A year ago I wrote a candid response to the registration crisis midwives were facing as the national registration of health professionals legislation made the rounds of each State. I am sad to say that some of the somewhat satirical comments I made have now started to eventuate. This should be shocking and horrifying to anyone who values the principles of autonomy and self-determination. You now no longer have the ultimate say in what happens to your body if you choose care by a registered health professional. Your choices may be vetoed by a medical gatekeeper. Women, it seems, have less right to self-determination in birth than horses.

Women who want to home birth are now worse off than ever before. There have been recent reports in the media about women being refused prescriptions for syntocinon by midwife-wary GPs. The witch hunt is in full swing with midwives being reported left, right and centre and soon the term ‘midwife’ will only openly be used in the halls of power, where midwifery staff can be controlled and where women’s rights to self determination are vastly eroded. Pretty soon the tales about home born babies will be hushed up and a cone of silence will encase those who dare to choose this option. Women will have to join secret birthing societies in order to get the information they need to hire an underground midwife to support them so they can have, what they consider to be, a safe birth and they won’t be able to refer to these birth helpers as midwives. Doing so could mean prosecution, so instead they’ll say they were birthing unassisted with partners and “friends”. Midwives will be unable to accompany women to hospital should they need to transfer and adequate consultation with medical professionals will become impossible. Yes, the situation is dire indeed.

In the wake of all of this, I have chosen to not to have another baby. It is clear to me that none of my choices will be respected in the system. I wouldn’t be “allowed” to even use water for pain relief because of my two previous caesareans (even though I birthed my last baby naturally). I also don’t feel comfortable putting a midwife in the position of supporting me when each previous pregnancy involved complications that put me in the “high risk” category, despite the normalcy of my pregnancies in reality. I feel like my only choice is to birth unassisted at home but I’m not willing to do that either. So, that’s, that. No more babies for me.

I am extremely angry that my personal life and our family choices have been interfered with by the state to such an extent, that I no longer feel that Australia is a democracy in the true sense of the word. When a government can dictate to you that you cannot choose for a normal bodily function to happen in the comfort and safety of your own home, then that is not freedom or self determination.

The thing I find really disturbing is that there are a plethora of so-called experts who support what the government is doing and who think it is okay to deprive women of their liberty. Some have even called for homebirth to be made illegal. Excuse me? Following that reasoning, we should also make patient-choice caesareans illegal and patient-choice inductions illegal. Not that I want to compare homebirth to medical procedures but you get my drift. If they are going to control once choice, why not control them all!

So what do we do now? I have no doubt it is going to be a rough road ahead for both women and midwives who are passionate about choice in childbirth but we need to keep telling our stories, the good stories about birth. If our stories die, so will home birth.

Leah Dettling slipped into my life unobtrusively and quietly five years ago when she started coming along to church at the Vineyard in Brisbane. Four years ago, a few of my church friends pitched in to nurse Leah back to health after having surgery to remove a malignant melanoma from her leg. I didn’t really know Leah back then so I left her care in capable hands and got on with the busyness of my life, raising my three children, doing the thousand other things that seemed to squander my days. Part of it for me, to be honest, was the need to keep other people’s pain at arms length. I could barely handle my own. Distancing myself from others was a survival mechanism so I used my busyness as an excuse not to connect with others.

Things unravelled dramatically for me back in September 2008 when I lost a baby in an ectopic pregnancy and developed pneumonia. I realised the futility of putting objectives before the people I loved and such an outpouring of love came my way after that, it was hard to view life in the same way. I started to realise that connecting with others, while risky, was something I needed to do in order to regain my confidence, learn and grow.

Leah and I were church friends, and we were only just starting to get to know each other when she left Australia to start her winding road to Darjeeling, India. We’d pray for each other, provide encouraging prophetic words and share in each other’s joys and sorrows. We weren’t close friends but I always felt that one day we would be. When she left Australia, I quietly hoped that one day I could visit her in India and somehow contribute to the work she was going to undertake, bringing hope to a fragile region of the world.

When she left, we kept in touch and I looked forward to her one day returning to tell us fascinating tales of what God was doing in India and how He was blessing her work. Sadly, late last year, we received news that Leah’s cancer had returned. The cancer took over her body aggressively and ruthlessly and on Sunday night (Australian time) 24 January, Leah was taken from us.

So many thoughts cross my mind at a time like this, not least of which is the shock that cancer can dominate a person so quickly. It feels so wrong to be saying goodbye to someone who hadn’t even hit 29. Another thought is wonderment at Leah’s influence on the hundreds of people who she came into contact with. Her grace, strength, trust and hope impacted literally hundreds of people. I have no doubt that Leah’s legacy will live on in the lives of all she has touched.

When I heard about the cancer returning, I decided to do something to honour Leah and the struggle she has faced. So, I am participating in The World’s Greatest Shave on March 12 to raise money for cancer research and people living with cancer. It is no easy thing for me to shave off my hair. It is just past my shoulder blades and I’m not terribly secure about my appearance on the best of days. On the other hand, if losing my hair has a use, and can bring hope to others, it is an easy thing for me to do.

I aim to raise at least $1000 for The World’s Greatest Shave which is run by the Leukaemia Foundation, a registered tax deductible charity here in Australia. If you want to sponsor me, simply visit my sponsorship page at: http://my.imisfriendraising.com.au/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=313775.

Ps: If you want to donate towards the mission that Leah was to work on in India, please contact Leah’s mum, Maryrita at rmdettling76@hotmail.com or Leah’s pastor at the Vineyard church in Brisbane, Graeme at graeme@vcfbw.org.au for Paypal or postal details.

I love the light bulb moments, the time to reflect and ask questions, the time to focus. I love how we’re doing life at the moment. There is nothing all that contrived, nothing dull. Every day brings a new revelation. I love it that Master Nine and I have had long discussions about Chaos Theory and the butterfly effect as well as tackled big questions such as “does God exist ?” I love it that he counts backwards from 0 (-1, -2, -3, -4…) and works out algebraic formulas without even thinking about it (for instance: Mum what’s 365 + ? = 400 when trying to work out exactly how many days he had to go till an event). I love it that in the past four months, he’s worked out how to put together a blog with banners, links, and organised, interesting content, has read a book about website marketing (not that he’d know it in those terms) and implemented the advice to increase traffic to his website,  has learned teamwork and delegation skills by sharing his blogging responsibilities with others, has figured out how to use a variety of widgets, and writes constantly (He loves capital letters, probably because he’s so excited about his blog posts), has learned to use Photoshop including skills in cropping, reorientating photos and images (geometry…not that we call it that), using layers, animated banner ads and resizing images (percentages, understanding of pixel count). I love it that a discussion about jumping off a bridge into a boat led to the discovery that everything falls at the same rate regardless of mass so long as the air resistance is the same and I love it that he tried to test it out by dropping a bottle to the ground at the same time as himself (ouch!). I love it that we were on the bridge at the time.

I love it that he has gained more independence in getting his own food and clothes but that he still wants me to do it for him, because it fills his love tank… I love it that we have talked about that, while snuggling under my bed covers during a thunder storm with his two younger brothers. I admire his ability to make friends online and his wisdom at making sure the nine year old in Canada, really was a nine year old. I love it that he didn’t hesitate to call his new friend and then downloaded Skype to make sure he could call for free. I love it that he tweets and that he sticks to a set of rules in terms of who’s allowed to follow him to safeguard himself! I love it that he learned how to fish and didn’t get discouraged when he didn’t catch anything, I love it that he’s keen to give it another go.

I love it that he’s worked out what he needs to do to get a job at a certain place by a certain time and that he’s willing to do the work to get there. He’ll probably change his mind, but then again, he might not. I love it that no one’s told him he can’t do that or that he’ll have to wait until he’s a grown up to try. I love it that his eyes sparkle when he sees a well designed object and wants to replicate it, and thinks he can! (ie. a walled pond with a water fountain). I love that one day he figured out that everything was made from the same stuff and I love that he takes a keen interest in current affairs shows on TV. I love that after watching a documentary on lightening and storms we had a whopper of a lightning storm that knocked the power out! It was good timing! When Master Nine was in school I never new what he was learning or if, indeed he was retaining anything.  We missed so much! Now I notice every little thing, every little “ah ha!” I love the excitement, the thrill that comes with an accomplishment or a discovery and I love being there to help solve problems when they arise. Children learn. We can choose to make it difficult by sending them on a twisted, rocky path or we can choose to clear that path for them to decide their own way. I choose the latter.

My VBAC story

A picture tells a thousand words. For the complete story of my kids’ births visit my website: www.casmccullough.com/stories.shtml.

In 1938 Hitler outlawed home education in Germany. The idea of institutionalised schooling for children was first introduced in Germany not to improve children’s education but because the Prussian leaders of the time recognised the efficacy of spreading propaganda to children. They knew that institutionalising education would ensure a higher level of control over the children who would grow up to become the soldiers, leaders and workers of Germany’s future. At the root of Prussian rhetoric of the time were the Prussian ideals of intolerance, racism, and anti-Semitism. As we know, this propaganda campaign was so successful that it gave birth to Adolf Hitler and resulted in the torture and death of millions of people. Our family tree is littered with stars of David to reflect the number of ancestors who lost their lives in Nazi death camps, in forced-labour camps and on the front lines in Russia.

Despite its controversial origins, the idea of spreading propaganda through schools took off and is now a common and effective way to change a population’s actions and paradigms. As a public relations practitioner and a parent, I well know the value in using schools to ensure greater take up of a public education initiative. When my kids come home from school laden with goodies—stickers, posters and erasers all sporting the latest government message about wearing seatbelts, walking safely to school, saving water or brushing teeth I know that the propaganda machine is well and truly oiled and that my kids will unconsciously absorb the catchy phrases and carefully orchestrated ideals the government wishes them to internalise. Really, state-based schooling is more about control than it is about fostering an independent, thinking human being.

However there is a dark side to any movement towards controlling a population’s ideas and actions. In Germany today, because of Hitler’s anti-home education law, German families can be prosecuted, jailed and have their children removed from their care. One such family had to flee the country last year—loving parents who just wanted the freedom to educate their children as they saw best. It is hard to believe that this is possible in what is now a democratic country. However, when you see the history behind this paradigm, you can understand how generations have been influenced by one, seemingly insignificant law that impacted on a small percentage of the population.

The rights of self-determination and autonomy are inherent in any true democracy. However, as the years go by I can’t help but think that democracy is slipping away from us at an ever-increasing rate.

This blog isn’t really about home education and the propaganda machine. What it is about is showing the impact of government control on the autonomy of individuals.

The Australian Government is currently considering legislation to ensure all health practitioners are registered. On the surface, this seems like a good thing and in many ways it is. However, the dark side of this reform is that it is being used as an efficient way of controlling women’s access to homebirth midwifery. The draft legislation not only penalises midwives who dare to defy it to the tune of $30,000 plus deregistration, it also penalises women and any organisation that promotes homebirth midwifery or is seen to instigate homebirth midwifery.

As of July 1 next year, Birth Matters, the journal I have lovingly edited for the past two years, will no longer be able to legally print the beautiful photographs and stories of women. To do so would put these women and their midwives in jeopardy and may result in the Journal incurring a $30,000 fine. Any midwifery blogs about attending homebirths will disappear and our stories, our folklore will be lost.

I have no doubt that this is the intention behind this legislation, that it is designed not just to control how and where women give birth but to quash the rhetoric that supports the notion of safe and beautiful birth at home. If this legislation is passed successfully, women will be the losers. Once again our rights to self-determination will be eroded. While homebirth with a midwife has been difficult in the past ten years, it will be more so now. For instance, women who could get prescription medications from a sympathetic GP for a homebirth will now not be able to do so. If the GP does this, they could be registered and prosecuted, the woman could be reported and prosecuted and their midwife deregistered and prosecuted.

Just like the family that fled from Germany to the UK last year because they chose to home educate their children, women will flee Australia to give birth in the UK and New Zealand so that they can birth at “home” safely with a trained attendant. Even if you view homebirth as something that only affects a minority of women, is this the kind of society you want your daughters to grow up in? One which forces them to subject to government control over their basic human right to choose where and with whom they give birth? Do we really want them to submit to a “just lie down and open your legs like a good girl because we’re doing what is best for you” paradigm?

The government can’t argue away the inherent rights of women on the basis of safety. There is absolutely no evidence that hospitals are a safer place to give birth for normal healthy women. Indeed, given the stories we hear day in and day out, it is clear that what happens on the birth front is neither safe nor respectful of women’s right to autonomy over their bodies. While I welcome the opportunity for midwives to attend women privately in a hospital or birth centre, I abhor the notion that this absolves the government from protecting those women who still want to birth at home for whatever reason—cultural, spiritual, physical or social.

One thing I can guarantee, women will continue to fight for their birth rite and rights because to outlaw the normal function of their bodies at home is not only absurd but an injustice. We are entering a brave new world where secret homebirth societies will flourish and midwives will form knitting circles in jail. This fight is only just beginning. I will see you on the birth front!

There aren’t too many issues that would compel me to plan a last minute road trip to Canberra but when I read the draft legislation on registration of midwives, I realised that I had to go and be among the many mums and babies, small children and midwives doing just the same.

My passion for this cause doesn’t stem from my own experience of homebirth because I’ve never had a homebirth. My passion extends from my births, yes… but also from my anger that women’s rights are being completely eroded by this legislation. The legislation was put in place to protect consumers but what it is doing instead is putting a stranglehold on midwifery practice and ensuring it will forever be under the thumb of medical dominance.

It makes my skin crawl to think that midwives and women may be slapped with a $30,000 fine if they went ahead with a planned homebirth. And what of all the unplanned homebirths? What happens to a woman who planns a hospital birth but slips a baby out at home while her midwife is walking through the door? This legislation is unjust, and really, un-enforceable! Are they really going to fill jails with knitting circles full of wise women? It just makes no sense!

So, I am planning a trip to Canberra in September and am taking son no. 1 with me to give him insight into our democratic process. Only I don’t feel like I live in a democracy at the moment. Any government that thinks it can legislate away a basic human right cannot really call itself a democracy.

The freedom to choose what we do with our bodies is a basic human right and a basic tenet of democracy. What is happening to childbirth in Australia will force women to give birth in an institution and this may have extremely detrimental consequences for some women.

To be fair, perhaps the government should consider issuing fines to women who elect to have a caesarean for no medical reason… but then, that would be absurd wouldn’t it? So why is it any less so for a homebirth?

That the majority of people are too busy to understand the complexities and evidence behind the choice to birth a baby at home doesn’t surprise me. But it never ceases to astound me how quick people are to judge women who make this choice or who, indeed, feel they have no choice. Why do people believe what some pubescent journalist fresh out of uni says when nine times out of ten the information is at best superficial, at worst down right lies? And they certainly don’t improve their reporting accuracy as they get older…

Take the case of an opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph today http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25298631-5001030,00.html.

The journalist, Fiona Connolly, claims “Home births are selfish, irresponsible, anti-reason and anti-progress.” She also has the audacity to compare birth in a poverty-stricken, war-torn Somali village with homebirth in the safe, leafy suburbs of Australia. Connolly fails to consider that women who homebirth in Australia DO have access to all the modern technology and a trained professional to assist them. Somali women in remote villages do not. I’m not really sure where the reason comes in to this argument.

What strikes me about this ill-informed piece was what was missing. What about the perinatal mortality rates of New Zealand and the UK and the Netherlands, all of which have state-sanctioned homebirth programs? Their perinatal mortality rates are not only comparable to or better than Australia’s but their intervention rates are better. Perinatal mortality rates in Australia are 10.1 per 10,000 live births. It is the same in New Zealand (despite their vastly smaller population which tends to skew statistics to look worse than they actually are). The UK’s perinatal mortality rate is 8 per 10,000 live births and the Netherlands 9 per 10,000 live births.

To support her point that all homebirthers care about are candles and home cooked meals, Connolly quotes various celebrities who have gushed over their homebirth experiences. But by pulling these quotes from the Homebirth Australia website she failed to do her homework and find out that Elle Macpherson birthed with the assistance of a private obstetrician in a birth centre. And where was the flippant quote from the great Australian thinker and journalist George Negus who’s wife Kristy was also a homebirther? Is Connolly seriously calling educated and philanthropic people like George and Kristy “selfish, irresponsible anti-reason and anti-progress?”

Another interesting nugget in Connolly’s rant is that she mistakenly believes that narcotics somehow make birth safer and that women who homebirth don’t have access to antibiotics, oxygen and oxytocic drugs. This is far from the truth. Most homebirthers are well aware of the need to obtain an oxygen tank, and oxytocic drugs from the local pharmacy prior to birth and organise this with their local GP (because midwives are prevented from prescribing these in Australia despite it being within their scope of practice). That said, most women who birth at home choose to avoid drugs and unnecessary antibiotics, not just because they want a beautiful birth experience but because they are informed and educated about the harm these can do to their babies. The fact is, we aren’t in a war torn country with no access to medical care when it is needed. Women who genuinely need antibiotics are referred by their midwife to a GP or to the hospital for treatment. But let’s not let the facts get in the way of a good homebirther-bashing.

That women have lost babies in childbirth is sad and tragic but we are not in a position to judge whether or not being at a hospital would have made any difference in any of these cases. We are also not in a position to judge whether being at home might have saved the woman who died from an amniotic fluid embolism or who’s baby’s throat was accidentally cut during surgical delivery. On mercifully rare occasions terrible things happen in childbirth in whatever environment a woman births in—be it home or hospital–but telling every woman that she should have no choice but to birth her baby in a hospital is not only irresponsible it is misogynistic and misguided.

Australia: Law et al, 2008 (AIHW)

New Zealand: NZHIS, 2006

UK: CEMACH, 2008 & NHS Information Centre 2008

Netherlands: Statline, 2008 (Statistical Yearbook 2004)

NB: It is important to note that different countries record perinatal statistics differently. The WHO standard is to report deaths from 22 weeks gestation. Most countries, however, seem to record rates from either 24 or 28 weeks. In order to present a more consistent picture, the 24 weeks has been used where possible.

Preface: Yesterday my son D was sent home from school because the learning support teachers said they couldn’t manage his behaviour. He was shafted from one person to the next and finally they sat him in the office until I was able to collect him. So today, D and L didn’t go to school (L said he had a headache). This is what we did instead…

This morning D and A got out the mat with the car track, and raced their cars around it to see who was the fastest, pretending they were race car drivers. Then A decided to do some colouring-in while L played “Line Writer” on the computer and D practiced on the Mario Kart Wii game. Then we found a cool science experiment on the internet looking at what happens to an ice cube when you drop it into a jar of cooking oil. In the instructions it said to float the ice cube on the oil but our ice cube didn’t float…. It just sank to the bottom. We watched as the ice melted and released little bubbles of oxygen into the air. The ice cube looked silvery, kinda like mercury. Eventually all the water settled at the bottom. From this we figured out that water has a higher density than oil and that oxygen likes to find a way out, even if trapped.

Then we went to the school for a visit with the special education teacher to discuss D’s “behavioural problems” and the fact that they were having trouble getting D to do anything for them. As we were discussing this, D and A were playing beautifully in the corner with a dolls house and their cars and then they were playing make-believe with the plastic dinosaurs. L was lying on the couch reading his Andy Griffiths and Paul Jennings “Just Annoying” book. After we finished, I asked D to pick up the toys and put them back in the box so we could go to the shops. He did so with little prompting.

At the shops, the boys got a little over-excited and over stimulated, so I focused their attention on finding items on my grocery list. It became a game. It fizzled a bit when they didn’t know what the words were so next time I’ll make sure I have pictures. While at the grocery store L figured out that 1kg of icing sugar was cheaper than buying two packs of 500g by three cents.

When we got home a storm rolled over and the boys went downstairs and placed Lego pieces in the new drainage pipe Wayne had placed in the ground and waited at the other end for the Lego to spew out of the drain pipe. They experimented with putting the Lego in at different points to see if it got stuck. Then L and A played “Trampoline Poison Ball” which involved jumping around and over a variety of objects on the trampoline. Then L decided to write up a set of instructions for each variation of the game “Poison Ball” he came up with, while D stayed downstairs to play and draw pictures in the mud. When I went downstairs there was mud splattered everywhere!

Today we covered science, ecology, engineering, drama, social science, maths, art, physical education, writing, and reading. Of course, while doing all these things, they didn’t learn a thing, did they?

A few months ago, I lost something precious, something I had worked 10 months to find and within eight weeks of gaining, it was gone. I didn’t really feel it at first. I was too numb from the entire experience. I was too raw to feel anything and submersed myself in work so as to avoid thinking about it at all. But recently, Angel has come back to haunt me in the exuberant faces and big rounded bellies of other women who are now five months pregnant with other, very precious somethings.

What has also brought this home is the fact that some people have been rather out of the loop. I had an email the other day from a colleague who asked when my baby was due and then at Christmas eve service last night at church, a kindly acquaintance I hadn’t seen for a while asked me the same thing. Put aside the fact that I don’t look five months pregnant (or maybe I do… maybe I’ve eaten way too much fudge this Christmas season), I was kinda dumbstruck and then felt rather mortified for this poor woman who asked an honest question. Her discomfort was obvious and mine too. I just willed the conversation to be over so that I could crawl into a hole somewhere far away. This Christmas, I was supposed to be sitting around on my lard-arse contentedly rubbing my swollen belly, making my mother shift uncomfortably at the dinner table over conversations about homebirth and birthing pools. Instead I just miss my Angel. I miss him/her desparately and wish he/she was here.

I am also reminded that for the better part of the last six years I have spent most of my time pleasing others, doing things to make me feel like I was somehow not such a selfish person. But the truth is, I am selfish and I’m sick of pretending to be otherwise. Recently, I wrote out a mission statement for my life. I really struggled with this because, to be honest, I don’t really know what I want or maybe I’m afraid that what I want isn’t really the right thing to want. I don’t know. All I do know for sure is that I have this vision in my head of spending long days with my children, enjoying their learning, their company and their fun. I have a vision of justice, of doing something bigger than myself, something that leaves a legacy. I also have a vision of truth…. it keeps pulling me back to the nagging thought that I should be doing something other than what I am currently doing.

I am conscious that I have set myself up to be pulled in a million different directions by others. I made a decision earlier in the year to stop putting emotional energy into the personal choices and conflicts of others outside my own family. This choice has confused some but I have to stick to it. My family’s survival, my survival depends on it. I need a full tank to be strong enough to deal with the ebb and flow of my family.

So what do I really want? For those I love to know the hope and love of God and the gift He has given us, a family that knows they are loved no matter what, to be able to make beautiful music and to see my children thrive. Everything else is somehow not so precious to me.

I don’t know if we will try to have a another baby again or not. I’m still raw and hurting from the experience of losing that something precious. But I do know that I will make some different choices in 2009. Some of these choices leave others scratching their heads but they are my choices to make. Somewhere along the line, we all have to decide to stop living life for the will and purpose of others and instead, live a life of purpose that is true to ourselves and honest about what motivates us to do what we do. It is easy to act out of brokenness, from hearts destroyed and confidence lost… it is hard to face the truth that this is what we do and step beyond.

My son L has been saving up for a Lego Agent set. It was about $135 retail when he first decided he wanted it and he madly set about thinking up jobs he could do for us to earn a few extra bucks. Over the past two months, L has put every cent aside for his Lego Agent set and has dedicatedly set about putting mulch around trees, watering the new garden, weeding, washing the cars, cleaning the insides of the cars, helping his brothers with tasks, helping move rocks to a retaining wall etc to earn a few dollars here and few dollars there.

One day he put fliers in all the neighbours letterboxes advertising a “dog walking service”. He didn’t get any bites (pardon the pun) but mostly because our neighbours were worried about the size of L as opposed to the size of their dogs. One day a couple of Pomeranian dogs wandered into our yard and L looked after them with gusto. When the owners came to claim their dogs, they gave him $15 which wss quickly added to his stash.

He had saved over $100 and so, the other day, Wayne went out and bought him the set and we hid it away in our cupboard. Wayne asked him today, to bring out the money he had earned and count it for us. So out came the box and every cent was counted, but there was $17 missing. The $17, it turned out, had mysteriously made its way into A’s piggy bank. A was adamant that he had found it under the bed. L was angry and upset that his precious money had been taken from his room but we calmed him down and explained that A simply didn’t understand the value of money (we were secretly glad that L did now).

Then Wayne brought out the lego set. L’s eyes went wide. We told him that he had done such a fantastic job of saving that we had decided to get it for him and pay for the rest (about $15 difference in the end). He sat there and tears welled up in his eyes as he looked over the huge, shiny, box. He was so overwhelmed with joy and disbelief, he didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t believe it. He finally had his lego set after saving all this time. He couldn’t believe that we had already bought it for him. Money was exchanged and a very happy eight year old set about putting the set together. He’s still going and probably won’t stop for hours.

At lunch L very spontaneously turned to us and said “Thank you for getting me the Lego Agent set.” My heart swelled with pride.

It’s not easy for most children to save, be gracious about a theft, understand the importance of a gift well earned and say “thank you” on their own terms but it is even harder for a very ego-centric child with Aspergers Syndrome. I am so proud of L. Not only has he learned the value of earning money, he has learned the value of working for something, the value of the different notes and coins, he has learned how to market his services and promote a business and he has learned about grace, kindness and love.