703 + 599 Weeks

We took Carmie to the Crowded House concert in Brisbane this past Saturday.  It was awesome!  Some parts of the night were tough.  Finding a restaurant near the venue where we could all eat dinner was difficult, but I found a place that suited our three respective diets, but it was so loud!  It was the noisiest restaurant I have ever been to, which wasn't great for Carmie considering her sound sensitivity.  She had to wear her headphones and we were barely able to speak to her, and the food took ages to come too.  It was yummy, but the wait and the noise were really disappointing.  But the concert was awesome!  It was at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, which holds about 15000 people, so fairly large, and Carmie was in awe.  She had a blast during the concert (wearing her headphones!), whooping and cheering with the best of them.  It was so lovely spending time with her.  I still remember my first concert - Billy Joel, with my dad.  We are so glad to give Carms a similar experience.  Jeff loved the show too.  Arley didn't come - he opted out, and had a night at home with Lolo and Dida.  He has no real interest in music, so he was fine with it.

Everything else has been pretty good.  The kids are still doing their activities, so not much has changed.  They are really looking forward to Christmas next week.  The weather has been crap, but next week it looks perfect, which is excellent timing. Jeffrey wraps up his teaching tomorrow and will have just over two weeks off.  His break won't be completely work-free, but it will still be a break.  We have to get ready for next year, creating a new class schedule and advertising etc.  But there will be no face-to-face with students, which is good.

Poor Carmie has been getting hives pretty badly.  She has had cold urticaria for years, but now she seems to have developed chronic spontaneous urticaria, which really sucks.  I have been giving her antihistamines every day, but if it doesn't go away soon, I'm going to have to take her to an allergist or immunologist.  Just what she needs, another medical issue. Poor thing.

Arley is Arley...sweet, belligerent, loving, volatile, kind and ruthless.  You get the picture.  Same old same old!

This sign was in the bathrooms at the concert venue.  This is what we deal with here in Queensland!!

At the very noisy restaurant 

Right before the concert.  I couldn't choose my favourite photo!

702 + 598 Weeks

It's Thursday, my blogging day, and I'm actually writing the blog!  AND I have photos for this week!  It is a small miracle, but a miracle none-the-less!

Not that I have too much to say.  LOL. We have had an easy week.  We decorated the tree, which only went down with a little hiccup when Arley was upset that he has no handmade Christmas decoration with the letter A on it and he stole Carmie's letter C decoration and wouldn't give it back. But it was our most successful tree decoration session we've had.  I don't know why, but the kids and Jeff always end up fighting while I try to keep the peace and Christmas spirit.  Not this year!

The kids are doing well-ish.  Carmie is as pale as a ghost and hasn't been sleeping well, but we are on top of it now.  (It might just be because she was using her phone up past midnight, unbeknownst to me!).  She has been quite diligent with her speech therapy (with Jeff - the burden is off me!), and has also been doing her physio therapy without too much coersion.  Arley has OT exercises that we have to do, and he hasn't been too bad at them either.  Arley is getting a little better in doing some things for himself.  I have made him up a recipe book of the things he eats and drinks, and I'm having him help me with the steps so he can learn to do things in the kitchen.  The biggest issues for him are his sense of touch and sense of smell.  He can't touch cold or wet things, so that is quite a challenge to overcome.  When he is regulated, he will work on these with me.  When he is dysregulated, it's a total no-go and he becomes very defiant.  So I have to choose my moments!

The kids are very much looking forward to Christmas.  They aren't really taking much of a break from their activities, which is great, as too much upheaval isn't great for them.  And good for me and Jeff too, as we will actually have a true break some days.  Which is very necessary!!

700, 701 + 596,597 Weeks

I am such a slacker these days, not doing the blog weekly!  I don't have that much to say each week I think, and I'm taking fewer and fewer photos as the kids get older...

It has been a good couple of weeks though.  The kids are doing really well.  Carmie is working on her physio and speech exercises, and still doing her five groups a week.  Arley has been working on his own OT exercises, and he is now going to groups two days a week, plus out with Clint on Tuesday mornings.  Remarkably, I'm finding myself with time on my hands!  Mind you, I fill it very easily and therefore run out of time to do simple things like writing this blog!

Arley hasn't seen the neighbour boys as much, which means our house has been more peaceful.  He has a mate, Liam, who he sees at his groups.  I'm friends with Liam's mum, and she tells me that Liam is as stoked with Arley as Arley is with him.  The neighbour boys keep coming down to play, but Arley tells them he is too tired.  He still likes them though, I just think he's not used to being so social.  Carmie has joined a painting group, which makes me super happy, although she says her paintings are really bad.  I'll see about that!

For the past three years, Jeffrey has gone out and cut down a "Christmas tree" and we've had these ridiculous, wonky trees.  This year we booked into the Christmas tree farm here, and on Monday I went and chose our tree.  It is a big, bushy thing that is a little lop-sided, but much nicer than our previous trees, except...when we were trying to straighten it out in the base, I was standing and holding onto the trunk with my hand inside the tree, and Jeff was working at the base, and suddenly I felt a sharp prick, screamed "Ouch!" and withdrew my hand, only to see the pine needles shifting around and coming face to face with an enormous, fat spider.  I couldn't let go of the tree because of Jeff, so I just started screaming while this spider started working its way up the branches in front of my face.  OMG, I was freaking out.  Jeff clued in to what happened, saw the spider and said, "Holy shit!" while Carmie googled what to do with a spider bite.  I washed my finger with soap and water for a good five minutes, then iced it...and was completely fine!  Except for my heart just about exploding in my chest.  It gives me the creeps just writing about it.  So, we have decided that this is our last year with a real tree.  I just can't anymore!

Trying to get a selfie will Bella.  She's getting so old now (15!) but she still seems in good health.

Carmie and I have been getting our nails done.  It's our girly time :)

The dreaded spider that bit me.  Look in the left hand corner - that's me having a heart attack on the couch.

699 + 595 Weeks

We have had a much more positive week, thank goodness. We have all been in good health, apart from a couple of nights of insomnia for both kids.  Our air conditioner also got fixed, but this happened right when the weather turned and got cool - still happy it's working though!  The kids both had OT on Monday morning, and Arley rocked it!  Carmie not so much, as she hadn't slept the night before.  But Arley's OT sessions have gone from struggling to get through 20 minutes, to lasting the full hour with no problems.  He has two male OTs and he loves hanging out with them now.  Such a relief.  They are working on retained reflexes with him, and his sensory aversions.  Carmie's OT is going to start cooking with her, so she can get on top of prepping some meals for herself.  Carms is becoming so independent - she gets picked up and dropped off for all her groups.  She has even managed to drag herself out of bed for the last two days, without me having to nag her!

Now that I am feeling better, I finally put into place the new parenting control system that I bought.  It can control every screen in the house, separately.  On Monday I refused to turn all screens on until everything that needed to be done was done, and yes, Arley kicked up an almighty fuss.  It was pretty awful.  However, he soon found out that I was serious, and he did all of his jobs.  Since then he has complained at me, but he has gotten his stuff done each morning without the tantrums.  I am very hopeful going forward!

I made it to a live drawing session on Tuesday night.  I have made friends with a woman called Karyn.  She is a student of Jeff's, but she is also an artist, so she came along too.  It was so good to get out and be surrounded by other like-minded people.  Of course, I forgot to take my canvas so I couldn't paint (it had to be something!) but at the last minute I threw my iPad into my bag, so I worked on my iPad, and I loved it.  I might even do that more often - no mess, no cleanup, no hassle!

I chopped my hair off yesterday.  It was down to my shoulders, and it was driving me crazy.  It was too hot and heavy to wear out, but I'd get a headache within 20 minutes of tying it back, and I couldn't swim freely in the pool without washing it, and the only reason I had for not cutting it is that it had taken me two years to grow it out.  Realising this was not a good reason to keep it long, I had it cut yesterday.  I'm still trying to figure out the style, and I woke up this morning looking like a tumbleweed, but I tell you what, it feels so much better!  I'm ready for summer now :)

That's it for this week!

Please excuse the silly photos below, they are all I have for this week!  Arley and I were messing around this morning.  Also excuse my new, unstyled hair cut!

698 + 594 Weeks

This has been a horrible week.  Jeff and I lost a good friend from Las Vegas over the weekend.  We found out on Tuesday evening.  Jeff and Levi were very close, and we are also good friends with his wife Gina.  They have two children together, only 6 and 8 years old.  Levi was only 45 years old.  This has shaken us up so much, it's really hard to think of anything else.  It was an accident - they were riding in a jeep at the Dumont Dunes, and Levi lost control of the car.  As far as we know, Gina and the kids were in the car as well, but they only suffered minor injuries, while Levi died at the scene.  It has been absolutely gut-wrenching.

It's hard to even write about other things that happened, but I guess I should.  Arley had another sleep-over here at the house on Friday night.  Luca and Kai both slept over (Kai slept on the couch).  It was exhausting, but worth it. Luckily for us, Arley said he will not do a sleepover again, as Luca snored all night, and Arley didn't sleep.  In the morning, Arley woke Luca up and kicked him out of his room so he could sleep!  LOL.  The boys have been back here for a few after-school plays since, and the three of them are getting along very well.  It is chaos when they are here, but it is also so nice to see Arley navigating friendships!

Our air conditioner has been broken for weeks.  Apparently we have been cooling off the neighbourhood, as we have a hole in the duct and air is pumping out the side of the house.  Of course, we are in the middle of a heat wave, and our house has no ceiling fans.  Who builds a house with no ceiling fans in the sub-tropics??  So, it is painfully hot and muggy here.  Apparently the weather is breaking tomorrow, so things will ease up.

Carmie is doing well.  Arley didn't go to her social groups this week, so she is much happier!  I think I have managed to convince Arley that Carmie's groups are too boring for him, so I'm hoping it stays this way.  Carmie definitely needs her space.  I took her out to lunch yesterday (after a fun visit to the gynaecologist - more meds for Carmie, OMG!), and we had such a nice time.  One on one, she is the perfect date.  She gets overwhelmed in larger groups and crowded places, so there are only a few places she is willing to go, but we have one only a few minutes away.  She's looking really cute too, as Jeff took her to get her hair cut on Saturday.  Of course I have no photos to show of it!

I'm signing off now.  Sorry about the crap photos from this week!  I will do better next week :)

New friends :)

697 + 593 Weeks

I have not a single photo to show for this week. We have had a fairly good week though. Although, Arley is down at a D&D group with Carmie right now and he is very angrily texting me to come pick him up because he is hungry. He is so demanding!

I finally went to the doctor to get antibiotics because my cough had turned into a chest infection. The antibiotics are nasty and leave the most awful metallic taste in my mouth, but I’m feeling much better, even though I’m still coughing a bit. At least Jeff is no longer sleeping on the couch!

Carmie has had a good week. She is getting back into the swing of her groups. She returns home very animated and happy, and it is so nice to see. She has added two more groups onto her schedule, so now she is going out every day. It’s awesome. 

Arley finally had his sleepover with Luca. They had a great time! It was a school night though, so they had to go to bed a little early (if you call 9:30/10pm early!) and Arley kicked up quite a fuss.  We had a big talk the next day, so I’m hoping that doesn’t happen again. 

It was mine and Jeff’s 16 year anniversary yesterday!  We both forgot. I remembered mid afternoon and when Jeff walked in at 7pm I told him I had something to say. His face showed full-blown panic. LOL. Then I told him happy anniversary :). Mum and Geoff are coming over tonight to be with the kids so Jeffrey and I can go out to dinner and to a show. The kids are excited to see their grandparents and I am excited to go out, so win win!

696 + 592 Weeks

Something kinda huge happened this week.  Arley got the courage up to make some neighbourhood friends!  These two brothers, Luca who is 11 and Kai who is 8, have been stopping by asking for kids to play with, and for a while I've been trying to get Arley to meet them.  A few weeks ago I invited them into the house to meet him, and I took them straight into his bedroom - he was too nervous to come out.  Then last week I convinced him to get a hair cut so he looked cooler, then over the weekend we walked twice to their house (only about 6 houses away on our street) to see if they were around to play.  They were not, but on Monday afternoon when they got out of school, they came over for a play.  The boys hit it off so well!  Arley and Luca have clicked - they started out playing Xbox, then moved on to playing in his room.  It went so well.  The boys came over again the next day and stayed for hours.  It's so much better with Jeff's guitar school out of the house - the kids can make noise now!  They swam in the pool for ages, played Xbox, played outside.  This is EXACTLY what Arley needs!!  He and Luca are so excited to have found each other, they organised a sleepover at our place for tonight....It's not all roses though.  The sleepover is postponed because...wait for it...Arley gave Luca one of his 'realistic' toy guns.  Luca was thrilled, he loves it.  So, he took it to school.  Some kids saw it sticking out of his bag, and he's been suspended.  OMG.  They've only known each other for four days!  The mother thankfully is being very kind and not holding us accountable.  Luca has had to go to his grandmother's house while he is suspended.  How bad did I feel when I found out though?!!

Carmie came home from a D&D session last week letting us know that there was room for Arley to join.  So yesterday, Arley joined in for the session.  It didn't go as smoothly as I would have hoped - apparently Arley unexpectedly changed the direction of the game and no one was really happy about it.  I have to tread lightly telling him about it, because if he thinks they are all annoyed at him, he will never go back.  I am so happy he has joined the group, and Carmie is handling it very well.

Carmie is doing great.  She has fully recovered from the flu, but Arley and I are still coughing.  It's rough.  She has started psychology and behaviour therapy again this week - both sessions went really well.  She is working on her anxiety, as well as trying to be more responsible in the house, wake up early, exercise etc.  Carmie is such a sweet girl, but she is quite hopeless with being motivated to do things.  Her ADHD makes her very forgetful, so we are trying to figure out a system where she can schedule her day and not need reminding from me so much.  It's not easy growing these kids into adults!

I've been painting more this week, which has been lovely, and Jeff's school is going well too.  It feels like we are getting on track a little, thank goodness!

691-695 + 587-591 Weeks

I have never gone so long without writing the blog!  It's been over a month!  Let's go back to September...

I took the kids on vacation for 10 days, down in Milton/Ulladulla.  My amazing parents drove down with all of our holiday gear (including Arley's computer!), and the kids and I flew down to Sydney with only our backpacks.  We then caught the train to Nowra where Lolo & Dida picked us up and drove us to Milton to my buddy Mark's house where we were all staying together.  I had the use of Mark's car too, so that made things easier.  Our vacation was a great success I think.  We spent quality time with Mum & Geoff, I caught up with old friends (so much has changed but also nothing at all!), the kids reconnected with their friends Delphi and Jasper, my sister and nephew came for a night, my cousin Tess and her son came for a night.  I was so busy - it wasn't what you'd call a relaxing vacation by any means, but it was still a good break.  I went to all our old stomping grounds, all the beaches that I wanted to see, out to old restaurants and new...it was really lovely to be back.  The kids went horse riding at Milea's, we spent a morning hanging out with Wes, the kids' old carer (they miss him so much!), and Carmie and I went fossicking like we used to.  I am happy to not be living down there anymore, but it is so nice to go back and visit.  And yes, I miss those south coast beaches very much!

Jeffrey stayed home in QLD, keeping his business going.  We had planned to move Jeff's guitar school into the new location before I left, but we ran out of time.  The kids and I got back on Tuesday 8th October, and Jeff had scheduled his first Sunday morning jam session for that coming weekend.  We spent all of Friday and Saturday down in the new space, putting together all the decor.  The place looks great!  We also had a great turnout for the jam session, and the students love their new space.  The real bugger was that on Friday morning, Carmie woke up really sick.  She had a terrible headache and sore throat, and I couldn't stay home to look after her.  I feel terribly guilty about it now - I didn't know how bad the illness was!

By Monday morning, Arley was sick too.  By Tuesday morning both kids were vomiting, and had headaches and sore throats etc.  I was in bed by lunch on Tuesday and I spent the next 8 days (!) battling the worse illness I have ever had.  We had tested Carmie twice for COVID, both tests being negative, so I have deduced that we had severe cases of Influenza A.  It was SO bad.  Jeff had to continue working (luckily out of the house!), so there was no one to take care of the three of us.  By Thursday afternoon I had run out of medicine and was so desperate that I posted in our community noticeboard on FB that I was very sick and needed medicine.  Some lovely neighbours I don't even know stopped by with medicine, and I am so thankful! I was still in bed on the weekend, but things finally started to turn for me on the Monday.  I am still weak and coughing now, and keeping Jeff and I up at night time, but I am up and about again.  The kids are doing great and got back to their social groups yesterday.  And Jeff has been immune, as usual!  Worst experience ever!!

I had big plans to cut down on the kids' screen time when we returned, and to get the token system in place again, but of course all that went out the window.  I have to say, going away was good for the kids in that their routine was shaken up, and it has made it a little easier to get Arley away from his computer.  I also think he has been so bored all of this week while I was sick, he is thankful to sometimes do something different.  I even managed to convince him to get a haircut this morning.  I thought it might never happen!

I'm sure there is so much I have missed out on, but everything is a bit of a blur!  It's good to be thinking clearly again, but I feel like the past month has literally disappeared!

Picking fruit at Mr Curly's, just like he did when he was little

Our view

At Funland with Wes

Narrawallee

At our old post-horse-riding bakery

Collers Beach

Fossicking

At Milea's

With Delphi and Jazzy J

At the Bommie

Carms & Delphi, two peas in a pod

Twice since we've been home we have had water dragons scaling our door!

Open for business!

Our first Sunday jam session in the new space