Has anyone ever walked on water?

It’s the summer holidays and we have done remarkably well. Let me repeat that…remarkably well. We have had some challenges, I can’t deny that, but we have navigated through them better than I ever imagined. However, I was aided with all my new knowledge and patience, and I was prepared (as much as possible) with lots of tricks up my sleeve and I was starting to really understand  most of the time what my son needed. It was just whether I had the capacity and capability to keep it all going. As soon as you take your finger off the pulse that’s when it all falls apart. You need to be on the ball always. And I mean ALWAYS. And I write this on week 5 of the summer holidays and I am tired. Not just a little bit tired I mean ran an ultra-marathon and back again tired. I have dark circles under my eyes, my hair is straggly and in need of something, my brain is full of stuff, and my body is aching from being on the go all the time day and night. But we have done well so I am very pleased.

One trick I used was the paddling pool. I put the paddling pool out at the start of the holidays and knew that this would come in handy, and it certainly did. My son loved water. He was a water baby. Which is remarkable actually because there was a period where he barely bathed. For a long time bath time was a battle, I used to think he hated water but looking back I don’t think this was the water, it was just the transition of it all. Once I had learnt about how to communicate with my son bath times got way easier. In fact now he loves it that much that once he is in he wont come out (because getting out is also a transition!!). He would probably spend all day in it if he could. We have a fairly big bath and he reckons to swim in it. On our abroad holiday last year he spent all week in the pool, jumping in, cannonballing in, he had no fear at all. So I knew the paddling pool was a good one and it was. No matter what the weather was he wanted to go in it and this tended to be around teatime and this then helped with the transition into the bath because he would be cold and would want to warm up so he would suggest going in the bath. Win. Win.

Everytime he went in the pool he would ask…

“Has anyone walked on water?”

And he would attempt to walk on water every single time. This one particular day he was asking me to watch him because he was going to walk on water and then he asked me…

“Has anyone walked on water?”

I immediately shouted “Moses” and was really pleased with my bible knowledge but it turns out I was wrong. A little bit of research told me Moses parted the Red Sea, that’s what I was thinking of. It was actually Jesus and the Saint Peter who walked on water. I am absolutely sure that most children faced with a body of water have asked the same question and attempted to walk on water. I asked my daughter if she has ever wondered who walked on water and she said no she had never thought to ask the question but shr did try to do it.

The religion side of it bothered me. Not because I am an atheist because I am not, I am happy for anyone to believe in some form of religion. I am not entirely sure what I believe but I am open to something. But how religion seemed to factor in my sons every day life just through his questions at 6 years old was….interesting. He asked a lot about the story of Jesus (You know Jesus Christ, what do you think happened?). Over Easter time he was particularly plagued by how he came back to life, and now he was asking about people walking on the water, something which only happened in the bible. And these questions came up a lot.

He also frequently wanted lots of information about Heaven (Mother’s Day and the Many Many Questions of My Child!). Below are a few questions he has previously asked about heaven.

“What happens in heaven?”
“Do you get birthday cards in heaven?”
“Will you still be my Mum in heaven?”

And it didn’t feel like these questions were going away. I wondered if it was because they were hard to explain so he had to ask for more and more information each time. It wasn’t just questions though…..

One day in the summer holidays we went to a local theme park, which my son absolutely loved. Getting thrown around on rides was very good for my sensory seeker son. He loved it. Not once did he show a shred of fear. He was an arms up and scream if you wanna go faster type of kid. And he did scream. But on some of the rides we realised he was screaming…

“God save meeeeeeeeeee!!!!”

My husband pointed it out to me and then I noticed it on other rides. And I thought about all the things I wondered about my son, particularly his future. I worried so much about what the future would hold for my son. Would he find his place? Would he accept who he was? I had been writing this blog for almost a year now and when I started I only had an inkling that my son was neurodivergent but throughout the last year I had learnt so much, so much. I had changed so much about our home life, every single day for him was a challenge, every single day. Every day there was something new to consider, some new trick to come up, some new way of working. And that’s why I knew my son was neurodivergent. Life for him was not easy at all. So, what did the future hold for my son. Throughout this blog I had him as a future philosopher, a future statistician, Socrates, Pythagoras or even a future Freddie Mercury. But maybe, maybe with all this religion talk he was going to be a man of the cloth, a priest.

Whatever the future holds for my son the only thing I wish for him is that he finds his place and he is happy. And God knows I would run a million ultra marathons to make sure he is…..