Early morning musing

[Twiglett]

I am wondering whether I am allowed to muse here

I came to a realisation in the early hours of this morning that gave me further food for thought and even greater respect, admiration and just plain awe at the way parents of children with SN manage to control their own emotions and stifle their own needs for so much of the time.

My next door neighbour is an amazing woman. A single mother of teens and an adopted (previous fostered) child of 7 who has complex SN (global development delay / autism). She continues to foster and as a family unit they are quite honestly more than anyone could hope for as neighbours, a real pleasure to know.

My DD who's 2 is totally enamoured of the 7 year old, she climbs to the top of DS's slide and shouts her version of his name over the fence. He in turn sings her songs, nursery rhymes and generally shouts back.. I remember when DS (who is now 5) used to do exactly the same.

Don't know the point of this post .. I just know I wouldn't want to live next door to anyone else.

So sometimes, maybe, when you catch people looking at you .. or you wonder stupidly what other people are thinking .. consider that may just feel honoured to have you as a part of their lives.

I hope you tell them that - even if it is a card that says that popped through the mail box cause you know what - you har more negative things said about you and your children than positive and it is easy to not remember the lovely things that have happened or been said when some old man is waving his walkings tick in your 3yo's face.....

If you are looking - a genuine smile also helps... you learn to tell the difference between an understanding and caring smile than a smirk iyswim.

Tell me that is what you think rather than letting the tutting, tsking, horrid irnoramuses have the last word.

sorry but had a crappy time with intolerant people on the weekend. had to bite my tongue so many times.

You are more than welcome to muse here too.

Thats really nice of you to say Twiglett

And of course you are allowed to muse on here

Aww that's sweet twiglett. We are lucky with our neighbours here - they're very tolerant and one family adore ds1 (the man has a grandson with AS so he's extra interested).

Stick eidsvold? DH and ds1 got chased down the road by a man with a stick before (ds1 was going through a peering through letterbox stage and was faster than dh- I told dh you have to stand betwen him and the letterbox.).

eidsvold .. hope you took it off him and beat him to death with it

as for my neighbour ... she knows

As you know my DD has special needs but they pale into insignificance at the special needs of my neighbours DS. He is blind, can't speak or walk and they don't know why or what to call it etc. The mother is the sweetest, kindest lady on the street, always, always puts my bin out when she does hers, leaves a space for me to park my car, offers to go to Sainburys for me (always say no and offer to do hers), offers to babysit (never taken up but begged her to let me sit for her). Good neighbours are fab.

Btw - re that smiling thing that Edisvold mentions, I spoke about that on a thread somewhere the other week. A genuine happy smile is fab and you can tell the difference between that and a 'ohhh poor you, how awfu;, how do you cope' smile.

And do you know what, have to add this, people in my life are honoured to have me in their lives. And I don't mean that how it might come across at first. Not cos of me, but becasue of the fact that I bought Lottie into their lives and I think everyone is better of for knowing her and being part of the special needs world. I think it's taught a lot of people a lot of things. It united a lot of people and enriched lots of lives when she was born.

thomcat what you wrote was lovely and I so agree my dd does that as well.