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.