Babies Born ~ September 2007 #74

hello all!

I probably wont be back on until after christmas so also want to send out some holiday cheer!

MP: ahhh beach house for 2 weeks should be lovely...seriously, even cooking for the masses is much better with an ocean at your door! Your boys must be so gorgeous! Can't believe that N read to a massive audience like that! amazing!

the dental news does sound pretty full on. what are they wanting to do??

Hope that everyone has a lovely break and a fabulous time catching up with family and friends! See you on the other side lol!

Happy Christmas to all our beautiful September mummas, and your gorgeous families! I can't wait to hear all about the joy & excitement of the day! xxx

A belated merry Christmas to you all :)

We are staying at a little bay at the top of the South Island, randomly picked by what was still available. Coincidently we rented a place two doors down from fil's cousin, and they happened to have a family tree and it turns out one of my friends back at home is dh's 5th cousin lol. Small world! A and her daughter are friends at kindy.

Ferry trip back tomorrow with a bunch of tired but happy kids :)

Mp, yeah, we moved to the little school and it is a great fit for him. He is happy and doing well. So grown up now :)

haha arte that is a small world moment :lol: love it!

hope that everyone is awesome!

Here i am tired...i think the big move, the new surroundings and meeting new people is catching up with me and i feel a bit run down.

that said, the kids are doing awesomely and really thriving with the space, the lifestyle and the copious amounts of fruit that grows in the garden. we have more plums than you can poke a stick at. we had a gorgeously laden almond tree but a flock of 50 ****atoos took care of that in about an hour...bloomin' heck! will have to net that one next year. the girls (and us!) are really excited by the amount of wildlife (except the snake...ewww). we have wild ducks, ****atoos, galahs, rosellas, lorikeets, finches, some random parakeets that i havent identified yet and kangaroos. it's pretty cool!

Happy New Year, my lovelies!

I can't believe Christmas is all done, another year has passed, and now we're getting ready for miss E's SECOND year of school (!) How did that happen?

Arte, how was W's first sleepover guest's stay? And how was your Chrissy trip away? Saw your photos on FB, looked like a gorgeous spot and the kids all looked like they were having a ball.

Cass, so glad The Big Move is behind you and you can get on with the business of enjoying your new stomping ground. And perfecting your plum-jam making technique :rofl: ETA - 8km to school is no biggie. I drive nearly 15K every morning doing the double drop off, complete with traffic jams. BTW maybe Secret Santa IS a good idea for you - given your DH's track record for underwhelming gifts. At least in Secret Santa you'd had 50% chance of drawing your own name out ;).

Cally, is your sleep any better now? We're all out of whack here after too many late nights during the festive season (plus don't get me started on how blimmin WRONG the whole daylight savings thing is LOL). Miss E especially is a lady of leisure who likes her lie-ins these days so we'll have to fix that over the next few weeks.

MP - Hope your beach house trip was lovely. So lovely to hear how your boys are flourishing. Such a proud mumma and rightly so.

Well all good here. I'm back at work this week, DH is taking half a week off each week over the school hols to spare my sanity ... I mean, look after the kids LOL. DD1 turned into a right moody teen at some point during December, so it's FUN FOR ALL PLAYERS in our house right now. I'm not sure if I mentioned it at the time but a couple of months ago E popped out a weird looking rash that turns out to be a thing called molluscum. REVOLTING. Anyway it's a bit itchy and highly contagious but at this age they don't usually treat it because it (allegedly) goes away after several months and the treatment can be traumatic (they scratch, cut or freeze them or put irritants on them to try to trigger an immune response). Fast forward to now, and it's spreading all over the place with no signs of improving. So we're taking matters into our own hands with a regimen of epsom salts baths, betadine and sticking plasters. E has been pretty chipper about the whole thing, but it's a right pain going through the whole painting & dot-covering routine every night! The kid deserves a medal.

Helloooooo!!!

Ah, yes, we are leaving the silly season behind us as well and just chilling out and getting back into things again. we too are trying to bring bedtime hours under control! So many late nights are fun, but take their toll.

MD: well, Miss L is only 6 (SIX!!) and has turned up the volume on the attitude. I am flabbergasted! we get eye rolls, 'whatevers', back chat...it is driving me bonkers. I had a wee sob to DH about it last night that I cannot believe that i am raising a child that thinks that's ok. he then told me that she is just trying it out in the safety of family before heading back to school. he told me to let her get it out of her system here and then move on. i hope he's right man!

now i have to google molluscum...poor poppet, it sounds painful and annoying! will they let her go to school with it considering that it is highly contagious?

Arte: fabulous looking holiday! you live in one of those parts of the world that just photographs so beautifully. what an amazing place you get to call home! and those sheep at school....hahahahahahaha!

AFM: feeling pretty fabulous as Emilia has been sleeping a bit easier the last two nights. i think she was going through so serious wonderweek action as she was up almost hourly for about 2 weeks there. it was horrendous. i have been 99.9% zombie MD lol.

we have all been enjoying the move up here. there are moments of desperation on my part when i miss my house in the city and my friends, but in reality, here is just sublime and we are making friends left right and centre. i guess the problem is that i am resenting starting out again ITMS. i dont want to have new friendships... i want them to already be close and awesome and not awkward lol.
that said, we have now met the neighbours who are moving to their 100 acre property in the next few weeks and we will now have a good source for rabbit and hare and farm-kill meat :) there's a plus hahahaha!

now to buy a deep freezer...

MD, the sleepover guest went well. Hoping to have the reciprocal arrangement shortly :) Christmas holiday was good. Was nice to catch up with everyone and for the kids to spend actual time with them rather than FaceTime. I think Christmas day was the best it has ever been. These are the years that it is awesome, when the kids are old enough to understand it and super excited but not too old to be all...teenagery about it. Yay for your DH taking time off - wish DH and I could tag team on the holidays - been home for 7 days now and it is p.a.i.n.f.u.l.

Cass, I have been loving the photos of your new country adventure. Looks so serene and spacious. Bummer about the hourly wake ups - just the mention of it brings back that feeling of complete exhaustion! That is great you can get access to homekill - our half cow seems to last the best part of a year but I do buy chicken and occasional chops as well.

MD, with the molluscum, I would be very tempted to try salicylic acid (found in wart treatments), particularly if you are painting and plastering anyway. I hope it clears up quickly for her though, can't be very nice :(

So Erin seems to be mostly toilet trained - been in knickers for two weeks now and has had the last three days accident free. I have also dropped her day nap to get her to go to sleep earlier which is working, but confines us to the house in the afternoon because if we go anywhere she will fall asleep in the car/pram/carried. I have also stopped cuddling her to sleep in the lounge. Poor kid got the last of her babyhood ripped away from her in the last couple of weeks lol

Cass, wise words from your DH. And I remember similar moving-based angst every time you've been anywhere, and yet you attract friends everywhere you go.

Arte - LOL at your painful return home. I don't think there's a mother alive who hasn't thought that at some point about the summer holidays. They are so darn long here, and we spend a lot of that cooped up inside because it's sunburn/heatstroke conditions outside. I wish they would just shorten it and give us an extra week during spring and autumn when the weather is perfect and you *really* need a break!!! I would even take an extra week in winter, if I had to. Christmas here was pretty awesome as well. Kids (and adults) behaved beautifully and enjoyed the anticipation as well as the actual happenings. BTW - Go, Team Erin!!

Yes, back to school with molluscum, no exclusions at all. Which makes sense because it tends to hang around for a long time (ie months+++). But I'm stocking up on some navy bike shorts so they'll all be covered by clothing (which is presumably more consideration than shown by whichever kid she caught it off at school)! Anyway, we did a recount last night and about 20% of them have disappeared completely and most of the others look well on the way to healing so hopefully we'll be on top of it completely in a few weeks' time.

ETA - re the salicylate - I tried the liquid bandage stuff (apparently that is effective too) but she screamed blue murder and the shredding effect on my nerves was not worth it. The baths-betadine-hypafix seems to be getting results without discomfort or drama. However, I do have a suspicious itchy spot on my finger so if it develops in that direction I will turn to the salicylate.

Now I just have to marshall my wits about me for the school supplies shopping - I forgot to put the orders in before Christmas, not sure if it's too late to get them now. I'm glad now that I bought the re-usable book covers because they've all come home in lovely condition, just need to re-label them.

LOL MD, I am pretty flexible on all things that are going to result in that sanity ripping screech. A in particular knows the exact frequency to get right into my brain. So every once in a while if it looks like something is going to set her off I just let it go. They don't need to brush teeth every night do they....

From the sounds of the thread on BB, it seems that buying the school books is a major drama over there? Here the book shop packages up the books and stationary for each class and you just walk in and buy a pre packed bag of everything that was on the list.

DH has taken A out camping tonight and I can see huge black clouds rolling over the mountain. I hope they are alright. W is going away for a sleepover tomorrow night, went to bed totally excited :)

school lists...we dont even have any lol! we pay an annual fee to cover it all in class. saves a lot of hassle i am gathering!

MD: i hope that you dont get it! the baths i can imagine would be quite soothing for her?

Arte: nah, not every night...no way hahahaha! my kids you would think it was some form of slow torture :rolleyes:

we dont have a school list either - think that is covered in our exhorbitant fees!!! I must say I like it that way though as all the kids have the same stuff.
do your kids do shoe laces?? N decided he wanted laces for his sneakers now - so we are on a mission to learn to tie them himself!

not much news here - we sweltered through last week as my house has no AC. hell. on. earth!
ended up getting the boys to sleep at mums for 3 nights - with us going to and fro between her place and ours! took a couple of days for our house to cool again but back to normal now.
am off to the tennis tonight. this is my fave time in melbourne. and we are off to the mornington peninsula again this weekend - yippeeeee

MP - you have my sympathy re your abysmal lack of aircon. We lived without it for many years, awful awful awful. You could nearly cope if it ever got cool enough to sleep! Anyway I put my foot down when we moved back & now I have the ultimate must-have-aircon reason ever: lymphoedema. LOL. Silver linings, I guess.

TBH I don't understand why our materials aren't included in the school fees - only reason I can imagine is that maybe some families don't pay all their fees & that structure would leave the school out of pocket?? DD1's school bungs on a $750/year "resources" fee which is clearly set at that amount to scoop up the school kids bonus direct from the parents' tax return ... But then we STILL have to buy all their stationery !!! Unreal.

Is that a private school MD? We have a $50 resources fee. Well, we did at the old school. I didn't pay anything at the new school. I wonder if I should have lol. They are pretty good with things like that though - the full day skiing lessons every week in winter didn't cost me a cent.

Just back from a weekend at hometown. So nice now that my kids and my cousins kids are all bigger - they just disappear and play for hours. Living the dream :) DH fixed the roof on my grandfathers garage - he is in his 80's with bad legs and a bung eye but he would have got up there and done it himself :roll eyes:

No need for aircon here - summer seems to have skipped us this year. It is average at best with lots of rain.

MP, W isn't doing laces yet. TBH, I hope he settles for velco/slipon for a while longer. I think he would be capable but his frustration of not getting it right the first time is not appealing.

OMG, just googled the lymphoedema - I hope that it isn't as bad as the wiki pictures!!

Yep, it's a private school, but it's the local catholic one so not really high-end private, kwim? I suspect we're charged (a lot) more than we need to be and some of those funds are then siphoned off to other schools with (much) lower socio-economic profiles. Which I really don't mind (in the big social justice scheme of things) but they ask for it up front before school has even started which is a bit harsh. But for DD2 it's just a standard book list, you order online and it arrives in a box.

Arte, that's my kind of summer. Rain. Coolness. A tiny bit of sunshine! Aaaaah. Maybe I should emigrate. Before they film The hobbit 3 so I can sign up to be an extra. (*Indulges in hot-summer-induced-fantasy*). And re lymphodema - mine is v. mild. I have to self massage though to keep it under control, and every now and again I see a physio because it builds up on my back where I can't reach. It'll stay mild if it's managed & because I still have some lymph nodes, but I have a ton of sympathy for those poor ladies you sometimes see with massive chunky legs or arms - can't imagine what a living hell that would be.

E isn't doing laces yet either. We chose shoes with velcro too, but she's got a pair of canvas shoes (white ones we decorated with fabric pens, awesome school hol activity) with laces so she can practice with those.

The other skill we're desperate for her to learn is time-telling. Not sure how to teach it really, it's pretty complex.

MD, telling the time or the concept of seconds/minutes/hours/days etc? Digital is a handy way to go, but you can get the analogue watches with the minutes written as well. Watches are something W has loved from toddlerhood but I can't remember how we taught him what it represented.

Hasn't Hobbit 3 been filmed yet? I thought they did it all in one go and the time is the production? Last time they were shooting up the mountain but I was too short and too tall for any extra roles. MD, you might be tall enough to get in :). As for the weather, coolness is nice but today it has been downright cold. In the middle of January! People are putting their fires on. I am sitting here cold but refuse to put on the heat pump on principle alone lol.

Just telling the time (with an analogue clock cos I'm a hardass mumma). They have to be able to know how to count in fives to get anything other than o'clock and half past and quarter past and quarter to. But I did see some Lego time teaching clocks in my travels so maybe something like that would be the go.

Yeah, I'd be tall enough ... Possibly too wide but definitely talk enough! :lol:

wait. what? there's more than one hobbit? they split it into three? oh. you can tell that i dont get out much. i so want to be an extra! but that i am boring average in everything body size i dont see myself as being cast as either a hobbit or something tall. bah humbug!

Bad news, they have already finished shooting The Hobbit. The bit they did here last year was some of the last of it :( I shall never be a hobbit. Although my leg hair and wide sausage feet beg to differ lol

That's too bad. I'm kind of fine with it though, I'm totally a hobbit on the inside, I have huge, hairy feet (! yes, for real) and I'm totally down with second breakfasts and elevenses. It's my inner orc that wants expressing :lol:.

Well Miss E is safely back at school today - looking glum because it's a different classroom, new teacher, and her (overly dependent) bestie has been split off to a different class on the teacher's recommendation. Such a wrench. There were a few kids this morning looking miserable. I hope they have a bit of fun today and she comes home a bit happier!

W doesn't start school again until next week. Should be a good year - there are 4 new entrants starting so W is going to be one of the senior kids lol. I know all the families of the new kids and they are all nice - including A's best friend from across the road that W has always been a bit sweet on. They may be trouble together, I pity the teacher lmao. However, it gives me car pooling option which is great. We also have the fantastic teacher back as she went on a science fellowship for the last half of last year. She is very science/ecology focused and W is going to really love that.

I hope that Miss E comes home happier xx

School starts back here on Thursday for Miss K, but DH is back today. She is going to the movies (Frozen) with Granny today, then visiting friends tomorrow. Nice way to finish off the holidays.

All good here. Had a colonoscopy (due to family history) on Friday during which I vomited. Have now lost voice and have chesty kind of cough. Feeling heaps better than I was on the weekend, but luckily haven't had too many phone calls at work today!

Miss K can kind of do laces. Her school shoes are the velcro mary janes and sneakers have elastic laces and velcro up the top. She can sort of tell the time - they worked on half past and o'clock at school last year, but she knows that all the numbers on the clock really represent 5 minutes so she can do some early time telling (ie 10 past). Currently she is obsessed with bike riding and has been dragging us off for big hour long rides each day (have to take it in turns because our old bottoms aren't coping!!)

Arte, LMAO @ W being a "senior" student. It was kind of weird walking past the reception classroom today, there were a few kids there (ie the repeaters) but the newies won't start until tomorrow (ie Carparking Hell, Round#2) - but it will be amazing to see how big our kids look next to the littlies.

That's fantastic that the awesome teacher is back. I haven't formed any judgement on E's new teacher yet. The OTHER teacher (ie, the one who has E's little separated friend) is FANTASTIC so I'm having a tiny bit of anticipatory teacher envy... without even knowing what this one is like LOL.

YAY also for carpooling! I don't think any of that will be happening here, but DD1 is (finally) keen to start getting her own self to school so that might take a bit of pressure off our mornings (and thousands of km/year off our mileage)! We'll see how long that lasts...

Didn't see you there Cally! That does sound like a nice way to finish off the holidays. Bummer about the colonoscopy AND the vomming. Chesty cough sounds a bit of a worry - do you think you might have aspirated? Maybe try some honey in some warm water, small sips - might help soothe the irritation. xxx

And WTG Miss K with the laces!! Do you think it helps having a trained teacher in da house? I sometimes have those moments when E wants to know something and I'm just not sure how to break it down into something short and sticky. (Notice a trend here re lack of brevity??? LMAO)

Rickrolled!

Cally, sucks about the colonoscopy. Hope you are feeling better now xx

Soz, couldn't help myself. :p.

Well, end of (a very HOT) first week of school and it looks like miss e is settling in to her new class ok. She was a little unsettled during the week and even wet the bed the other night after a very long dry run. I think I underestimated how big a transition it would be for her. Wondering now if we should have done more preparatory chat in the lead up, or whether that would have prolonged the changexiety.

How are the rest of our kidlets finding the transition?

Very hot weekend coming here. Not much for it but to find aircon!

Miss L had her first day back yesterday :D I was surprised at how GINORMOUS she looked in comparison to the prep kids...the children grow! they really do! hahahahaha.

I will have to buy her some new sneakers or something as ATM she only has some velcro mary jane things. cute as, but i dont think they will last very long. That said, i will have to get her to learn to tie laces (Cally, you wanna come down and do that for me :lol: ... not sure my patience will cope) as they take their shoes off when in class.

Cally: omg! i cannot believe that you vomited! you poor thing! i can only imagine that it was pretty horrendous to go through :( did you get the cough afterwards? strange! have you spoken to your specialist about it? I guess it will go away soon??

MD: apparently we have the 'cool' teacher. but that coolness is because he makes igloos out of milk bottles. so not sure how far that will stretch across the year LMAO.

Arte: that will be cool that W has someone he really (really!) likes with him at school. i do have moments of guilt at having forced miss L to start all over again in the friend department.

AFM: we are all good. Baking hot here (as MD is probably also experiencing!). we have been hit with hot sun and even hotter blustery winds now for weeks and absolutely NO rain. everything is just scorched. i have had to go around watering trees by hand as they are being hit really hard and loosing their leaves etc.
Miss M starts her 3 year old Kinder on tuesday!! she is sooo cute in her new little kindy top :heartbeat:
In some sadder news our neighbour here passed away this morning. he was up on the roof doing some odd jobs and had a heartattack :( first we knew of it was that there were firetrucks everywhere. really sad as he was the primary carer for his wife who had recently suffered a stroke. just so sad. so we have had some big conversations with Miss L today about it all as she was there having a look at the firetrucks.

Cass, sucks about your neighbour. I hope his wife has some other family to support her :(

MD, from the other thread, the Alexithymia thing sounds interesting.
From my experience, talking about upcoming events too much increases the anxiety.

W had his first day back today. They went swimming twice at school, and then we had swim club in the evening. Got to make hay while the sun shines around here!

How are our kidlets all settling into school? I think E is still feeling the effects of the transition, esp the changes to the little friends in her class etc. Also we are hanging out for the parent info night - E keeps saying she thinks she's got homework (words to practice in the green book) but the book never comes home and no other info either? I'm sure all will be revealed but I never understand why they wait until week 3 for the big reveal.

Cass -LOL at the milk bottle igloos (yeah, that is cool). How is M liking kindy? So sad to hear about your neighbour, it's tough knowing where to start to explain things like that to the kids.

Arte -
Yes the alexithymia stuff is v. interesting, bearing in mind that it is often thought to be an aspect of ASD (or comorbid with ASD). Other really interesting aspects are the lack of imagination/dream ideation, and tendency towards thinking in concrete, externally oriented ways. I'm running a theory about a family member, and I only stumbled across the alexithymia concept when I was searching for info about poor recognition of emotion/facial expressions. On an associated theme, I'm also sussing out 5-point scales for dealing with some of the OTT emotional outbursts that go on here. It's a "check yo self before you wreck yo self" thing where you use a 5 colour scale (red, orange, yellow, green, dark green/blue) to remind kids visually to check in on themselves and tone down their reactivity/behaviour - can be used for voice (shouting, etc) or stress or argumentativeness/aggression or hissy fits.

Md - yes, I did aspirate during the procedure. Voice back to normal now, but it was probably affected for about 10 days.

School is going fine. The bestie is in a separate class, but Miss K is coping fine with it as there are a few other girls she is friends with. Back into readers already - grrr. She is a great little reader, but trying to get her to sit down and practice drives me crazy! The wriggling, checking if her mozzie bites are bleeding, being cold so needing a blanket, too bright from the sun etc. If she's in a mood, the moment we hit a word she doesn't know, she won't even try and work it out, just guesses random words that often don't even look like what the original word is. We are trying to just read in the mornings straight after breakfast, when we have a bit of extra time as the evenings are fairly busy, but it hasn't really helped this week. This morning took us 15 minute to get through 2 pages - then she got in the zone and flew through the next 8 in the next 15 minutes! I wouldn't normally make her sit there for 30 minutes, I was just about to give up when she just turned the page and get into it. Oh and she can never find her place! Gets distracted by looking at a picture and can never remember where she is up to. DH has so much more patience than me so he will be tasked with weekend reading. The teacher is happy for other books to be included on the reading sheet so we can read some of our own books and they will still count towards her reading award. I was even considering this morning secretly recording her to show the teacher what she is like to try and get some ideas of strategies!

Super dry here too. Are you going to get some water tanks in Cass - with that massive garden you're going to spend a fortune on water if you don't!

Hope everyone else is well.

Cally, I read your post earlier and did an internal happy dance that we haven't had any readers home yet, but of course it was short lived and waiting in his bag today. Pretty much as you described, wobbling his legs and hence book all over the place then getting grumpy when I pointed out missed lines. I managed to save it by sitting him at the table and reading alternate pages. I had managed to erase the homework hell from my mind over the summer but I guess it is back again. I hate the fact that it takes longer to get him settled in and acting reasonable than it takes to do the actual work.

MD, do you think that alexithymia is a born personality trait, or something that develops during childhood due to parenting practices/circumstance?

Hello wuverlies!

Cally: I feel your pain man! There are days where Miss L is just way too strung out and tired to get her reading done. i have personally found that in the morning before school works best for her. after school she is just too wrecked.

we SOOOO need water tanks. they will be on the list for march me thinks. at the moment we havent had any rain i dont think in over a month. actually maybe longer?? it is so hot and dry. and i am TOTALLY raging right now as there was a CFA meeting for our street (it is a recognised significant fire risk street etc) and I GOT THE DATE WRONG! turned up today only to realise it was last night :wall: so angry at myself.

Arte: i too groaned internally when the readers turned up yesterday hahahaha. and now that she is doing better with her reading the darn stories are bloomin' long!

MD: some of those things about colours would, i reckon, be awesome to use on Miss L. whenever she goes a bit OTT etc we really need to hold her and focus her on how her 'belly' feels (gut feeling i guess) and ask her to see if that's how she wants to feel ITMS. but the colours might be a better way of self checking...

AFM: throwing ourselves into the country life with gusto: blue light disco and BBQ at the local pool tonight hahaha! LOVE IT!

Cass, the country life rocks :) We have a gypsy fair in town tomorrow. The kids are very excited lol

Usually we read a chapter of a book to W at bedtime and he will happily lay there and read the next chapter or two before he goes to sleep so I am going to talk to the teacher and see if we can count that instead of forcing unbelievably boring works upon him.

Cally, I'm glad you've got your voice back now :hug:, that can't have been nice.

Re reading, I found with DD1 that there were definitely different "windows" during the day when she would read with a lot more concentration/patience. After tea is good here, before tea is a disaster. TBH we don't have any problems with miss E fidgeting - but I suspect the readers were "too easy" last year, they had a very limited range in the reception box. Already we've had completely different readers come home (longer text, more words, etc). BUT - I'm quick to prompt her when she stalls. I usually sound the start of the word and then she gets it.

TBH I have no idea how well she is actually reading because she constantly surprises me at what she reads in other contexts. Like when I'm reading to her (eg, Milly Molly Mandy, not a huge # of pictures) and she corrects me (!). I think she uses a predictive method more than decoding the letters phonetically, which is good for fluency now but I'm not sure whether it might be a disaster a bit further down the track? Anyway, they have this trick at school which is pretty neat: every time you can't work out a word by yourself, you hold up a finger. If you get to five fingers, then maybe you're reading the wrong book, and it's best to pick another one.

LOL Arte at your internal happy dance. Ah it's so peaceful when they just come home and there are no homework, isn't it? Re the alexithymia - from my reading it seems like there may be a bit of both aspects. For the family member I'm thinking of, I think there may be an inherited aspect, but then I think about that person's mother and their extremely limited range of emotional expression (including facially) and then I wonder if it's a learnt response to the absence of emotional feedback? Plus in this case there was also a significant head injury at a young age. (FWIW alexithymia can also be a trait in people with PTSD, another kettle of fish). BUT I do believe that even IF it was a born personality trait, early recognition and then explicit teaching of self-awareness and corresponding social skills would help enormously and might even grow some adaptive brainal pathways, kwim? There are plenty of kids with aspergers who display alexithymic traits and who, with good early intervention, go on to function well in this area. It's the people who get to their 40s and 50s without ever realising they're out of sync with 98% of the world's population who are the ones who are going to struggle, IMO.

BTW "gypsy fair" sounds awesome. Again I'm wanting to move to NZ. :p

Cass, I will let you know how the colour thing goes, I'm kind of just feeling my way because i don't want to spend a bajillion dollars on buying other people's kits. Bummer missing the CFA meeting, but I'm sure they would be happy to send someone out to talk to you, seeing as how you're new to the whole shebang. Anyway, it's good excuse to knock on a few more neighbours' doors, if you haven't already.

Far out is is cold here again. Thinking of turning on the heat pump. Swim club is probably cancelled today, which is a good thing because I have had the swimsuits on on the line since Thursday and the rain is showing no sign of letting up!

The gyspy fair was only about 8 house buses, so not hugely exciting but the walk there and a look around managed to break up the day.

MD - I'd never heard of that 5 finger thing before, but it was on one of the info sheets which came home last week too. A really good one for when she is reading a book from the home collection. Couldn't they grab other readers last year - Miss K would have to run across the courtyard to year 1 to grab one from their collection once she got past a certain level.

We get homework on Fridays and have to return it on Thursday's. Loving having the weekend to do it. Also loving being able to read other books when the readers are finished. She got through 3 Dr Seuss books on the weekend - some quite easy, but it's still reading and getting back into the swing of it.

Arte - we're talking about getting Miss K into her own reading at bedtime too. We got into the routine of proper book read by one parent, into bed, other parent reads 'short story', then 1st parent returns for cuddle/kiss. Getting sick of having to go back in for second time when I am parent 1, also the 'short story' is from a collection of 12 she has which can be recited from memory by all! She hasn't been into them lately and has wanted us to make up stories. I have nil imagination and HATE doing that. So ditch 'short story' and let her read for 5-10 minutes by herself. Then second parent can go in and turn light off and it's all over.

Also reaffirmed my belief on the weekend that small bikes should be supplied with brake lights! She stopped dead in the middle of the path and I missed her by inches! Got my adrenalin rush for the day and not a good one.

OMG I hate it when they stop dead in front of you on the bike!! I get grumpy real quick if W keeps swerving/stopping in front of me. Especially if I have E in the baby carrier.

That sounds like a long bedtime routine. I also have no imagination - I shudder inside when they ask me to make up my own story lol - def try getting her to read by herself. I am not sure if it is perfect reading, but he can tell me what happened in the last chapter the next night so I guess enough is going in.

ETA. W's teacher stopped by to drop off his reading books (no forgetting around here lol) and she said he is allowed to read silently now! Freedom!!!

In other news, DH has a job interview tomorrow for a position that would see us moving to his hometown right at the arse of the world. It would be great for the kids. They would see their grandparents all the time. All.The.Time. I am in two minds about it. I know it would be totally great for the kids to have some actual family around and the town has a swimming pool, movies, full range supermarkets, a department store and even an ice skating arena. More stuff to do in the weekends etc. But I have friends here and it has taken a long time to get a nice little circle of people and I like my quiet little town where everyone knows everyone. Also I hate that I am a public crier and the goodbyes would suck. They approached him and he almost certainly has the job if he wants it so it all sort of comes down to the money.

Arte - oh, that move sounds good and bad. Away from your little town and friend, but closer to extended family..... DH has been talking about looking at other places for him to go and I don't really want to think about it. It helps that my role is definitely here with minimal chance of relocating so we'd end up with a total wage drop if DH got a new job. I've been here 9 years and only just starting to feel like I belong, do not want to start again!

Cally, don't sell yourself short - I am sure you could find another job. But it is a good card to play. Not working works against me because I would be more likely to find something in school/kindy hours in a bigger town and the g.parents would be available to pick up the kids if needed. I also prefer to stick my head in the sand. It has taken so long to build up my little community. But then again the family we car pool with are planning to buy a yacht and go island hopping for a year or two and other friends are moving in the next couple of years. I don't want to be the one left holding on to what used to be itms. But the thought of starting all over with no friends is hard.

Anyway, he had the interview and they didn't talk about the salary! Now we still have no idea if it is even viable. A bit frustrating.

Sorry Arte but I had a bit of an LOL at your cold weather. 43 here today. AGAIN. Oh well at least we have electricity. BTW - the arse end of the world is actually a very nice bit of NZ and probably not much further from civilisation in real terms from where you're at now. I understand how daunting it is to uproot from friendships, though. :hug: No advice, only a reminder that there are beautiful people every where, you just have to keep shining your own gorgeous light and they will find you. xxx

I don't know what the deal was with the readers last year. The new teacher keeps saying how the readers they've got are easier than what they were reading last year (to make up for the backwards drift over school holidays & boost up the reading confidence) but I keep thinking, yeah... NAH. They just had one mega box of readers last year (and not a lot of attention paid to selection), unlike this year when they are all in colour coded, number levels. Not that it mattered much since E was supplementing her own reading with other texts.

LOL at your complicated bedtime routine, Cally. Ours blew out a lot over the holidays. We had that many nights when she was still bouncing around and singing out and demanding at 10pm (!!). Seems to have sorted itself out now that's she's back at school and more tired. After she's had stories and cuddles in the loungeroom, DH usually puts her to bed (because he can't be distracted into lengthy extra snuggles and chats like I am) and she has a dim (15 watt) lamp and an audio book on the stereo. That lamp stays on until she's asleep because she's scared in the darkness. She also looks at books, even when an audio book is on (?). I might start rotating more relaxation type music and even some visualisations through the playlist.

Cass, I hope all is well up your way today. x