464 + 360 Weeks

Another week has passed with a lot of drama...good news and bad. The good news is that today we bought a new car - a second hand car, but new to us.  It’s a Nissan Pulsar hatchback, and we love it.  We have been driving manual cars for over a decade, and this time I refused to get another manual.  I’ll be the one driving it, so I got what I wanted.  The kids are stoked too.  So, that’s my positive for the week!

We still haven’t heard anything from the solicitor to say the other party has signed the paperwork to buy our house.  Apparently the banks are taking 3-5 weeks when normally they’d take about 5 days.  The bank valuer did do his appraisal on Wednesday, and that’s the last step in the process, so it shouldn’t be long.  Super frustrating though!

Arley had a huge meltdown last night, one of his biggest.  I don’t love writing about this publicly, but then again, how is anyone supposed to learn about autism if the people affected by it don’t speak up? Arley is proud to be autistic, and I am proud of him, but it does come with so many struggles.  Last night was absolutely terrible, and ended up in a heartbreaking way which I won’t go into.  I have called the paediatrician’s office this morning to try to get a priority appointment, but I’m still waiting to hear.  He has been ok today, very tired, and a little oppositional.

Carmie has been quite emotional this week, but it is no wonder.  We are getting help though, with numerous appointments with different doctors lined up next month.  We are even heading for an overnight stay in Wollongong mid June to see an Ear Nose Throat specialist to get Arley’s adenoids checked.

Carmie’s hanging snaggletooth finally came out.  Maybe I should rephrase that.  I was helping her try to get it out herself, and then I “accidentally” pulled the string myself and out it came.  She will never trust me again, but her tooth is gone!  Sadly the one on the other side looks like it is headed the same way, hanging low.  She better watch out!

We made it out to Collers Beach this week, but I think that was our only fun family outing (bedsides buying the car today).  The weather has been cold and rainy, and I am so not looking forward to winter.  The rest of the week we just hung at home, besides horse riding, and the kids’ sleepover at Lolo and Dida’s.

Hoping to have better news next week!

463 + 359 Weeks

This week all seems like a bit of a blur, and I can't believe it's Thursday again already!  I don't think we took the kids anywhere this past weekend.  We were supposed to go hiking on Saturday, and we had the kids all prepped up (we need to give warnings for a good two days to get Arley comfortable with the idea), but then we woke up to surprise rain showers.  And then I can't quite remember why we didn't go anywhere on Sunday.  I have been busy going through our closets and purging things, getting ready for our move, even though we don't have a moving date yet.  We (annoyingly) are still waiting on the buyers to finalise their side of the paperwork, and when they do, it will be ten weeks from there.  So at this point we are looking at the beginning of August, which seems like such a long wait!

The kids have been a little full-on this week.  Arley in particular, of course.  We have had some pretty bad days.  I have set up appointments to start getting him reassessed.  It is so silly here.  I have to have an appointment with our GP to get a referral to our paediatrician, to get a referral to the assessing psychologist.  Such a dumb, lengthy process.  I tried going directly to the psychologist, but no bueno.  We won't get in to see her until the end of June/ beginning of July, so we have a while before we get help, although I do have an appointment with Arley's OT tomorrow, and she will be referring us to a different psychologist for ongoing sessions.  This is pretty full-on, and pretty exhausting, but we have to do something.  My poor beautiful sensitive little boy thinks he is a bad boy, and that is just not OK.  He is so impulsive, things happen before he can even have a chance to think about it.  I’ve got to get him some additional help.

Carmie's teeth still haven't fallen out.  One is so loose that it is seriously dangling, and you can see the entire top of the tooth, and it waggles when she talks.  It is so off-putting, and she is having  trouble eating, but we still can't convince her to pull it out.  It is really gross!

We had a tea party for the rats this week.  It sounds silly, but it was really fun.  We were giving the kids' tiny tea set away to charity, so we wanted to give it a whirl one more time.  The rats didn’t have very good manners, but they enjoyed it!  Haha, so did we.

We have about five days of rain forecast, so it looks like we won’t be getting out this coming weekend either.  I wish we had taken advantage of the beautiful weather while it was here!

More super hero fun.

Little ratty tea party

Cutie patooties :)

462 + 358 Weeks

So, another week has passed, and we made it!  Australia is slowly opening up again, but nothing much is changing for us.  Jeffrey is still not working at the club, we aren't seeing Wes, swimming and Peak still aren't on...but the kids did have their first sleep over in two months at their Lolo and Dida's. Jeffrey and I had Tuesday afternoon and evening to ourselves, which was so lovely!  Not that we did anything different, it was just nice not to have the usual bedtime squabbles and the near impossible task of getting Carmie out of bed in the morning.  She loves to lie around and read, and if she does manage to get herself up, she likes to spend half the day in her dressing gown, refusing to actually wear clothes.  It was nice not having to deal with that on Wednesday morning!

This week we had some adventures.  We drove south to Pretty Beach at Kiola.  The name of this beach is so fitting, because it really is just so pretty.  We walked to the end of it, and then continued up on the rocks and had a long walk around the headland.  The kids tired out easily and wanted to stop (even though they are insisting they are ready to hike Pigeon House Mountain!).  We found tons of incredible starfish, as well as a great place to stop for morning tea.  It was such a lovely day.

Another day we drove up north to Vincentia, because we are thinking of looking for house rentals up there.  It will be a 45 minute commute for Jeff to work when it starts up again, but he thinks that is doable until he finds a different job.  It was really lovely up there.  We made a trip to Hyams beach, which boasts the whitest sand in the world.  It really is remarkable, and so unbelievably beautiful. We definitely could handle living up that way.

We also got out for a family game of Finska, as well as some cricket practice.  Arley is still quite anxious when we leave the house, and couple that with his uneasiness when he is losing a game (like Finska), it can make for some trying times.  He was very unsettled and angry, but snapped out of it when he actually won the game for himself and his dad.  He gets so upset when he is faced with a new challenge, when he is losing, or when he thinks he will fail, and being upset for him means getting angry.  He is actually starting to verbalise his feelings though.  Yesterday he told me he likes to be on his iPad so much because it makes him feel safe and he doesn't have to worry about anything.  Today he told me he doesn't like anything challenging (his word!).  I have to push him through the anxiety though, despite the yelling and mistreatment, because once he has succeeded at something, he can move on and incorporate it into his routine.  I just have to have a really thick skin!

So, I signed the paperwork this week for selling the house.  We have had our building and pest inspections, and now we are waiting on the buyers to sign the paperwork.  After that we will have a moving date, but we expect our last day in our lovely house to be somewhere close to the end of July.  I am super sad, but really happy for new adventures.

By the way, you might notice in the photos that Carmie's teeth are looking funny.  It's because she has two incredibly loose teeth on each side, and she absolutely refuses to pull them out, despite the fact that they are dangling!

Pretty Beach 

 Starfish

 Ratty love!

 At Vincentia

 Hyams Beach