Boor-ring!

Everything is boring for LMD at the memoent. How life can be boring at 3 1/2 is quite beyond me, but her toys are old and boring, school is boring, the toys at school are old and boring, dancing is boring, going to the park is boring, playing in the garden is boring.......



I'm sure she doesn't even know what the word means, but where did she get it from? One thing I can say about my life - I don't have time to complain how bored I am!

climbing out of my hole?

Life's been pretty awful recently. I don't really want to go into it here, but I've had better days/weeks/months :'(

But I'm feeling that perhaps I'm not a complete failure after this morning.....

we attended the first session of the National Autistic Society Early birds course today. this is a course for parents of 5-7yr old children with ASD's. Mstr A's just turned 8, so is a tad old (although most there were 7/8) but because it took a while to get the diagnosis for various reasons, this was the first course available.

I was a bit worried, cos Aspergers isn't "real" Autism - Mstr A talks, walks, interacts with the world, attends mainstream school, has not got a police record yet..... It's hard to tell how different he is, because he's our eldest - there is little to compare him to. I have been told by family members that "he's not that bad - its very mild Aspergers if it's there at all", which makes me feel a) that I'm being an unecessarily pushy parent by making a fuss about it, and b) being a crap parent because we have many moments when we don't manage as well as I want to. I thought the course would be full of horror stories of blank faced non-verbals, and have no relevance to us.

I've really pissed work off by taking 10 Fridays off to attend, so the whole thing was a bit unnerving. Also, it was held in the chldren's centre, and no money offered for childcare, or specifications regarding bringing younger children with on either the letter, or mentioned when Aggie took LMD to the initial meeting, so we had her with us again today. As we walked in, the leader said that she shouldn't be there! Then proceeded to repeat that a few times during the introduction>:(

So I'm feling slightly smug. LMD behaved perfectly - she drew pictures, read books, slipped quietly around the adults whenever she needed to get something, and generally behaved so perfectly we hardly knew she was there - showing us to be fantastic parents:)

And, as we went through the details of what is Autism/ASD, Mstr A proved to have rather a lot of ASD behaviours - putting him well within the ASD spectrum and nowhere near the very mild edge of it. It appears that we have just been fantastically good at managing him to keep him as "normal" as possible.

Both we and the school assistant there came away with some good ideas - i asked Mstr A about one of the communication things mentioned and have discovered something new already, which hopefully we can work on. And on top of that, the school held their special needs meeting today with all the professionals in the area, and we recieved a phone call this afternoon to book an appointment to start the whole statementing thing off properly, so the school may eventually get some funding to help them provide that assistant they have in his class most of the time anyway:) Obviously the professionals all also agreed that he does need the help, and I'm not just making it up too.

I have also come to the conclusion that i have to stop lieing to myself, forget the career that really isn't happening - mostly because that is not really what I want, it's what i think i ought to want!, and look for a menial job round the corner to home so that I can be available to Aggie & the kids when they need me, without getting stressed out & without putting up with snipy comments from idiot personnel officers in the city.

Now I just need to find said job:)

I've lost that blogging feeling

Its not helping any more:(

Maybe we'll cybermeet again in the future................

running just as fast as I can

Its been a busy time recently. the school holidays are (nearly) over. we made it through them without any really major incidents - despite the unbelievably awful weather. The new uniform is all bought, birthday parties are finished - LMB had hers last sunday - she suddenly realised she was a year younger than most of her classmates, but had a great party, with an amazing turn out for an August weekend - and a repectable haul of presents (only one Bratz, and many craft/practical things).

Mstr A discovered off road cycling - going off on an organised session a couple of weeks ago, and dragging Aggie and Sister S's new boyfriend out to the strawberry line over the weekend, which is great:) Perhaps a new (actual) hobby for him? But it will make him more ready to cycle to school each day which will be good for everyone.

I've signed up for the next year of my law course - having scraped the required pass last year as predicted. It was a scrape, but a pass is a pass - and lots of peple I know didn't manage that much, so I'm feeling smug enough. But it does mean that my local collegei s not running the course die to lack of demand, so I have to do an online version. I will have to dig out that motivation from somewhere i s'pose.

The CAB training s also intensifying a bit at them moment - I'm due to finish around January when I will be let loose on the pubkic! Gulp. But there is quite a lot to do before then - and a lot of training days to attend on top of the once per week theory sessions I was expecting. I'm really enoying it, and looking forward to doing the job, but I'm running out of time:(

So just to keep me occupied, I have decided to requalify as a first aid tutor again, and am off on that course for the next couple of days. It was a difficult decision, as I do not run many courses any more, but it's worth keeping the qualification for the few I do run, and to keep up to date myself!

Fortuntely the finances seem to be working out with me only working part time. I can't say we have any spare money, but we are making it through the week covering the mortgage, bills and food, which is pretty much all I can ask for atm. Although I'm still trying to find some way of buying Aggie a mobility scooter thing.... I do have to get on with looking at funding options for that! The kids still manage to make me feel guilty though - asking why I have to go to work and when is it a "mummy day" again:(

At least the re-enactment season is over now (well, one more to go, but it's not a child friendly one). We haven't been to so many this year, partly because we can't afford to go to every one, and partl ybecause the weather has been so bad. I've never knowsn a season like it! But TBH, I'm looking forward to some "free" weekends so that I can try to catch up on all the stuff that hasn't been done for ages - like decorating, cleaning, sorting out kids clothes, spending time together as a family, and, of course, seewing next years kit:)