Portraits of Autism - Guest Post from Kim

This week, I'm conferencing in Prato, near Florence. Yes, I will make sure I don't spend all my time in the conference and plan on doing some exploring. And I'm taking Room with a view with me, which Better World Books duly delivered along with a guidebook to Tuscany. In the meantime I can't do a portrait, so I've asked my friend Kim, who has a fantastic blog in which she records her daughter's many and frequent words of wisdom, The Imcombobulation of an Incredible Imogenation, to write one for me.  Kim's daughter, Imogen, is a bit like a Dalai Lama with a sense of humour - you'll learn a lot from her, and you'll have a laugh in the bargain. Kim is also a great photographer and you can see her pictures on her other blog: As I See it: A Daily Photograph Journal.  Go and check them out for yourself.


I took Imogen and Julius to the Fringe Festival today. I’d been on my own last weekend and got to see two fantastic plays and I wanted to give the kids their first taste of fringing.

Edmonton hosts the largest Fringe Festival in North America. And it’s incredible. There’s a huge range of plays and performances. Thousands and thousands of people flock to the sites for non-theatrical entertainment as well—street performers, musicians, fortune-tellers, and other carnival favourites are scattered through the streets as are food vendors hawking grease, sugar, and alcohol. What’s not to love?

Well, if you’re two and a half or four and a half and fall on the autism spectrum, there’s potentially a lot not to love. Noise. Crowds. Unpredictability. People talking to you and expecting a freaking response. An appropriate response, even. Jerks.

But I refuse to keep my children at home, avoiding life and interaction just because it’s easier. For them. For me. Home is controllable in ways that the public sphere is not. There are no loud, sudden noises at home (save for the blasts of bass from drugged-out neighbours but that’s another rant story); there are no crowds in our living room; there is no music that cannot be turned off in an instant. However, there are no open spaces in which to run at home. There are no other kids to be near whilst running. There are no other people. Just the three of us. And contrary to popular belief, people with autism are not anti-social. They’re just social in different ways.

Portraits of Autism - Guest post from HRH (and his mum Jen).

So we're on the beach. Building sandcastles, swimming, getting sunburnt. Having a great time.
So I can't write a portrait. But I've managed to convince my friend Jen from The King and Eye to lend me one of her excellent posts so the series could carry on! So here's a guest post from Jen, or rather from her 2.5 year old son, His Royal Highness, who'd rather speak for himself!

Hi, I am HRH. I am 2.5 years old. I wanted to come tell you more about myself. I haven't written here since my letter to Santa so I thought it was time I stopped by and remedied this.

A very nice lady, with the initials S.N. gave Mama a book called '10 Things Every Child With Autism Wishes You Knew' by Ellen Notbohm. By now, some of my extended family have read it too and found it very helpful.

Serendipity

This was originally a guestpost over at Belgravia Wives. She has taken a break from blogging, but go and have a look at her stuff anyway - it's well worth it.

The first time I heard the word serendipity was in London, somewhere South and not very glamorous. I was listening, wide-eyed, to some boy pontificating on the topic, nodding at his every word, hoping he would like me if I did. I even let him sing me a very whiny song called 'Serendipity'. I can't remember who that was by. I tried to like it. But looking back, I didn't feel very serendipitous at the time. I felt like a right idiot.

How to write a book - my post at Untemplater

As you're reading this, I'm on the beach. Or at least, I'm probably resting in the hotel room, trying to get Max to lie down a bit, quietly. Because if it's 2pm Turkish time, when this post is scheduled to come out, then it's too hot to be on the beach. We're careful about those things.

But I'm also over at Untemplater, talking about how to write a book. So this is where I come out of the closet and  say that I've written and published one book and have another one under contract. Nothing glamourous. Nothing you need a blog and lots of readers for. They're academic books. But I feel pretty smug when I thing about how I managed to put all these words together by a deadline. They're not the very best words, but, hey, they hang together, more or less.

Check it out here if you like!

If you're over from Untemplater:    

Welcome to the Paris-Ankara Express!

Please take a tour.

First, this is a sister blog. There's three of us, you see.

Except right now we're all off on our summer holiday so there's none of us.

But until we come back, there's plenty you can look at.

First there's lots of amazing photo posts from Sister 3, the one who only blogs in images because we don't allow her to write in English. Every week she takes part in Tara Cain's Gallery over at Sticky Fingers:

Then there's all the Weekend Charter posts where Marianne and I blog about the one exciting topic we choose together, or ask our readers to choose - there and back.

There's the Writing Workshops, mostly Marianne's, and the Weekend Assignments.

And  there's my new Portraits of Autism Series.

We're French, so of course we blog about food! Check out some of our recipes.

Plus a lot of fantastic posts, some of them featuring hot Swedish actors!

Others with Eighteenth Century feminist teenage zombies!

So yes, there's plenty to keep all of you amused should you wish to look around.

And if you like us, then please come back! Why don't you join us by clicking on the RSS widget or adding your pretty face to the collection on the left. And of course: spread the word about us! Facebook, twitter, digg, stumble anything you like - we'd be eternally grateful and love you forever.
Have fun looking around. Please leave comments - I'll answer them as soon as I can get my hands on a internet connection!

Portraits of Autism - Guest post

This week, Max's teacher is on holiday, so no portrait.

But I did write a guest post which you can read here on the Irish Autism Action Blog, where Jen, the editor, is running a series of posts from around the world.

So go check it out!

If you're over from Irish Autism Action, you might want to check out my previous Portraits of Autism here.

And see you again next week!

Oh, one last thing. If you liked this post, would you mind terribly clicking on the RSS feed, here, or the Google connect buttons (top left), or by email at the bottom of this page? And if you didn't like it, you might still want to look around. There's three of us, you know, so you're (almost) bound to find something you like. And then, if you've still got time, you could share this post or stumble it, or both and get in touch with your local tv station to sing our praises. We'll love you forever.

Guest post: Serendipity

I am absolutely thrilled to say I have been paired with Sandrine   to submit a guest post. By great good fortune, it became clear as we exchanged email ( and Sandrine explained to me what to do, it's my first time ! )  that we're a great match. We have similar interests, ideals and feeling on what is appropriate content on our respective blogs. We agreed to write our posts on the theme of 'Serendipity.' 

I thought about it a while, then as is often the case, the universe intervened.

Spring cleaning - of a sort.

Tomorrow, thanks to Erica at Littlemummy we are having a guest here. Our very first. It's exciting! Reminds me of when I was at school and we had exchange students.
Our guest is a Londoner from Belgravia and has a beautiful blog full of fun and recipes. She's the real thing. And I'm going to go to her blog tomorrow and try not mess things up too much. But I'm nervous. Nervous in the way that I am if I have a guest coming at home that I haven't met before. What if they don't like it here? What if they think it's a bit messy (a pigsty, in fact)? So I think a bit of cleaning is in order before my new friend Belgravia Wife - sort of, comes to visit.

Kids Toys – A Lesson on Quality, Sharing, Respect and Simplicity.

While my sisters were busy with their smutty stories and photos, I was writing about the art of Zen and children's toys, for a more proper kind of blog. Seriously.

Here's my post: Kids Toys - A Lesson on Quality, Sharing, Respect and Simplicity.

And just in case you think this is a one off, and that we can't do serious stuff at the Paris-Ankara Express, check my other guest post over at Multilingual Mania.