If a smaller version of this is your everyday then savour it! For this is now my 'every so often' but when it is, Oh Boy, it melts my heart (and crushes it under his weight! ;) ) . Bless.....
Saturday 31 March 2012
Tuesday 27 March 2012
A1 cooks a scrumptious Dinner...
A1 is always so incredibly eager to help out and do things around the house or to help me. She loves to be useful and to learn new skills. It is a hard spot she has in this family sometimes, having two demanding brothers to contend with who monopolize my time quite a lot I am always a little conscious of making sure that she is ok and getting one on one time with me.
As we awaited K buying the Tzatziki dip she was chatting away about the dinner that she was going to cook when we got home. Upon entering the house she instantly began to get the vegetables out and ready to start preparing. Cutting the meat she decided was just too hard and so instead she changed to cutting up a tomato. So we stood side by side, me cutting the strips of meat and her cutting up the tomato, cucumber, shredding the carrot and cutting up the lettuce.
She decided that I should cook the meat as she continued on preparing. As the food was finally cooked and cut up she very proudly placed it all on the table, set the plates and called the boys to come to dinner.
We all exclaimed how delicious it was and said our thanks to the chef and it was at this point that she said, "Thankyou all of you for saying thanks and I also want to say a big thanks to me for cooking it!" and with the logie acceptance over with she took a big delicious bite, complete with a "Hmmm-Hmm" exclamation at it's loveliness.
Somehow I don't think I need to worry too much about this girl, she is clearly already practising her acceptance speeches of her greatness in daily life....she going places that girl! ;)
As we awaited K buying the Tzatziki dip she was chatting away about the dinner that she was going to cook when we got home. Upon entering the house she instantly began to get the vegetables out and ready to start preparing. Cutting the meat she decided was just too hard and so instead she changed to cutting up a tomato. So we stood side by side, me cutting the strips of meat and her cutting up the tomato, cucumber, shredding the carrot and cutting up the lettuce.
She decided that I should cook the meat as she continued on preparing. As the food was finally cooked and cut up she very proudly placed it all on the table, set the plates and called the boys to come to dinner.
Somehow I don't think I need to worry too much about this girl, she is clearly already practising her acceptance speeches of her greatness in daily life....she going places that girl! ;)
He was a skater boy....
There are many good things that I have found as a Mum have been the result of my being a Tom-Boy when I was younger. For one, I am pretty damn good at sports....any sports but especially cricket and footy and my son is not at all embarassed to kick a ball in public with me ;) . Another is that I love riding bikes still. But there was more than just a bike in my past..I also used to ride roller skates (which I didn't keep) and a skateboard (which I did keep) .
When I was growing up I spent a lot of time with athletes who were paralympians. My mother is an Amputee and was a professional athlete when I was very young, so I got to know many other amputee athletes. Around the olympic swimming pool many of the people that I would play with and hang out with when older were double or single leg amputees...how would you get around the edges of the pool to your starting blocks? why on a skateboard of course. I loved their skateboards. They were so insanely cool and I never felt prouder than the moments when I was entrusted to watch their boards while they raced...and when they taught me too how to ride them.
I rememeber begging and begging my parents to buy me a skateboard just like my friends...but we didn't have much money and any large items like a skateboard had to wait until birthdays or christmas. Finally though i was given a skateboard. It wasn't quite like my friends. It was a little more narrow and it was pine coloured with grips...unlike their white, wide boards which were covered in their own cool stickers. But that skateboard meant the world to me. I would spend hours and hours out the front of my house going up and down the foot path, turning into the driveway and and riding back out again. I loved that board and thanks to the hoarding genes passed down to me from my Dad I never got rid of that board.
My children discovered it a few years ago, but it was too hard to ride and so it kept on getting put away. Until this week. K decided, Monday night that he would get that skateboard out and try it out. I stood and watched him and he asked me to show him how to use it. I tried to stand on it and wobbled off instantly. Thoughts of breaking my bones and ending up in hospital flashed through my mind. 'Perhaps I am too old?' I thought. So I sat down again and just watched him for a while, thinking that my time had passed...skateboarding is not for me. Then, I felt propelled to try once more. So waiting for K to take a break I placed my foot on the board once more and pushed off. I fell off...but landed standing on my feet. Suddenly I felt alive! I got back on...within 10 minutes I was skating back and forth across the driveway. We worked together then, as the old skills came back to me I was able to tell him how to move his weight on this feet to make the board turn. He was able to ride it, by himself by the end of the night.
My boy K, he spends most of his life running around on his tippy toes, walking on the ball of his feet, barely ever putting the full weight of his body on his feet as he races through life. It is an Aspie thing..it is a K thing. On a skateboard though, K is FORCED to put his whole weight on his feet in order to steadily ride. It was a learning curve at first and an action that he has to remind himself to perform each and every time he gets on the board. But it only serves to make him feel even more proud of himself when he is sailing along the concrete on my board...I mean his.
Because tomorrow he has decided that he is going to ride 'his' skateboard to school! He cannot wait to show his friends his, 'like a penny board, real skateboard!' . I cannot wait to see him make the trip from the local sports fields car park along the walking/riding path to school.
Gosh could I be anymore proud of him? I think not...although there are always new days and new skills to achieve.... :)
How Tzatski dip caused him to be social...
Given the low energy and sickness I have I really did want to go into the supermarket, dragging all three children in for just one item! Low and behold K piped up that he would go!
We talked through what he would do when he got the dip. Filled in the step between getting it and coming back to the car (you know, the paying for it part ;) ) and he decided that he wasn't confident to use the self serve and so he would go to the register that the person was at. I told him that the person would say, "How are you today?" and asked how he would reply? K has an aversion to social chit chat with people he knows, he really has an aversion to it when it is with strangers. When we go shopping I try to encourage him as much as possible to speak to strangers, to ask for things or place the order..putting him in situations where he has no choice but to socialise and interact in conversations with strangers.
He attempted to do just this for me last week when ordering his sister a happy meal while I ordered his and his brothers KFC while the two other children sat at a nearby table (eating at a food court). Off he ran (despite being asked to walk...he barely ever walks anywhere!) to McDonalds and a little while later he returned...but without the happy meal box. He had been given the McBites and the choc drink but no box, chips or toy. AS I had just finished at KFC I walked back with him. Two factors had prevented him from having a successful transaction on this day. Number one was the fact that a trainee served him and upon K using a very soft voice when ordering she did not push him to speak louder or read back the menu to him. No fault of hers or his...it was just an oversight. Upon being given the wrong order he was too shy to say anything and so instead came back to the table.
To the worker at McDonalds credit she praised him for trying and that meant I had an incredibly happy boy who came back to eat his dinner.
Tonights venture of buying dip in a supermarket all by himself was incredibly huge for him with many things to remember. Firstly having limited funds he needed to find the dips and then read the price tag to make sure he had enough money. He then needed to find the register, answer the social niceities and pay for the product, wait for the change and then come back out to the car.
So off he went....we chatted about things while we waited and it seemed that in no time at all he was bolting back to the car. He was beaming with pride and I looked at the dip and my smile did the same (dip). "K," I said, "You accidently bought Spring Onion dip instead of Tzatziki". He looked at the dip in his hands and then at me. This situation could have gone two ways...it could have all been ok or it could have triggered a massive meltdown. As K was quietly and sullenly looking at me I said, "You can take it back to the register and just tell them you accidently got the wrong one and ask to change it". I waited on baited breath for his reply.......He smiled and said, "ok". Then around he turned, slamming the door and bolting off back to the entrance.
A little while later he returned with an even bigger smile on his face if possible. He had gone to the exchange desk, said what he needed to and then changed the dip.
I cannot explain to you how incredibly fantastic and big this is of an achievement for K. He knows it too. I am SO insanely proud of him! But I cannot show him the full level of my pride, instead I praise him a little...and then we head home as though nothing really out of the ordinary has occured. But deep down both K and I know that that is far from the truth.
The journey to diagnosis begins...
My youngest son A2 is 3.5 years old. His story starts as a pretty calm and wonderful one. He came into our lives at a time of great upheaval. When discovering that we were pregnant with him we did that amazingly stupid thing that people of our generation often do and we looked around our little house with our big backyard but little bedrooms and we decided that instead of staying there and squashing children into those little rooms we should sell it and buy or build a McMansion! So that is what we did (Oh with hindsight how I regret thee decision! For I would have surely been able to buy Hubby out right now and stay in established little house bliss with the children happily ever after if we had just stayed...)
So we sold and moved in with my parents in a teeny little house with too many people and not enough space for a little under a year while we built the McMansion! It was tense and A2 arrived on the scene around about 3/4 of the way through our time there. To be there when he was a newborn was pretty spectacular. I had extra hands to hold him and help out with doing all the things that three little children demand of a tired Mama.
He was a dream, he slept for one. No not a little but a lot and over night pretty early on. He was easy to get to sleep. He breastfed beautifully...he was quiet and calm and made our family complete in a lovely way.
When we moved into our new house he crawled around and loved the open space, but still preferred to be close to his Mama.
There were so many things so very different about him and his older brother that in the first 1.5 years I had much hope that perhaps the Aspie wand hadn't touched him. But then there were also little things, that as he got older became more prominant which were very similar indeed.
The months and months of not adjusting to childcare or changes with his carers at childcare. The 2.5 years it took him to talk to the workers at the childcare more than single word answers (and that was with him being incredibly close to his main carer!) . The social sideline he played as he would rather watch than participate in activities with the other children. The aversion to noises and crowds and changes in routine that would cause massive tantrums and screaming set to blow up even the most hardened of ear drums.
Day by day and year by year the little 'things' grew until they have blown up before my eyes and some nights it is hard to envision simply getting through to bedtime without losing my mind.
Oh I love my quiet boy who changed into a not so quiet and easy going boy. He has become the policeman his brother once was, only using a different tactic of defense. K would hit or push kids who didn't do what he wanted them to do at this age (3.5) whereas A2 complains and cries and screams. With his siblings he has also began lashing out but not with other children. He is a rules man, but unfortunately they are his rules and sometimes he forgets to tell everyone else around him about the rules until he forcefully and loudly enforces them on them!
Bananas which do not split the way he wants them to are not able to be eaten! Hmmm...this one frustrates the non wasteful part of me.
Children who sit in the spot he deems is his at the table receive an earful of screaming....a book not placed right on the shelf, a toy moved from it's spot, noise too loud, people not where he thinks they should be, papers that are crumbled slightly that should be straight, lots of people around him, too dark, too light/ bright....oh I could go on and on. But surfice to say that the day came when I decided it was time to see if he could be diagnosed with Aspie or something or if this is just him....
I kept putting the day off. Friends gently coaxed me, reminded me and listened as I lamented the latest thing he was struggling with but they didn't push as I knew, that dealing with the seperation and all the drama that brought to my life and the emotion that I just was not ready. Although I strongly suspect that he too has Aspergers and it wouldn't be a surprise to me, I also know that with the diagnosis comes the paper trail and the specialists trail and the emotions of dealing with the finality of it before the acceptance and joy of it settles in finally. And I felt that all of that would be just too much to handle for me. So I delayed.....and delayed until finally I could no more.
It was an afternoon when I was getting K checked at the doctors and A2 insisted to be checked and argued with the doctor over the insistance that he needed medicine when he didn't that I mentioned my concerns and apologised for the bogus appointment for him knowing that if he didn't see the doctor that day and be checked out that I would have a night and week before me of constant tantrums and complaints from A2 about not seeing him. I was tired, I gave in. The doctor understood and then he offered a referral. I said thanks and I will come back to do it another time. Overnight I thought about it. The next day was the one in the week that is just A2 and I. I awoke to the rules and by school drop off time I was going insane and the two big kids gratefully exited the vehicle coyote chasing road runner style, such was their relief to be exiting the situation! When I got to the end of the drop off zone I made the choice to turn left instead of right....15 minutes later we pulled into the doctors.
Yesterday the postman delivered the date I have been waiting for. May 22nd, a Tuesday.
And so begins the journey towards our second diagnosis (or not....lets not jump the gun I hear you saying)
So we sold and moved in with my parents in a teeny little house with too many people and not enough space for a little under a year while we built the McMansion! It was tense and A2 arrived on the scene around about 3/4 of the way through our time there. To be there when he was a newborn was pretty spectacular. I had extra hands to hold him and help out with doing all the things that three little children demand of a tired Mama.
He was a dream, he slept for one. No not a little but a lot and over night pretty early on. He was easy to get to sleep. He breastfed beautifully...he was quiet and calm and made our family complete in a lovely way.
When we moved into our new house he crawled around and loved the open space, but still preferred to be close to his Mama.
There were so many things so very different about him and his older brother that in the first 1.5 years I had much hope that perhaps the Aspie wand hadn't touched him. But then there were also little things, that as he got older became more prominant which were very similar indeed.
The months and months of not adjusting to childcare or changes with his carers at childcare. The 2.5 years it took him to talk to the workers at the childcare more than single word answers (and that was with him being incredibly close to his main carer!) . The social sideline he played as he would rather watch than participate in activities with the other children. The aversion to noises and crowds and changes in routine that would cause massive tantrums and screaming set to blow up even the most hardened of ear drums.
Day by day and year by year the little 'things' grew until they have blown up before my eyes and some nights it is hard to envision simply getting through to bedtime without losing my mind.
Oh I love my quiet boy who changed into a not so quiet and easy going boy. He has become the policeman his brother once was, only using a different tactic of defense. K would hit or push kids who didn't do what he wanted them to do at this age (3.5) whereas A2 complains and cries and screams. With his siblings he has also began lashing out but not with other children. He is a rules man, but unfortunately they are his rules and sometimes he forgets to tell everyone else around him about the rules until he forcefully and loudly enforces them on them!
Bananas which do not split the way he wants them to are not able to be eaten! Hmmm...this one frustrates the non wasteful part of me.
Children who sit in the spot he deems is his at the table receive an earful of screaming....a book not placed right on the shelf, a toy moved from it's spot, noise too loud, people not where he thinks they should be, papers that are crumbled slightly that should be straight, lots of people around him, too dark, too light/ bright....oh I could go on and on. But surfice to say that the day came when I decided it was time to see if he could be diagnosed with Aspie or something or if this is just him....
I kept putting the day off. Friends gently coaxed me, reminded me and listened as I lamented the latest thing he was struggling with but they didn't push as I knew, that dealing with the seperation and all the drama that brought to my life and the emotion that I just was not ready. Although I strongly suspect that he too has Aspergers and it wouldn't be a surprise to me, I also know that with the diagnosis comes the paper trail and the specialists trail and the emotions of dealing with the finality of it before the acceptance and joy of it settles in finally. And I felt that all of that would be just too much to handle for me. So I delayed.....and delayed until finally I could no more.
It was an afternoon when I was getting K checked at the doctors and A2 insisted to be checked and argued with the doctor over the insistance that he needed medicine when he didn't that I mentioned my concerns and apologised for the bogus appointment for him knowing that if he didn't see the doctor that day and be checked out that I would have a night and week before me of constant tantrums and complaints from A2 about not seeing him. I was tired, I gave in. The doctor understood and then he offered a referral. I said thanks and I will come back to do it another time. Overnight I thought about it. The next day was the one in the week that is just A2 and I. I awoke to the rules and by school drop off time I was going insane and the two big kids gratefully exited the vehicle coyote chasing road runner style, such was their relief to be exiting the situation! When I got to the end of the drop off zone I made the choice to turn left instead of right....15 minutes later we pulled into the doctors.
Yesterday the postman delivered the date I have been waiting for. May 22nd, a Tuesday.
And so begins the journey towards our second diagnosis (or not....lets not jump the gun I hear you saying)
What do your sickness fevers deliver to you?
After four days of nursing my beautiful Girl A1 back to health from a nasty virus that was a cross between a head cold and stomach cramps/ bug it was inevitable that my supreme nursing would result in my catching it.
Unlike A2 who received enlarged tonsils out of the deal I didn't (as mine have been hacked out) but I did receive the run over by a truck, head cold and horrible, excruciating stomach cramps part! Never again will I doubt the insistance of my daughter that she is infact sick!
Suffice to say that we got to today and A2 bounced out of bed more than ready to skip back into school, recovered and feeling fine while I overslept the alarm and dropped them at school and childcare feeling like death warmed up. No actually scrap that visual because there was nothing about me that was warmed up, I was freezing! Helped not by A2s insistance that he NEEDED the window down beside him, which was right behind my head!
Finally I got back home and rememebered about a work task I promised to get done which I had completely forgotten about over my sickness filled drama filled weekend and so I set to work organising to do it. COmputer on, blanket around my back and tucked into bed in 2 layers of clothes, finally the warmth overtook the chills. As I waited for my computer to finish doing something with a program so that I could start work I thought I would just close my eyes for a minute as despite getting an unusually full nights sleep I was still so incredibly tired.
So I closed them for just a minute.....in that just a minute 4.5 hours passed by...I also managed to take two phone calls and had the most amazingly detailed and for the first time in 6 months, not terrifiying but good dream I have ever had. Infact it was so good that I really didn't want to wake until it was finished. As I sweated out the chills and slumbered the day away I was given the most amazing gift...a movie playing in my mind of my own creation...which I would remember in it's entirety when I awoke.
I got out of my warm bed and got my trusty old diary (I buy a diary each year, I always forget to use it and then use them as notebooks in subsequent years!) and wrote down all the important parts of this dream. The characters, what happened the important details and then things I felt could also be added that were missing.
As I showered to start my day again I thought about the dream and the single thought popped into my mind riding a wave of hope and exhileration. This is my novel.
One day, when I have time, those notes and that dream will be transformed into my novel...and it will be wonderful.
What a wonderful thing to look forward to....
Now back to the reality of doing some work before leaving in fifteen minutes to get my children! EEK!
Unlike A2 who received enlarged tonsils out of the deal I didn't (as mine have been hacked out) but I did receive the run over by a truck, head cold and horrible, excruciating stomach cramps part! Never again will I doubt the insistance of my daughter that she is infact sick!
Suffice to say that we got to today and A2 bounced out of bed more than ready to skip back into school, recovered and feeling fine while I overslept the alarm and dropped them at school and childcare feeling like death warmed up. No actually scrap that visual because there was nothing about me that was warmed up, I was freezing! Helped not by A2s insistance that he NEEDED the window down beside him, which was right behind my head!
Finally I got back home and rememebered about a work task I promised to get done which I had completely forgotten about over my sickness filled drama filled weekend and so I set to work organising to do it. COmputer on, blanket around my back and tucked into bed in 2 layers of clothes, finally the warmth overtook the chills. As I waited for my computer to finish doing something with a program so that I could start work I thought I would just close my eyes for a minute as despite getting an unusually full nights sleep I was still so incredibly tired.
So I closed them for just a minute.....in that just a minute 4.5 hours passed by...I also managed to take two phone calls and had the most amazingly detailed and for the first time in 6 months, not terrifiying but good dream I have ever had. Infact it was so good that I really didn't want to wake until it was finished. As I sweated out the chills and slumbered the day away I was given the most amazing gift...a movie playing in my mind of my own creation...which I would remember in it's entirety when I awoke.
I got out of my warm bed and got my trusty old diary (I buy a diary each year, I always forget to use it and then use them as notebooks in subsequent years!) and wrote down all the important parts of this dream. The characters, what happened the important details and then things I felt could also be added that were missing.
As I showered to start my day again I thought about the dream and the single thought popped into my mind riding a wave of hope and exhileration. This is my novel.
One day, when I have time, those notes and that dream will be transformed into my novel...and it will be wonderful.
What a wonderful thing to look forward to....
Now back to the reality of doing some work before leaving in fifteen minutes to get my children! EEK!
"It's a duck!"
As a single Mum of three kids, one with confirmed Aspergers and another suspected while the other well and truly a NT keeping to routines can at times be our saving grace! Each night we have a definite routine that we stick to to ensure that my two who loathe sleep and struggle to give in to the night time necessity of slumber can be as calm as possible to facilitate it's arrival.
When we return from school/ Work/ Childcare the kids can play while I prepare dinner. Then when dinner is called the toy areas are closed for the night. They are not to return and play once dinner starts. We eat dinner and watch one tv show a night which is Dance Academy on ABC3. Once that is over the tv is turned off. After dinner is the showers and then the boys run around in a nude and crazy state while I progressively go from understanding, reminding Mum of what they should be doing to a screaming banshee telling them what to do. They then complain about why I need to scream and A1 usually watches this scene rolling her eyes ;) (she's 6 by the way! ;) ) .
The boys then get into bed and A2 grabs as many books as possible for me to read and then we negotiate down to two or three only. Complaints stop eventually only because if they don't stop and he accepts not all are to be read then he is to have none read at all. Finally we settle down to read.
This one particular night A2 chose two Pamela Allen books which he had not heard before. One of them was Fancy That! .
If you haven't read this book with your toddler then we highly recommend it. So the story was progressing and A2 was right into it and finally we got to the page on which it was revealed what the chicken was "took took"ing about throughout the book. She was sitting on eggs which had hatched and had some brand new chicks.
So I read the page, then with joy and exclamation in my voice and radiating from my face I asked A2, "What are they?" . Imagine Nonni Hazelhurst and the highest amount of wonder and joy she could exclaim! That was me. A2 looked at the page, looked at me with an incredibly serious face and then back at the page and matter of factly stated, "They's Ducks!"
Suffice to say the joy and wonder turned to laughter as K and I laughed and laughed at his exclamation and tried to explain that they were in fact chicks, which were baby chickens while he barely tolerated our idiocy exclaiming that, NO as usual we were wrong, he was right and they were ducks. I mean they are yellow, PEOPLE! Sheesh! ;)
That night he did receive his wish to be read three books...the third being his A to Z dictionary of Animals ;) (he's not the only one who likes to be right ;) )
When we return from school/ Work/ Childcare the kids can play while I prepare dinner. Then when dinner is called the toy areas are closed for the night. They are not to return and play once dinner starts. We eat dinner and watch one tv show a night which is Dance Academy on ABC3. Once that is over the tv is turned off. After dinner is the showers and then the boys run around in a nude and crazy state while I progressively go from understanding, reminding Mum of what they should be doing to a screaming banshee telling them what to do. They then complain about why I need to scream and A1 usually watches this scene rolling her eyes ;) (she's 6 by the way! ;) ) .
The boys then get into bed and A2 grabs as many books as possible for me to read and then we negotiate down to two or three only. Complaints stop eventually only because if they don't stop and he accepts not all are to be read then he is to have none read at all. Finally we settle down to read.
This one particular night A2 chose two Pamela Allen books which he had not heard before. One of them was Fancy That! .
If you haven't read this book with your toddler then we highly recommend it. So the story was progressing and A2 was right into it and finally we got to the page on which it was revealed what the chicken was "took took"ing about throughout the book. She was sitting on eggs which had hatched and had some brand new chicks.
So I read the page, then with joy and exclamation in my voice and radiating from my face I asked A2, "What are they?" . Imagine Nonni Hazelhurst and the highest amount of wonder and joy she could exclaim! That was me. A2 looked at the page, looked at me with an incredibly serious face and then back at the page and matter of factly stated, "They's Ducks!"
Suffice to say the joy and wonder turned to laughter as K and I laughed and laughed at his exclamation and tried to explain that they were in fact chicks, which were baby chickens while he barely tolerated our idiocy exclaiming that, NO as usual we were wrong, he was right and they were ducks. I mean they are yellow, PEOPLE! Sheesh! ;)
That night he did receive his wish to be read three books...the third being his A to Z dictionary of Animals ;) (he's not the only one who likes to be right ;) )
Monday 26 March 2012
Big Achievement of the Day no#2
I sat down to write the menu plan for the next two weeks before going shopping and I was struck with cookers block..or more like cookers boringness! No inspiration nor interest hit me while sitting there and planning foods my children would actually eat for dinner the next two weeks. Then I was hit with an idea.
I called them into the room and I gave the task of choosing the meals they wanted to eat over to them. At first they hit me with the not fair daggers thrown forth from their eyes into mine...but soon they felt the power of their task and the ideas came flying.
~ Lasagne ~ hamburgers ~sausages ~ pasta ~roast dinners ~ Chicken snitzels ~fried rice ~ noodles ~ homemade pizzas
The list went on and on with the mundane staples of our small eating choices of the picky and young. But then I added a new twist to the list! I told them they needed to choose one meal each that they will help me to cook! YES, they are cooking the dinner one night in the next two weeks! Brilliant idea! They were beyond excited at the prospect!
First on the cooking duty roster was K. He had decided he would like to help and cook that nights Lasagne. So off we went to do the grocery shopping and an hour later and several notches of tolerance used we all walked back into the house!
K then entered the kitchen and got to work. First task he fulfilled was delegating the cutting of the onion to me! He hates the smell and can't stand to cry. He was head chef, I had no choice but to comply ;) . Next he began to cook the onion and garlic and mince meat. He was amazed when the meat began to brown and we had an interesting science lesson when he taught me about conductors and how it was a good thing we were using a plastic spatula! He loved the cooking bit right up until the part when the oil jumped up and splashed a tiny drop on him! He gave up for a while as he ran the teeny wheeny droplet of red on his skin beneath cold water and then, just as he had done the day before, he came back for another try with cooking the meat (try, try again..or jump back on the bike in the literal and metaphorical sense :) ) .
It wasn't all smooth sailing. K is easily distracted and several times I sent him to wash his hands and he didn't come back without my calling severalhundred times. But in the end he managed to put the lasagnes together and also cooked oven chips, cut up a salad to go with it and served it all with a smile :D
To say that he was proud of himself and his achievement would be an understatement...I think he was even more proud of himself than I was of his achievement. What a very big weekend it was for my biggest boy K. Learning to ride solo on his bike and then cooking dinner for the family! HUGE!
Oh and the meal was absolutely delicious! :D
I called them into the room and I gave the task of choosing the meals they wanted to eat over to them. At first they hit me with the not fair daggers thrown forth from their eyes into mine...but soon they felt the power of their task and the ideas came flying.
~ Lasagne ~ hamburgers ~sausages ~ pasta ~roast dinners ~ Chicken snitzels ~fried rice ~ noodles ~ homemade pizzas
The list went on and on with the mundane staples of our small eating choices of the picky and young. But then I added a new twist to the list! I told them they needed to choose one meal each that they will help me to cook! YES, they are cooking the dinner one night in the next two weeks! Brilliant idea! They were beyond excited at the prospect!
First on the cooking duty roster was K. He had decided he would like to help and cook that nights Lasagne. So off we went to do the grocery shopping and an hour later and several notches of tolerance used we all walked back into the house!
K then entered the kitchen and got to work. First task he fulfilled was delegating the cutting of the onion to me! He hates the smell and can't stand to cry. He was head chef, I had no choice but to comply ;) . Next he began to cook the onion and garlic and mince meat. He was amazed when the meat began to brown and we had an interesting science lesson when he taught me about conductors and how it was a good thing we were using a plastic spatula! He loved the cooking bit right up until the part when the oil jumped up and splashed a tiny drop on him! He gave up for a while as he ran the teeny wheeny droplet of red on his skin beneath cold water and then, just as he had done the day before, he came back for another try with cooking the meat (try, try again..or jump back on the bike in the literal and metaphorical sense :) ) .
It wasn't all smooth sailing. K is easily distracted and several times I sent him to wash his hands and he didn't come back without my calling several
Oh and the meal was absolutely delicious! :D
Big Achievement of the day no#1....
This weekend just gone by was a chance for us all to stay home and recoup after a few little sickness things struck us.
A1 was hit with tonsilitus (another day off today with it also) and K had a hit of car sickness just before he entered OT on friday afternoon.
So Saturday morning came rolled around and I declared the day a Pyjama day. I cancelled all plans for the day and we settled in for a day at home. By the afternoon the children had destroyed the house as only three children could and the oldest and youngest were hankering for fresh air. So out they went to the backyard, taking their bikes with them.
I sat in the bedroom, doing paperwork and happened to peer out the window to discover K on his bike, struggling to ride it as it really was too little for him. He had received a new bike two christmases ago from his grandparents but had been far too scared to try to ride it as it did not have training wheels. One thing that I learnt a long time ago with K is that when it comes to the big things in life he will not do them until he is really ready to. He has a tendency (as do many on the spectrum) to turn little things into giantantic scary as heck things, which once he has decided that that is the category they live in, are incredibly hard to reverse or convince him otherwise of. Riding a bike without training wheels was one of those things.
He wanted to desperately wanted to as all his friends did and he missed out of riding with them because he refused to ride with training wheels due to embarassment (another thing about my K is that he HATES being different! Not just normal hates but as in, "THE WHOLE WORLD IS GOING TO GET HIM AND IT WILL BE DREADFUL AND EVERYONE WILL LOOK AT HIM AND THAT IS THE WORST THING THAT CAN EVER EVER HAPPEN AND WILL RESULT IN DEATH" kind of hate....the thought of standing out in a negative way results in massive meltdowns!. What he was really afraid of was the inevitable fallings off that were going to occur when he was learning to ride without training wheels. He was petrified of falling and getting hurt.
As I watched him out the window I decided to give it another try, to offer to teach him to ride his new bike, knowing the least that could go wrong through asking was him saying no and the most that could go wrong is that the thought of it would trigger a meltdown. I knocked on the window and called him up to the other side and made the offer. He looked at me for a moment and then replied, "Yeh, ok" .
I don't think I have ever jumped up as quickly as I did at that moment! We grabbed his bike and headed to the backyard.
I've learnt many things through parenting my boy and the biggest is not to bother sugar coating things. I will always be found out and the sugar coating will cause more trouble than the event itself that I tried to sugar coat. Honesty really is the best policy for him and so I told him the truth from the start. "K, you are going to fall off your bike. Infact I think you will fall off your bike about 534 times today before you are able to ride it all by yourself without training wheels! But you will fall on the grass and the grass is soft and you will be ok. I have fallen off my bike many times, infact one time when I was younger I had a really bad accident where I scraped off the skin on my knees and arms and cried a lot. But I still ride today don't I? (he nods and smiles) the point is to never give up. When you fall off just get up and go again and again until you can do it with confidence." .
Another thing I need to tell you is that everything that I say to him, ESPECIALLY WHEN ENCOURAGING HIM TO DO SOMETHING HE IS APPREHENSIVE OF is always laced with humour and I spend most of the time laughing. I find if I can keep the whole thing jolly then if he is in the right mood then he will also take things a little lighter and not as seriously (serious leads to failure feelings which lead to meltdowns and defeatess feelings and never trying again). I could sense that humour was going to work for him today as he was smiling as he mounted the bike.
The first circuit of the yard I held on to the front and the back of the bike. We talked about the maths of weight ratio when riding etc and he eventually got the hang of balancing the bike straight. Soon I had moved my hand to just holding the back of his seat and then it happened...he fell off. I partly caught him and I laughed the loudest laugh I ever had in my life, hands holding his armpits and holding him slightly off the grass while one leg was caught beneath the bike. My innards were tied in a knot of prayer just hoping that he would take the fall well. Those nano-seconds between fall and reaction seemed to last forever until finally.....he smiled and laughed and got back on the bike. PHEW! Every time he fell I laughed and counted the falls and reminded him that he would fall 543 times before he learnt to ride.
But thankfully he proved me wrong. K managed to fall off his bike eleven times in total and 1.5 hours after starting to learn to ride his bike he was riding it all by himself! Infact he was so confident that we walked to the concrete bike/ walking path close by and off he zoomed away from us! No training wheels! No Assistance to start of stop and NO FALLING OFF! :D
In one afternoon K had learnt to ride his bike! and the smile of success on his face was waging a war of size with the smile of pride on mine!
What a monumentous achievement! :D
Well Done K!
A1 was hit with tonsilitus (another day off today with it also) and K had a hit of car sickness just before he entered OT on friday afternoon.
So Saturday morning came rolled around and I declared the day a Pyjama day. I cancelled all plans for the day and we settled in for a day at home. By the afternoon the children had destroyed the house as only three children could and the oldest and youngest were hankering for fresh air. So out they went to the backyard, taking their bikes with them.
I sat in the bedroom, doing paperwork and happened to peer out the window to discover K on his bike, struggling to ride it as it really was too little for him. He had received a new bike two christmases ago from his grandparents but had been far too scared to try to ride it as it did not have training wheels. One thing that I learnt a long time ago with K is that when it comes to the big things in life he will not do them until he is really ready to. He has a tendency (as do many on the spectrum) to turn little things into giantantic scary as heck things, which once he has decided that that is the category they live in, are incredibly hard to reverse or convince him otherwise of. Riding a bike without training wheels was one of those things.
He wanted to desperately wanted to as all his friends did and he missed out of riding with them because he refused to ride with training wheels due to embarassment (another thing about my K is that he HATES being different! Not just normal hates but as in, "THE WHOLE WORLD IS GOING TO GET HIM AND IT WILL BE DREADFUL AND EVERYONE WILL LOOK AT HIM AND THAT IS THE WORST THING THAT CAN EVER EVER HAPPEN AND WILL RESULT IN DEATH" kind of hate....the thought of standing out in a negative way results in massive meltdowns!. What he was really afraid of was the inevitable fallings off that were going to occur when he was learning to ride without training wheels. He was petrified of falling and getting hurt.
As I watched him out the window I decided to give it another try, to offer to teach him to ride his new bike, knowing the least that could go wrong through asking was him saying no and the most that could go wrong is that the thought of it would trigger a meltdown. I knocked on the window and called him up to the other side and made the offer. He looked at me for a moment and then replied, "Yeh, ok" .
I don't think I have ever jumped up as quickly as I did at that moment! We grabbed his bike and headed to the backyard.
I've learnt many things through parenting my boy and the biggest is not to bother sugar coating things. I will always be found out and the sugar coating will cause more trouble than the event itself that I tried to sugar coat. Honesty really is the best policy for him and so I told him the truth from the start. "K, you are going to fall off your bike. Infact I think you will fall off your bike about 534 times today before you are able to ride it all by yourself without training wheels! But you will fall on the grass and the grass is soft and you will be ok. I have fallen off my bike many times, infact one time when I was younger I had a really bad accident where I scraped off the skin on my knees and arms and cried a lot. But I still ride today don't I? (he nods and smiles) the point is to never give up. When you fall off just get up and go again and again until you can do it with confidence." .
Another thing I need to tell you is that everything that I say to him, ESPECIALLY WHEN ENCOURAGING HIM TO DO SOMETHING HE IS APPREHENSIVE OF is always laced with humour and I spend most of the time laughing. I find if I can keep the whole thing jolly then if he is in the right mood then he will also take things a little lighter and not as seriously (serious leads to failure feelings which lead to meltdowns and defeatess feelings and never trying again). I could sense that humour was going to work for him today as he was smiling as he mounted the bike.
The first circuit of the yard I held on to the front and the back of the bike. We talked about the maths of weight ratio when riding etc and he eventually got the hang of balancing the bike straight. Soon I had moved my hand to just holding the back of his seat and then it happened...he fell off. I partly caught him and I laughed the loudest laugh I ever had in my life, hands holding his armpits and holding him slightly off the grass while one leg was caught beneath the bike. My innards were tied in a knot of prayer just hoping that he would take the fall well. Those nano-seconds between fall and reaction seemed to last forever until finally.....he smiled and laughed and got back on the bike. PHEW! Every time he fell I laughed and counted the falls and reminded him that he would fall 543 times before he learnt to ride.
But thankfully he proved me wrong. K managed to fall off his bike eleven times in total and 1.5 hours after starting to learn to ride his bike he was riding it all by himself! Infact he was so confident that we walked to the concrete bike/ walking path close by and off he zoomed away from us! No training wheels! No Assistance to start of stop and NO FALLING OFF! :D
In one afternoon K had learnt to ride his bike! and the smile of success on his face was waging a war of size with the smile of pride on mine!
What a monumentous achievement! :D
Well Done K!
When was the last time you rode that elephant?...
Image from here ~ How very cool a story it has all of it's own :)
Driving to childcare this morning we happened to pass a horse and rider on the footpath. Not akin to seeing an alien in Kmart but still not a regular occurance so of course we talked about it.
"Hey guys did you see the horse rider on the footpath?," I asked.
"YEH!" Answered my daughter, A1. "I did. Did you see it A2?," she asked of her brother.
"Yep! I did see a dirl on a horse dis morning. But do you know what I did not see dis morning? I did not see the dirl riding the elephant along da side of da road! No, Dat (that) I did not see today. But dere (there) is elephants on dis road you know! They live in the same place as the horses over dere!". Exclaimed A2 (3.5 yrs old).
Conversation....haltess! With that A2 had both stunned and forced laughter upon us both.
Tame, riding elephants in rural Australia.....I'd love to see that! ;)
Saturday 10 March 2012
The ants go marching two by two.....
A strange thing happens each and every time I scrub and mop my floor....the very next day the ants arrive! Oh I find the blighters mighty bloody annoying!
Why do they have to come into my home? surely there is enough food out there is NATURE for them to sustain their gazillion strong army? My big boy says that they are looking for food and ours tastes so much better than theirs does and that is why. (he's pretty clever I am thinking) .
Normally they would be met with Mr Mortein...but I cannot use that in the living areas as the turtles tank is there and it could travel through the air and into the water and then bye bye turtles! So what to do?? At first I tried the ole' talcum powder trick. Apparently they cannot walk through it, so I found where they were coming from and placed talcum powder infront of them. This was a temporary fix....it seemed they were pretty determined to come into my house and so found a way around it. In a fit of rage at other life issues I did have a game of whack an ant with my thong the other day. That was not only a wonderful stress reliever but also highly effective. But unfortunately not a preventative.
Lets fast forward to two days ago. So I arrive home from work to discover that my floor that I had in the morning with no ants on it now had a thick trail of ants marching to and fro to a bit of food the children had missed placing in the bin! I felt rage but it was shortlived as I was distracted with making dinner, doing the night time routine and also looking after my sick big boy. As I didn't finish with the kids until late I had completely forgotten about the ants and just headed straight to bed, determined to get some sleep so I could rise early and do some work and also incase I was woken several times that night by my wheezy boy.
The next morning I arose and remembered about the ants. Gingerly walking in the kitchen I went to the spot where they had been working madly the evening previous and I was shocked! There was not one single ant left in the house. NOT.A.ONE! and the top most layer of the crumb of food was completely removed! The ants had taken what they needed to sustain their colony and then retreated!
AMAZING!
It suddenly reminded me of the chewing gum that was on my garage floor. My big boy had dropped it there and not thought of the censequences! By the time I had discovered it it was crusted over with dirt and a pain in the toosh to remove. Infact I placed it in the too hard basket and life moved on (although I had also placed it on the 'to do' list reserved for sometime before the end of time but not urgent) . One afternoon when in a rush to go and pick up the kids I found a large group of ants on the chewy. I ranted and raved about the fact that there they were, all over my floor and the chewy and why now?
Each day as I stepped over them and arghed them as I entered or exited the house I would think, I will have to deal with them soon before they come into the house as well (so another words I didn't get around to dealing with them at all!) .
Then one day...perhaps a week later? I have no idea but anyways...one day they had all disapearred! And on closer inspection I discovered that 95% of the chewy had disapearred too! :D . I stood and stared at that spot on the garage floor and I said a little thankyou to their hard work. They achieved something that nor my big boy or myself could! They had saved me a job and I felt in awe of them and also grateful.
Perhaps I can now see the purpose of the ant......just perhaps they are pretty darn cool indeed.
However they must be warned that travelling into my daughters room and onto her bed will not recieve my gratitude...only my thong on their heads!
Do you have an ant problem too? Have you ever noticed anything cool about the creepy crawlies that try to share your habitat with you?
Friday 9 March 2012
Leaving him hanging...
K had a day off school on Wednesday due to not being well while his little sister(A1) went as usual. After a day of resting and playing at home it was time to leave and pick her up.
We waited near the gate and finally she arrived, but so too did the Ks friends. He has Aspergers and he has tried so very hard to make friends and as a result he is very popular. He has a group of about 10 boys who he is friends with and who seek him out at school. I think it might be helped by Big boys sarcastic and humourous nature....he can make you laugh over nothing and he is very cool most of the time ;) . But having Aspergers means that sometimes he misses things, or so it seems.
One of his longest friends came up with his cool helmet on and cruising on his skateboard to say hi to K. BB\\K got out of the car and went on the grass to talk to him and about another 5 boys that had come over to say hi and find out why he wasn't at school that day. As H got near K on his skateboard he put his hand out and said, "Hey K, high five!" with his hand outstretched. K looked at him and then continued talking to one of the other boys, no outstretched hand, no high five. H looked a little taken aback and sad and then moved on from it watching K. I have known these boys for a while and H in particular and I called out from my side of the car, "Hey K, you left H hanging there!", K looked at me and I specified, "he asked for a high five and you totally dissed him!" and then laughed a little. For to tell K that he hasn't done something and not make it like a joke is meltdown provoking!
K looked at me and him and replied, "No I didn't! I didn't want him to fall off his skateboard". We both looked at him and he turned to him, frustrated at his lack of memory and said, "Remember! last time I gave you a high five when you were riding your skateboard and I gave you one you then fell off your skateboard and scraped your knee right about here (pointing to his own leg/ knee)" . H smiled a huge smile and said, "Oh Yeh, I remember!" and with that all order was restored to the world and I was put back in my place!
Sometimes my Aspie boy is not missing the social cues around him, sometimes it is us NT's who are missing the things that we should probably remember and see that he does. :)
Wednesday 7 March 2012
Do you dribble?..... (inspired by Deep Fried Fruit)
Today is Mama and Little Man day...but today the bigger little man is at home too as he is not well. A chest infection, a little medicine and asthma medication and he is doing pretty good. Just quietly playing with lego and going between playing cooperatively with his little brother and fighting like cats and dogs.
I have a lot of things I need to get done today. I have to vacuum the house, mop the floors, clean the bathrooms, do a few loads of washing, pay some bills, do some planning for tomorrow...the list goes on. Yet here I sit, blogging ;) .
One of my best blogging pals in da world Leanne from Deep Fried Fruit asked if we dribble? and I have to confess that absotootely I do! Infact I am dribbling right now!
I even sometimes wake at 5 intead of 5.30am so I can dribble as I wake and before I get up and leave the house for the day.
Oh the embarrassment, although I felt so much better finding out that my dribble is the dribble of choice of my bestie too. I don't feel so alone.
Instead of vacuuming or hanging out the washing I have sat for the last hour dribbling...from 10-11am they play 'Seventh Heaven' on the telly and I have to confess that I love to sit and watch it. *blush*
It is the telly that I watch when I want some light entertainment, when I can watch rather than having to and it is (or I should say was) my secret indulgance that noone knew about :).
So what about you? do you watch dribble on t.v? what is your dribble of choice?
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