“Don’t you feel..?”

Children have a lovely way of hitting you in the solar plexus so you can’t breathe.

My 11 year old asked me unexpectedly last week, “But don’t you feel abandoned by daddy? He’s not kind to you, you don’t have a adult”(direct quote) “to talk to. And he doesn’t love you.”

Ouch.

She may be young and mentally even younger, but her intuition is more advanced than even her 19 and 20 year old siblings. And unlike them, she sees not only slights aimed at her, but also what I go through. My first daughter texted me last week and said she’d rather walk down the aisle alone than be walked by a man who hasn’t been an actual father to her.

Ouch.

My girls clearly fit the female stereotype of being more expressive when I compare them to my boys.

We (small children and I) were talking about how their father went to Tokyo last Wednesday to go run the marathon there and then decided to tour Japan for five days thereafter. (This being the same man who won’t take me to Trauma in case he’s left for work.) The children were asking me when he’s due to return from his holiday and I told them it was meant to be later this week but now with Trump bombing the UAE and his flight needing to go there before coming to South Africa, I didn’t know. My girl said, “Well, if a bomb falls on him, it won’t be my fault. It won’t be a problem…He can go there where they are!”

So how do I handle all the heaviness?

I don’t! Every little opinion, awareness, noting of evil by my children breaks me a little bit more. I want to sweep them up and away from this insanity. To a place of peace and honesty. Where people’s behaviour at home matches who they are in public, where there’s authenticity and no hypocrisy. Where there’s love and no mockery.

Until then, my sweet moment of the day, which never decreases the physical pain of AS and Sjögren’s or the mental strain, but is a highlight, will be when my six year old shocked me and left me shaken this morning. So, last week Wednesday, her maths lesson included creating equations to make the number ten. This was her first time. The Maths had been only going up to six. She created a sum, then would write it on a small whiteboard. She did a few then put it away. I told her we’d revise every day so that she recalls the sums instead of having to mentally picture herself doing the sum.

I told her to close her eyes and imagine the whiteboard, and then see if she can recall anything from it at all. I don’t even know why I’d do that to my poor child. Maybe it was to solidify in my own head how cool it is to have all sorts of children and different abilities in my little homeschool.

My girl did it literally. She out her hand over her closed eyes as if wiping water off her face, and as her hand came down her chin, she opened her eyes and started reciting the equations. From the very first one on the board!! Said them in ORDER!! And corrected herself when she realised she was about to make a mistake. As soon as I said “F” she knew it wasn’t four, but “five.”

I have forgotten what it’s like to reach a child who doesn’t struggle to recall. I’ve never taught a child with such recall.

I am so so thankful that this aspect isn’t a struggle. I hope she will be able not only to do formal exams when she’s older, but that her ADHD, “severe PDA” (I will yell at adults when they cross me!) and autism won’t stop her from reaching her desires. May these not get in her way. For if they do, my heart will break as much as hers will.