Jazzie

I found an old stereoscope at the flea market in France the other week. I was so giddy about finding one, it's probably from the early 1900s and it just exudes the deepest history vibes. I'm constantly fantasizing about who it belonged to and who has looked through it in its lifetime.

If you don't know I have a little history lesson for you. Stereoscopes were very popular in the late 1800s/early 1900s when photography started getting more mainstream. They're basically VR-headsets avant la lettre, big boxes with a hole to put stereographs in, which are cards with 2 photos next to each other taken at a slightly different angle. When you watch them in the stereoscope, you see one image in vivid 3D. It works exactly like the View Masters we used to have as kids!

This was a huge form of entertainment back then. Lots of people had one at home and collected the little stereo cards. It was the first time people could actually see exotic destinations in such vivid detail. There were lots of romantic picture stories as well lol.

So in France at the flea market I bought the stereoscope but they didn't have any stereocards to put in them. Back home while cleaning the 100 years of soot off of it I found out that this thing has the EXACT same dimensions as my phone screen. So instead of shoving a card in the back, I just put my phone in the back, and it worked PERFECTLY.

I've been Googling and watching old cards which is so fun!!! But then I wondered if there was any way to make the photos myself. This morning I found an app and now I've been making stereo pictures all morning. I love modern technology so much. Instead of having to find me some stereocards at the next flea market I now get instant gratification!! Lol.

I was really starting to see red and just storming towards the biggest crashdown in history.

The situation with S kept either getting worse or staying equally as awful, which affected about everything in the rest of my daily life. I kept looking for solutions for S for next school year but there just didn't seem to be any. He doesn't want to go to school. He doesn't want to try a different school (very hard pass that one). He wants to be homeschooled but I feel like mentally I won't be able to carry that on my own while working as well. I was stuck in this endless brainstorming loop all the time that lead to no results. It was so tiring and disheartening.

This week I did one last Google deep dive and I discovered there's a special curriculum for kids who struggle at school where they go to school only X amount of days and stay at home the rest of the time. It was like an epiphany. I asked S if he would be open for it and he would. So I asked for a parent teacher conference, which happened yesterday. School was very supportive as well and they're fully willing to let him do that. In two weeks we're meeting again to go over the details (what days he will be going etc.)

We went to la douce France for the extended weekend. C picked the trip as a gift for his communion. He chose such a good place. There was exactly the right combination of forest, water, and lovely architecture. The highlight of the trip was when we found out there were Invaders there, which we have been collecting for a while now! Right now we have scanned them in 4 locations: Brussels, Djerba, London, New York and Fontainebleau. I really love that for us lol.

Even though the trip was fun it was also way too hot and I was a completely overstimulated mess by the end of it.

It actually threw me back to Canada and how I felt back then. I had these moments of feeling trapped there. There was no escaping D and the kids. Everyone was on each other's lip all the time, which is great when you're having fun but not so great when you really need some alone time.

It made me think about homeschooling and having S at home 100% of the time. I really don't know if I'll be able to do it.

Everyone annoyed me at some point in the weekend. C turns into such a whiny little bitch if he has to do anything that's not to his liking for even one second. Both kids will take any chance to pretend the world is ending if I make them go somewhere they don't want to go (which is mostly anywhere). S asks endless questions about the structure of the day, which I make very clear, but he always tries his hardest to find things that are not so clear to him, like "will we have screen time when we get back home in two days" or "will we be able to take the screen time we missed this weekend into next weekend". He also asks the same questions 300 times a day. Also, I'm not sure what's up with his ears but the entire weekend he didn't understand anything we said and he said "what?" constantly. WHICH IS FINE WHEN YOU'RE TALKING TO HIM, yet most of the time he wanted to know everything about conversations I was having with anybody else, and wouldn't relent until I re-explained every single tiny detail to him. My personal space got mostly disregarded, like if I told them I wanted to have 30 minutes of alone time they would make it to 5 max until they desperately needed me for something.

And then there's D. Sometimes I just don't know with that man. The best thing to describe D is: he pulls his weight reluctantly. I could give you 300 examples, which I won't. He's constantly there but his brain is switched off and when you beg him to turn it on he reluctantly does that for half a second and then goes into snooze mode again. It is so massively tiring.

This morning I asked him to make breakfast (that's his task! he just doesn't do it when I don't explicitly ask him to!) and for some reason he made everything for 2 instead of for 4 people. Why? You can't ask why. He doesn't know why. You can either smile and say "thank you for cooking breafkast" while dying inside, or ask him why he didn't make enough and get a vague answer. Both options are equally as unfulfilling.

My boys!!!! I love them the absolute most!!!!!!

I'm often so worried about their futures. C is starting high school next year. I really want him to have the best experience. S has his own troubles as you already know. I often feel sick wanting them both to be happy and thriving and I'm trying to do the most to get them there.

Yet maybe it's not bad to take a step back and look at the good stuff as well. C had his coming-of-age ceremony last weekend. We had a party at our home for our family. He's an absolute delight. He's shy but kind. He has the best sense of humor and the best music taste. The weather sucked balls but the party was cozy and everyone had fun.

S is so incredibly creative and asks the best questions. He always finds something to do and gets really invested in whatever he does. Together they're such a force. They love each other so much. They spend all of their time together, except when they're reading. That is: C is reading. S is listening to audiobooks. They both binge read/listen to Harry Potter on repeat.

I so enjoy their company and enjoy talking to them. They make great conversation. They both are so smart and insightful. I love teaching them about culture and showing them things I enjoy. I love when it's just the four of us together.

One year ago around this time we left for Canada. Last week C said he realized how much of a privilege that has been. We're all a bit homesick for our home away from home. I hope we get to travel again soon.

Something funny happened. I was biking to PT yesterday and I passed by a park. I heard kids playing in the distance. As I came closer to some shrubbery I saw someone was crouching behind a shrub. It wasn't a child, it looked like an adult. It was such a weird sight. I inched closer and looked behind it, just to see my bloody own sister ducking there hahahahaha. She was playing hide and seek with her kids. We locked eyes and we just started scream laughing at each other. Such a stupid and funny coincidence. I should've taken a picture but I was already late for PT.

He's not thriving at school and whatever we try to make things better for him isn't helping. Last year around December I've started allowing my brain to look for other solutions than the "just keep swimming" we've been doing for 4 years now.

One of the options is keeping him at home part time, which sounds wonderful but in Belgium it's kind of an administrative nightmare. It has to be granted by a doctor and can be revoked at any time if they deem him well enough to go to school. Also, his poor already overworked teacher will be having to do an extra bunch of work to keep him up to speed.

Another option is changing schools. This scares me to no end though. I know he could be able to thrive in a stricter school with clearer rules. However, we have so many little habits in place at school right now (me staying and helping him etc.), that I'm sure we won't be able to do at a stricter school, and that will bring a whole new set of problems. I'm just so tired. It's already hard to keep trying at his current school. Speaking 100% for myself, I don't know if I can manage wrestling him to a new school.

The final and most drastic option is homeschooling. This has been ringing in my ears for a couple of months now. I'm constantly thinking about how good life would be if he could just stay at home. I know I'm probably gaslighting myself. But I so badly want the both of us to get out of this permanent fight or flight for a bit. I help him with his school work a lot already. We work well together. He likes to learn with me. I think it could be something very beautiful. However I struggle a LOT with my executive functions and this will be no different when I'm homeschooling S. It will definitely not be a walk in the park.

I've been watching so many documentaries and reading stories about people with kids with autism and ADHD, people who homeschool, people who try alternative schools, people who keep fighting for them to be in a normal school, etc etc. I'm terrified of making the wrong decision for him. I also read the super judgemental comment sections and apply them all to myself, trying to see if maybe they resonate somewhere and I am fucking something up that I'm not realizing. It's tiring though. And a bit hurtful.

My peers mostly aren't super helpful about it. They hear the word homeschooling and they immediately have their list of 50 concerns ready. As if I didn't look into every single one of them twice already! They think he will become even more antisocial than he already is lol, while I strongly believe that getting him out of this permanent fight or flight state might do the exact opposite.

He himself has no doubt in his mind that he wants to stay home. He was like "immediately yes". I told him we're going to explore all options though and that I prefer to keep him in school should he start having a good time in the next couple of months. I guess we'll find out together.

For now getting him to school is still a tour de force. His school roster often changes unexpectedly. This morning he had an unexpected art class with a teacher he doesn't really know that well. They didn't tell him beforehand and it took a while for it to become clear how the day would go. I always try to advocate for him and help him get a clear overview of the day asap, but I know he's in agony the entire time.

This is hard for me as well. I've been basically telling him to suck it up for his first 3 years of school, which clearly didn't work and resulted in him being in hysterics, screaming and kicking and crying every single morning. Right now I'm talking to him and vouching for him towards his class and teachers, which makes it easier for him at school, but I'm also constantly thinking that I might be doing too much, helping him too much, asking too much of the teachers and I'm harming him/worsening his symptoms by pampering him too much. Finding balance is so hard!

The art class this morning ended up being super rowdy (lottts of big characters in his class) and he ended up sitting in the hallway making drawings alone. That's where I left him. He did let me leave, so no kicking and screaming today, but I always feel sorry for him leaving him behind like that. He's surviving and I so wish he could be thriving.

The school runs drain me to no end as well. Getting him out of bed in the mornings, getting him to eat, getting him dressed, getting him in and out of the car, it's all so stressful every single day. Even C was telling me that S stresses him out in the mornings. It's always: "Will he eat today?" "Will I have to get him from under his bed today?" "Will D have to wrestle him into his car seat today?" "Will there be kicking and crying at school today?".

Thanks to the impromptu art class I only got him settled in at 10am. It's 11am now. I should've started work already but I feel absolutely drained, and that's how it is every day. Yesterday D took S to school for once and I had honestly forgotten what it was like to feel like a normal human on a normal morning. Sadly D works fulltime now so it's not sustainable for him to get S to school on a regular basis.

After crying all day yesterday I'm done sulking and ready to report how my actual weekend was!

On Saturday I had Belgian Championships with my dance crew! We ended up taking second place. We were all SO SO happy, given that in our previous competition we ended up being second to last lol. We worked our butts off to get back to the top and we did it! We were all elated. This concludes my second comp season. I'm already so ready for next year!

On Sunday was my birthday. I hadn't planned anything in advance. We ended up inviting some people for drinks in our garden. It was the most perfect day. I found the very first May bug of the year which made me so happy!! It's the little things am I right.

On Monday I had my first PT session because dancing broke my knees. Turns out I have jumpers knee and it's perfectly treatable with just PT. Which is wonderful. She did some dryneedling, which was a first to me and felt pretty wild.

On Monday night we went to see Rosalia in concert. It was perfect. The artistry was out of this world. The show invoked a LOT of feelings in me, which we saw in yesterday's mental breakdown lol.

I'm just feeling so burnt out all the time. Getting S to school is so immensely stressful that by the time I get back home I want nothing else than to vanish off the face of the earth.

Whenever I get home from school I cannot bring myself to physically do any work in the house nor go to the grocery store for food. I signed us up for a meal subscription which solved half the problem but the rest is just stressing me out. Then people are constantly stalking me for everything. I need to take my gran to the store tomorrow. I need to join my gran for a funeral next week. They should all be small things and bonding moments which I love but they all feel like an unbearable burden right now.

And then there's work. I was supposed to be working all day today. It's almost 11am and all I did so far was stare at my phone wishing the ground would swallow me whole.

My house is a mess, my sheets are so dirty, my kid asked me to wash his pants by tomorrow and not a fiber in my being feels able to put a load of laundry in right now. I'm sitting in this pigsty, wishing I could bring myself to do something productive, but I just can't.

And then the kids will come home and they should have a healthy snack (I didn't go grocery shopping, I didn't prepare shit), and they should do homework (I'll let them watch a movie instead), and I'll feel like the shittest parent in the world.

The worst thing of all is that D has gotten a promotion at work and even though he's earning more, which is great, he is now ALWAYS in a call. I can't talk to him anymore throughout the day. It's driving me insane. I really need to vent after a hard morning with S. But since the promotion I have to keep it all in and it's just festering all day. I spent my entire morning crying my eyes out because I'm so sad for myself. I feel like a lonely piece of shit failure of a woman.

I had 9 shows last week and by the end of show 6 I came down with a pretty bad case of strep throat. I powered my way through fueled by heaps of paracetamol and ibuprofen. Yesterday the kids went back to school. I dragged myself to take them and then fell face first back in bed when I returned. I felt god awful. I spent all day in bed, sleeping on and off.

The shows went wonderfully. It's always my favorite time of the year. There were more shows than usual though and I did feel like I was basically never home in my kids' two week break.

Today I'm a tired, dissociative mess. My house is a war zone and I'm 4 days behind on work. My doctor gave me sick leave until Thursday but I feel like if I don't go back to work today, all the work will swallow me whole.

On top of that after a holiday S is always struggling to go to school as well. I'm still thinking about the entire homeschooling plan. It would be a dream to keep him home and have all the time in the world with him. But it would be a whole lot less of a dream to live on one income. I'm just constantly torn between options and I never seem to be comfortable having to pick only one.

It's showtime!! I am absolutely loving this season of dance. Good company, good laughs, and good food. We're doing two weeks of shows in a venue that completely sold out within a couple of hours. I am LIVING for these moments.

The people in my competition team were a bit down yesterday. We have Belgian Championships next week and our choreo is such a mess. We've put in SO much work and it's ALMOST coming together but we're not there yet and people are getting frustrated. Someone said she lost her mojo.

I spent my afternoon making tiny magical mojo bags with everyone's name on them to carry with them during the dance for good luck. I filled the bags with smiley beads and told them they could never open them to see what's inside or else their mojo would be lost. They were all so giddy about them. They put them in their sports bra during the dance haha. I had the choice to either practice my dance or make the mojo bags and I'm very glad I chose the latter. My dance went perfectly as well.

At first I thought I wanted an oura ring to track my stress levels, but the mandatory subscription after buying an already very expensive product is pissing me off a bit. Of course I spent hours looking for an alternative, without finding anything I was excited about.

Then I ditched the ring plan and decided I wanted some lounge furniture for outside. I've spent all morning looking at €10K options which are definitely outside of my budget. So yes I still don't know what I want for my birthday lol.

Not that I have a break from work lol, I'm still working every day. YET I don't have any school runs and that makes a huge difference.

This weekend was hard. On Sunday (yes, on Easter!) I had FIVE HOURS of dance. Three hours in the morning and two hours at night. My brain was fried and my body even more. After morning practice while driving home I called Domien and asked him to run me an ice bath. I came home and jumped right in. It was equal amounts painful and glorious.

I spent most of the weekend dissociating. I've definitely overstepped my own boundaries a couple of times in the past weeks and I'm feeling it. I need to be so careful with myself.

Today D is at work and the kids are having one of four unlimited screen time days during their two week break. I started my day pretty stressed but I sat in the sun to do my Duolingo lessons and it sparked some productivity. I hope I can keep it up.

I've been thinking about the kids' screen time. I feel like I'm really strict with it but they still get too much. Total days in this holiday: 16

7 days that are completely screen free apart from 2 hours of decent tv or decent computer games together with the fam at night (no ipads)

4 days in which there are no boundaries regarding screen time at all and they can do whatever they want (we do have one boundary and that is no Youtube shorts and limited access to Youtube videos!) (they can easily get up to 10 hours of screen time on these days)

5 days in which they get screen time while I'm at work, which is 4 hours every day, plus 2 hours of decent tv or decent computer games with the fam at night (no ipads)

If I do the math this still brings them to a daily average 5,5 hours of screen time!!!!

I'm in an absolute state. Work is so busy, dance life is so busy, S and school are still taking all of my mental sanity. On the bright side, I got a raise after 7 months of working at this company. My boss absolutely adores me. I'm his first assistant who made it past 2 months of working for him lol. He's a handful but I can handle him. It is very tiring though.

I told her I've been having a lot of sadness in my heart lately. My heart literally hurts so often. Since having S's diagnosis and realizing that I might have autism as well, I not only feel sad for him but my heart breaks for my inner child as well. Every time I'm standing up to defend S, I'm also standing up for the little girl inside of me, which makes me realize that no one ever really did that for her. It's soul crushing.

On the other hand it's really empowering to be in charge now. I won't let my child get misunderstood. I will fight for him to get the approach he needs and deserves, as I deserved when I was little, and still deserve today.

This whole situation makes a lot of normal things feel harder or heavier. I find my sadness hard to face, and even harder to put into words or explain to D. I wish he could just instantly understand me, without me having to puzzle my heart pangs into the right words.

Yesterday S came home with a note from his speech therapist saying that he's still bad at typing and he should practice more. He said that she told him she was disappointed in him. She assumed he didn't practice. The child has done his typing lessons every single day since October. He put in exactly the same amount of time as his brother, who is now graduating. S isn't even halfway yet. It's not his FAULT. He has a learning disability! Of all people his speech therapist should know!!!!!!

I immediately contacted her. As I expected there was some miscommunication between the school, us, and her. We talked it through. We're now on the same page again and I explained to S what went wrong and what we will do better in the future so this doesn't happen again.

Nobody died. No ambulances were called. Yet the whole debacle did take up most of my night and at the end I just cried and cried and cried. I don't know why I cry. It just makes me so sad. No one's working harder to be normal than S. No one's working harder to be normal than I do. I've faced scrutiny all my life for the way I am. It's unfair to begin with. No one came to my rescue, but today, I'm coming to my son's rescue. And I fully feel how unfair it is. I'm feeling all of the hurt I've tried to shield myself from all my life. It feels like repeated punches to my gut, every day. And I'm crying my way through it.

With the sun also come the neighbours. Our neighbours on one side are like ninjas, we often hear them but we never see them. I like that. Our neighbours on the other side are talkers. They always want to have a little chat. They scare me. When I'm out in the garden and I hear or see them go out I bolt back inside. I don't like little chats.

Next to our ninja neighbours there's this guy that likes to shout-chat over his garden fence from two houses over. I run from him as well. I'm pretty sure these guys know I'm always ducking and running from them. I wonder what they think of me.

Hearing my neighbours come out of hibernation makes me sad that we didn't get the other house. It was in a very quiet street. But then again, it did also have neighbours so maybe I would have been ducking and running there as well.

A miracle happened this morning. S let me drop him off at school and then leave immediately. Usually I'm there for another hour getting him settled. Today he had to bring his bike for gym class. He normally doesn't attend gym class because it's too overstimulating but he does love biking. After 2 minutes of biking around he said I could go. Such a win.

This means that I could take the time to actually prepare for therapy today! I looked at my notes from the past two weeks. I feel like SO MUCH is happening all the time. I feel like I could yap for 2 hours straight and still not tell everything that happened in 14 days.

On Friday in my favourite dance class I got moved front row to back row for our show dance without any explanation. After that, a gymbro on the loudest motorbike in the world tailgated me the entire way home. I never feel aggressive but at that moment I could've punched someone.

On Saturday and Sunday D was going on a weekend away with friends. I promised the kids we would have a brainrot weekend: double screens all day and ordering pizza for dinner. Usually screen time rules are very strict here so they were over the moon. The day started out chill, but then people started getting annoying.

Usually D and the kids have lunch at his mom's house on Sundays. Apparently she can't miss them for one weekend. She tried to convince the kids to come over without their dad. It felt like I was doing a tug of war match for my own kids' company.

My uncle had the very urgent message that I needed to go to the hairdresser with my gran. I ignored his call and message because we had a brainrot day, and then he called my sister saying he was worried about me. At that point my sister went all investigative journalism on my mental health status. I just wanted the day to myself.

Throw in an acquaintance who was asking me to do a photoshoot with a huge deadline (she was in the last week of her pregnancy, I haven't heard from her since she asked), and a school mom who wanted to hang out, and I felt like I could scream.

I did what I had planned to do though. I put my phone on silent mode and chucked it in a corner. We watched all 4 Shrek movies. I downloaded 7 different brainless games to play. I sorted drinks and got cars out of the parking lot. I even rolled up yarn. We ate pizza and drank milkshakes. We went to sleep together in the big bed. Even though mentally I felt shot, I knew I had done the right thing by just resting and seeing it through.

On Sunday I felt better. My horrible mood had somewhat subsided. I took the kids with me to dance class because D wasn't home. We learned a new part for our comp dance which had me very excited. The sun was out and the weather was gorgeous. D got home early. He took C to go look at another high school, which I'm very grateful for because ugh people. I downloaded the Sims 3 on my laptop and played my little heart out, while also making a bit of a schedule for the next 4 weeks as I want to improve my stamina for dance. It ended up being a good day and I was ready for the week.

On Monday the kids were off school, so they had another mini brainrot day, albeit with more structure and less screens than the weekend before. I made a plan for the day and stuck to it. It felt very productive. I felt like I was out of the woods.

Then this morning S didn't want to go to school. This always triggers me to no end. Whenever I see the first signs of him sighing our not wanting to get out of bed, I have to try my very best not to lose it. I never get impatient with him! I just get so incredibly stressed. My heart starts pounding and my ears start ringing. My nervous system starts acting like I'm being chased by a lion. And from then on I just have no choice but to go through the motions the entire morning.

I pamper him extra when he gets out of bed. Make him a warm nest in the sofa so he can wake up a bit. D makes him a yummy breakfast. I put on his clothes for him. D had to carry him to the car this morning or else he wouldn't go. We're past the point of kicking and screaming thank god, but it's still so so stressful. At that point I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to leave him at school so I'm not sure what my day will look like at all.

At school I do his reading group. He was reading, albeit very reluctantly. After 15 minutes I went to drop him off at his table. He still has his table in the hallway because the classroom is too busy for him. He only enters the classroom when everyone's quiet. I spent some time going through his folder, as I do every day so he knows what to do for the day, and then I attempted leaving.

I know that's the hard point for him. Lately this has been going well for 90% of all days, but as expected, this morning it didn't. He started whimpering "don't leave", and pulling my sleeve. I know that if I get up, he will run after me, so there's not much I can do. He followed me down to the street a couple of times when he was younger, so I know I really can't go until he's completely at ease. I gave him big hugs and a pep talk. I stayed a bit longer and gave him his music player and something to draw on. After a while he calmed down and I could leave him.

I know this all doesn't sound too dramatic. It's been a long road for us, and we've gotten to a point that he's able to survive a school day without us forcing him to do anything, which is great! But still these situations break my heart over and over again. I find myself wishing he could just be a happy kid instead of constantly begging me to take him home.

Usually I call D to vent after that entire ordeal but this morning he was in a call and couldn't talk. I spent the drive home crying. It's so hard to get out of these moods and start my work day like nothing has happened. My heart physically hurts all day until S returns from school.

18 days until easter break.

106 days until summer break.

Bidding for the house turned out to be a fiasco. The asking price was 385k euros. It was in dire state so we made an offer of 365k. The realtor called us the next day to say that they got 12 offers and the largest one was 447k, which is just a ridiculous amount of money for a house that's barely standing. So we pulled out. Hereby the decision has been made that our current home will be our forever home! I'm sad to say goodbye to my dream house but I'm also not mad to stay here. I like it here.

This also brought us in the right mindset to finally start thinking about renovating and making even more of a home of this house.

The overwhelm I've been feeling has subsided a little bit. It has made room for aches and pains lol. I'm dancing too much and my knees are absolutely feeling it. I'm postponing seeing a doctor, I'm just wating until april when shows are over and I can skip some classes, and then june, when summer holidays start and I can focus on recovering from the year.