690 + 586 Weeks

I'm sitting here writing the blog a day late, drinking tea from my lovely new teacup and pot set that I got from my brother for my 50th birthday.  Yep, I turned 50 last week!  I'm quite excited to be 50, to be honest.  It was looming ahead of me, and now it's not, and it was the easiest hump to get over!

So, my birthday started out a little rough.  We were supposed to meet Mum & Geoff out at a cafe at 8:30 in the morning, which admittedly, is a little early for us, however we had a time crunch because Jeffrey had to get back home to a lesson at 10m, and Carmie was attending a D&D six-hour one shot session which also started at 10.  Jeff woke the kids up early and Carmie, remarkably, was fine, but Arley was not as he told his dad that he didn't get to sleep until after 1am.  We decided to leave without him, but before we left, he was up, saying he was coming but he just had to use the bathroom.  We waited and waited.  He was constipated.  Poor bugger.  First time experiencing it.  He told us to leave him.  Jeff had already left to meet my parents, so Carmie and I left poor Arley in the bathroom while we went for my birthday breakfast.  I had told him to call me if it gets worse...so, fifteen minutes later as I was walking into the cafe, Arley called, crying, and then hung up.  Then he wasn't answering his phone.  So before we even ordered, Jeff had to leave to go be with Arley.  Carmie and I had a delicious breakfast with Lolo & Dida, but then Carmie was all slouched over and odd, and then she told me she was sick and couldn't go to her D&D.  Arrrgh!  I dropped her home to bed, and continued on my day, which included a one hour float followed by a one hour massage.  I have never felt so physically relaxed in my life.  Oh my goodness, what a treat!  I'm still feeling great two days later!

It turned out I had a very chill, lovely birthday.  I went shopping for new headphones (thanks Pop!!) and lounged around for much of the day.  My friend Andrea had come over the night before for a drink.  I got a lovely new backpack, and my big pressie is an artist easel.  It is awesome.  I can't wait to use it!

It is school holidays here, so we haven't been doing much, just taking it very easy.  Jeff's new guitar school was painted, and the carpet is getting laid as I type.  I can't wait to see it fully finished!  There was a bit of drama this morning with our carpet not showing up, but they have given us a more expensive carpet instead, so it worked out OK in the end.  I am itching to go down there to start decorating!

Tomorrow morning the kids and I are catching a plane down to Sydney and then a train to the south coast.  Mum and Geoff left very early on Thursday morning to drive down.  Thankfully they have taken all of our luggage down too, so we won't have anything to carry on the plane.  They took Arley's computer down too (on advice from his therapists), but this meant that yesterday and today he has no computer.  He is doing fairly well, but waking up yesterday he was very upset.  He is scared of being bored and getting dysregulated and getting angry.  Poor guy, his anxiety really controls him.  I took the kids down to Mooloolaba yesterday for some treats, so that helped.  I am very excited to go away, but feel very sad for Jeffrey being left behind.  This will be the longest we have been away from each other in way over a decade.  He won't know what hit him!

689 + 585 Weeks

We haven't had too much drama this week, which is always refreshing!  Jeff's new location is coming along - the signage went up on Tuesday morning.  This was super exciting, but now we have a week to wait for the painting to start, and then carpeting and decor will happen after that.  Sadly our timing is a little off.  The space is being painted on the 25th & 26th (yes, on my birthday, and I'm turning 50 next week, OMG).  Then on the 27th, carpet is going down.  Then first thing in the morning on the 28th, the kids and I are hopping on a plane to go down to our old stomping ground, the South Coast of NSW, until October 8th.  We are staying in Milton at my friend Mark's house, as he is overseas.  Jeffrey is staying home to continue working and to look after Bella.  My parents are coming down to Milton too.  But our trip is terrible timing for finalising Jeff's guitar school space.  We were hoping to move him in on Monday Sept 30th, but I have a feeling we are pushing it a bit!  I'm not sure I trust Jeffrey to do all the decorating without me. I booked our flights for the trip before we even knew we were moving his school into a commercial space.  Bummer!

Here is the commission I completed last week.

 

Lolo and I took the kids to their local duck pond when we visited with her this week.

Signage is up!

 

687, 688 + 583,584 Weeks

I haven’t posted in two weeks.  Things have been a little stressful around here.  We have dropped our token system for now and we have lowered expectations of the kids.  I have too much on to keep up with the effort.  We are in a mad rush getting Jeff’s new guitar school location fitted out - our carpenter has built a wall dividing the space, we have a sparky putting in new down-lights and power points, and painting and carpeting is happening in the last week of the month.  We are buying decor and acoustic panels, we’ve got a million album posters to hang.  I can’t wait until it’s done - it’s fun to see the transformation happening though!

So, as I said, things have been a little challenging around here.  The kids and I are heading down to Milton for a little getaway, to see old friends and spend time with family, from Sept 28th to Oct 8th.  I figure our schedule will go out the window anyway, so we have gone back to no schedule, which means the kids are on screens a lot, but I am holding on to my sanity, which is always a win!

It was Father's Day on September 1st.  Jeffrey and I went out to breakfast while the kids slept in, and then we went unicycling around.  We had a really nice time.  When we got home, the kids had cards for their dad, and we gave him some presents.  Jeffrey got to relax all day and also got the night off cooking.  It was much more successful than any Mother's Day we've had!

I don’t have too much else to say.  We haven’t been doing too much.  I had a small painting commission to finish, and that took up quite a bit of time.  The kids are still doing their therapies.  Both Arley’s occupational therapist and Carmie’s behaviour therapist said the same things this week about each respective kid: they both have extremely high sensory aversions, which is the cause of a lot of the behaviours they do.  This is one of the hardest problems to help with, as sensory aversions are innate and instinctual, so not in their control.  Arley’s OT likened it us hearing (or even just thinking about) fingers down a blackboard.  Apparently this is how Arley experiences many things every single day.  And Carmie has disengaged because of sound and touch aversions.  Gah!  These kids…

Today is Bella’s 15th birthday.  She is starting to show her age and slow down, which is making us all very sad.  She still runs around and is pretty fit, but her back legs seem to be getting stiff and wobbly.  We are loving on her as much as possible, because we know we won’t have her for much longer :(. Sweet girl.

Father's Day :)

Bella and me on her 15th birthday

Morning cuddles

686 + 582 Weeks

I don't have much kids news for this week.  We've had the same struggles as always, with a few wins.

I was gone from Thursday night through Saturday evening.  I went to Sydney for my uncle's memorial.  I flew down with Mum & Geoff.  It was a sad time, but also really lovely, getting to see my cousins, and spend some time with my sister and my brother Sting (and met his girlfriend!).  Plus meals out with Mum & Geoff, and I visited with my aunts as well.  Jeff and the kids got along well while I was gone, with only a few mishaps.

The weather has suddenly become incredibly hot!  It is supposed to cool down a bit next week, but right now we are in the 30's, which is very hot considering we are still in winter!  We have a very busy month ahead, getting Jeff's new guitar school location ready.  I also have a small but quite complicated painting to do over the next few weeks.  Once Jeff has moved locations, we are cracking down on the kids screens again, and it's going to be rough, but at least no students will be around to hear the screaming!

Please ignore my daughter's rudenesss!  Haha

 

684,685 + 580, 581 Weeks

I didn't write the blog last week, as there wasn't too much to say.  We haven't been having the easiest time of it.  Arley is getting a little bit more regulated, but it does seem like he has regressed in the past month.  I took the kids to get their hair cut on Saturday and Arley refused to get out of the car.  It was pretty awful, as I took away his phone, and told him he wasn't getting McDonald's afterwards when Carmie's hair was cut.  Carms got a great hair cut, but not Arley.  His head is like an overgrown fluffy helmet, but he is insisting that he grows his hair out, and he put up a very good fight.  When he didn't get his McDonalds, all hell broke loose, but I stuck to my guns.  Poor Carmie and I had to drive home with a very irate Arley in the car with us.

Clint sent Arley a video on Tuesday about how he was going out to dig worms so they could feed them to the bush turkeys on Wednesday, so that is how we got Arley to Clint and Chambers Island this week.  I have shortened his time with Sprinkle on Wednesdays too, but then I pick him up and take him out to lunch with Carmie and I, before dropping Carmie off at 2 for her groups.  Arley's world just seems to be getting smaller and smaller.

Some good(ish) news is that we have stopped Arley's dental treatment for now.  He has a stubborn molar on the bottom that is embedded into the gum, and it's refusing to move.  This tooth is making his bottom appliance not stay on, so we had the option of pulling the tooth and continuing treatment, or waiting a few years until the tooth falls out, and then doing stage 2 of the treatment.  We chose option 2, and we are so relieved to be finished with those mouthpieces!  He has an appointment next week to get the brackets removed and then we will be done until Arley is 14 or so.  Woot woot!

Carmie is the same as always - a total slug every morning and bright and chirpy every afternoon.  Basically a slug when she has to get out of bed and get something productive done, and then full of beans when she gets to go off to her social groups.  She is really thriving with her friend groups and becoming more independent all the time.  Her support workers have been taking her out to cafes and making her do all the ordering and paying etc, and she getting more and more confident.  She's also started drawing again, and I've been teaching her a little bit of printmaking, which she is really enjoying.  It's been a pleasure spending time with her.

Jeffrey and I have some news.  We are about to sign a lease on a commercial property to move his guitar school out of our home and into a property on the busiest road on the Sunshine Coast.  It is scary but exciting.  It is also time.  It means Jeff can take more students in each class and grow the school without extending his hours, and we won't have people coming into our home every day.  I am really looking forward to that aspect, but I will miss Jeff not being home.  It will be much easier to parent though, because right now we tread on eggshells not to have disruptions while students are here, and that makes it very difficult to discipline Arley and stick to our new rules and token system.  We are spending the month of September getting the space fitted.  We need to put in a wall to separate the front and the back, we need to paint and carpet and put in acoustic panels, get signage made and installed - so much work!  We need to buy more equipment and furniture, then advertise... We can do it!  We are hoping he is in the new location by October 1st.

Tonight I am getting on a plane with Mum and Geoff to go to my uncle's memorial in Sydney.  I'll be coming back home on Saturday evening.  I wish I was getting this break under better circumstances, but still, it's a break, and very good for the kids to have time alone with Jeff.  I just hope it all goes smoothly!

I have no photos from the past two weeks, except for this one of the last painting I finished.  It's oil on canvas, 85cm x 85cm.

683 + 579 Weeks

I'm a day late because I was busy painting yesterday.  I am working on a large still life, and it's all I want to do! Annoyingly I have these two scallywags to contend with...  

It's been a week of ups and downs.  Jeffrey and I took the kids to Maleny Bird World on Saturday, and it was great.  Arley almost cracked it, but he pulled through.  We went to the petting zoo first, and the kids loved it.  There were three miniature donkeys and a bunch of goats, as well as bunnies, guinea pigs, chooks and sheep.  The donkeys and the goats were crazy and brought a lot of laughs.  Afterwards we went up to join a tour of the aviaries, and that's when Arley started to get stressed.  We were in a fairly large group, and there was a bit of standing around until we could get inside.  A crowd plus a wait is not a good combination for Arley.  However, once we were in with the birds, he was much better.  Bird World was great - beautiful birds, although I did feel a bit sorry for them not being able to fly free in their natural habitats.  Carmie loved it and wants to go back.

Carmie has had an ordinary week, going to her groups as usual, and not causing too much fuss.  She had behaviour therapy yesterday.  Carmie's behaviour therapist is very quirky and very good, and Carmie really likes her.  She has been doing assessments on Carmie, and one thing she told me yesterday is that Carmie's 'personal space bubble' is larger than most people's.  Carmie starts to feel physically uncomfortable when people are closer than one meter, and when she is stressed, it goes to almost two meters.  All these little pieces of information help us relate better to Carmie and help to keep her anxiety low.  Carms is learning a lot about her own anxiety and sensory preferences, and we are teaching her to become outspoken in her own needs.  She can be quite blunt, so I guess the next step is teaching her how to spare people's feelings when she is telling them she needs space.

Arley has had a bit of a crap week since then.  He didn't leave the house all week.  On Wednesday he had a massive meltdown before our support worker Savannah came to take the kids to see Clint. He just could not go.  Of course I didn't accept that, and we clashed and it turned really emotional, and in the end he didn't go anyway.  He just couldn't.  He actually put himself to bed and went to sleep instead.  He has been napping each day this week, so perhaps he is just getting over his cold still, or perhaps he was burnt out from our outing on Saturday.  I don't know, but he has been resting all week.  We are trying to teach him to stop creating so much drama and histrionics when things don't go his way...we have a LONG way to go!

682 + 578 Weeks

What a week it has been.  Arley was sick for all of last week.  He just has not been able to kick this cold of his, and he has this awful hacking cough, and a nasty mood to boot.  He had a complete break from his token reward system and spent most of the week on screens of one sort or another.  This has made him really dysregulated and really challenging.  I came down with the cold too, however not as badly, but I have had a headache for the better part of a week now.  

On Saturday Jeff and I went to Brisbane for a night away, while Mum and Geoff looked after the kids.  I wasn't feeling great, but it beat staying at home!  Haha.  We went to a concert - a Rolling Stones review - which was good but not great.  We had dinner out, and it was great to get away.  We were out at night in Brisbane, in an entertainment district, and we realised how old and settled we really are, because seeing all the clubs and bars and people partying did nothing but make us want to be in bed.  Haha.  On Sunday morning Jeff and I split up - he went to ride around the Brisbane River on his unicycle, and I went to the Queensland Art Gallery.  Loved it!  It was exactly what I needed.  The day didn't end so great though.  When it was time to go, Jeff met me out the front of the gallery, and I decided to pop back in to get a bottle of water from the cafe for the ride home.  I tripped on the stairs on the way up to the entrance, because of course I did.  I broke my fall with my hands and took a chunk off the top of my middle finger on my left hand by grazing it along the concrete.  The pain!  OMG, I got faint.  It was a small chunk, but quite deep, with lots of blood that ran down my hand as I made my way through the gallery to the bathroom.  Ugh, I'm just so clumsy.  So now my finger is healing but very tender!

Carmie is all better.  She has had a good week.  She had OT on Monday, and Sarah, the OT, oversaw Carmie making a cake (of course Carms chose her favourite cake, but it is difficult to make).  The cake was the epitome of Carmie.  If she were a cake, this cake would be her.  It was an absolute beautiful mess, disastrous but delicious.  So Carmie.  She ate the whole thing herself, barring one slice.

Sarah the OT has removed herself as Arley's OT to replace herself with a male OT, a guy called Clayton.  So now Arley has Clayton and Jordan (an OT assistant) to help him every other Monday.  I think they will be great for him.  Their goal is to toughen him up a bit and to get him able to touch things in the kitchen so he can help prep snacks and meals.  Arley has huge sensory aversions and can't touch anything that is damp or moist or smells of anything at all.  It is challenging, but I hope they can help.  My fingers are crossed!

Arley had to go back to the dentist to get scans done of his teeth to get him refitted for his Invisalign.  He has one bottom molar that is embedded into the gum and won't move, and the adult molar underneath it is turned sideways.  The teeth around it have moved, but this one tooth seems stuck.  If it won't move with the new Invisalign, the dentist will leave it, fix all the other teeth, then pull that molar when he is 14 and then see what we have to do to get the adult molar up and facing the right way.  This is just one more complication.  The dentist says Arley's case is the most complicated case he has done, and Invisalign will be showcasing before and after photos of Arley's teeth to show what is possible.  Because of course, this has to be our child with the manky teeth!  Can nothing be easy?!

The kids and I went up to Lolo and Dida's on Tuesday, and Lolo and I managed to drag the kids to a nearby park. It was very stressful and not much fun for anyone, but I am determined to do it more often to get them moving.  Arley did ride his bike this week though, and Carmie has started using a rebounder (a mini trampoline) that we bought.  Small steps!

I am painting again and loving it, although I wish I had more time.  One of these days!

Arley back in his seat in the dentist's waiting room

Carmie and her cake

 

Park 'play'