It's Thursday again and this week has gone by in a flash. It has been mostly rainy, so we have barely done anything at all. On Monday we met the Coffs homeschool group up at Moonee Creek, which is just so beautiful. What a great place for a play. The only problem was that Carmie was suffering from sleep deprivation after two nights of insomnia. She spent a lot of time lying down and reading. She also went swimming and was having a good time...until her allergy to the cold started causing her breathing problems, and she got really scared. She was on the other side of the inlet with another mother who brought her back. Will and Charlie's mum had antihistamine with her, so we gave it to Carmie, rugged her up and put her in the car to warm up. She was OK again in half an hour, but she was pretty frightened. Arley ended up having a good play with Will and Charlie, which is good, because he was very resistant to playing for the first hour. And he still refused to go swimming.
On Tuesday we had three therapy sessions. The first one was in the morning - Arley saw his support worker while I met with the behaviour specialist. Arley gets along really well with his support worker. She is teaching him about different emotions. He knows them all, but he has a problem with recognising them in other people. More of a problem stepping out of his own point of view to recognise how others are feeling. Anyway, after lunch I took him to see his psychologist. It was his first real session with her, and she started working on his anxiety. It was a really eye-opening session. He knows himself very well. He started doing an anxiety workbook with her, and at one point he had to fill out what he is scared of. Out of thirty different things to worry about (examples are: parents going out, swimming, barking dogs, bullies, heights, making mistakes), he checked off 14 that he is scared of. They were the same 14 things that I would have checked off for him if I were doing it. The one he was adamantly not scared of was bullies. That doesn't surprise me at all! Anyway, after his session, I took him home and then had to go back to the psychologist for the first session of Carmie's autism assessment. I had to answer questions as if Carmie was 2, 3, 4 and 5 years old, so it wasn't easy, as that was a long time ago! I have to go back tomorrow for another session, and then Carmie goes in next week to do the ADOS. It is all very full on. I was thoroughly exhausted on Tuesday night.
It has been raining so much, we didn't go to the Nambucca meet yesterday, nor to horse riding this morning. The kids didn't go to swimming either, because Carmie was too exhausted. She has had five nights straight of insomnia. I had an appointment with their paediatrician on Friday, and we came up with two different plans to help her sleep, but neither worked, so yesterday I pulled her off all meds...and she still didn't sleep. I had given her a melatonin, and when she came out at 10pm and was still awake, I gave her an antihistamine because I didn't know what else to do. She fell asleep at 2am and woke up at 7am. As you can imagine, she is a zombie. I just hope she crashes tonight and catches up on her sleep. She is getting really run down. The good news is the paediatrician is helping us. He is very concerned, and he told me he is not going to stop until he gets Carmie sleeping and Arley nice and calm. I'm so thankful that we moved here, if only for the medical treatment!
I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow. I am being interviewed for two podcasts (this will be my 4th and 5th, and I have two more lined up for next month). I also have to go back to the psychologist too. This weekend hopefully I'll get in some relaxing and family time. I went to my doctor this past week for an insomnia check up and he set up a mental health plan for me, diagnosing me with adjustment disorder with anxiety features, and said I am burnt out. This doesn't surprise me, but there's not much I can do about it right now. He's sending me to see my own psychologist. I just have to figure out how to fit it into my schedule!
I have barely any photos for this week :(
The beautiful Moonee Creek
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