Our life at times can have fleeting moments of happiness, easy going days and knowing what’s going to happen next, but the one thing I can always rely on day in and day out is that Aleah truly adores her sister. She doesn’t see a diagnosis and a list of complicated words like most people do; she can only see her sister.
For those of you who haven’t met my youngest daughter, she is two going on twenty. I’ve always called her Lady because she seems to think she is in charge. She is hilarious, full of fun with a strong dose of mischief. You can never be too sure what she is going to do or say next, which isn’t always appreciated at six in the morning, but we move. I always say Aleah taught me how to have fun again and stop taking life so seriously all the time. She is a lot of fun even if she knows exactly what buttons to press and we aren’t strangers to having to carry her out of shops. If you are in Asda on a Sunday and hear her name shouted you best believe she’s taking the mick out of me while I’m trying to get the shopping done. She is a really loving, kind, and affectionate girl to the people she loves and one of the people she loves the most in this world is her big sister, Cassie.
Cassie can be quite alarming to some people with the sounds that she makes because they can be compared to growling and could sound quite aggressive, but that’s when she’s expressing that she is happy. Cassie feels emotions a lot more intense than most people do which means she does lash out and can show aggressive behaviour, this doesn’t scare her little sister or put her off. She looks at it more as a challenge. ‘Challenge accepted’. That is her in a nutshell; that child has no fear. Aleah has been known while Cassie is having an episode to just sit on her and strangely enough it regulates Cassie really quickly and then she can start afresh. Cassie is very soft when it comes to her little sister. Aleah is the kind of child that will involve everyone in something she’s doing. The number of times I hear ‘look at me, look at me!’, while I’m looking directly at her is ridiculous. She always involves Cassie in everything she does, she will take her books and show her all the pages but even if Cassie doesn’t seem very interested, Aleah will continue still to read her the story. If Aleah asks for a bourbon biscuit (which she calls a ‘Spencer biscuit’ because they are his favourite) she will take the first one I give her to Cassie before she has one for herself. She likes to get really involved and always wants to be helpful when it comes to her sister. If there is anything I’ve always wanted it’s for my children to be allowed to be children, have fun and not have a life that’s so serious that they have to grow up too quickly but at the same time when you have a young daughter that is as stubborn as a mule who wants to be involved then how can I say no? I raise my children but I’m also giving around the clock care which isn’t a life me or Cassie got to choose, but my children do. If she wants to do simple little tasks to assist me then by all means I’ll let her because she loves helping people but that’s my limit. Aleah really takes a lot of joy in helping someone to do something like passing me the wipes or bringing me Cassie’s shoes. She will also tell me if I do something out of the typical order in our routine which entails her genuinely getting me in trouble for doing this. She is the scariest toddler I’ve ever met when she uses her ‘mum voice’ and I’m choosing my battles wisely.
“You may be as different as the sun and moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you”. – George R.R Martin.
Don’t get me wrong, everyone likes to laugh and I think it’s essential for us to be able to.. You can turn anything into a joke and depending on your audience it can be funny. Most people that go through hardship always say, ‘If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry’, which is true, but when people look down their nose at disabilities, that’s completely different. People with disabilities would love if their life was a joke, that it was just a big illusion but no, this is our reality that if we aren’t full blown fighting then we will drown. Walk a day standing directly in my shoes doing everything that I need to do, do everything Cassie needs to struggle with, and then try and laugh.
“You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you”.
My youngest child is proof that children aren’t born with a malicious side that makes them a bully, it’s a learned behaviour not one that’s already in you from birth. For the record, I’m not stating that this is the parents’ fault. Children are like sponges and soak up everything whether it’s said once or five times, they will probably remember. They can hear someone’s negative opinion of disabilities from a family member, friends in the playground, or even just in the community around them because not everyone has the same point of view or empathy. Most children can be naive and gullible. Have you ever tried to change a child’s mind about something once they are dead set on their beliefs? I’ve been trying to explain to my toddler for a year that a bagel is called a bagel and not a ‘doctor’ just because she noticed it’s the same shape as a stethoscope for over a year, yet she knows what a doctor is and what their job entails, make it make sense. We can’t always control what our children think or do no matter how much we try but if we are able to make sure our children at a young age are educated on different conditions and how that can make that person’s life look a bit different to theirs then it would have such a positive effect on the environment our kids grow up in. I want my children to not just feel safe in this world but be safe too. I think genuinely if everyone has the same heart and mind towards disabilities as my 2 year old child does we would have a world we can all be proud of. I know I’m certainly proud of the children they have all become.
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