The Everyday

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Prompted once again by Tara Cain’s photo gallery here’s one for my marvellous boy!

The OH gave him a box of lego technics for Christmas the year before last. I dreaded the tiny pieces being lost everywhere.  Who in their right mind gives anything so complicated to a ‘special needs’  boy who just chews everything? I was sure it would be an expensive mistake.

How wrong was I?

Everyday, hour after hour, for next couple of months, he diligently followed through 3 separate 30 pages instruction booklets and built some kind of mobile crane! Then as soon as it was done, he’d take it all apart just to start all over again

We’ve been giving him lots of lego technics construction sets ever since. I marvel at the dexterity and concentration I didn’t know he had.  Discovering the challenge of lego technics has changed his everyday (and I really haven’t been sponsored to say this). For the first time he has an age-appropriate toy and all his building, instruction following skills he’s developed are all self-taught.

He’s nearly 16, he still can’t make conversation, but he has shown us what he is truly capable of.  I’ve learnt never to underestimate the everyday.  Other people’s ordinary everyday is frequently a disabled person’s extraordinary.

My angel in gum boots

This is one of those rare posts about one of my children.

I know it is going to make me cry even though it is, in its way, it’s a celebration.

Nevertheless it will be a moment of ‘self’, and moments of ‘self’ have a tendency to drive me down that long wallowing road of self-pity. If you knew me, you’d know it’s  something I’d rather avoid as much as I possibly can.

This is my middle son, P.

He’s dyslexic, his birthday is in August and he has an older disabled brother. So, let’s say, he has a few disadvantages…However, I’d rather not go into those.

And, god love him, he is a spirited, self-reliant, independent and cheerful fellow who will give anything a go just for the experience of it. He wants to live an eco-self sufficient life and wishes he’d been brought up on a farm.