NETHERLANDS: What happened to our son

NETHERLANDS: What happened to our son

coretta_picWhile bombs are being dropped on rescue convoys in Syria again, while moms have to worry about mosquitos giving their children diseases and deformities, while there are moms out there losing their whole family due to war, hunger and hatred, and mothers who have to fight for safety and food for their children every single day, it is with a little reluctance that I share this story.

Compared to their struggle, mine is just minor. Because compared to them, I’m a swaddled, nurtured, spoiled, little Western brat, who can get all the help needed. There is always someone who has it worse then you, and I am eternal grateful to live where I live, and have what I have. Misery has made me humble and grateful and able to see things in perspective.

Yet, our life is no picnic, no walk in the park.

Fygo was born healthy, on April 2nd, just past midnight. It was a C-section, so the doctors could hold it until April Fools was over. I was tired after 33 hours of labour, and stoned out of my mind from the painkillers and anaesthesia. I thought he was UGLY!!!! I wasn’t wearing my glasses, and I’m blind as a bat, and the drugs influenced my judge of character, but I didn’t care, I laughed and laughed. Then daddy came back from counting fingers and toes. “He has 11 fingers!” he said, and he was KILLING me. Fygo happened to have an extra phalanx on the mouse of his thumb, dangling from a small vain. “Ugly” became my kind of “weird”. After recuperating and having stitches, I was brought to my room. My mom was sitting there with our son on her lap, watery eyes, totally in love…. with his red soft hair…. I was able to look a bit more closely, and immediately fell in love with him, too. He was so welcome. His dad and I met in our mid-thirties, on the internet, and if we felt like having a bunch of children together, we had to hurry up.

So there he was, our 11 fingered carrot top. I never expected that, but I love ginger. Lucky bastard, he would steal a lot of hearts, starting right that April 2nd 2006.

He was nervous and anxious from the beginning: we had to swaddle him, otherwise he would wake up from his own movements. But during waking time, he was so relaxed. A little timid, especially around groups of people, like on birthdays, and especially when the attention was fixated on him. A lazy one too: he didn’t turn back when laying on his tummy, he just started moping and then fell asleep with his head on his hands. Or when I put a toy just out of reach, he would try one or two times, and then turned his attention to a closer toy. I could sit him up right, go around the house doing all the work that needed to be done, and come back to find him facing the same way I had put him to: he didn’t move an inch. And yeah, he was a bit chubby and clumsy, but I love that in babies.

Almost 14 months later, his sister Benthe followed. Yiihaa, we could also make girls! Fygo was crazy for his sister. Before saying his own name right, he knew hers. When he spoke of her, he got that dreamy look in his eyes. Asking “Get Benthe?” as soon as I put her to bed.

But we went through a storm at that time as a couple. Some major health issues for my husband, I was losing my pregnancy hormones and fell into depression, money problems, work related problems for the both of us, my eldest got bullied at school and was totally misunderstood, and school blamed it all on him (“he has to grow stronger and fight back!”). And of course, on top of it, though the little girl butterflied through everything, Fygo was getting more and more upset. He changed rooms so Benthe could get the baby room, but we didn’t handle it right. Oh, we did what we could at that time, which was not much: hubby having a hernia, me depressed. But we didn’t talk it through with him, we just did it. He began waking up every night, crying. We couldn’t take him upstairs to our bedroom, because he was so used to his own crib. So we had to go to his room and calm him down there, in which we hardly succeeded. After a while, we were all so tired. We couldn’t do it anymore. We started shouting from our bedroom at him to shut the **** up. There were times that I wanted to smack him, just from frustration and exhaustion. I was the one going to his room all the time, because hubby could hardly get up due to his back problems. We had no family to help us out, mine lives 250 km away, and on hubby’s family we couldn’t rely.

But when he was sleeping, he seemed to glow, he became almost transcendent. We knew he would touch a lot of hearts, he was one big lump of unconditional love.

May 2008. We had a holiday full of Dutch festivities: Queens Day, remembering the casualties of WW2 on May 4th and celebrating our freedom of that war on May 5th, and some Christian holidays as well. My bonus daughter was visiting with her boyfriend, things were looking better, I was looking forward to summer, we put up the pool in the back yard (in which I had to retrieve Fygo because he went under with no safety floater on yet!!!) and were busy redoing the front yard. I was changing jobs and would become a driving instructor. I just had had the interview that day in May, and getting ready to help hubby in the front yard. Fygo was playing in the heaps of sand on the sidewalk, with a neighbour friend. Just when I was about to change my clothes to working clothes, he went with his friend to their house a block away. We always looked out for each other’s children. So we watched them go. Digging, looking, digging, looking, digging, looking. The door opened, the door closed: they were safe.

Only this time, our neighbour was standing with two kids on her bike, ready to pick up her other children from school. This time, she couldn’t bring him back to us. So he went wandering….

After a few minutes, hubby had a bad feeling, like being cut off from something. Where was Fygo? Was he inside our neighbour’s house? I went looking. He wasn’t there. I walked around the block. No Fygo. But still, I was not worried. He was a much seen, much loved personality in the neighbourhood, maybe someone had called him inside, not seeing him accompanied by one of us. Crows were circling the house.

Hubby was going nuts, but I wanted him to stay home in case someone was bringing him back. I got angry at hubby, because if HE felt it, surely I would feel it too! I was his MOM! And more over, Fygo was clumsy, he couldn’t get off the sidewalk without falling to his butt first, and he was startled by passing cars: he would never cross the street.

I went looking by bike, in the direction of a friend that had a dog he loved, crossing the street and passing a pond. Hubby came to the intersection, we talked, and he said he wanted to help searching and went the other way. Still mumbling about him not falling into 7 ditches all at once, I cycled around the pond. There was some debris there, but that was not extraordinary. Almost back at the beginning of the pond, I saw him: floating, face down, his red hair and red shirt waving in the water. My world stopped……

I threw down my bike, jumped into the water, very keenly remembering my First Aid lessons of 15 years before: get him out face down, don’t let more water reach his lunges, no CPR until the water is out, don’t push his heart with your whole hand. I screamed and screamed, and as hubby arrived, so did a complete stranger who was working in one of the surrounding homes, to take over CPR. The son of our physician who happened to pass by, brought his dad, Emergency was called, and in no time the place was crawling with ambulances, medical staff, and people who wanted to have their children to take a good look at this boy dying and these parents crying their lungs out to all the gods in heaven and hell and all their dead relatives to please give him back, don’t keep him there, bring him back, let him go, he’s ours!

Another neighbour happened to be a police officer, and sent them away. She had to restrain herself not to use her baton.

I’ll spare you the details of how many times we were told to say goodbye, the coma, the horrible and continuous muscle contractions, the screaming, the jaw locks with his tongue stuck in between. In the police car following the ambulance to the hospital in Amsterdam, at some point we said: He’s back. He’s going to be okay. At that point, his heart started beating again. And unconsciously decided, that we would make the very best of it, stay positive, not buy into the medical jabber. In both hospital and rehab centre, we were famous for our fatalistic positivism. No one could beat us down. Fygo would NOT die, he would live, and he would do what he always did best: enchanting people, mesmerizing people, touching hearts.

We ended up being in hospital and rehab for 7 months. We slept in Ronald McDonald Homes, with our daughter Benthe. She was the light of our life and really saved us. Rehab didn’t really help, but then again, it was way too soon to see real progress, at least for him: we have seen miracles there, but always for others, not for us. Nevertheless, we celebrated every miracle happening. Being with other parents at the worst of times, needless to speak, we understood each other.

From day one, we said: this will work out for the best, it will be fine, all is well and we will get through this. Also to family and friends, we have been over-optimistic. While the world around us was waiting for our breakdown in the midst of still scary times, we pushed through and found each other. We did everything in our power to keep finding happiness in the smallest things: celebrating the Soccer World Cup and watching the games on a big screen at the hospital with others, drinking way too much beer. Taking strolls through the park. Making passionate love with each other. Being so proud of our other children, because they handled it so remarkably well. Seeing our daughter under the shower, unable to stand yet, sitting there with her bath toys, singing and talking and having fun. Sharing experiences with other parents.

And of course: crying our eyes out for what would never be. Naming all the monsters that we could possibly encounter, the what if’s. Feeling guilty, asking ourselves if we really were not to blame. We never blamed each other though, only that freaking duck he possibly tried to follow.

We were well aware of the situation. We were well aware we could lose him. We were well aware (after realizing and experiencing that waking up from a coma is nothing like in the movies) of the consequences of his condition at the time. We didn’t look forward more than an hour, a day tops. But we could not let reality take over our mood, our faith, our love. So doctors could talk all they want, that harness of positivity was destroyable.

Until rehab….

Fygo had had a nose probe for feeding since the accident. This had worked properly so far in hospital. He never pulled it out, not even in spasms, but when it became apparent for us that he would not start eating by himself soon, we decided to get him a PEG probe (or at least, that’s how it’s called in Dutch; PEG stands for Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy, meaning basically a hole through his belly, having direct access to the stomach: a literal “belly button”). If need be, we could pull the thing out and the hole would be healed in weeks.

But first, we transferred to a rehab facility, well known for their program for young patients up to 26 years of age, who suffered from brain damage, next to a good hospital where he could get this PEG probe. We were just starting to get psyched about the possibilities there, hearing the miracle stories of other patients and parents. But also exhausted, having a difficult time because Fygo wouldn’t stop crying and screaming and we couldn’t figure out why and couldn’t do anything for him. He was so stiff, we could have laid him between two chairs and use his body to sit on.

We were just starting to get kind of a picture of the future, when the nurse in charge of Fygo accidently pulled out his nose probe, and some of the feeding had gone back into his lungs, causing instant pneumonia. So the PEG surgery was cancelled, and the little guy had to fight for his life again instead. Since then, he has had respiratory problems on and off. Especially in the beginning, when we had all our hope set on the rehab facility and their program, this was a blow.

Fygo couldn’t start the program, which would have been most helpful shortly after the brain damage was inflicted. He was way too ill. And every time he recovered, but every time the team and us made plans to start, he got sick again. He obviously thought differently. We have been in rehab for a long time. We watched patients come in, way worse than our son, see them wake up, regain consciousness more and more, growing into their bodies again, increasing vitality, starting to eat and talk. All patients had changed of course, they were not who they used to be, some “residue” of their trauma was still active, but I could kill for his full consciousness and a strong and healthy enough body to work with for our son.

But never were we jealous. We celebrated each other’s victories, big and small. Seeing other people’s children recover made it bearable for us. We came across a South African neurologist, who had prescribed the sleep medication Zolpidem on a coma patient of his, because he was so restless. To everyone’s surprise, the patient didn’t drift off to sleep, but awoke and moved his finger, after having laid still for 10 years. We tried it. It worked a little. But brain damage due to lack of oxygen is very different from that which is inflicted by trauma (a blow on the head).

We heard of hyperbaric oxygen therapy. This is usually given to people with burn wounds and emphysema or other lung diseases, but clinical research showed more progress in healing brain damage too. Clinical research doesn’t count though, so there was no compensation whatsoever, and the facility that treated patients with hyperbaric oxygen couldn’t treat him anymore, even if we paid for it ourselves. The insurance companies wouldn’t allow it. We could still do it in the US, but it is too expensive for us. Since a few years, the physical therapy that accompanied the hyperbaric oxygen therapy is given here in the Netherlands, but his body is too weak now.

We read into every article, every conversation, every possibility that could help him, with no permanent success. After 7 months of rehabilitation, living in Ronald McDonald Homes and seeing no further progress, we left for home. Fygo could not live with us in the house we rented, and besides, it was too emotional for us to stay there.

We homed Fygo temporarily in a facility with severe multiple handicapped people. He was the youngest. The facility was old, kind of dirty too: it would be torn down and rebuilt, but until then, this was the situation. The other “kids” were noisy, often sick, we went through some deaths at his department, and though the staff did everything they could and with a lot of love, their ways were old fashioned, too. It was horrible to leave him there, and knowing it was temporary kept us going.

It was there that we met with the great guy who is running the school Fygo is attending now, so this period did have some good come out of it. We found another home, away from where we lived, in a much nicer town. My oldest left to live with his dad, a thing he had always said he’d wanted when he was to go to high school, and for us, that was the best. We had to focus on Fygo, and on ourselves.

The new place has a bed and bathroom downstairs, and we got all the help we needed from municipality. They have sponsored so many aiding facilities in and around our house to help us take care of Fygo. They even sponsored a van! Our consultant even asked her whole family to contribute towels and cotton cloths for us. We truly felt welcome in this community, even though they knew we could not give it back, and we are still grateful for that.

We brought Fygo home, still in a vicious cycle of illness, crawling back up, hospitalization, his almost dying, our almost dying, being sick ourselves, depression, addiction, trouble at work, and so on. We didn’t live, but we survived. It was only survival mode that saved us.

Fast forward to this day. Fygo turned 10. He’s a carrot top with a man bun and a grown up body odour now. After his last stay at the hospital this March, we had to have “the talk” again. For the first time in 8 years, he had to be on respiratory support, because just oxygen wasn’t enough. He had pneumonia, and on top of that the flu, that hit really hard here in Europe. What if this happens again: CPR or not? Support or not? How far do we go? How far will the medical staff go? Realise that puberty often means getting sick more, resulting in death. It was a hell of a time again; we went through a lot.

But it helped us say: NO. We don’t agree with that. This is NOT okay. Whatever you say doctor, but NO. NONONONONONONO! This is NOT going to happen. You revive him until he can’t go on no more. HE will show us, and WE will know. And we WILL decide then to do what’s best for him. We are no fools, and we know when to stop. But we’re not anticipating on it, no effing way. We have to live, not think about dying. Besides, can we please stop giving him the milky tube feeding stuff, which only contributes to his slimy lungs?

We decided to go our own way. I make his own food now; I came across a whole community on Facebook that blends normal food for tube feeding. I can add all the good stuff that helps his body grow stronger and give him a more normal intestinal function. And since he does not have to focus on staying healthy, his learning abilities grow as well.

Because, although he can’t sit, hold himself up, let alone stand or walk, has no neck balance, cannot eat or swallow or speak, there is a normal, 10-year-old boy in that battered body of his, that wants to be accepted, play, love, communicate, have friends. He doesn’t think there’s something wrong with him. He feels our moods. He knows when we’re down. He knows it’s because of him, and therefore accepts that he goes on sleep overs every week. But he also knows we love doing this.

Him going to a special class in a normal school, is magic. He learns to work with his eye tracker computer, and in this last 6 months, he has shown us all that he understands everything. He is showing us he can work with that darn computer as well. We see so much of the personality that we’ve come to know in his first 2 healthy years. Communication is key. And he’s still lazy: he knows we know him so well, that he doesn’t really need his computer to tell us. He still will do something one time and one time only, so we make a fool out of ourselves when we want to show other people what he can do. He still doesn’t like crowds or getting attention. He doesn’t want to be filmed while working. He makes jokes and laughs his crooked smile. He still winds women on his little finger with that spotted face and dreamy look.

We KNEW right away, from the day he was born, that he would touch people’s hearts, and he does. Never foreseeing how of course, and if there would be a pill or a procedure to let him be “normal” again, we would gladly take it, but even though the pain and the suffering and the almost deaths and the almost divorces, this life is still worth living, and it has brought us so much more then we could ever experience had we lived a normal life.

Fygo is still not in the clear, and maybe he never will. Right now, his spine is a mess and his lower rib is about to touch his pelvis, and we will have to decide whether he should get surgery or not. Well, actually, not is not an option. It’s more like: when.

He’s grown so fast and whatever muscles he still has are so tight, that his thigh bones are like parenthesis, and completely dislocated. His knees have been broken several times, without clear reason: he’s become fragile from not moving at all. His muscle tissue is nihil. Epilepsy is becoming a daily frenzy.

So yeah, we know we will outlive him. Thank God we will. But until then, we will get everything possible out of this life we gave him, that is our responsibility. And it is not about giving him a better chance of survival through intensive therapy, medication and working hard on recovery. He will not recover, because he already IS the best version of himself. We would be fooling ourselves if we think he could get any better.

But to us, it’s about showing him this beautiful world in a way we all enjoy. It’s about pleasure. It’s about fun. It’s about making memories. We still want that side cart on daddy’s motor cycle, because we know he will love it. We still want to go on holidays and show him other parts of the world, and have him in an airplane. We still want a farm with tons of animals that react on his energy.

We want him to know that whatever has happened, it’s okay. It has to be.

Otherwise, life and all this, is pointless.

Coretta Vermeulen

I'm Coretta, a former teacher. I'm married, and the mother of an 18 year old son, a 9 year old daughter and a 10 year old son, and bonus mom and grandmomship. Our 10 year old son Fygo has brain damage due to near drowning and has no use over his body, except for his eyes and ears. He lives with us at home and visits a special school. We try to live "a normal live" as much as possible.

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NETHERLANDS: Get Right Back on The Bicycle

NETHERLANDS: Get Right Back on The Bicycle

img_0587Seven years ago, we moved to Lagos, Nigeria with a sixteen month old and a three year old. When we came back to the U.S., we suddenly had a four year old and a six year old!

We have been in the U.S. for four years and this summer, our family has embarked on our second expat assignment outside the U.S. Last week, my children and I arrived in The Netherlands. My husband’s job has brought us here, and he has been working here for the last few months while my children finished up school, and I squared the sea shipment away.

This is not the first time our family has moved so far away from our home, but it is the first significant move for both of my children. When we moved back from Lagos, they were practically babies ( ages 4 and 6). They were a bit sad at the time that their playmates weren’t coming back with them, but honestly, all they cared about was that Mom and Dad were with them. This time, was a bit of a different story…

When we first told the kids we were moving back in December, they were almost panic stricken. My son (who is going into fifth grade, age 11) immediately said he didn’t want to leave all of his friends. My daughter (who is going into third grade, age 8) worried about what our new house would look like. What if no one would like her in her new school. They were both worried they wouldn’t understand the language around them. I completely understood how they felt as I had moved around a bunch of times while I was growing up because of my dad’s job. I knew the feeling of worrying about fitting in, a new house, new school, new friends.  All the things that are so very important in a child’s eyes. And, I was asking my own children to do just that, and also to go live in another country all together!

It wasn’t easy at first convincing them it was ok. I tried to remember my own feelings about moving every two years while I was growing up and feeling like I had no control over what was happening to me. I knew I didn’t want my own children to feel as if their own feelings and thoughts about the move didn’t matter. My husband and I talked with them A LOT. He was going first, so he would talk to them about what they wanted in our new home. He made sure to bring things in the first shipment and in his luggage that they would already see in our new home when we arrived for a visit earlier this summer. I made sure to let them know that it was ok to talk to me if they were feeling unsure or anxious about moving. The good news for them is that we are going to be moving back to the U.S. in a few years, and many of their friends that they are saying good bye to now may still be there when we move back. My husband and I wanted them to know that their thoughts and feeling did matter to us through this transition and that we were going to listen to what they had to say.

They both talked to me and wanted a going away party with their closest friends, and we did just that. They got to pick exactly what they would want to do with their friends.  (My son had a game truck come to our house, and my daughter had a p.j. and movie party with her friends). All of their friends signed a matte frame for both of them and we made sure to take a picture of them with all their friends that we could take with us and hang it in both of their new bedrooms. Most of all, I wanted them to know that friends are friends even if you don’t live in the same place at the same time.

And just like the song, “Make New Friends” says, we also talked with them about the importance of being open to making new friends in our new home. We approached our new move as an adventure…not an end to something.

Last week, we arrived in The Netherlands, and both the kids were extremely nervous about a new place to live. Happily, we have discovered how much the Dutch people LOVE riding bikes EVERYWHERE!!!! Biking is something my kids love to do. They have also discovered that the stroopwafel may be the BEST thing ever invented. They observed their own mother falling off a bike in an intersection, and watching me laugh at myself!

Tuesday was their first day of school, and as we biked to the school that morning, they were both very nervous as they heard so many children speaking Dutch. They didn’t understand a word, and neither did I. I don’t think anyone has ever felt the most unsure feeling in the world until you are among everyone who is speaking a different language than you.

I looked at both of them and told them that we are in The Netherlands, and people will speak Dutch most of the time. Just like in the U.S., people speak English most of the time. I explained to them that they would be taught in English, and it was ok to feel uncomfortable in a new place. But, most importantly, they needed to remember to be open to new things and to focus on the adventure we are on.
Preparing for this expat move with my school age children has taught me that my attitude towards the move is contagious. If I can laugh at myself and show that I am willing to accept the differences and the uncomfortableness in our new home, so will they. (I’ll have to talk about forgetting my shopping bags every.single.time. I went to the store last week another time!) Our children watch everything we do, and if we show them that we are ok, they will follow suit.  Just like getting back on a bicycle when you fall off, as an expat, you pick yourself up when you are uncomfortable and make mistakes in a new place and get right back “on the bicycle”.

I am happy to report that they both had great first days of school this week. Both of my children are the only ones from the U.S. in their classes, and they are both so excited about that! We may have many falls off our bicycle here but we will always, always remember to get right back on! There are just too many news things to see and do here.  We can’t let little things get in the way of our adventure. We are so excited for this great new adventure in The Netherlands, and I can’t wait to write all about it on World Mom’s Network.

Have you moved with older children? How did you ease their fears and anxieties about moving?

This is an original post for world Moms Network by Meredith.  You can check out her adventures in The Netherlands on her blog here.  You can also check out her  adventures in Lagos, Nigeria here.

Meredith (USA)

Meredith finds it difficult to tell anyone where she is from exactly! She grew up in several states, but mainly Illinois. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana which is also where she met her husband. She taught kindergarten for seven years before she adopted her son from Guatemala and then gave birth to her daughter two years leter. She moved to Lagos, Nigeria with her husband and two children in July 2009 for her husband's work. She and her family moved back to the U.S.this summer(August 2012) and are adjusting to life back in the U.S. You can read more about her life in Lagos and her adjustment to being back on her blog: We Found Happiness.

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NETHERLANDS: Looking beyond behavior

NETHERLANDS: Looking beyond behavior

unnamedI stood in the doorway. Uneasy, uncertain if I was at the right place at all. I couldn’t seem to find my way around this hospital. My eyes flashed back and forth, seeking for some sort of assurance. A doctor passed me, I stepped aside to let him pass in the narrow hallway. I read the sign on the door again. It said to report here, but the lady behind the desk was ignoring me.  Her phone conversation seemed to be going on forever. Then she stepped out of the room and passed me. Nothing about her acknowledged the fact that I was there. She held her nose high, her face a mask of arrogance. Her heels clicked away while I repressed the hint of anger that I felt rising in my stomach.

I took a seat and a big breath of air and turned to my phone for distraction. The heels came clicking down the hallway again. Still on the phone, she took her seat behind the desk again. Still nothing. I was completely invisible to her. By this time I was having a vivid conversation with myself.

“Leave it Mirjam. She’s talking to a patient. Maybe she didn’t see you.”
“I am so certain that she saw me! This is not worth getting angry over.”
“But you have to stand up for yourself!”
“No, I’ll just leave it.”

The doctor called me in and ended my inner struggle. I mumbled something about being ignored, but let go of the situation. After my appointment, I sat in the same hallway again waiting for the doctor to hand me the forms for my bloodwork. A woman approached me, she smiled apologetically. Her face was soft and friendly.

“I’m so sorry that I kept you waiting,” she said. “I had a situation and I was in a panic. Are you still waiting for me? Did the doctor call you in already? You don’t have to wait in the hallway, you can wait in the lounge, where you can have a cup of coffee. I’m so sorry. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

As she walked away, I could have slapped myself in the face. If there is anything I have learned this past year from working with kids with special needs, then it is that there is always more then what you can see at first sight. My first rule is: whenever there’s an extreme, look beyond the behavior. There’s always a reason for the behavior. No one yells for no reason. No kid acts out for no reason. At my work when I react to the behavior, I miss out on the real reason behind the behavior. I miss out on a chance to really connect.

I have used this technique a lot in my work. When a kid starts throwing things in anger, I can give a lecture about not throwing things and give a consequence. But I can also start a conversation by saying: ‘I can see that you are really angry,” and find out what the real issue is.
Most of the time I find out that the angry child is feeling sick, had a difficult morning or is feeling anxious about something. Addressing the real issue always deescalates the situation quickly.

I have also tried this technique at home. Whenever my youngest is whiney and starts yelling for no apparent reason, instead of reprimanding her or correcting her behavior, I stop and think a moment and then I address or investigate the situation. I take her by the hand and look her in the eye. “Are you hungry? Shall I make you something to eat?”, “Did you have a rough day? Do you want a hug?”, “You are tired, aren’t you? Do you want to sit on the couch, can I get you a blanket? Shall I make you a cup of tea?”

I haven’t perfected this technique, at least not at home. I have found that at home it is harder to control my emotions. When one of my kids starts acting extreme, my first instinct is still to correct the behavior or to step in and join the madness.  At work it is easier. I can take a step back and think before I react. But I am getting better at this every day. The situation in the hospital has taught me that adults are no different from children in this area. Instead of getting angry, I could have reacted with patience. I could have been more apprehensive. In hindsight, I realize that I did notice that her cheeks were flushed. I heard her say that she was doing her best to fix the situation. I should have looked beyond her behavior.

When I look at the world around me this way, I find that I am so much more understanding, so much more forgiving for people around me. This is why I am sharing this with you today. Because we could all use a bit more understanding, right? The next time your child, spouse, neighbor or coworker starts yelling or overreacts for no apparent reason, don’t join the madness. Take a step back, think, make eye contact or make physical contact and address the situation, investigate.
I guarantee you, you will witness a tiny miracle.

You’re welcome.

Do you think you can use this technique? Have you ever been in a situation where there was more behind someone’s behavior than you thought at first?

This is an original post for World Moms Network written by Mirjam in the Netherlands

Mirjam

Mirjam was born in warm, sunny Surinam, but raised in the cold, rainy Netherlands. She´s the mom of three rambunctious beauties and has been married for over two decades to the love of her life. Every day she´s challenged by combining the best and worst of two cultures at home. She used to be an elementary school teacher but is now a stay at home Mom. In her free time she loves to pick up her photo camera. Mirjam has had a life long battle with depression and is not afraid to talk about it. She enjoys being a blogger, an amateur photographer, and loves being creative in many ways. But most of all she loves live and laughter, even though sometimes she is the joke herself. You can find Mirjam (sporadically) at her blog Apples and Roses where she blogs about her battle with depression and finding beauty in the simplest of things. You can also find Mirjam on Twitter and Instagram.

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NETHERLANDS: All kids included..

NETHERLANDS: All kids included..

image13 - oY6JdvatDvAlthough budget cuts mostly mean changes for the worst, sometimes they turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

At the start of the 90s the government had to cut down the costs of special education. I was learning to be a teacher, when a project named “Together To School Again” was a much talked about topic in the Dutch school system.
It was brought to us as “progress”, of course, and it was backed by all kinds of educational specialists, but received with a lot of resistance in teaching land. After all, WE were the ones executing the damn monstrosity.

The goal was to keep children with disabilities-in-the-broadest-sense (so, from hearing difficulties to behavioral problems) in normal schools as much as possible, with extra help from special education teachers/therapists, or remedial teachers, who then became full time class assistants. Another goal was to keep the classes small, 25 children max. Only the really difficult ones would go to special education schools.

I didn’t really get all that resistance from my (future) colleagues. I knew very well that this whole charade was not educational progress, but budget cuts, but I also felt that this could turn out okay. In fact, I believed it should be normal to have a society where we include all people, and an educational system that would work for all sorts of children: refugees who don’t speak the language, children from war zones, children who roll instead of walk, children who talk with their hands instead of their mouths, children with narrow boundaries and children with overly wide boundaries, well, you catch my drift. And mind you, ADHD was still a rare symptom, just like gluten allergy, and autism was “just” autism. And they were illnesses, causing behavioral problems in class.

Fast forward to today.

Inclusive education has become the new norm, and the new normal. We have so much more, refined knowledge of and information about the abovementioned diseases (and the ones added since). We learn more and more that their symptoms might as well be the ways humanity adapts to different energies, different vibrations. Indigo children, crystal children, rainbow children, so many beautiful names. We begin to understand that in addition to the downsides of special needs kids, there are many plus sides too. Their creative thinking, their wisdom, the authenticity of these special kids is amazing and should not be restrained – it should be encouraged. We learn that being outside, playing in the dirt, playing in general, having enough physical exercise and a nutritious meal is key to a happy life and happy offspring. We learn that “not being normal” is actually quite normal.

The concept of inclusion is also being applied to special care facilities, like the one our son is attending, called “classroom on wheels”.

The founding father of this concept is Roeland Vollaard. Working as a physical therapist in a special care facility, and fostering a boy with severe disabilities during weekends and vacation periods, his dream of including his clients in the real world began. He got promoted to manager of an orthopedagogical daycare center for children aged 3 to 14, and met a mother who had a deep wish for her son to be around healthy kids. She noticed her son reacted totally different around her other kids than at the daycare center. They started an experiment at the school of her other children: her special kid attended classes with kids his own age, with help and care of personnel from the daycare center. Needless to say, the experiment worked out perfectly.

Children with severe multiple disabilities gain their support mostly in special facilities. There is hardly any contact with non-disabled peers. This is called segregation (right in the diagram).

Classroom on Wheels provides schooling, short-stay (sleep-over) possibility and home support. This is called INTEGRATION (bottom left).

Schooling happens in separate classrooms, but inside a “normal” school complex. Younger children attend a primary school; the older children join a high school. Working together with all parties means INCLUSION (bottom right).

Integratie Inclusie

Source: translated from the website http://www.klasopwielenalkmaar.nl

We kind of stumbled upon the opportunity to be part of this. We met when Roeland was still manager of the daycare center, due to our son’s physical problems (this was just after his accident and rehab). He went somewhere else, but was sick all the time, and we needed home support. Roeland applied. He came cycling 15 km to be at our place at 6.30 am, take care of our son so I could take care of our daughter, put him on the bus and cycle back, in all weather conditions, never too late, never too early. He probably saved us and gave us hope, when we had lost everything.

And then, when he started his Classroom on Wheels, our son was able to slide right in.

Making good use of interns and volunteers, sponsoring, low overhead costs, new technology that needs testing, and keeping a small paid employees list (but still being able to guarantee one-on-one supervision), the Classroom can provide the latest technology and know-how, the best equipment, excellent care, and a lot of love. And besides hanging out with their disabled friends, they go out for walks to the mall, the library, the park with their healthy pals, attend and give presentations, do art work together, listen to stories, have recess together. And though it was frightening for a lot of the “normal” children at school, now they got to know the Classroom kids, read to them, look into their eyes and know that deep inside, behind the frozen faces, inside these deformed bodies that are being denied to do what other kids take for granted, behind the spasms and the epilepsy and the goofy screams, that deep inside, there is a child yearning for respect, love, communication, interaction. To be really heard, to be really seen. Just like they do.
And besides that: what “normal” kid can say he’s got a wheel-chair-drivers-license, and an elevator-utility-using-permit, and a drool-wipe-diploma?
Inclusion works both ways……

The Classroom just celebrated its 5th year anniversary, and the benefits are really starting to show.
Not only on a personal level for all involved, but even the Ministry of Education has shown interest, as well as organizations surrounding special care children, because it is proof that cost reducing does not have to mean care reducing.

Luckily, our main man Roeland, is not a sell-out……..

Our son Fygo is linked to a 6th grade group. Together they made a presentation about the eye tracking computer he is learning to use. In technology class, they made an arm stand for him from K’nex. In world orientation class, he loves to listen to stories about other countries, other cultures, loves watching nature movies, especially about wild animals, they stimulate him to use his computer for the better, and HE DOES IT for them.
Until it is time for feeding, diaper changes, physical therapy, musical therapy, showering, resting. Then he goes back to the calm of his own classroom and the love of all the people working there.
He’s happy and thriving.

How privileged we are…….

Coretta Vermeulen

I'm Coretta, a former teacher. I'm married, and the mother of an 18 year old son, a 9 year old daughter and a 10 year old son, and bonus mom and grandmomship. Our 10 year old son Fygo has brain damage due to near drowning and has no use over his body, except for his eyes and ears. He lives with us at home and visits a special school. We try to live "a normal live" as much as possible.

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NETHERLANDS: The art of letting go

NETHERLANDS: The art of letting go

IMG_0152 2 (1)When my husband and I got married over 16 years ago, we had very little belongings. What little savings we had, we spent on the wedding and on buying paint for our new home.
We had no furniture, not even a bed.

Any help we were offered by friends and family was refused by us. We knew exactly what furniture we wanted and saved every penny to buy furniture piece by piece. We made numerous trips to Ikea just to fantasize about how our house would look like furnished. We went to work and cooked a meal together and ate it while we sat on the kitchen counter or on the floor. Life was uncomplicated in those days. If I had to make a list of my possessions back then, it would have probably fit on one page. And I am not sure if that page would have been full.

With every year that passed my house started filling up with things: furniture, tableware, linen, and baby furniture, toys.

More and more stuff came in through the door: clothes, kitchen supplies, books, videogames.

Suddenly my house was full and my life had become complicated. Some of my days felt like an endless list of chores, schedules, and mostly decluttering. I felt suffocated by the amount of things I owned. I started longing for the simplicity of those first days when my life (and my house) wasn’t filled with so much stuff.

It wouldn’t have been a problem if I hadn’t had such a hard time with throwing things away. Many of the things I owned held memories for me. I can go through my things and tell you a story about every item. About the way I felt when I purchased it, I can tell you who gave it to me or why I desperately wanted to have it. My memory is selective that way. I cannot say exactly in what year I graduated, but ask me about any toy my kids have and I can tell you exactly where or who they got it from.

It was little over a year that I took a good look around and decided I wanted a change. At first I started clearing out and organizing my closets. After a while I started throwing out more and more things. With every closet I cleaned out, with every bag of clutter that left the house, I felt happier and lighter. Since then I have devoted myself to simplifying my life.

On Pinterest, where I spend more time than is probably considered healthy, I discovered that my new found strife for simplicity actually has a name: minimalism. I now know that minimalism is about far more than having less things. Minimalism for me is the art of letting go. Being content with living in the here and now not clinging to the past or hasting your way on to the future. Minimalism is embracing simplicity in its purest form. Pausing, breathing and enjoying the essentials. And surrounding oneself with nothing more than that. After all we should carry our memories with us, there is no use on stacking them ten feet high on shelves in boxes that we never look in.  Minimalism is about trust, about not having to be prepared for every little thing, not having to keep everything because you might need that one item one day in the future.

I have been trying to convert myself from a compulsive hoarder to a content minimalist for over a year now. I have a long way and many stacks of clutter to go but I will get there. I even have a name for this journey. I named it: Project Simplify and it is definitely to be continued.

Tell me your thoughts: What is your experience with clutter? Do you have difficulties with throwing things away?

This is an original post for World Mom’s Network by Mirjam from the Netherlands.

Mirjam

Mirjam was born in warm, sunny Surinam, but raised in the cold, rainy Netherlands. She´s the mom of three rambunctious beauties and has been married for over two decades to the love of her life. Every day she´s challenged by combining the best and worst of two cultures at home. She used to be an elementary school teacher but is now a stay at home Mom. In her free time she loves to pick up her photo camera. Mirjam has had a life long battle with depression and is not afraid to talk about it. She enjoys being a blogger, an amateur photographer, and loves being creative in many ways. But most of all she loves live and laughter, even though sometimes she is the joke herself. You can find Mirjam (sporadically) at her blog Apples and Roses where she blogs about her battle with depression and finding beauty in the simplest of things. You can also find Mirjam on Twitter and Instagram.

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NETHERLANDS: Interview With Coretta Vermeulen

NETHERLANDS: Interview With Coretta Vermeulen

Where in the world do you live? And, are you from there?

My name is Coretta Vermeulen. I am a 1970’s child, the daughter of my 81 year old mom and my dad who would have turned 88 today. I’m the mother of three kids by birth, bonus mom of two, and spare grandmom of one.

I was born and raised in the Netherlands. Now, this is not a big country, but I took a giant leap of faith moving from a small town in the North to the big city of Amsterdam. Oh, I can tell you stories about that!!! And I will, in time.

What language(s) do you speak?

My native tongue is Dutch, but I also read, write and speak English and German. In Dutch high schools, learning foreign languages is mandatory. Whoo, lucky me!

When did you first become a mother (year/age)?

I became a mom at age 27. I was drawn to the man who fathered my oldest son (oh, I can tell you stories about that!!!) because of his interaction with his then 4-year-old daughter. I actually never wanted kids before, not because I didn’t love kids (I did), but because of the whole lifetime relationship with someone who claimed to be the dad. I really hadn’t had the best example, daddy-wise. It freaked me out. But this man was so sweet with his daughter, giving her attention, revolving his whole life around her. So I thought: what the heck, let’s just go for it. As days became weeks (yeah, that fast!) I noticed the psychiatric imbalances in him: it ruined a perfectly good man with a good heart. But by then I was already pregnant, and I decided to just make the best out of everything. Who knows how far I could come with him? After all, my love for him would cure him, right? And then there was his daughter, who was depending on me too. So, we gave it a shot.

Are you a stay-at-home mom or do you work?

I’ve been working on and off since I became a mother. I had my teaching diploma, but there was little work in schools for young teachers. Fortunately, my then husband had been putting up a remedial program for dyslexic kids, and they could use me in it. So we worked both half a week, bringing our son to his grandparents once a week. It was the perfect balance. Until it all blew up in my face.

After my divorce and move to Amsterdam, I had a 40 hour work week at a school with lots of different ethnicities, young kids aged 4 to 6/7 years old. I took my son to school with me. After a while, I could ask some parents to babysit while I was having conferences, meetings, and the like. I remember this time as one of my strongest periods. I was so proud that I did this, all alone, recovering from an abusive marriage, recovering from very strong and powerful family ties, having a 40 hour job that I loved. I lived the insecure life of illegal sublet housing before I got my own place, redone and redecorated just by me, the handy-gal. I was a single mom in a strange city, and even considered having a second child by myself.

A series of incidents made me realize that although I AM a teacher, I cannot be bound by rules and regulations that I don’t support, and that do not support teachers or students. As my life took a turn to the worse, I gave up on teaching and haven’t been working since. I met my current husband, married and moved again. We had two children, and I stayed at home.

That’s going to end though, but I will tell that some other time, too.

Why do you blog/write?

I have always loved writing, but I am a little shy. At 46, I recognize that every artist is unsure about his or her own talent, even when someone performs daily over a period of years. So the writing thing (singing thing, creating thing, painting thing) never really left the building, except sometimes on Facebook or Google-Blogger. I do get nice responses, but I tend to think people are “just saying that to not make me feel too bad”. I recently auditioned to be a singer in a band nearby, but I’ve not heard from them. I guess the singing thing will stay at home with me, but I hope I will do a better job at the writing thing.

We have a very different family, which you all will definitely come to know. Writing about the things we experience daily helps me in a lot of ways, and I think maybe other people might benefit from it, if I can make someone smile or see things in another perspective, like it does to me.

What makes you unique as a mother?

I don’t consider myself special or unique. I am just a girl who gave birth to some live dolls. I act out like a little girl all the time. But that’s just a phase I’m in right now.

I think that my YOUNIQUENESS lies in being authentic. Although I try to hide my bad moods and not project my problems/emotions onto my family members, I really can’t. So yeah, sometimes I shout and yell and curse, but mostly that is pure and utter frustration from my side, after having said something for the @#$%&*! time, or tripping over shoes in front of the doorway, or picking up laundry from all over the house. I am consequently inconsequential, and that is a good thing, because I am flexible like that. I am NOT a hover-mom: my 9 year old daughter cycles to school on her own, facing traffic and traffic rules and teenagers blocking her way and what not. I haven’t seen the inside of her school for months now. I let her walk our big dog, because I trust them both. I let her go shopping for me and smile and praise her when she’s done her best finding the right groceries but ending up with completely different stuff than I asked for.

What do you view as the challenges of raising a child in today’s world?

Although there is a lot going on in the world, and it seems like the worst time to grow up, I don’t consider that being a parent is very difficult at all. From the births of my children, I have watched them grow just on their own. I could look at them for hours! How they discovered their hands, their feet, getting a reaction from repeatedly taking off their socks, being completely startled when first rolling over or standing up, and then the smile of triumph. All you have to do is put some food, love and trust in them, and the rest comes naturally. I believe in raising our kids authentically, with common sense, trusting their innate qualities and abilities, following some simple guidelines, parenting out of love and not fear, nurturing body, mind and heart. We need to set our own boundaries in which children can grow and discover safely. Above all, I want my children to be genuine, true to themselves, believing in themselves, being able to trust themselves as much as others.

How did you find World Moms Blog?

I’ve been reading World Moms Blog for quite some time now, as I am Facebook friends with other bloggers. I love reading about the interaction with our sprouts, the dos and dont’s, the similarities and the differences across the world, in different cultures. As a child, I always thought that my mother knew exactly what she was doing and why. After being a mom for almost 19 years now, I still don’t have a clue, and sometimes I’m even scared of being caught at it, so people can see: See, she acted like she knows everything about it, but look at her! I recently learned there’s a term for that, the  “imposter syndrome”

But I’ve come to terms with just doing what I do and hope for the best. Up to now, I think we have managed just fine.

Photo credit: Coretta Vermeulen.

Coretta Vermeulen

I'm Coretta, a former teacher. I'm married, and the mother of an 18 year old son, a 9 year old daughter and a 10 year old son, and bonus mom and grandmomship. Our 10 year old son Fygo has brain damage due to near drowning and has no use over his body, except for his eyes and ears. He lives with us at home and visits a special school. We try to live "a normal live" as much as possible.

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