507 + 403 Weeks

 Ugh, this past week has been all about the rain.  It has rained so much and so hard, it’s the worst rain we’ve had in a hundred years.  We survived with only a very wet and muddy back yard, but many people in other locations were evacuated.  We were stuck inside for a week or so, but the sun came out yesterday and we’ve had two beautiful days.

Yesterday we met up with Will and Charlie and went to Urunga. It was low tide and very muddy, but Carmie and Will still went swimming.  Arley was being a little difficult, saying he had nothing to do and refusing to play, but he came around in the end.

This morning we had horse riding, and Arley was such a grumpster about it.  It’s because he missed it last week.  He is so much worse when he doesn’t go regularly.  He ended up having a good lesson though, as did Carmie, despite her insomnia.

Yes, poor Carmie’s insomnia is acting up again.  In the last seven days she has had two good-ish nights of sleep.  The others she’s been maxing out at five hours.  Last night she slept form 3:30am to 8am.  I’m not sure what to do at this point.  The med she is taking is actually supposed to help her sleep, and she’s worse when she doesn’t take it.  I think I’ll give it a few more days and then call the paediatrician next week if it continues

We haven’t been doing too much.  Playing a few games, lots of screens, I’ve been working a lot.  Today I spent an hour weeding our garden.  You can imagine what it’s like after all of the rain.  Jeffrey is recovering well.  His bandages came off this week, and his wounds and stitches are small and clean.  I did get out to see the psychologist on Arley’s behalf, and we are implementing a new rules/rewards system.  Today is day three.  She warned me that things will get a whole lot worse before they get better and to expect daily meltdowns for a few weeks.  We survived our first doozy yesterday.  Apart from that, it’s going well.

My business is having it’s best month ever, so that is making us happy. It certainly makes all my work worthwhile!

And there’s not much else to report this week.

506 + 402 Weeks

 I am sitting here typing while it is absolutely pouring with rain outside.  It has been such a rainy summer. At least the last few days have been cooler.  Our backyard is flooded, and all activities were cancelled today (and will be cancelled tomorrow) due to the weather.  Even Arley's psychology appointment was cancelled (which I was really looking forward to, because it was just going to be me with the psych and I was hoping to get some answers!)  I thought this was going to be a really busy week, but the last few days we've been at home.

On Friday of last week, after we kicked butt at our family tennis lesson (we really did kick butt!), we met our friends Heidi, Will and Charlie and their sister Amelie at the dog beach in Sawtell.  Another family came too, and I think we are going to make it a regular Friday thing as long as the weather holds up.  Arley didn't really want to go at first, and he was quite unsettled for a bit.  I made sure I played with him, but there is only so long that can last.  After about an hour he started asking to leave, but I told him I'd give Carmie a little longer.  Then finally when Carmie was ready to wrap up, we started to leave, and Arley started playing with his friends and refused to leave!  So, I'm very thankful that he started having fun, but then Carmie got really cross!  At least now Arley is looking forward to Fridays, which is pretty huge.

Carmie has continued to make her dad eggs for breakfast, as he is still recovering.  Yesterday she made him an omelet, and she was so proud of herself.  She also made Kentucky biscuits (basically scones) another day, and now wants to start making cookies.  If only she could learn to clean the kitchen too, that would be a real bonus!

Another afternoon she asked me to put makeup on her.  She just wanted to play around and see what she would look like.  She chose the colours.  It's funny, because as soon as she was done and had a look at herself for a minute, she wanted to take the make up off again.  I had to coerce her to show Jeff, and then beg her to let me take a photo.  She was so shy, but she was too cute.  I had to photograph her.

On Sunday it was a nice day so I took the kids to the river pool in Mylestom.  Arley wanted to go snorkelling, and Carmie wanted to go to a pool, so I thought it was a good compromise.  But...Arley thought it was too cold for snorkelling, or really swimming of any sort.  He is really feeling the cold lately, he never used to.  Carmie wanted to swim, so we stayed, but then I had Arley pestering me every two minutes about leaving.  We started a competition where Carmie was able to earn them jellybeans and Smarties by jumping over a pool noodle off the dock and into the water.  The kept his complaints at bay because he new he was earning candy with every jump she cleared.  He fully needs to be entertained at all times.

He had therapy on Tuesday.  The key worker comes to the house and has a therapy session with him while I have a session with a behaviour specialist.  It actually went quite well, which was good because last time it did not go well at all!

We've been playing lots of games and doing lots of crafts and VR and reading.  And Arley has spent a lot of time on his computer, which is definitely his happy place.  It's hard, because that is where he is calm and in control and therefor happy, but if he's on too long, he gets off and he is so grumpy and mean. It means a couple of hours of peace for us (and him being happy), for a couple of hours of him being really mean, particularly to Carmie.  I'm thinking it's not a good trade off.

Anyway, I'm off to bed now.  I've got to get ready for another rainy home day tomorrow!

At the dog beach in Sawtell

Eating her Kentucky biscuits

Poor lonely Nacho

Carmie with makeup.  Sweet thing.

At Mylestom

Playing Connect 4 :)

505 + 401 Weeks

We’ve had a tough week.  Firstly, the kids’ rat Jackie died on Monday (or Sunday night).  We woke up to a cold little white rattie in the cage, still lying in the same spot where he was sleeping the day before.  It was really sad, and the kids were SO upset.  They still are.  We’ve had lots of tears and listlessness, and we’ve been trying to give Nacho, Jackie’s brother, lots of extra love.  The cage seems very large now with only one rattie.  Rats are supposed to live in pairs or groups, but we keep thinking if we get another one to keep Nacho company, then the cycle of rats might never end, and at some point I’m going to be over cleaning their cage.  We buried little Jackie out in the back yard and had a little ceremony for him.  I had to dig the hole because of Jeff’s hernia.

On that note, Jeffrey had his hernia surgery on Tuesday.  We are so happy that it’s over.  It has been causing him quite a bit of discomfort and he hasn’t been able to do many physical things.  We were paying privately, so we insisted that he come home instead of stay the night in the hospital, and he’s been fine, but he has been in a bit of pain.  He’s on painkillers and walking around like a very elderly man.  He can’t lift anything more than 5kg for the next six weeks, so a lot of things are falling to me.  I’m not used to pullling our trash bins down our driveway.  I shouldn’t say pulling, because they almost ran me over!  I’ll be really happy when I have my husband back to normal!

With everything going on, we haven’t been going out much.  On Friday we made it to our family tennis lesson, and we kicked butt.  We all love tennis, and Jeff’s looking forward to playing again in the future.  After tennis we met up with Will and Charlie at the Sawtell pool.  It went well until the end when poor Carmie had a meltdown and had to sit in the car.  I was quite worried about her.  The kids were all having a good play before that.  Yesterday we missed the homeschool meet because I didn’t want to leave Jeffrey at home alone for the day, but I did get the kids out to the library.  Afterwards we went to a vegetarian restaurant called The Happy Frog, and loved it!  The kids were brilliant, and it was so great to have so many items to choose from.

This morning I took the kids to horse riding.  It’s still mucky out there because of all the rain.  They both did really well.  Arley complains every single time, but lately when he’s actually with the horse, he has been all smiles.  He gets more stressed when he’s riding, so they do a lot of grooming and ground work.  This afternoon I also took the kids to swimming, and they rocked it.

I had Arley’s NDIS review on Tuesday.  It was two hours long, and quite exhausting.  I had to answer a million questions about Arley and what his struggles are, and where we want to get him this year, and it’s always quite depressing.  But it’s done now, and I’m glad it’s over.

I think Arley’s meds are working better.  He had a few nights of insomnia this week, which isn’t great, but he is noticeably calmer with things he usually struggles with.  We’ve had a few ups and downs, some dinner time struggles, and he has consistently been mean to Carmie this week, but we are working on it.  It’s been a stressful week, so all in all, I think he’s done well.  The same with Carmie.  They are really missing their rat.  You wouldn't think a little creature like that would make a difference to us, but we really miss his presence.

Another podcast I was a guest on came out today, and I’m so proud.  It’s so fun being on podcasts and talking about the business and the kids.  I want to do more.  I’ve done five so far, and have another booked for next month :)

My fingers are crossed the week ahead is better than this week just passed!

I actually got out for a solo walk early this morning!

Sweet little Carmie cooking her recovering dad eggs for breakfast

Carmie trotting on the lunge

504 + 400 Weeks

Well, it has been a busy week with my mum here.  She arrived on Friday afternoon and left this afternoon.  We didn't tell the kids she was coming.  I went out "to the pharmacy" to pick her up, and then we sat her in our lounge room and told the kids I had bought them a surprise and it was on the coffee table.  You should have seen their excitement.  They were so happy, and so surprised.  It was lovely.

The weather was on and off all week.  We had a fair amount of rain, but two very sunny days where we got to go to the beach.  Arley has been scared to go swimming at the beach, and so never wants to go, but we told him we were going to dog beach which he quite enjoys.  Right before we left we found out that dog beach (Park Beach) was closed, so we went to a different dog beach in Sawtell.  He was already pretty grumpy about it.  As soon as we got there, just after Arley had walked down the stairs, he got knocked over by a dog off a leash.  The dog turned around and growled at him, jumped on him, scratched him and barked in his face until the owner pulled the dog away.  So not good.  You can imagine what Arley was like.  He was crying to go home.  Most kids would be scared of dogs after that, but Arley instead wanted to find the dog and murder it!  Instead I took him home!  He said he is never going back to that beach again.  Luckily the next day we coerced him back with the idea that he could catch little fish in his net.  But the problem was that there were no fish there that day!  We got him swimming a little, but he was all out of sorts and started really acting up, lots of shouting and being super grumpy.  Mum got a little taste of what we deal with when we leave the house.

Another day Mum and I took Carmie down to the harbour to feed the fish and have some ice cream.  We went shopping at the mall, Mum played a lot of games with the kids and did a lot of crafts, and Mum and I played lots of Scrabble (we won four games each, I think we are very evenly matched!).  In the evenings Jeffrey and Mum and I played Rummikub - such a fun game.  And Jeffrey and I went out to dinner in Sawtell one night, and it was SO nice to get away for a date night.  The food was great, the service was great (you scan your phone to get the menu now, how cool is that?), the atmosphere was great, and afterwards we took a walk to the beach.  We love Sawtell and would love to move there one day.

Arley had OT with his support worker on Tuesday.  He didn't want to cooperate at all, and was in a rotten mood.  That afternoon he had a session with his psychologist, and he was even more uncooperative!  He just kept saying things like, "Why do I have to go to this stupid place?  You can't help me.  No one can help me.  This is so stupid and boring.  I hate it here." This went on for 50 minutes while the psych kept trying to draw him out.  He kept punching the couch and his leg in frustration.  Awkward.  The psychologist has not yet finished Carmie's assessment, but she did tell me that Carmie does meet the criteria for autism as well.  I have had to fill out two more questionnaires, and then she will write up her report and then I'll know more details.

We had horse riding this morning, and Lolo came to watch.  It was a great lesson.  Carmie looked confident and did really well, even though she was on a horse she hadn't ridden before.  And Arley did great, as opposed to last week when he was completely noncompliant.  It was a really good lesson.  Arley told me tonight that this was the first lesson he has enjoyed in Coffs Harbour.  So good!

The kids are missing their grandmother terribly now that she's gone.  I wish Lolo and Dida weren't so far away.  It's hard, because Coffs is the best place for us, but it's hard without them here.  Poor Carmie cried herself to sleep tonight.  Breaks my heart.

Lolo's surprise arrival

Swimming with Lolo

Goodbye cuddles