Mum's the word

Call me an ungrateful cow but.....

2011-10-19T21:33:00.000+11:00

So, the guy who lives at my place just got a message from his fabulous English cousins saying they are toying with the idea of coming out here at Christmas. Fantastic. I love them and wish they would migrate and its been a few years since their last trip and we miss them heaps. I have no problem at all with them 'potentially' coming out for a visit. Hell, we can even accommodate them in a real bed this time as opposed to the air mattress shoved in the salon.

The issue I have with them 'potentially' coming out is that it sends the guy who lives at my place into a 'retired-tour-guide-camping-holiday-planning' frenzy.

The phrase 'where would YOU like to go on our next camping trip?' sends me into different kind of frenzy. The kind that involves the sharpest knife in the kitchen and my wrists. You're probably thinking 'whinging cow, he's asking YOU where YOU want to go'!! But no people, he's really asking me to start organising the menu and prepping the kit for a trip to a location I really have very little say on (I've been suggesting any beach location for years and he keeps taking me further and further inland and Australia has a fucking lot of inland!) that will involve me entertaining 2 small children, 1 of which is autistic and 1 large one without electricity, high speed internet, a proper hot water service, a working microwave, innerspring mattresses, a seemingly endless supply of clean clothes and fencing to stop them DROWNING IN A CREEK.

Think about that for just a moment.

Then add to the fact it takes us approximately 3 hours to set up our kit and 4 to pack it up and he wants to do 2 or 3 locations on this 'potential' trip with 500-600km between camps.

He's lost his freakin' mind.

I'm praying to the sanity gods that the poms just wanna hang out in our little house.

2011-08-08T13:39:00.002+10:00

I needed printer ink. So I fished out the business card I had been given by a client ions ago and rang them to place an order. They are one of those businesses who take used cartridges and refill them with top quality ink at a fraction of the price of a new one and gave me the spiel about how cartridge companies are going out of business (really not sure how, it's the most expensive liquid known to man) and most of the new Chinese cartridges can't be refilled and just end up in landfill so we need to hang on to our old ones and together we'll save the planet blah blah blah. That's ok, I like to feel like I'm doing the right thing by the planet while I sit here on my laptop in my centrally heated house with my daughter watching a DVD on a plasma TV whilst creating one massive mother of a carbon footprint. Then the lady on the phone asked for my address. No problem, I reel it off. 'We pay the postage and you'll have them tomorrow' she says and I'm thinking "what? What business covers postage costs? That's great, I won't complain, $10 is better in my pocket that theirs"

Then I say 'hang on, let me grab my purse' thinking that I'll need to hand over a credit card number but (here's the clincher) she says 'No, it's ok, we send you an invoice and you have a few payment options and you can just choose which ever suits you'

WTF?

Did I just hear correctly? You're going to send me the full set of printer cartridges I want, YOU'RE going to pay for it to get to me AND you're happy for me to pay for them how I like AFTER I get them with no more surety than my postal address?

I'm guessing I must have just slipped into some kind of time travel portal when I walked through my kitchen doorway cos this so does not sound like something that could happen in 2011.

Ok, so I'm a baaaaaaaad blogger.

2011-07-25T17:52:00.002+10:00

I just had a look at the 'edit posts' section of my blog and it seems that for every post I have done, there are 4 more that I have started, never finished or published. I think I have turned into one of 'those' people. You know, those people who hop from one new hobby to another and never really finish anything. I still remember my 18 year old cousin coming over to my house about 15 years ago and upon spotting my dinning table covered in rubber stamps, ink and glitter, said 'Tell me you haven't taken up another hobby?'

It seems I have become a 'gonna' person.

You know the type, I'm gonna de-clutter my house, I'm gonna stop buying shoes I don't absolutely need, I'm gonna go to the gym at least 3 times a week, I'm gonna write in my blog regularly and maybe one day write that book I've been dreaming about writing since year 9 English when I wrote a short story and actually got some praise from Miss Whateverhernamewas.

So tell me bloggers, what is the secret? How am I gonna the habit of hitting the 'publish' button?

For those of you curious, this post also ended up in the 'edit posts' file for 24 hours!

'Been so long I forgot I had a blog

2010-03-24T09:43:00.002+11:00

I just checked, I haven't blogged in 9 months. Bad blogger. Oh well, it's not like anyone missed me. Since I last blogged so much and yet so little has changed. The guy who lives at my house is still working like mad and forgetting where he put all of his possessions. (except his mobile phone which fell into the cement pit at work yesterday, he definitely knows where that is now)

Magoo is now getting close to 14 and will go to great lengths to avoid going to school. He hates school but expels so much energy coming up with excuses not to go that if he could just harness his powers for good and not evil he'd be accepted into some sort of accelerated learning program. (well not quite but you get my drift) The only thing he shows any interest in is his Xbox 360 and you can't earn a living playing that unfortunately. Hockey season started 3 weeks ago and as yet he hasn't made it to training. If he plays this year he will make it to his 100th game.

Fletch is just being his usual beautiful self. It is starting to look like we will need to send him to a special school next year. He hasn't been properly tested yet but we think there is an intellectual disability thrown in with the autism because someone thought autism alone wasn't enough for us to deal with. He has now conquered the tv, Wii, PS2, my ipod, my iphone, his Nintedo ds, the dvd player, the tivo and the computers. If only he could brush his own teeth or poo in the toilet. His echo is now so strong that he can repeat just about any word you fire at him which is fun for his speech therapist. His new speech therapist is just fabulous. Her name is Tanya and she also has a child with autism. So she gets it. Fletch uses the word 'no' when he means 'no' and the 'no' when he means 'yes' so it was going to be one of the first things she tackled when we started with her. After one session she knew Fletch well enough to figure out that if she got him saying 'yes' or 'no' she'd never get him saying anything else. So we have thrown ourselves back into PECS to try and help him structure sentences and then we will go back to the yes/no thing later. I have also 'bought' the Boardmaker addendum's disk with out FAHCSIA funding and am now printing madly. Some of the pictures are just hilarious. If you have Boardmaker, try typing in the word 'homely'.

Baybee is no longer a baby. 'Kenzie is now 2 and looking for a career that involves little or no clothing. I dress her, she undresses herself. I redress her, she undresses herself. I give up. She dresses herself in her brother's clothing. I throw my arms up in the air. She can drive me up with wall but she is soooooooooo normal. I had forgotten what normal is.

I still have my Facebook addiction and have set my self a photo challenge this year to attempt to take at least one photo every single day and upload it onto fb. I have been a bit slack the last week and tend to take them each day but only upload once a week, the intention is there. If I can figure out how, I may upload some of the pics up on here. I'm pretty proud of myself. I am using Creative Memories's storybook plus program to tweak them a bit. he album is looking cool.

So should be vacuuming.

Toodles.

What do you do on a long weekend?

2009-06-07T13:48:00.006+10:00

So, its Sunday, it's a long weekend, and I'm incredibly bored. I have at least 14,385 things I could or should be doing but none of them interest me enough to bother an attempt. I have just put Baybee to bed for her afternoon nap, which means my mum will probably walk in the front door any minute. She always calls in to see the kids right after I put Baybee to bed. Fletcher is playing Wii (surprise, surprise) and is yet to notice that I have turned off all the other gadgets he had going. The guy who lives at my place is playing golf with his brother for the first time in about 18 months, well how ever long ago his clubs got knocked off from the garage. He will no doubt come home and start talking about how he wants to play more often and perhaps he will start playing 9 holes on the way home from work a couple of times a week blah blah blah. Magoo is off with his dad, who is avoiding the nut job girlfriend who claims to be giving birth any moment to a baby she has already claimed to have given birth to 3 times since Christmas. Oh and did I mention that we are at 'dial up speed' until the 10th of the month thanks to Magoo downloading new games and updates for games, oblivious to the fact he is not the only person in the house that might want to use the internet.

I am feeling a 'little' unfocused at the moment. I have a chronic case of mushy brain. Everything goes in there and falls straight out again, usually onto my freshly mopped floors. I honestly can't retain a thing. I have always been a person who lives by the creed 'don't start a new task till you finish the last one' but now it's more a case of 'try to remember the task you were doing so you can one day complete it or get someone else to complete it for you.' I even try making lists and forget where I have put them. As a prime example, I sat down to write a specific post and now don't remember it. I even went to our homeopath and told him of my woes. He gave me 2 remedies to take, once once a day, the other twice a day. DO YOU THINK I CAN REMEMBER TO TAKE THEM? I do think a small part of my problem is my Facebook addiction. I struggle to complete a task without just doing a quick check to see if anyone has left me a message or a comment. I even try to not turn the computer on till I am finished doing 'such and such' but all too often I need something on the computer in order to finish 'such and such'. But damn, Facebook is good isn't it?

So, it's now about 5 hours since I wrote the beginning of this post and what have I done? Virtually nothing. Big Ed just rang and asked if I'd mind if he stayed at his brother's place and had a few drinks with him tonight? Not the slightest bit was my reply. Gives me the tv and the computer to myself to do as I please. But then Magoo started complaining that he feels sick, Fletch has had a temp on and off for 5 days now, so the last thing I feel like is playing nurse tonight but it just might have to be the case. Baybee is helping herself to the 'lite n easy' meal I had heated up for Magoo before he decided he was feeling a bit off. This is after the meal of spaghetti she had just consumed. Clearly, she isn't feeling sick. Ya know what, I think I feel a bit off.

What a fun filled long weekend.

Wilbarger brushing update

2009-05-13T08:30:00.004+10:00

Just thought while I have a spare second I would update you on Fletch's brushing therapy. We are now at day 6 and I think I saw my first sign of improvement yesterday. We went to kinder and for the first time ever he allowed me to sing with his teachers during circle time, YAY! And before you say anything, my singing isn't THAT bad that he wouldn't allow me to sing before, it was purely a sensory issue. Unfortunately I accidently leaned on the car horn later in the afternoon and he flipped out like he normally would but baby steps, baby steps.

He is also at the point where he doesn't resist the brushing. He seems to enjoy it. Now if I can just figure out how I can enjoy the next 49 days and 392 sessions.....

So, today we are off to swimming for a make up session and then Kate the wonder naturopath.

A few holiday pics.

2009-04-29T17:36:00.009+10:00

I thought I might upload a few photos from our trip.

This is Ayer's Rock (Ularu)

Fletcher, the party boy, has clearly inherited daddy's 'sleep anywhere' gene

Daddy and his girl having their first wedding dance.

Baybee loved having the dance floor to herself but ran a mile each time someone tried to join her.

Baybee enjoying the rice at the wedding.

Magoo and Baybee at the ceremony, (she had been playing with the sand at Simpson's Gap)

New therapies

2009-04-29T15:17:00.004+10:00

Well it has been a while since my last post but is mainly because my life is organised chaos most of the time. We have all been to Central Australia for a bit of a family holiday, partly to go to a wedding and whilst there thought we'd 'pop' over to see Ayer's rock and Kings Canyon. It was just beautiful and if I have a complaint it was just that we probably needed a couple of extra days to do the k's we did. My Husband has taken a few tour groups to those places and and when he estimated the time it takes to go to these places, he was estimating how long it takes grown adults to get ready, not a family of 5, one with autism and one of them a year old. But still, it was gorgeous and we had such a lovely time together.

Ayer's Rock (Officially known as Ularu these days) is just magnificent and if you ever get the oportunity to see it, I highly recommend it. It is well worth the 5 hour drive from Alice Springs.

Anyway, the main reason for my post was to update you on some of the new therapies and treatments we are trying with Fletcher. He has recently been assessed by our OT with having Sensory Defensiveness. I hadn't heard of it by name before then but I knew he had it. He is sensitive to a few select sounds and situations, quite irrationally, like car horns and people whistling a tune, singing in person but not on tv or on the radio and until recently, the 'happy birthday' song. Any of these thing would send him into a meltdown, particularly the car horn in shopping centre car parks. He started coping with the 'happy birthday' song about 6 months ago but still is apprehensive about it. So we are going to start the Wilbarger Protocol and sensory diet. It involves using a special brush on his arms, legs and back every 2 hours for the next 6-8 weeks followed but joint compressions. They tell me he will enjoy it but I had a bit of a practice today and it was damned near impossible to get him to sit still. He sat fairly well yesterday while Shane and I were being trained but honestly, the thought of doing this at least 448 times over the next 8 weeks makes me want to burn this little brush right here and now. I feel like I have to have a 'supernanny-like' schedule on the wall to remind me of all the stuff I have to do and at what time. On top of this, we are going to try out some newish kind of musical therapy. It involves wearing special headphones (Fletch, not me) for half an hour, twice a day and listening to special music, mostly classical. We tried it out with Fletch last week and although it took us (his OT and I ) over half an hour to get the headphones on him, once he realised it wasn't going to hurt him he really enjoyed it and became incredibly calm. After the treatment I took him to daycare and their observations in his communications book were that he was so calm and relaxed all day. Shane's parents have been a gem and offered to buy the headphones, thank goodness as they are something like $300.

So, whilst they probably won't start at exactly the same time, I will probably be doing these 2 new therapies at the same time for a period so that should be fun. I don't think anything else we have done to date has been so labor intensive on our part. Has anyone else out there tried these? Have you seen a difference? I would love to hear from you all.

todays goal.....

2009-03-30T15:25:00.004+11:00

Today's goal.... finish a post and PUBLISH IT!!!! Well amongst other things.

I have just finished my 3rd client for the day and have stolen some time before number 4 arrives. I never do 4 in a day, not with the kids home, that's just crazy. So apparently today I am crazy. Have I ever mentioned that I have a problem saying 'no' to people? Hmmm, well I have a problem saying 'no' to people. NO NO NO NO NO. There, easy hu? NO!

So my house is a mess (no big surprises there) and what I could really do with is the house work fairy, AKA my mother in law, coming over in a slightly manic mood. I don't really mean that I hope she is manic, my father in law does a good enough job of sending her in that dierction without me but if she is manic, she can head on over. I have organised a cleaner to come over at least once a fortnight but she jus tcalled to let me know whe got her dates mixed up and can't start this week. Bugger, thought it was too good to be true that I could find someone who came highly recommended and get her here the day I wanted within a week. Oh well, all the filth will still be here when she does start!

Now for a very brief update. Fletch is learning to talk via the Nintendo Wii method. He can now say 'nice spare' ' nice on' 'strike' and 'nice approach' all with a lovely American accent. Last week at his kinder's family day they had a travelling farm animal thingy and he told us that cow's moo, and pigs go oink but he prefers the snorting sound they make. He is just booming along with new words, I understand them and I am starting to see that other people do now too. We are still doing the NAET treatment at the naturopath(the food bleach treatment did amazing things), occasional homeopath visits and his early intervention kinder. We could probably scrounge up the money for some private speech or psychology work but to be honest, I'd struggle to fit it into my/our week. The only free hours we seem to have is between about 10pm and 4am and none of us really want to do any therapy other than sleep therapy at that hour.

Baybee got her first proper shoes last week and looks just spiffy in them. She, like the rest of us is struggling with the end of daylight savings and is as grumpy as hell at 5:30 at night and up and about at 4:30 in the morning. Urg.

Lockie is on school holidays and has a huge amount of homework (for him) and drives me nuts when I see how sloppy his work is if he actually does any work at all. I use to think I was a tough sort of mum but I am convinced these days he just walks all over me.

Any how, better get back to work. I have thrown a casserole in the slow cooker for dinner, gotta love the cooler weather after the horrendous Summer we have had around here.

Five minutes to spare....

2008-12-20T07:00:00.007+11:00

Quick, while I have 5 minutes to spare, here's what's been happening.....

Mackenzie has been a grump most of the week. Think it's her teeth coming through.

We went to Magoo's graduation on Tuesday night and I have come to the conclusion that too many mums let 12 year old girls dress like 20 year old girls. Thank goodness you don't have that problem with boys. But more on that later. The ceremony itself was pretty good. It was great watching all the grade sixes get up on stage and accept their class photos and gifts. 1 student from each class did a performance. The highlight of the performances was a boy named Cory who sang the Jason Mraz hit 'I'm yours' and boy was he good. The crowd loved him and he loved that crowd right back. (note to self, remember Cory's last name to brag about knowing someone famous one day) Then they gave out the awards. This part probably went on a bit too long but was still interesting. Of course Magoo was never gonna win an award for being the most organised student or the most enthusiastic about homework. But he graduated, that's what mattered.

Now as for what some of the girls wore, my goodness, what were those parents thinking? One little girl and I do mean little, wore a skin tight, black mini dress with a plunging neckline and no back with high heels!!!!! Apparently she chose it and bought it out of her own money so her mother didn't think she could do anything about it. WHAT THE?! Using the same logic, she could have bought a g-string bikini, vodka cruisers and crack cocaine and her mother would have sat back and admired her maturity. Some parents need to grow some balls.

I didn't manage to get a photo of Magoo getting his gifts and photos but here he is sitting with his friends.

Fletch is coming along in leaps and bounds. I took him to daycare on Thursday and we had no tears at all. as we were leaving home he saw me pick up his bag and he said 'see kids' Then when we got there and I told him it was time for me to leave he said 'kiss' and reached up to give me one, then said 'see ya later' and 'bye bye bye bye bye' while he waved. Then he walked away from me. How good is that?

Yesterday my sister came over to have her hair done and to help me with the kids a bit. Fletch has never really given her much of a chance and the couple of times she has looked after him he has protested a fair bit when I've left but not yesterday. He did the same as he did at daycare and played the whole time I was gone. He even made her play cricket with him for about 20 minutes. It is amazing how much faster you can grocery shop without kids. I feel like he has really turned a corner. I am so excited about Early Intervention next year I can hardly wait. And earlier this week we also got approval for some funding to get a new computer and the Boardmaker program, another thing I can't wait to get my hands on.

So until next time, toodles!

The vegie garden, Baybee's teeth and my MIL

2008-12-10T15:24:00.020+11:00

Guess who found the pantry today? (like those thighs need more calories!!!)

Don't you just love the finger food stage

And as messy as her Face is, I had to show you Baybee's teeth. She looks like the front ones have been knocked out.

I though I might show everyone the little vegie garden I have been working on in our back yard. I have always wanted one but thought it might help with encouraging Fletcher to try vegies, then again, I might be a bit delusional too. So here it is...

I know you're probably thinking 'she lives in Australia and its Summer, so where's that weather they talk about all the time?' Trust me, we are loving the rain. It's not cold but it is wet, thankgoodness. I have only had to water my vegie garden about 4 or 5 times since we put it in over a month ago. And thanks to water restrictions, it is only being watered by hand with a watering can. God I would love a tank but who has a spare $3000 lying around.

And these are my little baby zucchinis, how cute are they?

Anyway, back to the real world....

Fletcher has gone back to needing a sleep during the day most days but won't have a bar of going to bed to do it so I just let him lay on the couch and hope it happens. The other day he was having a bit of an afternoon snack and fell asleep mid bite.

And for the uninitiated, that's vegemite on toast.

And he has decided that when Baybee is asleep (they share a room) he doesn't want to miss out on any play time with her so he keeps barging in, turning on the light and waking her up. I now have had to put a child proof door nob on the inside and the outside of their bedroom door.

Our little Baybee is well and truly on the move and starting to explore the house. I caught her yesterday going through my recipe books....

On a slightly different topic, does anyone else have a mother in law who means well but keeps f**king up stuff around their house? You do? Phew, I thought it was just me. Yesterday my mother in law came over to watch the little ones so I could go to my painting class. She often throws a load of washing on the line if I have it sitting in the machine waiting for her ( so I make sure there is always one waiting for her!) She must have needed to change Baybee's clothes and it appears she has put bleach in the nappy bucket I was soaking one of my good towels in. I was soaking it because the not so smart guy who lives at my place dried the dogs muddy paws with it the other day (ggrrrr) So now one of my new beautiful pale green egyptian cotton towels is a manky creamy-yellowy-beige.

Tonight is Magoo's grade 6 graduation. We just didn't have those when I was his age. (oops, there I go with that forbidden line) We finished primary school then 6 weeks later, we started high school, no transitions, no ceremonies, no nothin'! And from what I've heard, people are going a bit nuts with the outfits the kids are wearing. I just raced down to K-Mart and bought him a shirt because the last time he had to wear one was 2 years ago at my brother's wedding, so you can imagine the size of that. So I am praying it fits because there is no time to change it. He just told me he was wearing his black t-shirt (I swear, he's bordering on severe boganism) and he asked his grandmother to make him some black pants. No Armani suits for this boy. I will take some photos and post them tomorrow.

Late night ramblings

2008-12-09T22:58:00.005+11:00

So, it's late at night, a smart woman would be in bed, sound asleep. I on the other hand am typing away AND watching Prison Break at the same time because every girl needs a Wentworth Miller fix. Perhaps I could talk about something other than autism. I dunno, is there anything other than autism? Sometimes I feel like it consumes me completely, then there are times when I just forget about it.

Truthfully, I don't really have anything in particular to blog about. Although I just looked at the faces of autism blog and there is my beautiful boy, top of the page.

Once again, autism consuming me. No actually, my kids consume me, not autism.

Have I told you all lately how much I am madly in love with my kids? No? Well I am. Madly.

There is another true love in my life, besides the guy who lives at my house.

TV.

I looooooooove tv. And pretty soon I won't miss episodes of all my favourite shows anymore because I am getting Tivo for Christmas...if Santa knows what's good for him. I think I sold Santa on the topic last night when he couldn't decide what to watch between Top Gear and The rich list (no competition in my eyes) I told Santa when we have Tivo he wouldn't have to make that decision, he could watch both.

Sold.

I have to admit, I kinda wish I had Tivo about 4 months ago and then I wouldn't have to watch crap reruns right through the summer silly season.

Oh crap, I was just thinking about going to bed and now Dirty, sexy money is on. Oh well, what's one more late night?

Mr Rudd's government bailout...bring it on.

2008-12-08T11:07:00.005+11:00

Today is the day the our wonderful (cough cough) prime minister starts dishing out money to the people of Australia. In an effort to stop us following the US down the path of recession, he is giving most families $1000 per child and another $1000 for each person on a carer allowance. That is a big fat $4000 coming our way. Now the idea is that we all go out and spend this money on Christmas presents so the economy is stimulated and people don't lose their jobs and so forth. I, on the other hand, am choosing to put mine all on to credit cards. It will stimulate MY economy and I will have room on them for all Magoo's high school stuff I need to buy in the next few weeks. OMG high school costs a fortune.

Baybee, AKA Princess Chunkie Bum looked so cute the other day I had to take her photo. Not the best quality because it was taken with my phone but cute none the less.

Ok, better get back to dealing with these kids, I have a client due in 45 minutes and the place looks like a house with 3 kids and a dog right now.....

It's all too hard

2008-12-07T14:32:00.008+11:00

I'm a bit torn at the moment. Blogging is hard enough for me to commit the time to without having to remember special nick names for the husband and kids to avoid stalkers and nut jobs. So can someone tell me what they think on this issue?

On the Fletch front, things are going pretty well. We have been offered a spot in an early intervention program starting next term at a place run by Yooralla and we are ssssssoooooooo excited about it. It is a bit like 3 year old kinda but there will be a speech pathologist, occupational therapist, physiotherapist, kinder teacher and 3 assistants all for 9 kids with additional needs and up to 6 kids from the community. At the moment they are no 'community' kids in Fletcher's session so me might have a lovely small group.

We have also been to see a developmental paed who is putting together an autism treatment plan so we get as much medicare funding as we can.

Fletch is coming out with new words every day or so but still shows no sign of stringing 2 together unless he learns them as a block of words like 'here you go' or 'no more'. I had noticed that he had starting to use a few of these phrases as 'stims'. He will repeat 'it's ok' , 'wassup?' and 'so so sorry' over and over some days for no real reason and always when I raise my voice to tell him off or stop him doing something he shouldn't be doing. The last couple of days I noticed that whenever I go to stop him doing something he will say 'nana' , 'apple' then 'juice'. I haven't figured out yet if it is a stim or if it is to try and divert my attention from what he is doing. Either way, he doesn't actually want the banana, apple or juice, which is driving me crazy because for a few months now we have settled into this nice little system where he tells me what he wants and I get it for him. Sounds good ha?

Some of his new words for the last week or so have been...
'cordigool'...cordial
'coppee'...coffee (for me of course)
'naughty'... funny how he learnt that one)
'Kenzie'... a bit closer to her name, she has been known as Baybee for the last 9 months
I am sure there are more but of course my memory is failing me right now.

Now this is a little video I made a couple of weeks ago when Fletch started singing Old McDonald had a farm. And if you can ignor the fact that he starts to strip, it is really cute. Also, take note of how clean my house looks in this clip, it is a rarety!

Right now I am multitasking in true 'mum' fashion. I type madly for a few seconds then scoop another spoonful of mashed vegies and chicken into Baybee's mouth. She thinks my glasses are pretty funny coz she never sees me in them. She also thinks it is funny to blow a huge 'raspberry' with a mouthful of food so I am going to be picking food from hair and computer sceen when I finish.

Fletch is still having a nap on the couch and Big Ed is snoring way on the other couch. So glad the kids all got his bit of DNA assigned to sleep.

And a bit more for today

2008-11-21T22:45:00.005+11:00

I know I only posted a couple of hours ago but I'm still here at the computer and I still haven't checked if the red ink has run out.

Magoo is away with his school on the RACV energy breakthrough challenge so it is pretty quiet at this time of night around here. The guy who lives at my place had strongly hinted at some 'mummy & daddy' time while Magoo is away and has fallen asleep by 8 each night. I now he works long hours but he has a serious problem with the amount of sleep he needs. Or maybe I have a serious problem with it.

Hmm, what did the Fletch do today that was interesting? About an hour ago I heard him talking in his sleep. How freakin funny is that? He barely talks when he is awake but he will say 'bye bye, see ya later' in his sleep. I realised yesterday that he isn't saying the variety of words he was saying a few weeks back. He still isn't frustrated like he was a year ago but I was hoping he might be attempting to string a couple of words together by now. That is one (of the many) annoying things about autism, you take 2 steps forward, 1 back, three forward, 4 back, 6 sideways and come to a grinding halt.

Tomorrow we are going to a friend's daughter's 1st birthday party. Once upon a time these people were our best friends, well, the guys who lives at my place's best friends. Then about a year ago we went over for dinner one night and Fletch (can't be bothered with nick names now) did his little sign for drink. There was soft drink on the table, even I can't resist. So my husband reached for it and said to Fletch 'ok I will get you a drink' to which his best friend said 'if he was my kid he wouldn't get nothing (great grammar) unless he said please, you're too soft, if you just don't give it to him he will figure out he needs to talk in order to get what he wants'........

I don't know what held me back.

My husband pointed out that Fletch can't talk and that we had tried his freinds approach but it doesn't work with him and the sign is his attempt at letting us know what he wants. At that stage Fletch hadn't been diagnosed with autism. And it's not like this guys kids are little angels either, they are spoilt little brats a good chunk of the time. I was furious but bit my tongue because Big Ed had explained things. When the time came to leave, I was about to yell out to Magoo when I pointed out to my friend (the dick head's wife) that for some reason when you yell out to Magoo, Fletch gets really upset ( a mini meltdown) The dick head then thought that was so funny that he got close to Fletch and said 'Magoo, Magoo' a few times to see his reaction. Fletch got upset. Not wanting to upset him any more was all that stopped me knocking the dick head out. I grabbed our stuff and politely said good bye to the dick heads wife and we all left. I have barely seen them since. Even Shane, who is a big marshmallow when it comes to his friends doesn't bother with them anymore.They were in our wedding party. They would be the only people I can think of who have reacted negatively towards Fletch and his problems. Every other person you mention it to is either so sympathetic to your struggle or enormously supportive or sensitive to Fletcher it just makes everything so much easier.

Fletch is only 3 and a half so most people out in public aren't aware of the fact that he barely speaks or that he won't converse with them. I wonder if they will be as accepting if he is the same in a few more years. Sometimes I don't want him to grow up for that reason, people accept his struggles more with him being little and cute. And my God, he is ssssooooo cute.

Just had to add....

2008-11-21T16:10:00.005+11:00

I thought it was about time I put a few new pics of The Bubbaganoush on here for everyone to see just how much of a big spunk he is.

This one is of him about to go out and have his first ski with his dad on our trip up to Mt Hotham this year. Teddy goes every where with him, including the snow.

And just have a look at these eyes.....

And having a ski with Daddy.

Been a while

2008-11-21T14:24:00.004+11:00

Hi all, I feel like I am writing an apology letter as to why it has been so long since my last post. The truth is there is no reason, well, other than the total mayhem that I usually exist in.

So, I'm sitting here, at my computer (well it's the guy who lives at my place's computer thanks to mine needing a new mother board) and I have number 1 son's computer going beside me (he wants me to fix all the little glitches while he is off on school camp thingy) The Bubbaganoush is dangling upside down on the couch watching Ready, steady, cook, (a favourite of his) and Princess Mack has just gone to sleep for some afternoon relief.

I am suppose to be making picture schedules for The Bubbaganoush but I think I am just about out of red printer ink. This distracted me enough to start me looking for chocolate around the house and to check in on Facebook, as you do.

Now I have eaten all the known chocolate in the house and no one has done anything on Facebook since I last checked. I could check again....

Nope, still nothing.

What else can I do to continue my procrastination? Hmmm, played with the 'Ganoush on the floor for a bit. Now he's asleep. Hmmm, what else? Don't think I can put it off for much longer. Guess I should check if there actually is still some red ink.

Washing....Grrrrr!

2008-09-17T10:06:00.003+10:00

Is there anybody out there is blogland who actually likes doing the washing? Sweet mother of all that is smelly, I hate it. It never freakin ends. As you may know, I have 3 kids, 4 if you count the guy who lives at my place and at the moment we have a house guest, the guy who use to live at my place, also known as my ex husband! (long story, in fact, a whole 'nother post I think.) So these days I am doing the laundry of 6 people. And not just 6 normal people. The guy who lives at my place runs a concrete plant so he has 2 sets of clothes a day thanks to the nice sprinkling of cement dust he comes home in and Princess Mack or Big Mack as she is now sometimes referred to as, is a poo machine thanks to her now shortened bowel and poo leaks out of nappies and onto clothes if you do enough of it.

So it's more like 8 peoples washing.

OH MY GOD I HAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And to make matters worse it is that time of year in Melbourne where it is not really wet enough to use your dryer but if you hang the washing on the line it is very possible it will be out there till is resembles tie dye clothing. So I resort to the very messy looking clothes airers all over the house. As if my house wasn't messy enough without it looking like a Chinese laundry, no offence to the Chinese.

My mum even bought me some new wiz bang pegs and peg basket thingy, perhaps to inspire me to do the washing more regularly. And they are really cool but they are still pegs and still require my input to get he washing on the line and off the line.

I swear, if more men had to do the washing, one of two things would happen....

either an amazing washing/drying/folding/ironing/putting away invention would come onto the market to make life easier for them.

They would put those jeans that they only wore from 7pm till 9pm back on the next night.

Better go, I've got washing to do.

Mwah!

My Bubbaganoush and his rituals

2008-09-15T09:27:00.002+10:00

Not sure if I have mentioned before that The Bubbaganoush has Autism. Whilst it isn't the end of the world is does change the dynamics of our family a bit. I won't go into all the ins and outs of living with a child with autism here, that's for another post but it can certainly give you stuff to write about.

Most of the timehe is pretty good but lately he is developing new rituals every day while I battle on to break them. The latest ritual is driving me batty. When I put the car in the garage he always signals that he wants the keys so he can close the roller door, this means the roller door is about to go up and down about half a dozen times. God only knows what the neighbours think. Then he would hand the keys over. Now he hands me the keys and runs around the car to the front, scales the bonnet and windscreen and laughs at me from the roof of the car. Kinda cute the first 30 times but not when he does it at Casey Central Shopping Centre. You can see other parents being torn between feeling horror at the thought of this beautiful little boy falling off the roof, disgust at my parenting skills for letting him get up there (blimey, he's too quick for my old body to stop him) and amusement at the sight of this short fat blonde chick try and talk her clearly very amused son down from the roof of her 4WD.

See, now you're laughing too.

I need a whinge

2008-07-11T17:29:00.008+10:00

I need to have a major whinge. For any of my whinge to make any sense, I probably need to update everyone on some of the dramas we have experienced lately.

On Monday afternoon Baybee was just as normal, swinging from the jolly jumper and having a ball playing with a friends daughter. Around 5pm she started to get a bit grumpy. She wouldn't take a feed and didn't enjoy the bath so the guy who lives at my house decided to put her to bed. She fell asleep on his shoulder before he could get there so we figured she really was tired. At about 2:30am I heard her have a little grizzle so I went into her room and put her dummy back in (I am seriously working on an invention to stop an infant's dummy falling out during the night, some may want to call it sticky tape or even glue but I will be launching the stopthatdummyfallingoutthingy in the near future)

For some reason I went back in a 3am, saw her awake and figured I'd save myself a few hours of hassle and just feed her, she had, after all she had skipped her last feed and if you look at this picture of her you will see that she couldn't possibly afford to skip a meal

Of course, she took it happily. I noticed her derriere was a little under the nose so finished the feed and headed to the family room nappy without waking up Fletch. With the benefit of hindsight, while I undressed her even though she had her eyes wide open, she was limp, cold and grey. At the time I just thought she was very quiet at that time of day. When I undid the nappy I found it was full of blood and I mean really full. I ran and got the guy who lives at my place and we called 000. The ambos (2 sets came) arrived really quickly considering the rain and were as calm as cucumbers. We went to Monash Medical Centre, not the closest hospital but better than the 2 closer ones. (I knew they had a paediatric ICU) and were seen by the paediatrician straight away with 2 specialist nurses and the paediatric surgeon within 10 minutes. They tried everything they could to stabilise her for an hour and a half before they had no option but to go up to surgery. At that point they didn't really know what the problem was because the symptoms didn't quite add up to one particular diagnosis.

We held it together until they told us if we hadn't got her here when we did or if we hadn't decided to change her (which I never normally do during the night) we would have just 'found' her in the morning. We knew what that meant. Something has to be said for a 'mother's intuition.' So they took her off to surgery and we just had to wait. I was prepared for several hours of waiting but it was actually only about 2. They were still the longest 2 hours of my life. I made phone calls to let people know what was happening. I even made a deal with God that if he let her live I would lose the weight I have been promising to. We ate breakfast in a effort to distract ourselves from the time that was passing so slowly. The guy who lives at my place eventually went off to get more coffee when one of the surgeons stuck his head around the corner and said her name. He looked exhausted and made small talk about the fact that he too had a 'Baybee' (not her real name of course) at home but his was a 'he'. Clearly going by this small talk I figured things had gone well but you never really know till they say the actual words, everything went well. It had been something called interceception, where the bowel telescopes back into itself. They had taken half of her large bowel, a bit of her small bowel and her appendix which was tangled up in the mix and say long term they don't expect any problems she, should adjust well thanks to her age.

We felt like we had just won the lottery, we actually had. Considering what she has just been through Baybee is doing amazingly. She didn't complain that she didn't get to eat for nearly 3 days and her only real gripe was when she has fallen asleep and the others in the room have made noises. She started back on a little formula yesterday afternoon, most likely after she heard the surgeon say she could start back on food after a bowel motion. She did one 15 minutes later! And when she still hadn't been fed 5 hours after that she did another just for good measure. After a handful of formula feeds she has now been allowed back on to the real stuff and is tucked snuggly in bed next to me in the hospital. Recovering nicely. What a scare.

That all sounds a but too serious for my blog.

Now as for the whinging bit I mentioned earlier.

This experience and the hospital stay that has come with it has brought to my attention the parenting skills (or lack there of) of the parents around me in this ward. Next to Baybee is a beautiful little boy, 6 months old, not sure what he's in for but I know he is waiting for surgery next week, his parents don't stay here at all over night and when they do come in they, go straight to the Starlight room and play Nintendo Wii. The nurses give him more love and cuddles than they do. Then there is this beautiful little boy adjacent, had his appendix out yesterday with a few complications, very confused and sore. His mum stood on his bed (yes that's what I said) so she could answer the phone on the other side of his bed. What the? Then his dad arrived at his court designated time (after mediation from the doctors) and mum had to leave as they have some sort of court order out on each other! ( the mum started crying and she got me started again) Then a 13 year old girl got wheeled in a couple of hours ago, took one look at the 2 cots in this room and asked if those babies were staying the night as she is a very sensitive sleeper!

I fair dinkum wanted to slap her.

So tell me, how in the hell have these people been able to procreate?

Obviously Darwin's theory was wrong.

Princess Mackenzie

2008-06-24T21:32:00.004+10:00

So for those of you who haven't already had the pleasure of meeting her, and I can assure you it is a pleasure, this is Princess Mackenzie with her mum, Princess Fiona (long story how I got that nick name). She was born 9 months ago and is really more like the size of a 12 month old.
Yes, we have weight issues. The good thing is that at her age she is considered 'healthy'. I wonder at what point do you go from being healthy to being morbidly obese? Is there an age that it happens? Hmmm yesterday I was healthy BANG today I line up for lapband surgery.

Anyway she is a beautiful little fatty boombah with the best set of rolly poly, layer upon layer baby thighs I have ever seen. At the moment she has just a faint fuzz of blonde hair on top and the reminants of the funny little mullet she was born with down the back.

Mackenzie has just started crawling properly and I am wondering if that means those layer upon layer thighs will disappear. I have had to baracade the Christmas tree so she doesn't pull it down on herself, something that Fletcher never did, he just seemed to know it wasn't the done thing.

Fletcher has been very tollerant of Mackenzie's crawling. She has been doing a lot of crawling over him and he hasn't complained at all. And she has become very tollerant of him barging into their bedroom during her daytime naps so he can play.

Introducing the Disfunctional Family

2008-06-23T23:57:00.000+10:00

Well, well, well. Wadda ya know? Princess Fiona is starting a .........(fill blanks here!) For those of you who know me you know how I love starting a new project. For those who know me well, you'll also know how I grow bored of said projects and search for new projects to fill in all my spare time. So my latest project is this new blog. I like to use it as a cheap alternative to therapy. I have so much spare time these days I am starting my new project at 12:01am. This is mainly because the guy who lives at my place is fast asleep and snoring like a freight train in the boudoir. Haha, just fixed a typo that said 'scoring like freight train', don't know how fright trains score but with the noise he's making there's little chance.

So to set the scene that is my little life.... there's me, aptly named Princess Fiona by my adoring husband. I thought he was being so sweet when he started calling me by my new little pet name. He called me this for a good 6 months before I saw Shrek......

Then there's the guy who lives at my place. In all honesty he lives in our place but we don't want him getting too ahead of himself do we? Next in line is The Number 1 son. He is technically what I think they call a tweeny at the moment. If I let him live long enough to graduate to be a teenager it will be a miracle. Then there is The Bubbaganoush. He was going to remain the baby of the family until a trip down the Great Ocean Road and a bottle of passion pop created Princess Mack.

And how could I forget the dog, Forrest Gump, he may not be a smart man but he knows what love is.

We all live together in our little house in south eastern suburbia. It's not exactly Oliver's Hill but we like it. It could be worse, we could live on the other side of the westgate! (I can hear my rellos dropping the f bomb now) Or we could live closer to my in laws. (who wont be getting sent the link to this blog, it's not good therapy unless you are completely honest is it?)

Anyway now that I have introduced everyone, I have heard the infomercials start on the telly which means I should be getting my beauty sleep, all good ogre women need all they can get.