Bad Mother = Good Artist

So my delightful son Rainer (who is severely Autistic and who manages to just hurt me enough so people don’t raise eyebrows LOL) took offense to my discipline methods yesterday (yes, it was yesterday – Wednesday). His regular afternoon support worker couldn’t work yesterday, so it was just me and him for a couple of hours until delightful son #1 came home.

Anyways, I said “No” one too many times, he threw a nice chunky train at the back of my head, and well, it kind of went downhill from there. Yes, it did hurt like a mother, yes, he did know exactly what he was doing, yes, he did expect me to chase him. No I didn’t throw it back at him, no, I didn’t chase him. In the end, I turned his computer off and he summarily sent me to the Studio for being the Bad Mother.

Oh dear!!!! What horror!!!! THE STUDIO!!!!!!!

Luckily, I could see him watching TV through my beautiful lead-light studio doors, while I considered what I should do during my Internment.

And there it was before me…..
Notes on some new classes for later in the year and basic sketches for a new exhibition in November. So I considered it for a while…..

• what if he wanted me to come out just as I began?
• what if he cracked it if it looked like I was having too much fun?
• what if I got too involved in the process and didn’t notice that he either set a toy on fire (again) or ran out of the house and down the road (again)?

I decided that those 3 questions could all be answered with “So?” and if he did do any of those things I knew exactly how to deal with it because he’s been doing it for nearly 11 years….and for once I gave myself a pat on the back for being an incredible mother and for once I seriously deserved some “ME” time.

So in about 90 minutes, I did this…..

I’ve been thinking about Motherhood. The “Daughter I Never Had”, has been appearing in dreams recently. She is gorgeous, her name is Nicola (derived from my maternal grandmother’s maiden name), she is so intelligent and sweet and sassy – and she loves her brothers and they love her back. So I need to get this out of my system. I need to paint images of me carrying her with me everywhere, doing everything and being all that I haven’t done.

Right…enough soppy stuff!!!
Have a super creative week my lovelies!!

xx Giovanna