PART V: Peanut

 
Our baby. Not a baby any more! She's now a 10-year old, very active, amazing little girl. She's spirited, fun, talkative, strong, sweet, caring, compassionate, kind, hearty, energetic, optimistic, intelligent, a thinker, and quite lively! So different to the others. One day, she cried. I queried her why? She said... “you're all weird, and I'm not. I also want to be weird”.

Bwahahahahaha.

That basically sums our family up! We “jokingly” use the word “weird”, so that the children realise it's not a heavy label, but something to embrace. Yes, our Daddy is “weird” because he's the epitome of what's called a “Nerd”. Yes, Mommy is “weird” because she's typical of an autistic – obsessive, impulsive, homebody, etc. Yes, Mr N too is “weird” because he is also a nerd and has epilepsy, which causes physical problems and medication side effects. And yes, Boeboe is the “weirdest” of us all, because not only is she also autistic and has physical birth defects, she is also artistic!!!

Me.... having an artistic and creative child? I would've cried with laughter if anyone saw that coming! But here we are. My daughters can both paint and draw and create animations and online art and labels and logo's and all kinds of amazing artistic things. I look at Boeboe's creations and designs for uni and I can again, just shake my head. How does she do it? I have no idea!

Then there's Monkeyman who's also “weird” because he's ALMOST boundary autistic, thus extremely shy and introverted, and also a little bit nerdish, and with this ever-present heart problem around which our household sometimes revolves.

And then there's little Peanut.

She's not “weird”. In no way, shape or form can or will anyone be able to label her with that. She's absolutely NORMAL. In every way. She looks normal. She acts normal (no social awkwardness). She has no defects. No physical problems or little “tells” like the others. She's not hugely extroverted, but MUCH more so than any of us. So to us, she's an extrovert. She loves socialising!! Unlike all of us.

And she NEVER gets ill, or when she does, it's a slight cold for a day or so. Apart from once for teeth, she has never had antibiotics!! She's 10 years old and has never needed to see a GP (General Practitioner or house doctor). NEVER. NOT ONCE. (No, I'm not lying!)

So she's a normal, healthy, happy and perfect little girl of 10. She socialise normally with other people and can even play with or talk to strangers without a second thought. She has very little autistic signs. No physical defects or signs except probably also the thin left heart wall (the cardiologist diagnosed it in Monkeyman, Boeboe and me, she did heart sonar’s on all of us as she suspected a familial gene) and of course, the diagnosed GERD and Gilbert's disease (tiny liver defect).

Peanut does suffer from insomnia. And that's about my only complaint about her ever! She's intelligent. Not hard-working. She's not outstanding in anything yet that I can pinpoint, like the programming for Mr N, the art for Boeboe, and the engineering mind for Monkeyman. She's more of an all-rounder. Talented in all areas. Nothing particular clear just yet.

Peanut is really, really, really different from us in her NORMALNESS. It's so strange, after having 3 special needs children, to then raise this absolutely FINE little girl. It was WONDERFUL. AMAZING. I cannot explain how grateful me and her dad is. For this normal, healthy little girl. Neurotypical and NO special needs. To NOT having to go to doctors with her. Not even a GP. Not even, ever, laryngitis or tonsillitis or flu or measles. Nothing. Oh, just scarlet fever, but like always, she was sick for about 24hrs. We didn't even take her to the dr because she was already feeling fine the next morning! She just doesn't get ill. And no signs of spina bifida, no signs of epilepsy, no signs of pulmonary hypertension. Absolutely amazing. She was diagnosed with the same non-working valve as a tiny baby by the pead and GE, which does leave her with regular feelings of nausea. And the tests showed the same liver-enzyme problem we all have, but it causes no problems for her.

Oops. I forgot. She gets nosebleeds. Badly so. Every week a couple of times, but fortunately it doesn't take longer than half an hour or so to stop. I find vitamin K helps, so I give her extra veggies that contains that regularly. Fortunately, she loves eating peppers, lettuce, cucumber, etc.

So for about 4 years now, we have not been to doctors much. No need! Monkeyman is stable, Boeboe is stable and on meds that just needs check-ups now and then, Mr N is stable on his meds and only sees a dr about once a year or more. And Peanut needs no doctors at all!! No meds!! We even stopped all reflux meds for a bit, to give our bodies a chance to recover from the side-effects of it all. So for a while, we just rested. RESTED from all the doctors and medications and enjoyed this last baby of ours and time as a family to all just LIVE. To breath.

And now Peanut is 10 and it has been a wonderful, wonderful 10 years. She's in grade 5, and we're homeschooling her as well. Why?

And this is what will lead to the next parts, now that the updating on the kids is done. In the May and June of the same year that Boeboe was bullied and Monkeyman's tiredness and heart caught up with him, things fell apart for Peanut as well at her school. Her teacher ended up leaving during the July holiday of her Grade R year. (Which in our country, means right in the middle of your very first formal school year.)

Peanut started at this school when she was 2.5 years old. She only went a few hours on most days. It was a playschool at the same school all the other children went to, so she basically saw her brothers and sister regularly throughout her day there. She immediately made friends and absolutely loved it. She also loved loved loved her teachers. There were 2, one for the youngest ones, and one for the grade R's, but the kids as a group played together regularly and both teachers watched them. So moving on from playschool to Grade R was absolutely no trauma at all. It was the class right next door with the teacher they were very familiar with. By then, she has been with these 2 teachers for 4 years, so they meant the world to her.

Then, something happened during the 2^nd term between her teacher and the owners of the school, and she ended up leaving during the July holiday's. Halfway throughout Peanut's year.

The new teacher was awful, and Peanut hated her, which caused severe friction and heartache. Here's a small example of the why. The teacher believed grade R's should be little robots and control their bladders. So even when a child stuck up their hand and asked to leave the room, the teacher would refuse until “break time”. Small things like that, but it added up, and was so very very different from the extremely compassionate and loving and kind teachers Peanut were used to. It was such a shock to her, that she started to hate school itself. Then, due to all of this, a few of her friends also left the school (the parents took the children out). Which just made things more sad in Peanut's life. She lost her teacher. She lost her innocence and trust in teachers. She lost friends. So she became sad, withdrawn, depressed. Slept badly, ate badly and was clearly a very unhappy little girl.

So when Boeboe homeschooled from September, and we realised that I will have to homeschool Monkeyman as well, I succumbed and took ALL 3 my youngest children out at the same time. So from grade 1, Peanut homeschooled. I know eventually she would've been fine again in school. It wasn't an urgent need with her, like with the other 2. It just seemed like the logical thing to do at that point in time.

She immediately turned back into her happy, funny, lively sweet self. So it was clearly the right decision for her. At the end of that year, almost all her classmates also left, due to the same problem we had. Such a pity. But the right thing for us, and I guess, them too.

We left Mr N in school though to finish his matric (last year of schooling) and write his exams in 2019. So he's the only one who never homeschooled. In 2020, he started working, so it turned out perfectly for him. And us, as that was the year lockdown happened. And we were all out of school already, and companies asked workers to work from home. We thus were safely cocooned in our house during the whole mess. We were not touched by what was happening in the world. We easily fell into a routine, working and schooling at home. We created separate little areas for it in our house. And only went out to buy groceries or visit family. This has basically been our life the past 3 years, as in our country lockdowns only recently lifted, and companies decided to keep workers that could, working from home.

So for those who did not register this through my ramblings. In May 2018, something happened to cause severe unhappiness for Peanut. Monkeyman's tiredness took a turn for the worst that same year and it became clear he would have to leave formal schooling. End August of that year, Boeboe was physically bullied and we were told to take her out immediately. All of that in the exact same year, within months from each other. After an extremely happy and good 4 years before that at the same schools for all of them. And Mr N was now approaching his final year of schooling during all of it.

Anyone realise that this was all just a little TOO coincidental?

The exact same year for all 3 the youngest, months apart, and Mr N only 1 year left. Now, to add to this “coincidence”, I'll continue my story in the next parts starting here.