Much of my planning at this time was done in one of the most unlikely of places, the bath. Iris’s sudden issues about bath time meant it was somewhere she no longer wanted to go and so my bath times provided some rare time and space to think. One evening, just as I was mulling over what to do the next day, I realized I wasn’t alone. I felt Thula’s whiskers against my neck – she had silently jumped up on to the ledge at the end of the bath. I stroked her behind my head and resumed my plans for the following day. One paw, then two, then three and four were on my shoulders and then Thula walked down my body into the water and started to swim about, before settling on my leg. Her skinny neck was just above the water, turning towards me like E.T. I daren’t move – her claws had stayed hidden away so far, but I was in a tricky position. I decided to stay still and see what happened next. Thula jumped from my leg neatly on to the side of the bath and then off on to the floor. She shook herself, and her long tail now looking stick thin and rather out of proportion, made me laugh. The cleaning, licking and drying then began and continued for quite a while until she looked more like the kitten I remembered.
Blue Planet, acrylic, April 2013
My thoughts were no longer with schooling; my head was filled with this new discovery. Thula liked water; she really liked it. She had been amused with bubbles and water play at the sink, but this was taking things further than I had ever imagined. When we had first looked into the breed I had read folklore tales about their origins, how they were descended from Norwegian forest cats and had been taken over to America by the Vikings on ships. One tale tells the story of Captain Charles Coon, an English seafarer who sailed up and down the New England coast with a host of long-haired cats aboard his ship. Watching Thula so comfortable in and around water, unfazed, it was as if she belonged there and her ancestral past was clear to see.
My mind was thinking fast. Iris’s bath-time difficulties had become increasingly hard to manage, to the point of it becoming very distressing for all of us. I hated seeing her so upset and we tried everything you could imagine to help her with this sensory problem but nothing had worked. Since Iris seemed fine with water play at the sink maybe this wasn’t so much a sensory issue but a phobia that had been caused by a tiny detail I had overlooked. Could Thula be the perfect solution?
‘What’s the plan then?’ P-J asked as he listened to me, and to my surprise he didn’t laugh at my new discovery. He was intrigued and could see where I was going with this one.
‘I thought I'd just encourage Thula to be in the bathroom next time and see how things go. She might just get in like she did with me. It’s worth a try. I don’t think anything could make it worse and Thula wouldn’t do anything that she wasn’t comfortable with. And I know she won’t want to hurt Iris.’
So the next time I had to bath Iris I tried it. At first my plan didn’t seem to be working. I was struggling to keep Iris in the bath: as soon as her body touched the water she started to cry and Thula had come in and trotted out again. I tried to distract Iris with the supply of toys I kept beside the bath. Yet one by one they were discarded to the other side, lined up and given a very angry look in between cries, and then she would turn to me again to see if my next offering was any better. But I had run out, and was all out of ideas too. As Iris’s cries became unbearable I knew I would have to abort this idea for now. It just wasn’t working and I was starting to worry about her safety as she once again nearly leapt out. Then Thula came back with a piece of jewellery that they had been playing with earlier. She jumped up on to the side of the bath and carried on playing with it. This distracted Iris for a moment and she stopped crying. Everything went quiet and I could think again. I sat back and took a deep breath, not wanting to break the silence, and then Thula got in the water.
I wasn’t sure if I would ever get used to the sight of a cat so calm around water and then casually getting in. I loved Thula more than I ever had before; she amazed me time and again but this was truly brilliant to watch. It wasn’t nearly as full as when I had been in the bath so she didn’t need to swim, she was able to stand beside Iris, and immediately Iris greeted her with a ‘Hi, cat’ and I saw her smile. Seeing Iris smiling in the bath made me cry. I had wanted, waited and longed for her to enjoy our peaceful bath times together again; I missed them terribly. No matter how awful the day we were having was, there used to be a time where a warm bath with music would solve any problem and restore peace to our world. In that moment I was seeing that come back to us. She was so amused by her friend being in the bath she forgot about her anxieties and they played happily together.
P-J walked past the bathroom and I stepped out to see him: ‘Come and see.’
He knew from my grin, which spread from ear to ear, that the plan was working. ‘Oh, wow! This is amazing!’ He went over to them both and stroked Thula, who was checking out some of Iris’s sea creature toys. ‘What’s going to be next, swimming?’
‘Funny you should say that. I was just thinking the same thing.’ We hadn’t tackled the swimming problem for a while and maybe it was time we tried again.
‘I wouldn’t rush things. Let’s get her confident with this and then try.’
Thula must have become the cleanest cat for miles around, because she bathed with Iris as often as she could, even letting me show Iris how it was OK to have your hair shampooed. I used to dread washing Iris’s hair. It was like I was causing her pain and I couldn’t wait for it to be over, but then there was Thula. She sat still in the water as I washed her head and Iris laughed at the froth of bubbles all over her and then let me wash her own hair without a problem.
Cutting Iris’s hair was also a continual problem for me. She was a champion squiggler, ducking, diving, running, jumping – doing anything possible not to have the dreaded haircut. It usually took days, sometimes weeks, of me cutting one part at a time. When she was concentrating intently on something I had my best chance and even then I would have to have my hand skilfully positioned so that if she did move suddenly, her neck was protected. It was like painting bridges: once you finished it was time to start again. I had got rather lazy and neglected my duties that week and Iris’s fringe was starting to move every time she blinked.
With Thula lying close and Iris playing a new alphabet game my chances were good. As I began, Thula put her paw up near the scissors and then placed it on my hand. She was so interested in what was happening that Iris followed her lead, looking up and to my surprise was now interested too. Instead of rushing off and crying or pushing me firmly away she stayed perfectly still and let me cut her hair without a problem. Thula moved close up against Iris’s body and purred loudly, keeping Iris content. I stroked and thanked her for being my superhero and I really meant it; she was helping me through problems that I had lost hope of ever solving.
Swimming was another matter and a much bigger challenge we had visited in the past. We had never managed to get Iris through the door to the public swimming pool. Her old trick of turning into a starfish in my arms would return and Iris made it quite clear I was never going to get her through those doors and into the echoing chaos beyond. We had made a few enquiries into smaller, quieter pools, but never found one. And then a family friend in the village offered us their pool. It should have been perfect for Iris: quiet, light, a lovely swing chair in the corner, but after weeks of going regularly we realized that although she loved watching us swim we had no chance of getting her happy in the water due to her sensitivity to water and the fact that she hated taking off her shoes and her cape. However, many months later, after countless baths with Thula, Iris no longer had a problem at bath time. In fact, she loved it, and her shoes would come on and off easily. This was the moment we had been waiting for to try again.
‘Wow, fish!’ – a pair of very relevant and wonderful words from Iris that morning as she clung on to my body in the water of the swimming pool. All three of us were in. Thula, sadly, was at home; I felt it would be stretching the favour a little too far to bring her along as she
would probably be up for going swimming too. After a while Iris was confident and happy to have her first swimming lesson with P-J and he encouraged her to start kicking. I was so proud seeing her little face beaming at me just above the water. We hadn’t managed the armbands yet, because the sensation of squeezing her hand through worried her, but other than that she was doing very well and we couldn’t believe the changes in her behaviour. Thanks to Thula swimming became part of Iris’s life.
I began to lose count of the ways that Thula was helping Iris from day to day. When I told people about her I’m sure they thought I was exaggerating or that she must have been a cat that had gone through some special training. I could hardly believe it myself sometimes, especially when we were out on adventures in the countryside and Thula would stay by Iris’s side, watching the water on the bridge at the stream or inspecting the bluebells in the woodland. The look in her eyes waimia when you talked to her. If we teased her, she would know it and stalk off. She had odd little habits – if she had been outside and her feet were muddy, she would go straight up to the bath and try to clean her paws in the leftover water by the plughole. Of course it was a very ineffective way of cleaning and there would be muddy paw prints everywhere, but her way of copying what humans did amused and fascinated us. Eventually she matured into a truly magnificent beauty with an almost regal look as she gazed down at us from the high wooden beams in the garden room. I didn’t question it any more. I didn’t need to know why she was doing the things she did or how she knew what to do; I just saw a friend, not only to Iris but to all of us – a member of the family.
For the third time since we had moved my office was been transformed. Formerly it had been my wedding editing room, then the painting storage area and now it was our home education room. I had everything so beautifully planned; there was a cosy area for reading in one corner, a desk for writing or more formal lessons and a play area. There was only one problem. I was alone. The pile of printed worksheets seemed to be mocking me, and my ridiculous attempts at teaching were failing miserably.
Thula came into the room and snuggled up next to me. I needed her more than ever before. ‘Thula, how do you do it? Iris keeps on walking off.’ I felt so hopeless and was starting to regret my decision. The past week had gone by without any successes and frustration was mounting on all sides. I was losing my way and needed help. Up until that point schooling Iris at home hadn’t been easy but we were making steady progress. She now knew her alphabet and could say all the letters, knew her numbers past thirty and could read out some short words; she also recognized shapes and understood sizes and volumes. I had covered everything she needed to know under the preschool syllabus but now Iris would be turning five in a matter of months and we were venturing into reception-aged activities and I was struggling to hold Iris’s attention.
As I sat alone with Thula and thought some more I realized where I was going wrong. The room looked like a classroom and the activities and worksheets I was introducing meant nothing to Iris. She wasn’t interested. That was the key to all of this. I needed to capture that incredible concentration span of hers in activities that would mean something to her. I had started to follow a generic formula set out by others that was outlined by the National Curriculum for reception but Iris wasn’t like other children and I was quickly seeing that if I tried any more I would lose all that I had gained.
My heart began to beat hard. I felt hot and uncomfortable. Thula followed me out into the open air on the decking and we looked down to the tree stump where Iris was sitting. I began to feel better as I took deep slow breaths but I still felt uneasy. It was the guilt and I couldn’t bear it any longer. For days I had been battling with it. It was like a sinking feeling within me. But I knew where it was coming from and it was all in my head: the knowledge and weight of responsibility that came with home-educating Iris alone, the realization that I might not be enough and that I didn’t know what I was doing. I could see so much potential in Iris. It was there but just out of reach on so many days. In moments of failure I would question myself and debate the path I had chosen. I wasn’t a trained teacher and before this had little interest in children’s education. When we bought the house one of the perks in my mind had been that we were on the school bus route and how convenient that would be in years to come. I started to feel that loneliness creep back in, the isolation and the feeling of being so out on a limb and removed from the rest of society. Most of my decisions were made according to what I felt was right for Iris and by observing her behaviour, but I wasn’t sure if that was enough any more.
We had a meeting with the authorities coming up and I would need to have a clear plan for her education and prove how I was going to put everything in place and teach her from our home. I knew if I had any chance of ridding myself of this guilt I needed to get things under control, but not in the way I had done before: no more print-outs from the internet. I had to design and create a curriculum for Iris myself that would centre on what inspired her. I would also bin the idea of educating her in one room and go for a free approach; I would teach her wherever she wanted to be, on the stump if necessary, out in the garden or on the bridge above the stream. If she needed to move, that would be fine; we would work around it, even use it somehow. But to do all this I would need some help. Designing my own education for Iris was a massive undertaking and without the knowledge of what Iris should be learning I wasn’t going to get anywhere. So I asked my friend Charlie who worked in education for help and she very kindly offered to run through some options with me.
At first the curriculum plan in front of me felt a little overwhelming, but the more I read, the more I realized that I could create something like this for Iris but instead focusing on her interests. I was at Charlie’s house and she was sharing her knowledge and experience from her years in education.
As I chatted to Charlie in her kitchen about what Iris could do, what she struggled with and what my plans were, it felt like this was the beginning of something truly wonderful and the heavy weight began to lift. I told her where we were at with Iris: her strong passions, her ability to read, all her achievements to date and what I had in mind for her for the next stage. Charlie’s reaction was surprising. After a series of very specific questions she was incredibly supportive of my decision to educate Iris at home and felt like we did, that it was the best decision for Iris at this time. She showed me various options: different examples of curriculums used in both special and mainstream schools, and a topic-based learning format. I liked the theme-based method and in our mind it was the strongest option. We went through all the key areas I would need to cover. Schooling had certainly moved on since I was a child; there were many more skills within each subject that I needed to consider. To my delight what used to be information technology was now information and communications technology, meaning that it spanned all sorts of topics about collecting information with technology, and photography came under that bracket. It was so exciting to talk about it with someone who flew along with my ideas and guided me where I needed help. I left feeling excited about creating my own curriculum for Iris.
That afternoon I made a start. The first job was to decide what the theme should be. ‘Cats’ seemed the perfect choice and Thula soon sensed that something was happening and that her presence was needed. She jumped up on my lap and settled into a ball, purring.
‘Just who I need, Thulie-Bulie. We are going to teach Iris using you, Thula. Isn’t that wonderful?’
She lifted up her head and gave me a look as if to say ‘Well, of course. What else, who else would you need?’
I wrote the word ‘cat’ in the middle of a piece of paper and put a circle round it, and then orbiting that I made more circles with the different subjects: English, music, art, ICT, science, maths, PE, geography and history. I started to brainstorm and plot out what we would do – the reading, the art-project ideas, the music – and the methods I could use with cat as the theme to teach certain skills, everything that I coul
d think of including trips to zoos. I was running out of space on the paper and my writing was becoming illegible from all the Thula nudges. My neat plan wasn’t looking so neat any more and that was before Iris came tiptoeing in and pulled the piece of paper off my desk and ran off. Not the best start.
A strong cup of tea later and I was back at my desk. I would need to become more cunning if I was going to win this one, so I opened up Photoshop and started working on the plan on the computer. It was brilliant; every time I ran out of space I just made my sheet bigger. This way I could adjust things easily and in no time at all Iris’s cat-themed schooling topic was nearly finished. I had created far too many options and projects but I thought it was better to have some choice. I could never quite tell what was going to work with Iris and some days you don’t only need your sleeves packed with tricks but bags full of them.
If Iris wasn’t interested, she would just walk off and I would have to try again. Depending on her mood that could be disastrous. She could get so upset with me, confused and annoyed, pushing me away and saying ‘back’ or ‘go away’. At those times she needed space and I would give it to her for a while. If I didn’t, and pushed her further, she would get wildly upset, plunging her fist into her tummy and then shooting her arm and hand at me as if to say ‘away with you’ – all with the face of an angry bee. It was then that I needed a breather too, and I would move into the kitchen to sit quietly, my mind busily thinking of how I could connect again and when I could try with something new. Then, later, something would work and it would be wonderful – a high like no other – and there would be pure joy through the simple act of working on something together and watching her learn. She learnt so fast; her understanding went way beyond what she showed on the surface and she would astound me by what she could do.
Iris Grace Page 17