Back 3 years later this blog is indeed turning into an homage to delay of all kinds. Forget the genetic testing just look at the mother's work habits. Years behind other kids you say? Hmmmm, can't think where she gets that from. A new project about to begin that features M has prompted my return to trying to capture some of the beautiful,scary, uplifting, depressing,rewarding and frustrating experience that is raising a child like M. Watch this space.

Get me to the church on time

This week we are going back to Scotland for my sisters wedding, M and E her brother each excited in their own ways, E to see his cousins and hang out with his favorite Uncle and M to wear a party dress and go to a wedding. Lately every doll or toy has to get married, she loves like most little girls the idea of dresses and flowers and romance. This burgeoning interest in all things romantic in cute boys and being in love is normal and developmentally appropriate and breaks my heart.
That might seem like a rather over the top reaction from me but it cuts deeply to the fear of future that all parents of kids like M have, M is, as it happens extremely pretty and naturally flirtatious, qualities that often confuse people into not realizing the depth of her disabilities her looks bring her a lot of positive attention but are such a double edged sword for her vulnerability as a special needs kid on the brink of puberty.Reality is she will most likely never get married herself but will most likely fall in love and have huge romantic crushes, how to protect her though all of that and find an independent life for her feels this week of the wedding like a heavier than usual weight. The only thing to do is resist the indulgence of future speculation and get back to the here and now of packing her pretty dress and go dance up a storm at the wedding, waltz on.

Arrested development

Back in 2007 I thought I would blog about my daughter M, her severe developmental delays and the strangeness of navigating our life around them, then I stopped after one post. I then thought about starting again in 2009 then stopped once more due to the voice in my head telling me this stuff is too personal and one more personal narrative out in the webosphere is a truly unnecessary thing. Well finally have put an internal gag in place once again. It is however now April 2010 I think fair to say M not the only one suffering developmental delays.

return

As my last (and first) post was in 2007, I think I have to count 2008 as my gap year even though I am far too old for such terminology and certainly never had one, though certain people would look at my life for the last ten years or so since leaving HK and consider it more of a gap decade, but as ever I ramble and digress, point is I couldn't bear sharing really so why try again now I wonder. Well after a truly wonderful festive season my merriness was abruptly halted by some dreadful health news about a beloved friend , it's their story and not for me to divulge publicly but suffice to say the suffering involved is of the major and catastrophic variety with no happy endings in sight so suddenly felt like I had plunged into the 'LIFE IS SHORT' pool and was floundering around trying to express myself and for better or worse had an impulse to return to this blog. Partly too it's a fairly anonymous way to publish as god knows the name of it is so obscure its not like most people will stumble across it from a google search, and have told only my very trusted friends that it exists at all, safety in the shadows or some damn thing.

One foot in front of another

Hmmm, the great blank page, and why the urge now to blog when you have never managed more than a quarter full diary or journal in your entire life. I look at the volumes of notebooks that other people fill and wonder why when words are humming around my head all day aand I am endlessly doing bits of writing for other people why I never attend to my own. So this blog will have to serve as the answer to all that internal nagging.
Of course would love to be using this as a platform to showcase my literary efforts but frankly they aren't up to public scrutiny and the impetus came from reading India Knights blog called 'Isn't she Talking Yet?'
Readers of that blog will now instantly know that I am the parent of a 'special needs' child and rightly or wrongly assume that's what this blog is leaning toward, truthfully I'm not sure myself yet but do know I need a space to record some of the experiences of the last year or so.
So where to begin, on India Knight's blog there was lot of stuff to relate to except that she and the other parents writing on it are all in the Uk and here I am in Spain, dealing with all the same issues but in Spanish and Catalan, giving the whole thing a slightly surreal quality. It has that out of body aspect to be interviewed in a language you don't speak fluently about your childs language development issues, not so much the blind leading the blind as the language challenged representing the language delayed thus my need to write about it in my native tongue in a different place. And the title, well again those familiar with the territory may have been asked when their child began to use opposing feet to climb or descend stairs, any other parent has hopefully gotten away with a mere 'what age did they begin to walk?' I was at an interview for a place at a special needs school and was asked this question amidst many others designed to try and and shed some light on M's developmental delays. When we left the interview, to exit the building, I had to walk down two flights of stairs in front of the shrink and about halfway down realised I was frantically opposing my own feet lest I let slip some hereditary predisposition toward developmental delay. This is the kind of thing that happens to me when I spend too much time with school shrinks. Of course it could be argued that they might have a point..I sure as hell don't know what mine is but I do know that 42 year olds should not be concentrating on their oppositonal footwork. That moment at the foot of the stairs was another reason to blog.