My Boy's Picasso Cubism Style Art Work

J has a love of art. I've posted before drawings he has made using his Mega Sketcher, (links to these are at the end of this post). His artwork can be inspired from something he's watched on t.v, or something he's seen when out and about. 
A lot of his drawings can also be interpreted as having a deeper meaning, stemming from inside his head, where his is 'locked in' and is unable to express himself verbally.

At his school, they spent some time looking at the works of Picasso. They looked at his artwork over several lessons and were then given various art materials and allowed to create their own masterpieces. 
It was during a routine parents meeting at school, which was at the end of this art week, that the teacher produced his art work for me to view, which he had made from these Picasso sessions. I was gob smacked. They were amazing. Amazing to me as he had really taken in the form of Picasso's cubism style.

I only have colour copies of his work at the moment, as his work is being displayed in his school, so the photos below are the best quality I can show.

When I receive the original copies I am planning to frame them and display them in the house. I do have other art work my children have made, displayed around the house, as I want them to be proud of what they have created. 

A canine inspired cubist piece of art, created by J at his school.

A cubism style inspired person, produced by J at his school.

This drawing was made by my middle son, who is 8 years old. His teacher brought her gecko in for his class to see, and he drew this. I've framed it, and it hangs in our hall way.

Links to previous posts about J and his art work ;

New Drawings and Verbalising Them To Me
Storymaker Drawings and Attention To Detail
More Drawings and Update On Previous Post (this is an update on the first link in this list)
Another Amazing Drawing By My Boy
Shadow
The Drawings of J
Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night

Nystagmus Update On My Third Son (Who's Now Five!)

I think it's about time I did an update on my youngest child, and his eyes.
At the bottom of this post I have put links up to all my previous posts about him, so you can view what I have written about him and his 'wobbly eyes'.

To recap very briefly, W has nystagmus. He was born with it, and I was the first to pick up on there being something wrong with his eyes, as early as around two weeks of age.
A lot happened, and I had to fight, and eventually pay to have him diagnosed, as my local NHS stated they wouldn't offer him an appointment until he was at least nine months old (plus the TEN month waiting list after that).

Well, W has recently turned five years old (where does the time go?), and he has been wearing prescription glasses for around 14 months. The prescription glasses are for his severe short sightedness and not, as many believe, for his nystagmus. 
Nystagmus cannot be corrected or helped by wearing glasses, so when someone wears them, it is for a different vision impairment.

These are his current glasses, and he loves them! The good old Gruffalo! 

W started at kindergarten in January of 2014. He is still in the kindie class now, and will move to lower primary when he is around six years old. Technically in the UK here, he would have started at a primary school in September of 2014, but I didn't want him in a big class of 30-35 children, with three to four classes per year, where there is an over worked teacher that does more paper work than teaching, and where I felt he would not receive adequate care, let alone teaching.
In my area too, there is no provision for a specialist vision impairment school, and despite there being one just outside of our catchment, our local authority refused to send him there. 

So again I took matters into my own hands, and instead of putting up with the poor offerings for schooling, I looked around for myself, at fee paying schools. 
At that time my middle son was not progressing well at his primary school, and when the school informed parents that it was expanding again to accommodate even more children per class, I knew it was time to remove him, and at first home educate solely. 
I then found a private school that had the ethos of education I am very passionate about - child centred learning, within small classes (maximum of 10 per class, and 60 throughout the whole school), with excellent teaching staff, and the focus of learning not derived from continual testing and reaching government targets.
My middle son excelled here, and as I became more involved, I could see my youngest would only attend here, and would bypass state schooling completely.

The school has been very involved in understanding about W and his eyes, and they are aware of helping him negotiate stairs, obstacles, a new layout in class, making text larger for him to see, and allowing him longer to look at things, as his eyes sweep over continually and take longer to 'see' what the image is.

W has to attend a twice yearly appointment with an ophthalmologist, who performs a routine eye exam to see if he requires stronger lenses for his glasses. This Dr is also a specialist in nystagmus, and therefore he has performed various other exams on his eyes, and recorded a lot of data about them. 
As of our last appointment, the Dr has suggested that he doesn't think W's nystagmus is idiopathic (no reason) any more, and he believes it stems from a cause of another reason, one of which he thinks is a high possibility, is ocular albinism, (which does not cause skin or hair pigmentation loss).

There is still no cure, and despite there possibly being an actual reason for him having nystagmus, it still means he'll never be rid of his wobbly eyes or vision loss.
He and I have had some genetic tests taken, to see if there is a rare disorder that I may have passed down to him. I am still waiting for the genetic tests for J to come back as well, and that has been three years now! J's tests are part of a huge independent study, and because there was such a big interest and uptake of people wanting to join, they are taking a lot longer to test the samples sent to them.
As I have said before, I am fully aware that genetic tests will not mean we will find a cure for either boy, it is important for me to allow my children (not J for obvious reasons) to be forewarned and armed before they start a family. If there is a genetic disorder uncovered, the boys will be able to decide if they start a family, or if they adopt. I am trying to give them a choice over their future. O my middle son does not appear to have any disability, but it is important for me to allow him to know if he could be a carrier of a GD.

Another part of W's disability is that he has a speech delay. 
One year ago his speech was still very poor, and he was unable to communicate clearly to people, but me being his mum, I knew what he was trying to say.
We had been to a speech therapist before, and were told that he was okay and to wait another year.
When he reached four years old, I was fed up of the NHS again not willing to offer him any help. So again we had to go down the private route, and I paid for a speech therapist. 
In her initial assessment, she said he had oral motor delay, and that what he hears, somehow gets a little lost or confused, and what he then says doesn't come out properly. He thinks he's said it the way he's heard it.
We had intensive therapy, and only a few months after starting it, he was improving so rapidly, that the speech therapist said she didn't think he would have progressed as well as he did, after her first meeting with him. He surprised her with his will to succeed.
His speech is still faltering and he misses letters out of certain words, but he is a lot more aware of his own speech, and aware that he must listen to the end of words and hear if they are different - an example being the words 'too' and 'tool', 'sue and soup', 'loo' and 'loot' - the last letter sound he must listen for. We do little games where he has to perform a fun thing, such as hop or jump, only when he hears a word with a sound on the end. If it doesn't he must stay still. I do little bits of therapy with him at home, several times a week, as it's important to keep it up, and not rely on a one hour session per week with the therapist. 

Recently I took him for a hearing test, as I wanted to rule out any hearing impediment being a hindrance to his speech, and sure enough the test came back that one ear cannot hear low tones very clearly. He also has glue ear, and after a repeat test in a few months time, he may have to have grommets fitted to help. His overall hearing is fine.

As for W himself, he is awesome. He is funny, clever, spirited, cheeky, loving, kind, thoughtful, expressive, and above all, perfect. He has lots of friends, and is very chatty to people, wanting to say hello and goodbye to the postman, bus driver, shop keeper....he loves life, playing games, having stories read, drawing, crafting, singing, and spreads joy and happiness with his smile and friendly nature. He wants to help others. He hugs you when you feel sad. He wants to make you happy again. It is only when people see his eyes moving involuntarily that they realise he has a disability. He looks 'normal' and behaves 'normally', with no behavioural issues or learning disability.

He wears his glasses with no complaint. He attends all his appointments with ease, and although the last eye drops were a bit of a drama, he allowed them to be re-done  - the first nurse to administer them was not very friendly, and then was clumsy and spilt the drops so wasn't sure how much went in. His eyes were stinging and he refused to allow her to do any more - he was frightened and in pain.  A second lady appeared, and her skill and chatter put him at ease, and he let her re do the drops. 

Recently we took him and his middle brother to a bowling alley. We had taken them before, and W had always got bored and started acting up. This time, whilst it was his turn to bowl, and using one of these metal bowling stands for children, 

(stock image of metal bowling stand)

I realised something - When he lets go of the ball, and it rolls down this frame, he doesn't see where it goes, or what happens at the end of the lane. I was like,"duh, that's why he gets so bored "!! I felt so bad for him, and for putting him through it. We have tried so hard to not make an issue of his eyes, and to include him in everything. I should think a bit more it would seem. 

W takes it all in his stride. He is my Super Boy, and I am so proud of him and his achievements and will to succeed. 


Here are links to my other posts I have written about W and his eyes. 

Nystagmus Update on my Toddler 24th March 2012
Nystagmus and the New Baby 13th March 2011
Nystagmus - My Third Child 14th May 2010

The Journey From Denial and Regret, to Complete Acceptance.

I consider myself lucky to be where I am in regards to acceptance of J. I took several stops off at self pity, denial, regret, anger, and wanting to give up. It has taken years to be where I finally stand, and years to be able to say that I fully accept J for what he is, who he is, and the future he has.

Along my way I have met many parents who have stopped off at the same place as I was at, or were a few stops behind or in front. Some parents were at the end and were happy and accepting. I looked at them and couldn't see myself being in that place.

I visualise this journey through emotions as being on a map, with various stop offs, but with the end of the journey nearly always being the same destination - acceptance. Sometimes you go back a stop, jump to the next one, miss one out completely. It's not always a straight line from A to B.
The stop offs may not appear in the same order for you either, this picture I've created is a way to demonstrate visually what I am attempting to write.

When I was at the denial stage, I hadn't really heard much about autism, and would excuse J's behaviour ; never wanting to sit down with the other children at snack time, or want to join in with them at sing and rhyme time (at toddler groups when he was 2-3 years old) - I'd say he was a late talker, or liked to be independent. One mum at the toddler group matter of factly asked me if he had autism, and I immediately replied "no"! I didn't have a clue really, but was aware she was talking about a disability, and I denied it. I didn't want to face facts that he did have difficulties, and that I was worried.
That defining moment still lives with me. I remember it clearly. I remember how I felt. Having someone else point out what I was internally worrying about, created an avalanche of emotions, and I became buried even deeper in denial.

We were sent for a hearing test, a kind of par for the course routine test that is done, to initially rule out hearing loss to be the cause of the lack of speech development and communication.
Here again, I sat in denial, amongst children that were a lot like J, and for whom I could hear the parents talking about autism, and I could see posters up on the walls giving guidance for suspected autistic children.
He doesn't have autism. Nope. He's just a later developer. He's my first born. If I had a £1 for every time someone back then told me about Einstein and the fact he didn't talk until he was 5 years old, to complain about his porridge (or something like that), and when asked why he had never spoken before, he replied, "because my porridge has always been fine before", I'd not be rich, but I'd have a money jar full to the brim.
The hearing results came back as fine.

It was a few months later when we had a paediatrician appointment, which had been arranged by our GP, that I was to be given a diagnosis, that was made after literally a thirty minute meeting with the paediatrician.
She handed me a leaflet, not a booklet, literally a folded piece of A5 paper, that talked about autism, and our newly diagnosed child.

You know when you're in your own world, thinking, or maybe on the phone, and you walk slap bang into a glass door, or cupboard, not realising it was there, because you weren't concentrating, and it's like..............

That was what I liken this experience to. Coming out of the denial fog and face first into a great big sign that screamed 'AUTISM'. 'DISABILITY'. 'SPECIAL NEEDS'.

I was dazed. Confused. Shocked. In this little leaflet it told me how my life was never going to be the same again, and that my child would depend on me forever.

At home, and before Google and easy access to the Internet, and not wanting to believe the diagnosis, or the leaflet, I got out my old family medical journal. Under autism it had a short paragraph, that basically informed me that my child would never be independent, never drive, marry, live alone, would be a danger to himself, socially inept, a loner.....

We moved very soon after, to a new area, and at the new GP surgery I was told that they do not make such sweeping diagnoses' within one appointment, and that it will take a year of regular observations, from professionals, before they would give out such a diagnosis.
That gave me some hope as I was still lingering in denial.
I had begun to dip my toes into regret as well though. It had to be my fault. I probably didn't talk to him as much as I should have. I didn't interact with him enough. One person, who shall remain nameless, once told me that it was my fault, as I was the only one with him all day, every day, and so it was down to me. I caused it. That comment still hurts me to this day. Still rattles about, niggling me, but, as I have learnt so heartily over the last decade, you can't live in the past.

Over the coming year, we attended a weekly session along with other children of similar ages.
There were play assistants that interacted with the children, and it was just like a playgroup/nursery setting.
There were parent lessons that we attended during this time. We watched videos, were taught from text books, and talked about our children. It became patently clear to me that he was indeed on the spectrum, or had a severe learning difficulty.
At the end of that year, there wasn't really a big grand 'ta-da' moment. It had built up, trickled in, flicked the light switch on in my brain. So there was never a big build up to them telling me. They knew I knew.
It was from here that they suggested a special school, I went to visit, fell in love with it, and a whirlwind of him being given a Statement of Special Needs (required in the UK to be able to attend a special school or to get extra help in a mainstream school), and him starting as a 'preschooler', attending a few mornings a week, several months before he was able to start in the new school year at the recommended school starting age.

I have bypassed going in depth about the dreadful mainstream playgroup he attended during his one year observations, as it was truly an awful experience for him and me. Their special needs assistant had no empathy, care, or desire to want to help J. I removed him within a few months, after many promises of them trying harder. It was not J at fault, it was them. They were an awful childcare place. I will probably write about them in a future posting.

Around the time J was being assessed, he began to be destructive within the home. He also developed complete terror at me leaving the house without him. I couldn't even go outside to the main bin to empty the kitchen rubbish, without him screaming and crying.
The destructive behaviour he displayed at home resulted in him smashing every cup, plate, mug, lights, lamps, tipping over bookcases, opening drawers and emptying them all over the floor.... in the end we stopped replacing items and used paper plates, plastic cutlery (because I didn't feel comfortable having regular cutlery around in case he used it against me or himself) plastic cups, we had no lights (as smashed glass from bulbs is no fun to step on), and I stopped trying to put everything back on shelves and in drawers, as he would do this several times a day. It was exhausting. I was at a very low ebb. I fell into self pity. I wanted to give up. I mean, I really wanted to give up. I spoke to someone about perhaps having him removed from me, as I was obviously not coping with him, and I wasn't able to help him stop. I was useless, I believed.

I remember attending a family birthday meal at a restaurant, and J acted up, with people from other tables staring and tutting, and I had to leave. I sat in my car, with J, and my Uncle D came out and sat with me. I just cried and cried. I had never shared with any family member just how hard it was for me, and how hard I found it all.

One day though, it all stopped. As another destruction free day ended, I tried not to get my hopes up that it was the end. But the days turned to weeks, and it had just stopped, as swiftly as it had all started.
He was happier, I was happier. My self pity gradually disappeared, and I began on the long road of regret.

I would spend my time pouring over possible causes for his autism/learning difficulties, and I could identify with a few possible reasons as to why it was my fault he had a disability. I had a huge craving for tuna fish during early pregnancy, and there were no mercury warnings back then, or advice to restrict your intake during pregnancy as has emerged over the last decade.
His birth was long and traumatic, and I don't believe the care he or I received was adequate. I was treated with no respect, and as it was my first labour and delivery, I wasn't listened to when I became worried. They knew better than me, or so I was told. It ended with him becoming stuck. He was pulled from me with such force that the doctor was shouting at me to push, despite me having no contractions,  and damage was caused to J's head, as well as me (no need to explain where and what that was, it's obvious). As well as J being poorly and requiring oxygen and resuscitation, I had to be dealt with for a few hours afterwards and was close to having a transfusion.
I did have moments of anger when reliving what occurred during those 39 hours. When no-one is listening to you, and dismisses you as a stupid first timer, I feel anger at myself for not being more forthright and demanding. That was where I directed my anger, at myself. I have fought through depression, have a huge weight issue, and all because I internalise and hate myself for not helping him when he really needed me to. For me, that has been, and still is, the hardest thing for me to overcome.

Regret lived with me for many years. Guilt and regret. It has taken me a long time to put that to bed.
I went through much sadness over the way J wouldn't be able to experience marriage / a partner, children, work, driving, independence, and all the usual expected milestones of life.
I flipped the negativity about his disability, and turned it into positives.
J has never, and will never be prejudiced towards others. He doesn't see hatred.
He views nature as a most wonderful thing, and can spend hours wandering around a forest, sitting under trees, listening to wildlife, dancing around as the rain falls on his face, and finds peace.


I don't remember the day or even month that I emerged from regret and became fully accepting of J and his disability. It just happened. I had no more fog clouding my thoughts. I could just see this perfect boy, with a big smile, loud giggles, and who was bouncing and dancing his way through life.

I 100% accept J for who he is.
He is settled and happy at home. I do not make unreasonable expectations of him. The house runs fairly smoothly, and he doesn't get stressed over much. I understand him. I understand his noises. I know when a noise means he's in pain or is scared (like when he loses a tooth, I now recognise the noise of panic he makes at the moment it comes out). I know when he makes a screeching noise, it doesn't mean he's in trouble, it's his happy, playful noise.

I don't feel regret for him any more.
I know he will always be with me, and I am making plans for the future, when my other two children are off out in the world, making families and memories of their own. J and I will go off travelling around the country in a big camper van, or ideally one of those big American motor homes - I love those. He loves travelling. He adores nature. We'll visit many places, and have fantastic trips away.


Going back to the picture I made about the journey we make, when you're feeling low, or alone, remember that there is always another parent at that same place, feeling equally alone, lost, confused. If we all extend a little more kindness and empathy, we could all find an easier way to travel along this route.
I can state categorically that you will meet some amazing parents, who have their own stories to tell. You will make some lifelong friends. They will be there for you, with a sympathetic ear, shoulder to cry on, and a knowing nod. Advice is swapped without fear of being admonished.

If you are in any doubt whatsoever, I am wholly, truly, totally in love with my Boy. He is amazing. He makes me proud. He makes me smile. He has made me a better person.

And just in case you still feel alone, just remember this......