School is tough...

I could kind of leave it at that... but I won't.

We've just gone through our yearly parent-teacher meeting, and it was a rough process. I'm still trying to unpack the whys and the hows and the wherefores. Indulge me while I do it here, and maybe we can find something together.

Our take on our child is... he's lovely, he's smart, he loves learning, he does not have any real challenging behaviours, he loves new experiences and he needs preparation for them, he understands and talks well yet struggles to do both those things in a socially pressured, fast, loud environment. Oh, and he's autistic.

A bureaucratic take on him would go like this... diagnosis: autistic disorder - high functioning, language scores above 70 and in normal range, IQ scores in normal range with over 30 point difference between verbal and performance IQ, fine and gross motor delay, attention deficit issues.

Our wonderful school is the absolute opposite of a judgmental bureaucracy, but still... you getting the idea...?

We made the decision to 'mainstream' him in the most liberal, forgiving, creative environment we could find. In many ways, his schooling journey has been a miraculous one. Our little boy who would turn and run when he saw a child his age, is now calling other kids friends. He goes to (and looks forward to) birthday parties. He is developing a real understanding of the subtleties of social behaviour in a way no therapeutically supervised social skills group could have.

However, mangling the words of whoever Don McLean was quoting... the world was never meant for one as beautiful as Billy.

School, as awesome as it is (and it is awesome) is exhausting for Billy. It sucks out his energy, while replenishing his mind. The friends he craves (did I ever think I would write that?) require such mental effort to decode that he's often found weeping while playing with them. The sounds they make, more often than not in pure unadulterated joyful play, cut like knives through his brain.

So WTF-ing hell do we do?

It has not been a natural easy path to find, but we've agreed on a few things this week.

1. Billy will do short days (in Australia, afternoons at school are often full of the kind of free form chaotic experiences that beautifully concretise learning for NT kids, but unwind a lot of the gain for autistic ones like Billy).
2. Billy will start early and have some one-to-one time before school with his teacher.
3. Billy will have an aide, as many hours as we can fund.
4. Billy's teachers (and said aide) will do some ASD training and agree to use some sensory and ASD learning aids
5. Billy's Mum (that's me, hi!) will reinforce whatever's going on at school in one-to-one sessions at home.
6. Home and School will communicate in written form, and meet monthly.

I'm aware we are lucky to have a school that will agree to these accommodations. I'm also aware they are not rocket science.

It's so easy to forget the fact that while I am all wrapped up in writing claws and thera-putty, other people  haven't even heard of them. Sometimes the depth of information sharing/educating required is overwhelming, and I struggle to find a place to start.

I'm thinking, because we are in election mode in Australia right now, that we need to look at these things  in a slightly different way. I was listening to our Prime Minister (bizarrely) 'announcing' that if we return her government, they will give children under six with disabilities up to $12000 in EI services. Awesome, except that her government does that right now... not sure how that might be different just because it's happening after the election... but, that's not my point.

She said that Early Intervention was to 'prepare children with disabilities for school'. And I thought, that's great, but what about preparing school for the children with disabilities?

Why don't we have a scheme, funded by government (wow, that would be cool) or by the private sector (technology/media/gaming... the places many kids with disabilities like autism may end up actually sharing their skills... just throwing it out there) for in-service programs for teachers and other education professionals, where they are expected to skill themselves up in special needs. Maybe employers could go too. Maybe there could be cool programs for NT kids to go find out more too...

The education system (and world of employment) is going to be, whether we like it or now, increasingly populated with differently abled humans. There will never be the resources (nor the desire, hopefully) for fully segregated 'special' schools for all people with special needs. Ability is a spectrum, needs are variable and life is a rich tapestry... so, what are our plans as a society to 'move forward' (to borrow a phrase from the election campaign) together.

I'm thinking... How about the community adapts and educates itself instead of expecting the SN kids to carry the burden of educating everyone else? Maybe we could accept that disability happens, and get pro-active? How about we expect that of each other?

In the process of showcasing the innovations that parents have discovered to facilitate the mainstreaming of their SN kids, someone mentioned something really important. She reminded us that we should not enter into discussions about our kids with a deficit frame of mind. They are not less than other kids. They are kids. People. With every right to an education experience.

I love that advice. And I tried it out yesterday. And it worked. We made positive changes on a small (Billy sized) scale, that benefits him and his peers.

Now I need to take my writing claw to the election campaign...

The impact of words...

We've been trying to get Billy to have more understanding of the impact of the words he says.

Might sound strange... he's saying things, choosing certain words to say... surely he understands what those words mean, otherwise he wouldn't be able to choose them.

Yes, and no.

Billy is one of many kids on the spectrum who uses a LOT of echolalia in his speech. He always has, and at almost seven, he's still doing it. He's never really been much for the immediate echolalia, but he's a cracker at the delayed version.

He has an extraordinary auditory memory. Truly, stunningly, spectacularly extraordinary. And he draws on that memory to supplement and develop his speech.

It works out pretty well, a lot of the time. He can pull out relatively appropriate phrases quite often. People comment (a lot) on how polite and well mannered he is, on the basis of his responses to questions in public. Only the Silent Partner and I (and Billy... maybe Scruffy... not sure how extraordinary his doggy language is) know the truth.

We look at each other and think, 'Thomas the Tank Engine' or' 'Bo on the Go' or 'Grand Theft Auto'. Actually that's where it gets hairy.

Let me first explain why an almost seven year old is playing Grand Theft Auto. He saw the crashes. You may have seen his contribution to YouTube's crash collection. We turned the volume down. And we're not the only ones. Although that other kid is waaaaaay nicer than Billy is... let's just say pedestrians, lamp posts and vehicles generally are not safe in Liberty City.

We chose to turn the volume down because a few seriously ghetto phrases were coming out of a white, Australian boy's mouth. It is not a good idea to say, 'Get out of my way, sucka' to one of your classmates. Despite the fact that it will almost invariably have the desired effect.  It is offensive, inappropriate and unnecessary.

The irony of this little learning journey is not lost on me, this week... when, apart from ill-informed comments about children with special needs needing to be accommodated 'somewhere else' until they are ready to be mainstreamed, the Australian media also let the phrase, 'all boys are retarded' go by without much fuss.

Autism brings with it a life full of 'teachable moments'. I guess an on-air TV career might not.

I surprised myself today...

The 'integration of children with disabilities' controversy continues here in Australia.

Today, it appeared in a number of media formats, including on ABC radio in Queensland (one station in our national broadcaster's network). If you click on the link above, you can listen to the interview.

In response to what felt like an unusually aggressive tone from a journalist I thought was quite smart and fair, I wrote this:

In response to this conversation, I would say... life is a challenge.

Being a teacher (as I am, OK, I was a teacher... young, needed the money, you know what it's like) is hard, on a minute by minute basis.

Being a parent of a child with a child with a disability (as I am) sucks too.

Wouldn't it be lovely if all of our lives could be lived with no challenge in them?

Poor children with no educational, medical or behavioral worries (I have not met many of those, BTW). They should be able to live their lives without ever meeting anyone different to them, shouldn't they? They shouldn't have to learn about difference or disability? Why taint their perfect lives with something inconvenient and confronting? Who knows, they might actually learn some empathy or life skills.

I hardly have to add that I'm being sarcastic do I?

Before my son was diagnosed with autism, I was afraid of disability too. Who isn't? But it happens. Like illness and death and elections.

Tolerance is a bitter pill for almost all of us to swallow. Only some of us have a choice about it.

The journalist was talking to the (quite astonishing) mother behind a rapidly growing protest movement and the head of a state teachers union. I was responding, mostly to her unstated (but clearly implied) agreement with the idea that 'normal' students have resources that are naturally owed to them, taken away by their peers with disabilities. 

Instead of teasing apart what life was actually like in an integrated classroom (something along the lines of what I expected of the journo in question), it felt like she wanted to force the mother of a child who had been integrated well, to... change her mind about the benefits of inclusion/integration. That wasn't going to happen, so she played the interrupting cow game (not that I'm calling her a cow... I'm not... but she did interrupt... a lot).

The surprise, though, came in the clarity in my mind as I composed a reply.

I hadn't really thought about it before, but in most people's lives, tolerance is a choice.

When you have to face some kind of adversity - chronic medical condition, disability, financial threat... you lose the right to choose. Add that threat being aimed squarely at your child and most folk don't even pause to consider. 

I can't be sure, but I think that's why the whole 'those children shouldn't be upsetting my child's natural trajectory through life' thing got so many of us instantly riled. Certainly, it's the thing that is sticking with me.

At the same time as all of this is going on, we (as a family) are dealing with challenging stuff at school. Really challenging stuff, that I'm still not sure we can get through. 

I'm finding it very hard to accept that people don't see Billy's condition as really good reasoning for accommodating his needs. I get that it's inconvenient, and there aren't enough hours and it requires more flexibility than usual but... it's real. And wanting it not to be, or not having enough time to understand or act on it... won't make it any more real.

We don't have a choice to be tolerant of autism. Why is it people who don't live with autism (or any disability) on a daily basis think they have a choice...? 

There is no mythical place for SN kids to go for a 'suitable' education. There are a series of largely unsuitable choices, and we as parents seek the most suitable one - by reading, and interviewing, and visiting, and researching, and talking, and questioning, and comparing and rejecting, and hoping, and trusting. 

No-one wants to send their child into an unsuitable environment, for school or for any other activity. Least of all, a parent who has spent a couple of years, dragging their already struggling child to therapy sessions, early intervention, social skills groups, doctor's appointments, specialists, screenings, assessments... in the dwindling hope that things might get a bit more 'normal'.

As a parent of one of 'those children', I can reliably report that it's very hard to trust. It's very hard to accept. But it's not very hard to be tolerant. 

That comes easy when you meet the eyes of other parents in waiting rooms. It comes even easier when you see other kids in therapy doing their absolute best to master something that didn't even blip on the radar of their 'normal' sibling. It stops being an issue when you see the light switch on in the eyes of your pre-schooler as they hit some obscure milestone the twelve month old next door thinks is a game for babies.

Suck it up, 'normal' folk. Take a real (or a virtual, if you must) walk on the road less travelled - tolerance-wise. Things like empathy and sympathy and understanding. They're life abilities, renewable resources (eco-friendly) and they're things the world needs a lot more of anyway.

You'd be doing us all a favour. And you might surprise yourself into the bargain.

At the zoo...

School goes back tomorrow, which never thrills me. In response, Billy and I spent a happy day at the zoo today.

Since our Wizzy World epiphany, I'm less worried about crowds and noise on our adventures. And just to back me up, the city gave us a bleak, cold, deeply unattractive day - the sort of day when sensible people stay home with hot chocolate and dvds. Us, being deeply unsensible (a-sensible? anti-sensible?) folk... hit the wet roads. We didn't even set the sat-nav. That's how we roll.

Actually, if I had set the sat-nav to get to Taronga Zoo, a place Billy and I have been at least 200 times in the last three years, I would have myself committed. I'm getting loopy and forgetful in my old age, but hopefully, not that forgetful.

Before I get to the point (and I promise there is one), let me explain why the zoo is such a popular destination for us.

It's all about special interests. For those of you on the beginning of an ASD-centric journey - listen up, for this could be a model for how part of your future will be built. More experienced players can just sit back and smirk. I am confident I am not going to reveal anything too unique.

It's all Pixar's fault.

First, there was Finding Nemo. In the deep dark hours (for us the year and a half between 18 months and 3 years), there was a LOT of Finding Nemo. We avoided the sharks (too scary), we skipped the bit where the submarine exploded (too many sharks, and also very loud) and we loved the school scenes and Dory (who popped in and out of shot so much, she pleased our little visual stimmer no end. On that note, do not get me started on the turtles whooshing through the East Australian Current).

In a cute side story to the side story, The Silent Partner (previously known as He-Who-Thinks-Blogs-Are-Stupid... he doesn't think they are stupid, I was projecting) and I saw Finding Nemo when I was pregnant with Billy. Imagine my joy as the fertile, protective Mama clown fish and all but one of her progeny were mauled by barracuda in the first five minutes of that one...

Back to autism and Pixar. Because of Nemo, Billy loved fish.

So we bought a marine aquarium, and stocked it with Nemo, Dadda (Marlin) and Dory. Like the rest of Sydney, if we were to believe the exasperated fish shop sales folk.

Then we went to a very small (read, fairly unpopular) public aquarium here in Sydney. I won't add a  link. Don't want them to sue me for saying they are unpopular. Suffice to say, it's in a place where only big Sydney ferries go, and is close to a lot of good ice cream (both awesome bonuses).

There, we bought a dvd of Barrier Reef footage called Coral Sea.  It had subtitles. The beginning of a lifelong (I can confidently predict) love for Billy. He seriously buys dvds on the basis of whether they have subtitles or not. Within two viewings, he knew all the fish.

We were going to need a bigger aquarium.

We started going to the Sydney Aquarium, but... it was indoors, seriously busy and full of hidden hazards to the autistic (pump noises, darkness, glass bottom rooms and serious - Harry Potter soundtrack on 11 -  muzak). Too much. We backed away.

Where else could he see creatures, without feeling quite so assaulted (in a sensory sense)?

Taronga Zoo. Outside, lots of quiet spaces, a cool train running from one end to the other and a Sky Train as a bonus. Our first visit was marred by over-eager seagulls (stealing our chips and squawking, both cardinal sins in our family). We persevered. We had to, because I had already bought the first of many Friends of the Zoo yearly entry passes.

And oh, how grateful we are to Taronga Zoo.

There are animals there. Billy has a personal relationship with all of them. He knows (but thankfully isn't too distressed) when one of them moves enclosure. He knows what they eat, where they are from, who their close cousins...

There are LOTS of kids there too. And that's why we love it so much. When I say 'we' I mean the tall people in the house. Because we (tall folk) knew that we could get him (short, cute autistic fella) there by promising all his animal friends. We took the video camera with us that first time, and he's watched the video complete with annoying Mummy-as-speech-therapist voice over so... he knew all the animals very quickly. Over three years, through rain, shine and steam (Sydney summers are nasty), Billy has gone from swerving in a 10 metre circle around other kids to... well... tolerating Wizzy World.

At the zoo, he talks to the keepers. He corrects people ('Look at the lizard, Baby...' says an unsuspecting mother. 'Um... it's a Fijiian Crested Iguana,' says Billy, while slinging the baby the evil eye.

Well, the kid-hating's not completely gone. That would be one of those 'Iguanas Cured My Son's Autism' stories, and we all know they're a bit iffy. Yaks, maybe...

Oh no... what was my point?

Ah yes.

At the zoo today, we passed three separate children who were undeniably autistic. One angel faced child maybe a year or so older than Billy, flicking a well loved teddy bear repeatedly in front of his eyes and making one word requests. A two or three year old with his hands planted firmly over his ears as he shared his stroller with a giant bag of potato chips. And a very, very loud and large pre-adolescent, with no social or personal barriers to speak of...

People say the rising autism rates are because of better diagnosis - sharper teachers, more canny doctors (seriously, are you kidding me? where are they hiding these clever folk?)

I'm about to start my 43rd year on this planet, and in the last, oh, three of those years, I've seen more randomly placed (like not at school or sitting in the ST's waiting room) autistic people than in the four decades before.

I really hate to say this, but I think history will mark this period - the rise of autism, once we understand more about what the freaking hell is going on.

And, it will mark the rise of Pixar, whose stunning work I am hoping to take in in 3d this week... when Billy (the cinema hater.. another blog entry one day) goes back to school.

Told you I'd make it back to where I started!

(phew).

Having one of 'those children'...

Last weekend, a person employed for her loud and impulsive voice made some statements on Australian television about mainstreaming children with special needs. The comments were, unsurprisingly, reactionary and deeply offensive to people who have, or care about, SN kids.

A campaign started immediately, to get an apology from the woman who made the comments. It was run, astonishingly well, by parents and within a couple of days, there were 1700+ friends on a FB page. They got a half-arsed Twitter-pology from the woman, blaming them for 'misunderstanding'. Minor setback. They received an apology from the television network involved. Huge win. They are still working on getting a on-air apology from the woman herself.

All in all, a nice resolution to a serious storm in an important teacup.

The real revelation for me, though, comes in the woman (known as a social commentator)'s use of phrases like 'those children'. 'Those children' need to stop taking valuable teaching time and resources away from their normal classmates. 'Those children' need to be looked after somewhere else. Mainstream school is not the place for 'those children'.

You hear it again and again. And a surprising number of people are in total agreement. Even more would agree, but know it's not PC to say it out loud.

But here's the thing. I have one of 'those children'.

He, as you know if you are a regular reader, has a lot going for him. He  has a ton of capability and a very high IQ. He keeps himself to himself at school, and has never thought to tease, bully or rely on any kind of violence to resolve conflict. He knows more about some things (animals, in his case) than most of us could dream about, and he has the passion, drive and unique turn of thought to turn that knowledge into something truly world changing.

Sounds like the perfect kid, right? The sort of kid any teacher, child, school community would welcome.

Like any parent, I dream about his future, and I want the best for him. I try to make the best decisions on his behalf in regard to his education, his health, his emotional and social development. Like any parent, I believe my son has the right to be exactly what he wants to be - right now and in the future.

But, he's one of 'those children'.

So, I make decisions for him based on his individual needs. Here's what I know.

• he struggles in school, despite his intelligence
• he requires a lot of one-to-one attention when it comes to academics, not because he is stupid, but because, to him, the school environment is not conducive to concentration.
• he needs adults with compassion, understanding and experience around him to decode the subtleties of the world with him.

These are not qualities that gain him entry to 'special school'. His IQ and language scores are way above the cut off for those settings, and there are hundreds, if not thousands of children in this State alone waiting for access to disability/autism specific school settings. Children with more profound and debilitating clinical presentations than my son.

It may surprise people who do not have children with special needs to learn the following:

1. There are more of 'those children' than there are dedicated educational placements for them.
2. 'Those children' range in ability, temperament, socio-economic status, skill, race (just like 'the other kids')
3. Many of 'those children' have every chance of being fully fledged, employed, tax paying, world changing members of society, with the right support. 
4. Peer modeling, trained and skilled educators and inclusive curricula go some way to providing that support.
5. Children, unlike adults, acknowledge difference and in satisfying their curiosity about their differently abled peers are much more likely to live a life free of ignorant discrimination. Mainstreaming isn't just for 'those kids', it's for the rest of us as well.

To live a life where we constantly work toward reinforcing the success of those with the least impediments to that success, is to deal on a level of such shallowness that, to me, it's hardly worth trying. Where's the challenge in ensuring the inheritors of the universe actually take control of the moon and the stars? Can we really be proud, as a society, when the children of the able-bodied, wealthy and successful  themselves go on to be... able-bodied, wealthy and successful?

Before I had my son, I thought about all the great things that a child of two relatively sane, stable, capable and happy individuals could achieve. I planned for those outcomes, making career decisions and moving house to make those things possible. As all parents do, to the best of their ability.

Even though my son has a disability, I have not, and will not, alter my strategy. The journey is unique, but the destination (his future as an adult) is the same as any one else's.

I didn't expect to have one of 'those children' but now that I've got him, I'm sure as hell not letting him loose to wolves like the brassy 'social commentators' on network TV shows. I do not work as hard as I do, on a daily basis, to provide you with an easy meal.

All power to the parents behind the challenge to this TV show, and all the other media outlets who let this stuff go through to the keeper.

And to the people who make their careers by punching at easy targets... I truly hope a shallow life is enough.

A quick analogy...

I spend a lot of time trying to come up with anecdotal 'frames of reference' for the things I see in Billy that are clearly not in me... the 'autistic things' for want of a better phrase.

Yesterday, we took a return trip to Wizzy World, the scene of Billy's amazing breakthrough. It was truly the sort of place that I had just wiped off our radar - noisy, full of kids, intense and truly the sort of place that makes me sweat with fear.

Well, since his friend's birthday party he's been begging to go back, and yesterday (despite the fact that it's mid school holidays) was the day I caved. I did the usual autism mother algorithm:

time of day + possibility of huge numbers of kids - hours left in the day x what kind of a day is he having = just go and see what happens.

And so we went.

This time, we did not need our Wizzy World Angel. Billy led the way. This was his gig now. He was Wizzy World. Bizarrely (and wonderfully) he introduced himself to stranger (as in 'don't know them' not 'odder than him') kids. He played with kids (quietly, passively... but I'm taking it). He had a blast.

But one thing eluded him. The big slide.

He really wanted to go down one of the big slides (and when I say 'big' I'm talking about the sort of g forces that make little kids look like fighter pilots as they slide down).

So, right at the end of the session, when all the kids were putting their shoes on and freebasing restorative sugar, I agreed to climb up to the top of the structure with Billy, and slide down the big slide. I wasn't thinking about what my almost 42 year old face was going to do in all that wind resistance, or the kind of muscle usage I was going to require to get up there. I probably should have, but... in the light of what I discovered, I'm glad I didn't.

We made our way up squishy rock walls, around squishy rollers, through jungles of elastic, over perspex panels and freaky rope bridges... until we reached this strange part of the tower. The last stretch before the top of the temporary face-lift slide. It was vertical. It had little shelves at various levels. It needed me to enter, then twist and turn like a snake to get to the top (which, incidentally, I could not see).

Billy had already gone through, and was calling me. I had to get through it, because his only way down was on the big slide. And there was no way he was doing it alone.

I've never had a real panic attack, but yesterday, I believe I came close. I couldn't think straight. I couldn't see how to get from here to there. My brain was going all Dr Seuss, trying to bend itself in ways my body was thinking were not even remotely possible. But Billy was calling.

Hormones fought with Thinking and Hormones kicked butt - despite the fact that Thinking had made no plans at all.

I have no idea how I made it through but I did. And as I did, I had that Richard Dreyfus feeling again... I sat on the top of the slide, gripped Billy in a bear hug on my lap, and set off down the slide thinking 'This is important...'

Between the muscle twitching and the relief that we could finally go home, I couldn't put my finger on why it was important, until I talked it through with my friend this morning.

I think what I felt yesterday, when faced with something that I could understand, but not deconstruct was what Billy feels a lot.

• I know what's expected (get to the freaking top, no matter what).
• I can plan the first step (jam my middle aged body into a child sized hole).
• Beyond that, I have no idea (get stuck, need to be extracted by a helicopter, feature on news that night)

I needed to be able to process clearly, plan logically, have full capacity of all my muscle based bodily functions... and let me tell you there was no hope of any of those things. It took a leap of faith, powered by mummy hormones. Thank Christ for those mummy hormones.

Thank you Billy for having the vision and the energy to make it through Wizzy World. And for making me a mummy so I had the hormones to un-wedge myself from the primary coloured corners of hell.

The parenting dream...

These blog entries are like word photographs... little grabs of time and experience that most likely make my life seem incredibly floaty and fun.

It is fun. Definitely. And it has its floaty moments. Definitely. But there have been some hideous, horrible, frustrating teary times as well. They are fewer and further between, for sure, as time goes on. I'm so very glad about that.

Because for a long time it didn't seem like it would ever feel good.

When I was a little girl (don't you hate it when sentences start like that...? Don't worry, you're not about to get in trouble) my sisters and I used to talk about what we would be doing in the year 2000. It seemed so far away, but we'd add up the years, work out our ages and chat about our imagined careers, husbands and children.

Career-wise, I'd had a seminal experience as a five year old in the theatre in Ireland. I was taken to a production of the Wizard of Oz, and as soon as the lights went down, I knew I wanted a piece of it. I was talkative but not really a performer (read, lots of intentions but not much actual talent) but I liked words a lot. I was a precocious reader (three years old by family legend) and liked to write even at five, so my career was set. Bizarrely, I actually managed to pull that one off.

So, it was just a matter of a husband and children.

My relationship history is hardly worth writing about - essentially, a series of misguided attempts followed by a major stroke of luck. As time went on, I became more and more worried that the child I'd dreamed up wouldn't materialise. But at 35, along came Billy.

And not long after it began, my much imagined parenting journey took a swerve to the left.

Now, people who know me would know that there's nothing odd about odd to me. I've never quite fit in to the mainstream. Not different enough to be way out, but not on that straight and narrow Barbie, ballet and team sports road either.

I love that I found a lovely, understanding, funny man to make a family with. I love that I found a job that paid the bills (mostly) and was creative and interesting too. So, having a child who was destined to be a bit odd shouldn't have seemed like such a big deal.

But it was.

The realisation hit me like a ton of bricks. It hurt. It was deeply frightening. It was a threat like I'd never felt before. I was 'queen of the little kids', the favoured aunty, the babysitter of choice... this was supposed to be my moment in the sun.

I had taken on pregnancy like a member of the special forces. Full of rules and discipline and choosing to do 'the right thing'. I didn't eat anything I wasn't supposed to eat - soft ice cream, sushi, salami, salad bar salad. I extended the ban to caffeine - no coke, coffee or chocolate. I drank litres of water, ate tons of fish (I know... I lived on the coast and the doctors said it was the right thing to do... gack!) and generally looked after myself.

So this shouldn't have happened, right?

But it did.

Over the past six years, there have been moments where I thought I couldn't breathe. Sometimes it was because of the unfairness of it all. Other times it was in response to Billy's struggle to master something that other kids just breezed through. Mostly, though it was because I didn't want to accept what was going on.

I'd dreamed of this for so many years. I'd worked so hard to make it happen right. And I'd failed to make the dream happen. Let's face it, I'd flat out failed. I'd fooled myself into thinking I could succeed but, meh...

But... and it's a big but (funny that). Once we finally got Billy off to school, and I got a bit of thinking space, my perspective changed.

I realised I'd learned quite a bit on the journey so far. There's a lifetime of learning, of course, but it's incredible how much you can pick up when you have to... and with autism, you really have to. So, my brain was well exercised.

I also realised that the career that often failed to bring the dollars, brought a lot of flexibility. I could work from home, I could bring a whole lot of new perspective to my work practice (lord knows lots of autistic kids have a passionate relationship with kids television).

Finally, I can confidently confirm that, in my experience, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It also makes you much more efficient, increases your time management skills and means you care so much less about things and people that annoy you.

I dream about the future now, like I did when I was a child. But now it's Billy's future I wonder about. And it's not my sisters I share my dreams with, because they have kids of their own to speculate about. Now, I share my thoughts and fears with a new bunch of women - autism mothers. They're just like sisters, really. We giggle about mistakes, we challenge each other's ideas, we sob on each other's shoulders, we tell stories from the trenches that no-one else would understand...

With their support, a bit of space to think and a real reason to succeed... I've reached a point where my parenting dream is becoming a reality.

Watch, next week, some other giant hurdle will appear in front of me on the road less travelled. Throw me a giant squid wielding a light sabre. See if I care.

Actually, I might. That's the stuff of bad dreams...