my child IS special

[Prusik]

It's nearly 5am and I can't bloody sleep as DS woke me and I'm feeling too poorly to settle back down so thought I'd try to come up with a goady title. That's the best I've got, sorry

Not really a TAAT but I'm just musing.

Time and time again on MN, you hear posters being ripped apart for thinking their kid has a talent, eg reading early, or the sneering at a parent being PFB with their child.

I think DS is amazing. His development is fascinating and I love watching him grow. But every kid is fascinating. Texts from a friend saying their kid has just said "cow" for the first time is lovely. Their baby is aquiring language. What is more exciting than that?

DS has just learned to clap. It's incredible. Yes, just as incredible as any other baby that learns to clap but still...

I guess I'm just feeling the awe at these little babies learning to do things we take for granted. Not just my baby, but all of my friends babies too.

feel free to fill this thread with dull yet amazing little achievements your child has made! Or rip me to pieces. I'm slightly to sleep deprived to care

Until you are that mum....in a mum group and your kid is still not clapping, crawling rolling over ...then people tell your your child is special...it has special needs and you become a special needs parent!!!
All of a sudden an amazing god like figure has decided that you should have a special needs child as they only give them to special mums !!!

I do this thing the evening before their birthdays of putting up photos taken of them over the years in the living room (6 months between my two so they both get an equal amount of embarrassing exposure). It's an evening spent just remembering the wonder of it all: from the tiny wrinkled blob in its father's arms at the hospital over the baby learning to sit up, then learning to toddle around, the child with a personality and interests all its own right up to the almost adult with their own life to live.

And I think I need to do it all the more because my eldest does have special needs and so much of our lives together has been about her being ill and in pain.

I need to remember that there is also another reality: a child just being a child, with her face smeared with jam or sitting laughing in a sandpit wearing bright red wellies.

I think my son is special. He got through a near fatal ashtma attack at aged 2 and shocked the doctors with his fight. He was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes last year and is so freaking brave and injecting himself. My daughter who is 6 has learnt the months and I am proud of her! Her humour is so sarcastic is makes me hurt laughing. I love my kids, I like to share their achievements with the world

I think kids are amazing, I wish I had their fearlessness and awe at the world around us.

cory - what a lovely idea

Taffeta, my eldest is 21; she moved away this year for HE. She asked before she went, what will you do on the evening of my birthday? And I told her I will still be putting up the pictures and thinking of you like I do every year. Doesn't matter how old she'll get, as long as I am alive, I'll be putting up those pictures.

My twins had a really tough start - one of them was in hospital for his first two months and I wasn't there for him as much as I should have been as I had another newborn at home and was recovering from a difficult emergency section. I've really worried about him and whether this has affected him as he's been quite behind his brother developmentally. His brother is very clingy while he doesn't seem interested in me at all, which has really worried me. He has a complex illness and strong drugs for that and I worry about the effects of all this.

Took him for his regular physio appointment last week and she was delighted with him - she said he's much further ahead mentally than she would expect, and that actually he's showing advanced intelligence for his age. Then yesterday he looked at me from across the room, grinned and crawled over to me and pulled himself up on my legs for a cuddle. I feel so relieved and really proud of him.

Last week, my 12 year old learned to tie her shoelaces. She has learning disabilities, and has been working on this for about 2 years now, and she did it . She was so proud, and her teachers were really happy for her.

A tiny thing for most, but a huge achievement for her

Tammy, DS is not more distant because of being in hospital, it's his personality. DS was always in my arms as a baby because he cried constantly if he wasn't. DD1 never wanted to be picked up or held even though I was always available for her.

It's nothing you did or didn't do.

Pandas, well done your dd!!!!

mikeyssister thank you. Shortly after they were born I read this article about how harmful lack of physical contact is particularly for boys and it absolutely destoryed me. He was in an incubator for his first month and he therefore got far less contact than he would have done otherwise. I worry so much that he hasn't bonded with me. I guess I just have to give it time.

I love watching kids learning. It's fascinating. One of the reasons I volunteer at DC's school. When my DC do gymastics I love watching the young training squads at work, and I don't even know them. You can see how much they are loving what they are doing and the learning rate is phenomenal. I love seeing the whole range of talents in DC's classes, the dancers, the singers, the artists.

Sometimes it seems like anything except for academic ability is valued and nurtured more. No-one says you shouldn't send your DD to the football club as she will just get ahead of school sports and be bored in lessons. Let her be a child, she shouldn't be practicing ball skills she should be jumping in muddy puddles.

Babies are amazing! Their brains are little organic computers! Going to sound a bit bonkers now, but I was at work one day (I work in a cafe) and there was a baby there in a highchair. He beamed at me as I went past. I smiled back and he looked comically surprised and then grinned even wider. It was BRILLIANT. And I just thought:

He tried something
He got a positive response
His brain has taken that information now and processed it
It will, in an admittedly tiny way, inform his future behaviour

I mean, isn't that awesome? Everything they do, everything that happens to them, creating pathways and piece by piece making up their view of the world.
I always, always, smile back at babies, wave back at little kids, say hello to them. I want them to find the world a good place!

Perhaps I should say academic interest there. But they tend to get good at what they're interested in and vice versa.

Strummer I hate it when my precious third born smiles at someone and they ignore him. For the reasons you say not because I think everyone else should adore him as much as I do. Just like if a nice elderly person talks to you at the checkout about their bargain j cloths they have purchased they should also be indulged. Nice social interactions are contagious

Celebrate all things they achieve - big or small it doesn't matter. What to you may seem trivial to a 7yo can be huge.
Not everyone will feel the same but every child its special and unique.
My four amaze me every day. The 20yo is at uni and working in a school it yet still finds time to volunteer, my middle dd is 15 and finishing her mechanics qualification, my ds also 15 has learnt to cope and be independant and is no longer my fragile child and lastly I watch the baby dd as she finds her feet and inspires us to be the best we can.
I watch them all and my heart aches some days.

Other days I'd just be grateful if they could turn the washing machine on.