Making the hard decisions

 Harper,

This week we had kinder orientation. This year I decided you'd repeat 3Yo kinder. I say I because this was more my choice than your dads, which just made the decision even harder. It's decisions like these I wish we agreed on, then I wouldn't spend months doubting mine, but here we are. My decision, my shoulders.

As I've started preparing you for a new class with different friends and different teachers I can tell your becoming anxious. Most days before kinder you ask if Kale will be there, worried about the day he won't. You've come a long way this year, made a best-friend, found independence and gained trust in yourself. This decision has been agonising, making me restless, as I jumped back and forth, so many times, knowing deep down this was always the decision I'd make.

I want to be able to send you on, to have you with the friends you've made and not be repeating what you've already learnt. But I just can't.

I need you to have a better understanding of your allergies by the time you reach school age. I need for you to be safe, and one more year gives you a better chance of outgrowing some, maybe all of your allergies. I want you to know this decision never had anything to do with you intelligence. ever. Your smart, there's no hiding that. Don't ever question it, don't ever doubt it.

Next year brings change, because the time-frames have been shortened only fruit will be served. You'll be able to sit with everyone, no longer be singled out, you'll no longer have an aid. A year to belong.

Some people think it should have been like this from the beginning, I'm no so sure. Although there's been heartbreaking times this year, you've learnt a lot, you're learning boundaries. The escape from our safe home has opened your eyes to dangers that weren't obvious to you before. I hope that a year of being just another child in the class brings you out, I hope you belong. But more than anything I hope it doesn't leave you devastated the following year when things become difficult again.

No one said this was going to be easy, making decisions for my life is hard. Making decisions for your life is harder.

Harper, my first born, my first love. It doesn't matter what year you start school, because you were born to be great.

I love you

Mama

Letting go, again. A life with allergies

His eyes opened wide and a smile spread across his face. His mother had spent the last three and half years getting to know her son, and yet at that moment the look on his face puzzled her, it wasn't one she'd seen before and it made her wonder what he'd say next.

Then he spoke, a simple sentence "Mama, today I sat with Bailey". 

At that moment his mother fought hard not to cry, she wanted to cry because he was so happy, because it was time, and because it shouldn't be this hard. Something as simple as a child being allowed to sit on a table with his friend to have a snack should not be this hard, and yet for him it is.

The decision to start 3YO Kinder this year has had incredible highs and extreme lows, the lowest moment being the day they held a breakfast event. I watched Harper as he watched 22 other children. He watched as they screamed with excitement, fighting over who they were going to sit with.
I lead Harper to a small table pushed into the corner, where he sat with me alone. I tried to distract him but it was no use. I couldn't get his attention. couldn't break his gaze. So instead I watched, I watched as he didn't take his eyes off the other children.
The other children didn't look at us, and Harper didn't ask me why he had to sit alone, I guess he's use to it, but after that day he told me he didn't want me to stay at kinder again.

Being a mother brings a lifetime full of moments where you have to let go, moments you have to put trust into others, put trust into your child, and pray everything will work out. Learning to loosen the reins is hard, but sometimes necessary.

My baby Bear, I'm so happy you can now sit with your friend, I'm so sorry it took me so long to let you. I'm just scared, the thought of something happening to you terrifies me. Sometimes the fear is overwhelming, it consumes me. I hope you don't remember feeling so isolated, I wish it wasn't like this. I'd do anything to take your allergies from you, but I can't. Baby steps. I love you.

Kinder and letting go. A life with allergies.

The dvd tells me to use strong words like, life threatening allergies, as well as anaphylaxis.

I've just walked in from Harper's three year old kinder orientation.
I've gone back and forth on the decision to send him to kinder so many times i've lost count. The anxiety that comes with letting go sneaks up on me and when it does its breathtaking. I'm fine, and then I'm not, its hard and terrifying, and I just wish it was over. I wish I didn't have to worry about food anymore. I know it could be far worse, I'm thankful everyday I have a healthy child, but the idea of him being in a room with 22 other three year olds eating food that could kill him is a lot to get your head around.

We had a meeting with staff today where we prepared an action plan, they are trying to find room in the kinder budget for an aid to be with Harper, as before age 4 the government doesn't fund an aid, fingers crossed.

I stumbled onto an allergy forum the other day, There was a mother complaining about how she couldn't understand why the 21 children in her child's class had to go without peanuts because one child was allergic, she couldn't see how it was fair. People like this infuriate me. Your poor child is not able to eat peanut products for a couple of hours. I can imagine how this must be so terrible for you. Did you stop and think of what life is like for the family with the allergy?

I wonder what type of mum I would be if I didn't have first hand experience...

Would I complain because I couldn't send a PB and jelly sandwich to kinder? Would I get annoyed every time I had to check a food label before closing the lunch box? If it didn't effect my child directly would I care? I hope so.

Before Harper I didn't know, I didn't understand allergies, the way they impact you entire life.
But now,  now I know. I can tell you a dozen different names for milk, I can tell you if your child's eating while they play on the playground I'll have to leave. I know when your child rides in an ambulance they let you keep the sheet. I can tell you when you baby goes pale, floppy and lifeless in your arms your heart stops, but your mind races.

I pray I can stay calm, I hope I can be positive, there's no baby steps that come with handing over this kind of responsibility, I just have to educate them as well as I can, and have faith it will be ok.

So there is the long story of why it has been quite here. I've been spending my small amount of spare time, reading books and preparing for kinder.