Babies Born ~ September 2007 #72

Well that was a let down wasn't it? So when's the next end of the world event planned? I was listening to the radio earlier and they were interviewing americans and they take these doomsday events so seriously don't they? Well at least they won't have to buy food for a while now :lol:

MD, I thought about getting E a kindle, but we went with an ipod nano instead to replace the one that went through the wash.

So as for gifts, they are all getting books - they all asked for books which was great. Then L is getting his ipod touch, battleship board game, a Hawthorn football club membership for 2013 and a few odds and ends. E is getting her nano, books an some drawing things. P is also getting some drawing stuff plus some polly pocket and littlest petshop minis. A is getting a wooden thomas bridge, a nano speed car track thingy and a few smaller things. Santa has brought me some Terry Pratchett books, an annotated Brothers Grimm and an annotated Monty Python book on all 45 episodes of the Flying Circus.

Trill that's awesome your kids are asking for books! :cheer: Everyone in this house is getting books too - I even went to an actual book shop to buy them OLD SKOOL lol. I've been doing "love from the Christmas Book Elf" ever since DD1 was little so they know it's coming now. Actually I dragged H into the bookshop with me and I've got to say it reinforces my worry about her: I don't know if I've shared my recent theory with you all but it's blatantly obvious to me now that she's got some kind of attentional deficit thing going on. The penny dropped for me a couple of weeks ago when I was doing some reading about stimulant medications, and OMG it has been staring at us in the face all along. The incessant stream of consciousness talking, the interrupting, the seeming-to-not-hear what we're saying, the complete lack of personal organisation, the sloppy school work with tiny little chunks of crazily intelligent work in random places, all the mistimed social responses. And as E has got closer and closer to school age its been more and more obvious to me that H was soooo not "normal" at that same age. Am going through the motions now of doing some reading and thinking and deciding whether it's worth getting her assessed or not. Anyway, despite her 3-second attention span and her constant trail of abandoned semi-read novels, she's getting a kobo. Gee Santa's been busy at your house. An annotated Brothers Grimm?! Sounds awesome. I left the bookshop with a few extra YA books than there are people to give them to, so that's prolly what I'm getting ;). On my wish list are a number of things that would need to be bought online but DH has left it too late (like usual) so I'm guessing I'll also be getting chocolate or body shop or smelly candles PMSL.

You hadn't shared that about H yet. What would an assessment mean for her at this age? I know for little kids it means help at school etc, but would she get that at her age? Or would they even consider that type of thing or just medication? And how do you feel about all this? I forgot to say before that I'm really happy that you are getting somewhere yourself with the meds :hug:

I've been doing both bookshops and online - I had to get the Brother's Grimm and Monty Python ordered in online, but the others have all come from Collins. We have a fantastic one in Griffith and they have so much more than just books. We were all in there again today and I love that the kids can be totally entertained just by looking at books in a shop and begging me to buy them one.

Trill: your christmas booty is my dream list! the flying circus and terry pratchett??! man, you musta been a good girl this year. i notice a remarkable absence of any present for moi under the tree this year, so yep, like MD my DH has left it so late (ie forgotten lol) so i too will most likely end up with petrol station flowers and chocolate...i'm serious...he did that one year hahaha.

MD: hmm i guess that could explain a few things. how does it sit with you. was an oprah 'ah ha!' moment? i guess at least with this idea of ADHD you can place some simple mechanisms in place and see if they can initiate some positive change for H.

AFM: shopping is pretty much done. i havent bought for the neighbours yet (but did for the kids so wondering if that is enough?!). need to go shopping today for groceries but am waiting on a courier for my new pram (that i ordered 5 frikkin weeks ago with assurances that it would only take 1-3 weeks max..not happy Jan) and i have to be here for it otherwise i am guessing that i would have to wait for the new year before they deliver it.

Presents wise, W is getting RC car, a little radio and little bits and pieces. The girls are getting the same things as each other, in an attempt to cut down the 'I want what she has' thing they have going on.

MD, I hope you can decide what to do about H. Is she happy within herself? Sounds like your new drugs are good, which is great.

Stinking hot here. Not Australia hot, but apparently I don't function over 20 degrees. We went on a bush walk today and I thought it was a 1h15m loop track but it was that each way and ended up taking us 3 hours and it was way hot and at a high altitude so the sun was melting us. DH read the sign at the end and said that it was another hour to go and I spat tacks at the poor man. Total kid tanty style lol Dude might think more carefully about his jokes in the future!

I can't believe it's almost Christmas. My DH say we are going shopping tomorrow for a present for me, there's noway I'm going near the shops tomorrow though lol.
L is getting a bigger bike and Z a dolls house along with getting a few bits and pieces each.

Arte how do the kids go on the big walks? I think L would whinge for most of it lol.

MD tough decisions re H. I'm sure you'll make the right one though.

Hi girls we are in the car on the way to Sydney so thought I'd pop in and say hi!
On phone though so no doubt ill be brief :)
Merry Xmas to everyone. The boys aren't getting too much this year. J is getting the Thomas blue mountain mystery set - you've prob seen it on tv? And some new trains. L is getting some superhero Lego lol
Md- has anyone from H's school ever mentioned anything to you about this? Will u take her to a pead now?
I bought myself a few Xmas presents this year cos dh never gets me anything. I got new Bathers and a couple of kaftans, a beach bag and some perfume lol I did quite well! Lol
Oh and I have ordered myself a book too (impressed md?) xo

Hi girls!

our girls are getting little things too this year. way too much junk already in the house lol. so a barbie coupe, a hair and makeup doll and a jewellery box and some lip gloss. nothing flash, but simple stuff that they will like well enough. oh and the Big Santa Gift for each girl is: for DD1 a lalaloopsy mini doll set and for DD2 is a ballerina bar dance set. DD3 is getting the traditional royal doulton 3 piece dinner set (we get one for each of the girls).

we are planning a lovely picnic lunch at wombat bend park (a lovely park that sprawls along the yarra river). not going to be a scorcher so really looking forward to lounging around eating olives and salami and watching the girls go feral on the playground :)

Oz, the kids go pretty well on the long walks. W complained about running out of energy in the last half hour but he was really good. A got carried on and off on the way back and E was in the pack (as much as she would allow!).

W was being unusually nice to A yesterday and I couldn't figure out why, then I realised we saw some of The Polar Express on telly and W saw a bit where the elves are investigating a report of a kid being mean to his sister and almost put him on the no presents list. Must have worried him lol

The big day tomorrow. I am not sure how E is going to cope the the reality of the rest of the year when you don't get a chocolate every morning!

MERRY CHRISTMAS GORGEOUS ONES!

I probably won't get a chance to get back on again so I'm wishing you all a Merry Christmas today! Just think, 6 years ago our little September babes were only just coming into existence - A was conceived on Christmas eve (probably way TMI LOL, but it always sticks in my mind) and I can't believe that we've all known each other for this long! It's been a great ride :grouphug:

So I hope you all have an awesome day filled with fun and laughter and that Santa's been good to you (even if that just means the kids behave for more than an hour :lol: )

and from our wee family....

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

...Miss L was a 23rd of December conception lol...day before DHs MIL arrived :rofl:

Snap Cass! W was the 23rd as well, a quickie before DH went out to his work party.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas :)

Boxing Day one here.

Had a great day. Presents were all a bit overwhelming, just with all of the family and kids, the little girls were actualy more interested in chasies.

Hope everyone had a wonderful, relaxing day and the little people had a sleep in this morning to make up for their likely early starts yesterday!

Hope everyone had a good Christmas.

Was a great one here - kids loved all the presents and played nicely all day. Went swimming in the pool 3-4 times as it was super hot. Today we went to the city (madness!) and bought too much crap we didn't really need lol. We went for a swim at the beach which was lovely.

Pretty sure we made E on the 27th or 28th! LOL. Arte, sweetie, really be careful this week!!!

Arte, your bushwalk sounds like my worst nightmare. I don't do heat at all. We went to DH's work christmas "treat" for the kids and they'd moved it to a new oval area where there was not a single dot of shade anywhere. And the event ran from 10am to 2pm :wall:. And they ran out of water :wall:. Later turns out it was over 38 degrees - anyway, we turned around and went home after about 45 minutes - I was beetroot red and pretty sure another 15 minutes there and it would've been a visit to the first aid tent.

Yep Cass, it was totally a massive A-ha moment LOL.

Ginger, how goes things in Sydney town? Hope all is well with you :hug:

Re H, I'm not fully sure what an assessment would mean for her. The teachers have often mentioned the self-organisation and distraction, and she's needed help with the socialising at times as well. But ADHD looks different for girls than it does for boys and typically it goes undiagnosed. As it is I've had a couple of discussions with people re the ADHD and have been answered with Aspergers talk. I'm not sure that she really meets those criteria (which are about to change in a couple of months when the new DSM comes out). But I'm sure any assessment will suss that out as well, especially because she has some social difficulties. TBH I would be happy to sidestep the diagnostic process altogether if I could just take her along to someone who could help her out with some self-organisation strategies and also some socialising tips. She has been showing signs lately that her confidence in herself is waning - I think that's a real danger at this age when peer socialisation becomes more important than when they are younger. She's getting a terrible terrible stoop in her posture, and I wonder if that's just her body reflecting her lack of confidence.

Did I mention that DH most probably has ADHD (but never been actually diagnosed as such) which is an ongoing source of conflict and chaos in the house. Which I'm much less able to deal with now with my flakey memory and loss of executive functioning skills. Part of the process of me getting on the brain pills and starting to deal with everything I've been avoiding is facing the family dysfunctions - in communication and organisation - and getting some help with that. But it's not an easy process nor a cheap one and we're not exactly flush with money and have not been since my diagnosis. BUT there is a clinic at Flinders here where they are using brand new brain imaging methods that are 95% specific in detecting ADHD. So that might be one route that could give us some very specific answers rather than a clinical guess that other diagnostic methods provide.

Christmas was a complete bummer here. I didn't account for how much time and space houseguests take up and so had to do some late nights to get on top of everything ... was so tired by the actual day that we arrived at my Dad's for lunch late and he made some nasty snippy comments directed squarely at me and I had a histrionic melt down. So, yeah, I get the Hysterical Meltdown Award this year :lol:. Kids all had a ball though, I dashed out on christmas eve to get a couple of monster high dolls and so glad I did because E's been carrying them around and playing with them every second since. But Santa left his shopping a bit late and instead of getting a robe or the book i'd asked for I scored a handful of dvds from jb hifi :lol:. Maybe I've been a bad bad girl this year.

MD, you beat me though...I got a packet of lollies from Aldi. I am not joking.

MD, I am sure you weren't a bad girl! I got some noodle bowls. Perhaps I was boring this year? And :hug: - everyone has the urge to throw apples at family at times :)

Diagnoses wise, I guess that depends on what funding levels that allows you. If a diagnoses of ADD gives you subsidised access to some sort of CBT then it is worth going down that path, but if you can access a relevant therapist for the same cost without a diagnoses then that is probably easier. I am very interested in the scan for ADD! Awesomeness!

OMG Cass!!?! :o Don't eat them all at once now, will you?

Arte I LOL'd about your noodle bowls. How come noodle bowls are ok and sporks don't cut it??! Thanks for the hugs. Fortunately there was no fruit close by for hurling.

Ladies, I think there's only one solution. Some pre-New Year online shopping, Trillian-style! I'm going to order myself a difficult-to-get collection of essays and articles by the now-deceased Diana Wynne Jones. Take that, Santa!

Re the Neurocognitive testing for ADD, some reading here. I'm particularly interested in this because in a former lifetime I worked with a psychologist in Darwin who was using an EEG platform to detect attentional issues and he'd had very good results using EEG biofeedback games to retrain a whole lot of people. We're talking 15 years ago now, this new system seems to work on a similar principle but boosted by a heap of really smart modelling software and a big fat wad of data. I'm not sure that a diagnosis would actually result in any extra funding as such. Hmmm. Hadn't even thought about that. But it would give me something to take to the school by way of asking for help. Part of problem is that professionals tend to recognise the hyperactivity and defiance traits of ADHD but this is only one out of three aspects to the condition. Our H is quite compliant (after you've got her attention and reminded her 15 times) so less likely for it to be picked up in the classroom. Incidently, after we had her tested for auditory processing, the recommendations we got from that are *exactly the same* as those needed for ADHD. And she's been in classes with ASD kids all the way through so the teachers have already been moderating their delivery for those other students. So H has been been indirectly benefitting from this for the last couple of years, which IMO partly explains the improvement in her school work. Plus she's started drinking tea&coffee (ie self-medicating). On the other hand, she's infuriatingly literal in the way she interprets what we say so there might be something to the Aspie theory as well. I'm still having GAH. Why did I not see this before now??!!

PS. Arte, are you still at PIL's place? How's it going with BIL?