden’s body was ridged with his arms and legs looking like he had cerebral palsy (sorry to say that but it’s the only way I can think to describe it) he couldn’t walk on his own and he wasn’t even looking at us, almost like he couldn’t see us. Once we looked at his eyes we noticed his pupils were insanely huge. We sat him down and he was completely disoriented and distressed. One of the scariest parts was his jaw was locked shut. When he could form a few words he made no sense. We could see him getting so frustrated that he couldn’t say what he meant. It was like his brain wasn’t receiving the message. I called an ambulance but they couldn’t give me a time frame or anything of when they’d arrive. In my head there were two possible reasons he was acting the way. He had just had a seizure or (much more scary) he had a stroke. I knew every second counted if it was the second one so I made the call to rush him to hospital myself as we only live about 10 minutes from it.

The whole car trip I was trying to reassure Kaedz telling him it’s ok a doctor will make him feel better and not to be scared. I was also trying to get out of him if he’d maybe taken a tablet or something he’d found at home. He couldn’t get the words out but it was scaring me that he wasn’t saying no. It wasn’t until we were almost at the hospital when he finally started to talk normally. He told me he hadn’t taken any tablets or anything and he actually didn’t know what had happened. He thought he was in trouble for sucking his thumb (sometimes I catch him sucking his thumb in bed and tell him off) the darling boy.

All his vitals were normal. They did a few physical checks on him and I had to run through his whole medical history (which pretty much takes an hour) with seizures at birth and absent seizures when he was 2 years old and so on. We ended up being discharged a couple of hours later.

The doctor said it seemed a lot like he had a seizure and he’d need an MRI but they didn’t have an MRI machine at the hospital.

We are seeing his paediatrician next week and hopefully we can start to get some answers. We are really hoping it’s not epilepsy but since he was born it’s always been in the back of my mind that his seizures could return at any point with no warning.

He was completely back to himself that night which was the biggest relief. The next morning I was even relieved to hear him belting out an out of tune song in the shower.

We now have a baby monitor to hear him at night but I still check on him a lot and jump at any little noise I hear come from him.

There’s nothing like a horrible event to give you some perspective in life. Everyone is so wrapped up about being angry at the government right now with lockdown in Victoria. Hubby and I are just so grateful to have our boys healthy right now and everything else is just an inconvenience.

BB xxx

Social media Vs real life

Lets talk social media and parenting.

I’m not going to lie I’m a social media junkie (shocker I know).

I use to be an extrovert before I had kids, but my depression and anxiety made me an introvert therefore I find social media amazing because I can still reach out to people and share my life with family living far away but without having to maintain eye contact (anxiety sufferers will get that).

There is one big down fall to social media when you become a parent and that’s that people can post whatever they like. This rangers from political posts, fake news to regular people posting what they ate for lunch. (I’m sure I am guilty of all those things)

Why does this relate to parenting I hear you asking? Well its because everyday parents and celebrity parents can post all these beautiful photos and posts about their families and their golden child Jimmy who just won the school award for the most well mannered student and little Fiona who just helped an old lady cross the road.

Celebrities are not going to show the harder sides to motherhood. They’ll only tell you what a nightmare it is choosing between buying Gucci shoes or the Yeezys for their little cherub (do people even say cherub anymore? I don’t know where that came from but ill run with it)

The point of my rambling is it paints a picture. It leads people to believe that the Jones’s have this perfect life with their perfect non tantrum throwing children but really behind the pictures is a family drowning it debt, two snotty ungrateful kids and an affair Mr Jones is having with his secretary Jane.

If something looks too good to be true it probably is.

A year ago or so I became fed up with this pressure to all play along with this perfect life persona and started posting real life. Real everyday bullshit that comes along with parenthood. The broken tv’s, the tantrums and the tears. Yes I’ve faced my fair share of Karen’s feeling uncomfortable and judgmental but my point of it all is to stop the judgement and stop the pressure of needing to be perfect every second of everyday because its fake, its not real life and its not helpful.

We put this insane expectation on ourselves as parents and when we cant live up to it, it feels like the world is ending. When it comes down to the crunch all your kids care about is that you are there.

Follow good role models on your socials to lift you up and give you what you need. More importantly surround yourself with an amazing group of people that get you and support you.

BB

xxx