It takes a village to raise a child. This week I have witnessed the best and the worst of that. From the self centered poorly parented Beverly Hills brats who stole my son’s wallet with $180 in it and the insane parents who threatened to sue me for asking them to look into it, to the kid who smashed my son’s brand new

iPhone and whose mother I am still yet to hear from, to the complete other end of the spectrum – my son’s social studies teacher – April Silva, the greatest hero of his life thus far. Why? Because at twelve years of age my son has learnt that he is smart and I have her to thank for it.

It started a few weeks ago during his IEP meeting (Individualized Education

Program)where she was the only one of his teachers who bothered turning up and who said, “Teach me everything you know about Aspergers and how I can help inspire your child.” She inspired my iAM Project (http://wp.me/P1L4ip-as) and in the space of two weeks and many emails between us, she took my son from failing with 47% in his tests and thinking he was stupid to getting an A with 96% in his last two tests and him whispering to me as I tucked him into bed last night,  “Mummy, I think I might be smart!”.…

Okay so my arms were elbow high in bleach for the third time in three days as I tried to get the right amount of fade on this brand new army cammo t shirt to match the second hand dessert cammo pants that were bought for this weekend’s overnight camping air soft tournament Kai and his friends are going to.

Yes, some of you who have followed the trials and tribulations of having an Asperger kid might think, “just another day in the life….” with perfection sought in some of the most random things. For example, despite being talented beyond his years and having drawn prolifically from the time he could pick up a pencil, at the age of five Kai abruptly stopped drawing because he could not get what he pictured in his head “perfect”. It was with much incredulity and a huge sigh of relief from me  that he decided to take art as his elective this year in school.

We have had sock dramas for our entire life and have resorted to wearing no shoes, no socks, odd socks, socks with various parts cut out of to buying in bulk the one pair of red robin seamless socks he loves.…

If it takes a village to raise a child then how does a single mom bring up a boy to become a man all on her own?

I have baited plenty of hooks with squirming worms and managed to not throw up (at least not while he was watching). I’ve played with cars, guns and swords, have been cast in a million imaginary scenes as Cowboys, Indians, Pirates and villians of all sorts. I’ve occasionally been the damsel in distress rescued by my knight in shining armor, have faked a passion for everything disgusting and have wrestled with my boy far longer than I wanted, with him growing much stronger than I thought possible. Ouch! Is there such a thing as battered mother syndrome?

And to pat myself on the back, I like to think I have done a pretty good job, thus far. But I could see the “man tank” verging on empty and when a boy beat my son up at Baseball camp last summer, with free reign because my boy refused to fight back, I knew it was time to help him “man up”. But how? It’s not like I could do a Chaz Bono and change into the man he needs in his life.…