Run out of the cave, run out of your hole!
Bear, Rabbits and little Moles
Hatch from your eggs in threes!
The Bugs are back with the Bees.
The Flowers bloom when the Grass is green.
How ever do they know it’s Spring?
“Quick! The Bear is here, now don’t slack!”
And all the Fish swam, like on a racetrack.
Bears, Rabbits and Bees,
Grass, Flowers and Trees,
They feel the warmth of the Sun.
And that’s when they know that Spring has come!
March is a month of reflection plus an embarrassing amount of celebrations and merrymaking. But I am getting ahead of myself… let’s start the blog from the beginning of 2022.
Mr Morg in Primary 1!!!! Finally. I hate to be cliche but I was absolutely emo seeing my little boy all grown up. Waah!!!! Dead pan look from Megan. Pull yourself together mummy!
The past 6 years have been a confusing and often depressive search for a diagnosis and decisive action plan for Morgie. Starting from Day 3 of his birth, suspected of hearing losses in both ears, we went through multiple specialists and with help from many family and friends pulled through mind blogging logistics.
Rotated through three psychologists for his multiple
and multiplying issues. Can’t eat, can’t write, can’t hear, can’t talk, can’t
focus, autism, ADHD etc. Endless conditions observed, 360 degree directions given, 100% work on caregivers.
His first psychologist was imposed onto us by the Institution for early intervention. Morgan was ready clientele in their database (of wrong diagnosis). Shaming and guilt tripping were deployed heavily to ensure we parents, do our best so that our kids are not "left behind", dragging down the whole Singapore cohort. After showing the institution our middle finger (regretfully a bit late), we engaged a freelancer psychologist who turned to be a fraud. Ha!
OK, one last psychologist just to write a deferment letter. Morgan was evaluated (again) but this time, I was briefed on a very different diagnosis - Morg has superior VSI, FSI, WMI, high average VCI but jialat jialat PSI.
Meaning? We just want a normal functioning life for our son, hopefully in a mainstream school…
Explanation – Good news is, Morgie has superior full scale IQ of 131. Bad news is, he displays very weak processing speed, everything is jammed up at some bottleneck in his brain. The standard way of engagement and learning does not work. We have to find new ways and the clock is ticking. And of course, Morgie may well be on the spectrum, which does not mean anything since everything is on a spectrum.
We literally start all over again. Changed 5 preschools and 3 speech therapists. I can never forget feeding Morgan his lunch in cabs, while swallowing warm tears because we were stuck in massive traffic jams due to traffic accidents. Stressing over $5 for every minute loss in therapy time. Expensive. Therapies are expensive.
So expensive is everything that I eventually take matters in my own hands. Whatever the therapist touches on, I will expand the syllabus. Learning to converse? I can draw him a book with speech bubbles to give him the basic words to kick start different life scenarios. Whatever I see relevant from OT Toolbox, Autism and ADHD webpages, I can turn into games and activities - learn cause and effect, the different basic human emotions, hand eye coordination etc.
We are by no means the only parents who exhaust ourselves for our children with special needs. I have many friends who do more just to give their kids a normal childhood. Many tears and many joys. Now, Morgan is Primary One in a mainstream school.
Now. 2022. I receive letters from Morgan – the boy with problems gripping, writes "I really miss you, mum". (though Megan clarifies that he actually misses my phone. If I come back from Dubai earlier, my phone comes home earlier too)
Now. 2022. Every time I ask him to stop youtube, I can hear “我不可以，我肚子痛,
I will be devastated, destroyed, ruined, exterminated, broken, crushed,
damaged, drowned….” The boy who could only engage in echolalia, now reserves his vocabulary for more irritating ventures.
Except for the non stop yapping from him, there is general peace in the household. Ken, on his continuous improvement plan, striving for his Shuhari de Ri. I, in my ikigai mode with everything in moderation – no unhappiness of scarcity, no discomfort of excess. Too satisfied with the Now to dwell on the future or use my brain for anything new. 2022 with Netflix has been good enough, so far...
“Kind? Not really, more like helpful and generous. Independent yes. No, not popular please. Oh I want to be Cool!!!”
Independent. Good. Petrol is expensive these days.
To be Cool. Now, now, now, isn't that my forgotten lifelong pursuit!!! Back in the old days, to be cool was to upgrade from people watching in the canteen to developing deep consideration to the masses by pretending you notice yet didn’t notice your hundreds of admirers looking at you. Please, people, this is not some mental self indulgence game. This is the perfect awareness of self and the environment.
You cannot appear too deliberate. You cannot be
too slack. Think Goldilocks – everything must be JUST RIGHT! At the right moment, your hair falls casually and frames your profile at your best angle. You
silently curse that hot sun (aiyah hair sticks to your neck). But the cool
breeze will nonchalantly flutter the few strands loose. Perfect. This is the epitome of
Cool… Breeze? Breeze. Now please. Breeze…
Being Cool is to be the Ri in Shuhari because nobody will perceive a dumbass cool even if he/she has the looks. Only when you are a master of your own craft can you casually display that very subtle Art of graceful, non-striving demeanor. The hardworking model student image is out because a linear studious path is utmost uncool (from the looks of crispy pages of all your textbooks, reckon you know this well enough). One has to be a non-conformist and having a detached style matters. Just ask me, I have decades of experience being cool. Or rather......
Maybe I lost it many years back. Someone called me an auntie yesterday. Reflect. Reflect. Sigh... Yes, it is time for me to get back into the game. Ken's gonna be left behind eating dust again but he will understand as I need to walk this path with my dear Megan now.
A deep self reflection is in order. Give me a while to get myself back in my element folks… I will be back.
