Five minutes to spare....

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

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.

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.