581 + 477 Weeks

It has been a quiet week with a lot of home time.  We couldn't get to Taekwon Do all week, and I've barely hit the gym either, so I'm feeling rather sluggish.  I'm starting up again tomorrow though.  Carmie had severe insomnia on Monday night because she forgot to take her meds.  She ended up falling to sleep at 5:45am, and was a mess all of Tuesday.  We cancelled horse riding because she was barely a shadow of herself.

Arley is on a new ADHD med to try to get him eating more.  He is actually eating less and has lost half a kg.  We are hoping this is just a side effect that will go away, because as far as keeping his ADHD symptoms at bay, this med is great.  He is so focused on it - he sat with me and coloured in for two hours straight one morning.  I haven't been able to get him doing anything at our craft table for more than five minutes in SO long.  So, I'm really hoping the loss of appetite is a fast-passing side effect.

On Wednesday I took the kids to Clint at Chambers Island, then home for a rest.  I then took them to a park in Buderim where I knew a small group of homeschoolers was meeting up for an hour.  The kids weren't super keen, so I told them we'd go out to lunch afterwards.  The park play went great for Carmie.  There were six girls there, four were 11 and two were 12.  And to our surprise, Arley's friend Chayse was there.  I was so happy to see Chayse, thinking maybe Arley would be able to have fun and play, but Arley was way too stressed.  He was angry the whole time, and boldly announced that the park sucked.  He was stopping Carmie from using the park equipment, and being very challenging, which means his anxiety was skyrocketing.  I had him join in with a group game, and he didn't understand it and stormed off, embarrassed.  Carmie, however, had a good time.  Some of the girls approached her to play, and now she wants to go back next week.  I have gotten a promise out of Arley that next week he will at least try to smile and be polite.  We are having Chayse over tomorrow morning to play Xbox with Arley, so hopefully they will reconnect.

Today Arley had OT at home.  He and Toni his OT are building a sensory garden out of palettes.  Afterwards I rustled up the kids and took them to Point Cartwright beach, which was beautiful.  The weather is getting warmer and it was such a lovely day.  We found some awesome shells and collected some driftwood for our hermit crabs.

I'm hoping to get back on track next week: gym sessions, Taekwon Do, horse riding, and hoping Carmie sleeps and Arley eats!

580 + 476 Weeks

I’m sitting in a cafe in Caloundra, with the most beautiful view.  I’ve got an hour and a half to kill while Arley is at his support worker Rob’s house.  This is my treat to myself this week.  Carmie is at home with Jeffrey who has the day off work.  Poor Carms woke up with a tummy ache - damn that Coeliac disease.  We’ve had a pretty good week though.  Arley had an appointment with his new paediatrician.  She seems very nice as well as thorough.  She has switched his meds from Concerta to Vyvanse in the hopes that his appetite increases.  Yesterday was day one on the new med, and he was a little irritable and sleepy, but he said he felt more focused.  I’m really hoping it helps with his appetite, as he’s very hard to feed.

I met with Arley’s psychologist yesterday and she has given me some more techniques that might help getting him out of the house. She also told me that she has a real soft spot for Arley.  Jeff and I met with Arley’s behaviour specialist which is great, as he’s getting Jeff and me on the same page.  He said Arley’s PDA (pathological demand avoidance) is off the charts, which means we have a lot of work ahead of us.  We are trying to let a lot of things go and remove demands from Arley - we can only push him so far.

On Monday, Holly, the kids’ support worker, and I took the kids to a gem fossicking place.  This was the highlight of our week.  They have large areas full of rocks with polished tiger eye and agate and other ‘gems’ scattered through them.  It was really fun, and the kids loved it.  We are hoping that Holly will eventually be able to take Arley out places on his own, because he’s getting bored of the activities she does with him at home.

Carmie is continuing with her Sunday creative writing class, and now she has also joined a literature class on Sundays as well.  She is writing a novella for the writing class (and it’s amazing!) and she has started writing a short story for a writing competition as well.  It’s so good to see her choosing to do these activities and really enjoying them.  It’s what homeschooling is all about!

And once again we had horse riding and Taekwon Do.  Yesterday we had a home day and it was a little rough with some meanness and quite a few tears.  It was just one of those days.

Some other good news is that Mum and Geoff sold their condo in Las Vegas this week - done and dusted! So they will soon start looking at buying a home up here and moving.  We are looking forward to having family around, and the kids are beside themselves :)

Fossicking

Carmie cleaning her horse's hooves before riding :)

579 + 475 Weeks

It's been quite a busy week, and I am very happy that tomorrow is Saturday.  Last Saturday Carmie and I met up with her friend Lexi and mother Nicky at the mall and we went clothes shopping.  Carmie has been really difficult to buy clothes for, because she is very skinny but has legs up to her armpits!  Any pants that are the right length have been way too big in the waist, so she has been dressing rather badly this past year.  However, we found a store that somehow has clothes that fit her, and we went on a bit of a spree.  She was so happy, because she really needs that confidence boost.  Afterwards we all went and got sushi and bubble tea, and Lexi and Carmie had a good catch up while Nicky and I got to chat.  Meanwhile, Jeffrey had taken Arley to the game arcade, and they were having their own fun time.  It was a perfect Saturday morning!

The kids had all their therapies this week.  Arley was a champ at his private Taekwon Do lesson.  Mr Kelly gave him boxing gloves, and Arley was stoked.  He has made so much progress in four lessons, Mr Kelly and I can't stop talking about it!  I almost get teary.  Carmie and I have also done our lessons, and Mr Kelly is teaching me more patterns above my grade level, because I should be higher but Carmie wants me to stay at her level.  Loving it!

When Alrey was with Clint at Chambers Island on Wednesday, they went searching for hermit crabs.  They found one, and Alrey was enamoured.  Clint told us that we could buy hermit crabs as pets, so the kids of course started begging right away.  After the session I went out to lunch with some friends (like real grown ups!), and then I tracked down a pet store with hermit crabs and bought the kids two, along with a crabitat.  They were very excited when I got home!  So now we are the proud owners of two hermit crabs, Hermy and Kermit.  Oh, and they live for ten to fifteen years!  OMG.

We received Arley's report and specialised behaviour plan from his behaviour therapist.  It is the most thorough report we've had, and has ideas of how to help him at challenging times.  It confirms the PDA diagnosis and gives a lot of understanding to his behaviours.  I'm hoping it helps us going forward.  One thing we have to do is remove all 'demands' when Arley is getting stressed.  We've also been told to let him have his iPad whenever he needs it, because his brain needs it for stimulation.  This takes the guilt away, at least!

578 + 474 Weeks

We have had a good week, barring Arley having one massive and quite traumatic meltdown when I left the house to take a walk - I wasn't there to calm him, so it escalated fast and was pretty awful for both him and Jeffrey.  Arley's behaviour specialist came over on Wednesday and has given us some techniques to use going forward, so hopefully these will help.

On Friday Arley's support worker Rob was ill, so I took the opportunity to take the kids to the beach at Kawana.  We found a park we hadn't been to, so the kids had a good play there first.  We then went and played on the beach - the kids made me do running races with them.  I am the tallest and easily the slowest, and Arley is the shortest and easily the fastest.  Plus my legs were aching for two days afterwards!  It was a lovely morning though.

On Saturday we had 'family sports day' at the neighbourhood park.  We are going to try to do this more often, because it gets us all moving, and it is just around the corner so Arley doesn't get too stressed out.  We took a soccer ball and goals, a basketball, a handball, and a baseball and bat, so we had plenty of choice.  Jeffrey started teaching Carmie how to play soccer.  Arley played baseball with me, with lots of breaks in between.  We are not pushing him, and letting him sit out as much as he wants, because I've realised this is the only way to do anything with him - very slowly!

Carmie and I went to Taekwon Do on Monday and Wednesday evenings, and we also had our private lesson on Tuesday with Arley.  The great news is that Arley earned his yellow stripe, so now he is the same rank as Carmie and me.  I can tell he is proud, but he doesn't want me to tell anyone, and he was really down-playing it.  Our instructor, Mr Kelly, is basically devising a program just for Arley, and we are both really excited about it.  The improvement in Arley's attitude and confidence in the lessons is amazing.  I really think this could be one of the best things for him.

On Tuesday afternoon I took the kids back to horse riding, and Arley rode again, which is great.  Carmie rode her horse Chilli for ages, and was all smiles.  The lessons are quite drawn out because they include a lot of grooming and horse care, so we spend quite a bit of time there.  Arley can only take so much, so he goes on his iPad for a bit, but Carmie loves it.

Today we were supposed to go to the homeschool meet at Bokarina, but none of us felt like it, so we flaked out.  Sometimes it's just got to be a home day, you know?