Films, Chronicles, Hospital appointments and College - an update.

Life is hectic. Today has been no exception and I've so much Uni work to do on top of everything else the PAs and me have to do to run the home.

My Uni work is full on. I'm taking two modules which both require a lot of creative thinking and therefore an enormous amount of time. Thankfully they are only until Christmas, but even so, until then I think I'll have very little time to do extra things.

Firstly, I'm making a short film. I'm learning to use editing software and looking at the relationship between sound and vision. It's exciting, stimulating and so absorbing it could end up being something that takes over everything else, if I let it - which I can't afford to do - there is so much else!

I'm at total freedom to make the film about whatever I want and present it in anyway I want to try. My film is about John. John Cossham and his amazingly full, active and inspiring life. See: www.lowcarbonlifestyle.blogspot.com

I was in York filming him and others Fri - Sun last week and came back with 4 hours plus of footage, plenty to be getting on with for the time being, although I need a few more specific things, which I hope will just need a couple of day trips to get done.

My other project is equally creative but on paper rather than film. It's an independent extended project, and like the film, giving me total freedom to choose subject, content and presentation. So far my idea is called Chronicles. It's the journey through a new relationship a disabled woman is having. It's part diary and part narrative, including various characters and a 'twist'.

Mean while life goes on and demands rarely change. This week alone Little Boo has had 3 appointments, one with the Occupational Therapist, one with the Speech Therapist and one with her Medical Consultant. The bad side of this is that she missed assembly this morning, or more specifically being given a sweet at the end of assembly, like the rest of the children! This was the most upsetting thing from her POV. Quite right too!

TeenBoo rarely attends college. It seems little of what I or anyone says has any effect, nor does the bribe of receiving EMA - which he has never received as yet, as he hasn't completed a whole week since Sept!!! In fact unbeknown to me until getting back from York Sun evening, he had stopped going altogether! After talking about this he went in to college on Monday and asked for a second chance, which the college gave him. He just seems to have forgotten it needs to be for more than 1 day, as he hasn't been since.

The stress this causes me can hardly be measured. I have had years of this struggle with him and school. His lack of cooperation has caused so much pressure and difficulty during this time. The constant phone calls, letters, demands to go into school after exclusion periods or time in isolation, education welfare visits, etc, has almost had me at breaking point more than once.

But he is 16 now. He's no longer a school boy and he has to face the consequences of his choices and actions. I have been suggesting he tries to get part time work, to no avail. I can't make him go to college, or get him any work, neither can I fund his social life, nor should he want me to! He has to do these things himself. He has to motivate himself and be pleased as he progresses through life and moves on.

Of course 16 is very young and in many ways he is still a child. (He could never admit this - nor am I allowed to suggest it!) So we struggle through. At times we almost attain harmony and family life of some quality, but in the main, regardless of what I do and my attempts at inclusion, he keeps himself separate from us.

The teen years can be extremely hard - nevertheless he is my responsibility and I love him unconditionally and whilst he stays on 'this side' of my bottom line, there is always a place for him in my family and home. And so it should be.