Thunderbirds are GO

This book is LAUNCHED

IT’S been a while between posts, but here I am back in the blog zone with lots of exciting news to report.

First and foremost, I’m super excited to announce that my book, ‘Amelia & Me: On deafness, autism and parenting by the seat of my pants,’ is now launched and ready to GO.

We had an amazing launch party on the 6th of August with our friends and family joining us to share in the celebrations.

I was so honoured that Catherine Deveny, writer, comedian, speaker and all-round amazing human did the formal honours, launching my book into space with her trademark wisdom and panache.

Catherine’s awesome Gunnas Writing Masterclass convinced me that I was ready to turn my blog into a book, so it meant a lot to me to have her by my side on the night.

Plus we both wore green velvet, so there’s that.

It was also a really special occasion for me to be able to publicly thank Julie Postance, the incomparable self-publishing guru who has been with me every step of the way, helping me transform years of writing into a shiny, new book.

I am indebted to both Catherine and Julie for their encouragement, expertise and belief in my work. I love them.

 

So happy to have made it

My beautiful book on display

With my wonderful mentors, Julie Postance and Catherine Deveny

So now I’m sailing into uncharted waters, seeing where this wild and wonderful adventure will take me next.

For example, like onto live television (!) courtesy of Channel 7 and their afternoon show, The Daily Edition.

Amelia and me on TV

That’s right, this week I was interviewed by Tom Williams, Sarah Cumming and Ryan Phelan about ‘Amelia & Me,’ and although I felt like throwing up into the nearest bin, it was a truly fantastic experience.

You can watch the full interview here.

The best part was seeing the pictures of Amelia watching the segment at school via an Auslan interpreter.

Her face was so filled with pride and excitement. Amelia’s friends told her she’s ‘famous’ now which made her even happier. Me too.

I’ll have loads more news about upcoming media and book events (including a launch at Amelia’s school later this month) so watch this space.

In the meantime, I’ve got a brand spanking new author website which has just gone live. Check it out because I’m really proud of it.

You can buy ‘Amelia & Me’ in e-book and paperback formats through my site or directly from Amazon.

Things are gettin’ real, peeps. Let’s do this.

Time to fly

Just in case you were wondering what I’ve been doing since my last post in August, 2016, here is a little preview of my soon-to-be-published book, Amelia & Me. You heard. The job is nearly done and I’m ready to take it to the bank. Or the library. Seriously, I will bring it to your house.

I’m so proud of the final cover design which I think hits all of the right notes for our very personal story. It was really important that the main photo of me and Amelia should convey our closeness, our directness. We look at the camera the way we look at the world – front on and without flinching.

It’s been a wonderful process over the last ten months pulling over three years of writing together into a manuscript and working with awesomely clever self-publishing, editing and creative people to realise my dream. It takes a village, or at least a super cooperative hamlet.

So, watch this space like a hawk. The proof is in the, well, the proofs. I’m about to finish my final edit before I hand my baby over for printing. It’s scary and exhilarating and I can’t wait.

It’s time to fly, my friends. Don’t look down.

 

On hiatus…

I’m taking a short break from my blog while I work on a book adaptation of the stories here.

Can’t wait to share it with you later this year.

I’ll be back soon.

Mel xx

The divine Miss M

Big things come in small packages

I LOVE how easily little children fall in love with things; their joy in new experiences and people.

This is especially true of my intense seven-year-old Amelia who hasn’t yet learned to play her emotional cards close to her chest.

She crushes hard on her toys, on newly-met kids in the park and writes passionate letters (and emails and text messages) to her teacher: “Miss S, I love you so much.”

Our home is littered with tender notes left on side tables, Valentines slipped quietly into pockets and drawers.

Then, there is M, our 16-year-old neighbour. A gentle, dark-haired girl who waves to us in the garden and once picked a red flower, passing it to Amelia over the short fence that separates our houses.

A rose by any other teenage girl would not smell nearly as sweet. And with that flower she did win Amelia’s sweet heart. Like, forever.

A few weeks ago, I found Amelia outside, pressed up against the fence, calling M’s name into the cooling night air. “M! Where are you?” There was a note of shyness in her voice, but there was hope too. Lots of hope.

Before I could wrangle her back inside, M suddenly appeared. She said, “I thought I heard you calling me! Let’s play a game.” And over our little fence, M joined hands with Amelia and showed her how to wrestle thumbs. They chatted and laughed together before parting ways.

It was a fleeting interaction, but it meant so much to Amelia. It solidified something growing steadily inside her. That longed for connection with another human being – friendship. She has so much love to give but not always the facility to show it or receive it.

Soon after, Amelia drew a special picture for her new buddy M. She spent a long time on it and together we put it into a special envelope covered in stickers and hearts. I said, “Should we go and give it to her now?” Um, is the Pope a Catholic?

M wasn’t home, so we left the letter in the safe hands of her younger brother. I forgot about it until the next day after Amelia went to school. I checked the letter box for the daily mail and instead found a small gift box and card inside.

It was addressed to Amelia, from M. I carefully took it out and held it in my hands, as though it was fragile, precious. And it was. I’d been worried Amelia’s intensity might be annoying to our teenage neighbour, but I was so, so wrong.

I put the gift inside, ready for its lucky recipient to return home. You’d be forgiven for thinking the present was for me, the way I paced around waiting for the school bus to arrive in our street, desperate to see its secret contents revealed.

Amelia finally came home and I greeted her with the news falling urgently from my lips, “Baby, M left you a present, it’s inside!”

Her eyes widened in disbelief. “M? For me?”

“Yes, for you! Let’s go!”

We ran together into the house, jostling to reach the little box veritably pulsing with life on the kitchen bench. The card contained a beautifully penned thank you note from M. Amelia’s picture had made her day, so here was something in return. Just for her.

Inside the box was a silver chain with a pretty circular pendant depicting a tree. A thing that grows. Like the friendship between a loving deaf, autistic girl and her sweet teenage neighbour.

They are separated by nearly ten years of age and the small fence that separates our houses. M doesn’t always understand what Amelia is trying to say, and my little one misses plenty of sounds and what they mean.

But these things are not barriers; the distance between Amelia and M is remarkably short. When they touch hands and laugh and send each other letters they are just two girls reaching out to each other and finding a friend.

The kite runner

SHE ONLY let go of his hand for a moment, all the better to chase the colourful kite sailing above their heads. Her arms are raised, as though she can touch the clouds or pull the kite to her with an invisible string clasped in her hands.

The cool breeze brushes against her bare forearms, her face tilted skywards. There’s nothing so perfect as a March day when the heavens are smiling so wide you can almost see their teeth.

The kite is tethered but it is free and so is she. Tethered to her father standing close behind but out of view; free as the kite soaring into the blue.

She follows its path along the clouds, running to catch up but it is forever out of reach. No matter, the joy is in the chasing not the catching.

They had only planned on the park and slides and maybe swings, not kites. Nothing so special as that. They were a surprise bonus.

As was the wonder their simple appearance brought out in her. The thrill in her voice when she came home to tell me that, “We saw kites, Mum! It was a kite festival.” Festival. It’s a new word for her but her voice is clear and true. I understand perfectly.

And the happiness on her Dad’s face, “She held my hand for ages. She sat and painted her face with the other children. She made a little book inscribed with her name. And danced. We both danced.”

They both danced. The kite was reeled in at festival’s end but the magic went on in their heads. All night long.

 

 

The greatest show on earth

Super trapeze girl

WHEN I see Amelia swinging atop the trapeze, back straight, eyes clear and true, I think: “Anything is possible.”

I don’t think about the time I tried to take her to another circus class someplace else and they said no. No, because she’s deaf and autistic and it was all too hard. My daughter wasn’t worth the effort.

I don’t even think back to the day I took her to a soccer clinic and she lost it, running across the pitches to avoid me, screaming and yelling.

I kept falling over in my desperate effort to catch her, to get us out of there. My legs were grazed and people stared. Their eyes said, “Thank god that’s not me.”

After an eternity in hell, a burly, tattooed man helped me carry her away to our final point of collapse on the nature strip. I held that stranger’s hand so tight and cried enough tears to flood the street.

I forget his name but not his kindness.

My mind has moved on and carried me elsewhere, to human pyramids and balancing acts. To death-defying feats like the tentative first steps taken on a wire.

To a place where a young woman has learned some Auslan without being asked just so Amelia can be more involved. I want to hug her for the longest time.

To Thursday nights when we drop her off in the safe hands of her new troupe of friends and we don’t worry.

It really wasn’t the greatest show on earth…

We sneak a peek at her from the doorway, transfixed by her form sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with kids her own age.

She watches everything like a hawk and is not afraid to try. Suspending her strong body from brightly coloured sashes she looks weightless and free. So are we.

We don’t want a lot more in life than to see our child happy and healthy and safe. To be able to join in and feel included. They’re basic things but what else could be more important?

Nothing. In our world we’ve learned to appreciate the smallest of triumphs. Like the look on Amelia’s face when we pick her up at 6pm and she’s flushed from the fun of it all.

We dreamed of this for her and now we are here. Our little girl’s run away to join the circus but she has our blessing along with our hearts.

I’m deaf and you’re not

Amelia, free spirit & proud deaf girl

I WATCHED her playing in the park by the ocean. Another little girl approached and asked her in a tiny voice, “Do you want to play with me?”

Amelia was moving past her and didn’t hear the question. The girl was shy and took silence to mean rejection.

I quickly intervened. “Hi there sweet one. Amelia is deaf so she didn’t quite hear you. Come over and ask her again.” I translated.

She was called Alexandra. With names and ages hastily exchanged they were off, running and laughing and joking like the oldest of friends.

I sat once more and drank in the simplicity of childish play. The natural rhythm of it. The ease.

Alexandra had a wand with magic powers deployed most usefully when she was tagged “it”.

Not to be outdone, Amelia held up her hair and declared triumphantly, “I have hearing aids. I’m deaf and you’re not.”

Her face shone with pride. So did mine.

Toy like her

Asking for the impossible?

PRE-CHRISTMAS discussion around gifts and the tricky scenario of matching the heart’s desire of an extremely particular six-year-old with those gifts.

Me: “What do want Father Christmas to bring you this year, chicky?”

Amelia: “I want a Barbie doll with hearing aids like mine.”

With hearing aids like mine.

Hmm, I thought. I don’t know if Mattel has made great strides in the toys-for-kids-with-disabilities space to date. Apart from a few limited edition examples, true diversity in Barbie-land seems a long way off.

But old Saint Nick has but one KPI and that is to deliver special goods to order, so as his best elf-in-training, I took up the challenge on his behalf. And I never fail at things like that. Ever.

Amelia is happy to picture herself as other people, imaginary or real. Some days she gets her super-hero vibe on with a bit of Spider-Man play. Other times she wants to act like a baby and be rocked and sung to, giggling into my chest as we pretend.

Kids are fabulous at dreaming up fantasy worlds. But often the most exciting thing for little people (and big people too) is when they recognise something of themselves in their peers, on television, or in books.

So imagine if you are a proud, bilingual deaf girl – and that fact is rather central to your sense of identity – but you hardly ever see that experience reflected anywhere at all. No characters with hearing aids, or who use sign language.

To understand what a critical deficiency this is, it is important to know that Amelia goes to a school for deaf children, so during the week she is surrounded by other deaf children and adults. It is the norm for her.

Yet it’s a rarefied environment, specific to her school life. In the bigger, more dominant hearing world, she is more or less on her own.

Thankfully the times are beginning to change a little, and a wonderful social media campaign (founded by journalist Rebecca Atkinson) for diversity in toys called #Toylikeme has paved the way ahead of us.

We don’t need to lobby toy companies to make Amelia’s doll-with-hearing-aids dream come true, because this movement already has with some success.

My favourite of the companies to jump on board with the idea is called Makies in the UK. They already create gorgeous dolls that can be designed to suit a wide range of looks, clothes (I love the archaeologist career pack) and accessories.

Now they’ve added a range that allows for another level of choice where hearing aids, cochlear implants, wheelchairs, birthmarks and so on are finally a possibility. I was all over it.

After I lovingly chose the specs for Amelia’s doll that shares her name, hair colour, sweet smile and quirky clothes sense, I clicked on ‘hearing aids – pink’. CONFIRM ORDER. Done.

On Monday, the doll version of Amelia arrived and she’s everything my girl (and I) had hoped for. I am beside myself with excitement to see her face on Christmas Day when they meet for the first time.

Just two cool girls with long blonde hair, dark eyes and hearing aids, hanging out together and wondering how Santa could be so switched on.

 

In dreams, you’re mine

WE WERE at dinner with friends when I saw the bonny baby at the next table. A new-born covered in a light muslin wrap, protected from the too-cool air inside.

His mother was cuddling him in the warmth of her arms. She rocked him back and forth, swaying rhythmically in her seat.

Her beloved one had just woken without protest, but she was soothing him with the closeness of her body, the soft murmuring on her lips.

I was mesmerised. Trapped in a zone with them I could never truly share.

There were no tears from him, no raucous babble; he simply stared up at her with fixated wonder. His mother.

The yearning inside me was powerful, like I’d been sucker punched without warning. It hurt in a distant part of myself I’ve tried to bury. But it’s always there; it grows stronger with age.

It rears its ugly head sometimes when I pass a pram in the street and glimpse the soft skin of infant feet, bouncing with the movement created by the street. My stomach lurches; I look away.

Or like the day when I was walking behind a man carrying a sleeping child in his arms and I put my hand out as if to touch a silken baby cheek. They moved out of reach and I let my possessed hand fall back by my side.

Every so often I cross the road to save myself the heartache. I don’t always have a choice.

This night, I stopped the conversation at our table mid-stream: “Oh god, look at that beautiful baby. Just there. He’s so sweet! Look how tenderly she’s holding him.”

My companions politely indulged me for a moment. I wanted to go over and hold that baby to my chest with a ferocity of feeling that shocked me.

It took all of my strength to resist the urge, but I wrangled it, pushed that dreadful longing down into the dark where it belongs. There’s no cure for it anyway.

So, I don’t tell anyone that it’s there. It’s a private pain that ebbs and flows.

Instead when I’m asked by strangers for the millionth time why we “only” have one child, I say: “No, I can’t have any more children, but really we were happy to have ‘just’ one.”

Or: “IVF was so very hard that we didn’t have the strength to go through it all again.”

And: “Our daughter has challenges and needs so much extra help and support. It was meant to be this way.”

We are lucky. We live with grief. But we have no regrets.

Signing Santa

Best. Santa. Ever.

IT’S THAT time of year again. Christmas is just around the corner and you can feel the urgency (panic) in the air and on the roads.

I’m steadfastly avoiding the chaos of shopping malls, except in the virtual world where you can shop at ease (and in your underwear) without being elbowed or causing a public scandal.

It was on one of my online voyages that I came across a magical initiative offered by a shopping centre in the UK called the intu Metrocentre.

Naturally, Santa was going to be dropping in to make a lot of generous promises for parents to try and keep.

And on two special Sundays, Santa would be signing to deaf children clutching their own dreams of bikes, superheroes and so much more.

I flipped over the sheer coolness of the idea, so unique in my experience as the parent of a deaf nearly seven-year-old who has reached peak Christmas excitement in 2015. I shouted my approval to the company from the rooftops of social media and to my delight, I received a wonderful surprise message in return.

How would we like their signing Santa to make a video message for our daughter Amelia?

Is the Pope a Catholic? You bet your life we would LOVE that, I replied. I was really bowled over by the unexpected generosity of their offer to us. There are so few deaf characters or stories in the mass media, but having the big guy from the North Pole fluent in sign language* seemed like a radical start to our festive season.

And about a week later, Amelia’s video arrived in my inbox. The proof of its worth is in the stunning, personalised Christmas pudding, provided by Santa and Mrs Claus:

Christmas morning will be full of lovingly chosen revelations for Amelia. But she has received an early gift this year, and its unique contents made her face shine with joy and unbridled excitement.

Amelia’s mouth dropped open when Mrs Claus mentioned her passion for Spider-Man (how did she know?). She followed the message closely and copied the signs she recognised about the reindeer and snacks for Santa and his helpers.

When it had finished, she pressed replay over and over, endlessly enchanted by it all. It’s simply a gorgeous video; we absolutely love it. Especially the bit where Santa tells Amelia to be a good girl and go to sleep on Christmas Eve.

If he could write that message in the night sky and hang some lights off it, that’d be awesome too.

*Although the message is in British Sign Language and Amelia uses Auslan, many of the signs were familiar to her so she followed it well.