Revelations of a Slummy Mummy

B has a particular passion for peculiar sensory experiences. He has been diagnosed with a sensory processing disorder; simply put his brain is wired up differently and the way he perceives things through his five senses is fairly topsy turvy in comparison to you or me.   Where we can filter and subconsciously decide important objects versus background objects in our immediate environment, B struggles with this. Often this will play out in either sensory seeking or sensory avoidant behaviours, which can in turn result in the most comical situations for us as a family. Most of the time I will try these things out with the purpose of understanding B that little bit more, but even I draw the line at poo-smearing. I was wandering around Sainsbury’s one day with B when he was a lot younger. He was, as every two year old in Sainsbury’s seems to be, wholly unimpressed by the supermarket scenario, despite my best undignified mum attempts to entertain him. Four wheels on the bus renditi...

Disclaimer: If you fall into the ‘Let’s rejoice, the holidays are here!’ category I apologise in advance for raining on your parade. However, please don’t feel the need to call me out on my poor pessimistic parenting, I may just feel the need to punch you in the face. ;-) I don’t know about you, but I am one of those people who slightly dread the school holidays- no sooner do they start and you’ll find me counting down to when they finish. I love spending time with my kids, I really do, but when there are four of them and one of me, the ratio doesn’t swing too well in my favour. Our respite for B won’t stretch to cover an extra pair of hands for every day and S is usually working, leaving me the daunting task of keeping four children alive by myself for a whole two weeks. One day in and I am full of forced optimism for the coming fortnight, reminding myself of all the lovely things we can do now there’s no school. Delusions of grandeur dance through my head as I imagine skipping...