What do you do on a long weekend?

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.

todays goal.....

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.

It's all too hard

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

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.