April 2021 – The Boy with the Blue Eyes

Kia ora everyone.

I come to you from bed, where I may or may not actually finish this blog tonight as I am pretty pooped! KW has been attending some webinars in the USA (on Zoom or something) for the last 2 mornings from 4am -8am so I’ve been taking over the reins, and between a diabetic little boy and a dog with the shits – well I haven’t had great sleeps.

We had clinic a couple of weeks ago, usually I do an update after that. It was alllllllll good! Beau’s HbA1c had improved which was AWESOME!!!! So there was only a tiny tweak to his insulin settings at dinner time. Yes!! Success! It is THE BEST feeling leaving there knowing that we’ve done well for Beau and I always feel like celebrating on those clinic days – although now I don’t drink I am not sure what to do lol

He also is exactly on the 50th percentile on the growth graphs for both height and weight! What a good boy! Perfect!!!!

Next time, they want us to do some blood tests with him to see how he is fearing with other Auto-Immune conditions like Coeliacs and Thyroid issues. So we have the numbing patches and I guess will wait and see what happens in a few months! EVERYTHING crossed he’s all clear!!!!!!!!!!

Although, it seems like every time we have a great clinic appointment, we leave and Beau’s levels go all ‘skewiff’ on us! Not sure why, we are keeping on keeping on and things have calmed down now as opposed to the fucking massive seesaw we were having a couple of weeks ago.

Honestly, my heart broke for wee Beau. I, of course, don’t know what it feels like but for a couple of days he went from high to low, to high, to low. And I can only imagine he felt like utter crap.

I hate those times. I hate when I have forgotten to bolus for a bit I needed to, but didn’t in case he didn’t eat it all etc. (eg. the rice is 18g for half a cup, but I’m not sure if he’ll eat it all, so I bolus only 10, then he eats it all and I forget to bolus the other 8!!!) ARGH!

The Māmā guilt is hiiiiiiideous.

So, our main news this blog is, we have decided not to send Beau to school when he turns 5 in June.

I had gotten everything organised, filled out the High Health Needs forms, arranged time off from work, changed work days (still hadn’t got his uniform!) and then I started listening to a book on Audible (my new fave thing to do on my commute to work from Lincoln) called Mothering Our Boys by Maggie Dent – it’s amazing! She was talking about why are we rushing our little boys to school before they are ready? They need play and movement etc and more time to develop their social skills and their playing is SO important to help them develop in every single way. I knew before from going to see Nathan Wallis that most boys aren’t ready for structured learning until they are about 7. Especially second boys.

The penny dropped.

WTF am I doing sending him to school when he doesn’t have pencil grip sorted, can’t write his name, has some emotional times and plays ALL DAY LONG at preschool?

I know, that being a teacher – children are taught at the level they come to school at – not where you might hope they would be aka they would help with his pencil grip, name, etc.

But how unfair of me to take his one and only time in his life where he can play all day (3 days a week) off him and rush him to school because he’s 5 and that’s what you do.

So, I knew KW could be a hard sell as he is a traditionalist. I chatted to him to plant the seed.

Then chatted to the preschool teachers – apparently he hardly ever goes to ‘4 year old group time’ the small I guess, half hour, window of focused learning they do a day. They strongly recommended he stayed there for a good few more months.

THEN it was a visit to the school, who had JUST sent away the High Health Needs form….

There, I was met with such warm support for this decision I had kinda already made but wasn’t sure, and wasn’t sure how many people I was going to piss off either.

But I was more than supported to do the right thing by my boy.

KW is happily on board too.

It blows my mind that I hadn’t previously thought of this.

I think I was so overwhelmed by Beau turning 5 and all the changes, I never once stopped to think that maybe we didn’t have to do this just yet.

I also know with all my heart, that I (we) have made this decision with Beau’s best interests at heart NOT because he’s my baby and I’M not ready for him to go to school and I’M not wanting to remove him from the great care he has at preschool.

I had worked REALLY hard to make those things not an issue.

So they weren’t.

Which means, this is the right decision for Beau.

It changes how we thought life was going to look for the most part this year, but we are being flexible with what’s going to happen and when and honestly I just feel relieved that he will have more time to grow and change and develop at his own pace, rather than being thrown into something he is not academically, physically or emotionally ready for.

This is NOT to say that he is not smart enough, AT ALL.

His intelligence actually blows me away lots of the time!!

Beau is incredible with numbers – he LOVES maths forever asking me about equations, knowing before and after numbers, ordering numbers and counting. He also thinks about amazing abstract ideas which blow my mind. Real big ideas and conversations. He has such wonderful thoughts and also some pretty odd ones too lol. His empathy can often be heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. (eg. A couple of weeks ago we were out for a walk and he was behind us and I heard him say ‘sorry’ and run to catch up with us. I thought he was saying sorry to us, but I asked him and he said he had seen something (an insect) flying and then it flew down and he had accidentally stepped on it! There was also the other time, we were feeding some ducks and then this MASSIVE Mexican duck came up out of the water and kept coming closer and gave him a huge fright and he was really scared crying and shaking etc. When he had calmed down and the big duck had moved down a little bit Beau goes over to it and quietly says ‘I like your mask’ as the Mexican duck looked like he had a superhero mask on him!

I mean, this week, he has told me he wants to marry me and he also has told me that he hates me, so I dare say, 4 year olds are… interesting!!!!!

So this is us right now.

Hope you are all good!

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