1. What is your favorite word? I love you Mum ( i know its not just one word, but its the very best thing i get to hear each day).
2. What is your least favorite word? Swear word starting with C***. Not that anyone i know personally says this, but drunk bastards round the area like to yell it at people. To me its the most derogative term for a female of any race or culture.
3. What turns you on [creatively, spiritually or emotionally]? Umm magpies singing, birds at dawn, scent of rain coming and amazing fresh smell after rain on the garden.
4. What turns you off? People smoking cigarettes, especially pregnant women, I just want to slap them. Ohh and seeing (and having to walk through) a bunch of nurses and medical staff standing on the footpath outside the hospital to have a smoke now that the hospital and grounds are no smoking areas. How the F**K can they smoke when they see all the people with cancer, emphysema, COPD, cardiac disease, gangrenous limbs from toxin build up in extremities, and knowing that all these things are caused by cigarette smoking!!
5. What sound or noise do you love? Hearing my kids playing together nicely, rain hitting the metal roof out the back.
6. What sound or noise do you hate? Mosquito buzzing when i am trying to sleep & My dogs barking/howling/whinging every twenty minutes when the next siren goes past, especially at night when i am actually tired and trying to sleep and have to keep getting out of bed to shut them up before someone calls the police/council etc or the shift workers and early rising neighbours get peeved.
7. What is your favorite curse word? SFA (Sweet F**k All!)
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Architect and/or Engineer.
9. What profession would you not like to do? Teaching (had enough of it with my first bach of primary prac, didnt want to do anymore).
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
Your grandparents and everyone you love (including pets) are waiting for you just over there.
Friday, 19 October 2007
Thursday, 18 October 2007
8 random things from my kitchen...& More about You...
Ok well tagged for this by Nicole , lol well my kitchen, hmm good thing i cleaned it today, so let's see :
1. Lots of Dead Flowers - I got the most gorgeous bouquet of natives as a thankyou present several years ago now and they are all long dead and still looking gorgeous in the corner near my sink.
2. 2 x cordless drills - because i have three cupboard doors that the hinges broke and bought new hinges for, but can NOT buy a screwdriver bit to match the damn screws the kitchen guy put in them, I even took the entire door into three hardware shops and was told that the particular type of "torque" screw is NO LONGER MANUFACTURED SO THEY NO LONGER SELL BITS TO MATCH IT ARRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!!
3. vegi scraps - waiting to go to the compost bin, they tend to wait several days as the person responsible for them often is "too tired" to do his one daily chore.
4. Loads of magnets, including five copies of the same magnet, because every time i go to the chemist lately they put a new magnet in the bag with my scripts.
5. More flowers - silk variety this time.
6. 10kg bag of rice - waiting for the remaining 2kg of the previous 10kg bag to be used up, so the new bag will fit in the containers.
7. A yellow and red beany teddy bear that says Best Mum.
8. Multiple figurines, including our Chinese year of birth ones, the Snake for DD and Myself, the Ox for DS and the Tiger for DBF.
Lol loads more random bits n bobs as well.
And this one :
More About You
1. Something I do well: Anything that I put my mind too
2. Something I'd like to improve on: Ability to keep my focus, not get sidetracked so easily
3. My favourite food: Milk
4. Three words that describe me best: Nurturing, Bossy, Dictionary.
5. My happiest moment: Um I don't know which one was the happiest, any that involves seeing my kids do well, that makes them beam with self confidence, like Boo getting 2nd place at Zone last year, even though it was her first zone comp and she still couldn't skip with her left leg and had trouble balancing, or two weeks ago when DS made his very own cup of tea including boiling the kettle on the gas cooktop and then sitting down with a look of content normally only seen on a well fed cat.
6. The most important thing in my life right now: My kids!
1. Lots of Dead Flowers - I got the most gorgeous bouquet of natives as a thankyou present several years ago now and they are all long dead and still looking gorgeous in the corner near my sink.
2. 2 x cordless drills - because i have three cupboard doors that the hinges broke and bought new hinges for, but can NOT buy a screwdriver bit to match the damn screws the kitchen guy put in them, I even took the entire door into three hardware shops and was told that the particular type of "torque" screw is NO LONGER MANUFACTURED SO THEY NO LONGER SELL BITS TO MATCH IT ARRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!!
3. vegi scraps - waiting to go to the compost bin, they tend to wait several days as the person responsible for them often is "too tired" to do his one daily chore.
4. Loads of magnets, including five copies of the same magnet, because every time i go to the chemist lately they put a new magnet in the bag with my scripts.
5. More flowers - silk variety this time.
6. 10kg bag of rice - waiting for the remaining 2kg of the previous 10kg bag to be used up, so the new bag will fit in the containers.
7. A yellow and red beany teddy bear that says Best Mum.
8. Multiple figurines, including our Chinese year of birth ones, the Snake for DD and Myself, the Ox for DS and the Tiger for DBF.
Lol loads more random bits n bobs as well.
And this one :
More About You
1. Something I do well: Anything that I put my mind too
2. Something I'd like to improve on: Ability to keep my focus, not get sidetracked so easily
3. My favourite food: Milk
4. Three words that describe me best: Nurturing, Bossy, Dictionary.
5. My happiest moment: Um I don't know which one was the happiest, any that involves seeing my kids do well, that makes them beam with self confidence, like Boo getting 2nd place at Zone last year, even though it was her first zone comp and she still couldn't skip with her left leg and had trouble balancing, or two weeks ago when DS made his very own cup of tea including boiling the kettle on the gas cooktop and then sitting down with a look of content normally only seen on a well fed cat.
6. The most important thing in my life right now: My kids!
Tuesday, 16 October 2007
Autism & other disabilities. My story & DS story.
WARNING STRONG LANGUAGE and VERY VERY LONG!
Autism is not new to me, neither are other disabilities.
I knew about autistic children when i was in primary school, we used to go visit the autistic school to perform for them (i played third violin in our tiny ensemble/orchestra) and our guide unit went to another local special school on a weekend so that we could immerse ourselves in disabilities (by being strapped into a wheelchair and having to learn to get ourselves around the school, or having to look into a convex mirror to be able to see what we were writing or drawing, try doing dot to dot in a convex mirror, you will never complain again about your own short sightedness or long sightedness) all in preparation for the once a year camp where severely disabled guides and scouts camped with able bodied guides and scouts for several days.
Now don't get me wrong, i am no angel, infact i truly hated the girl that we got lumped with at camp - literally lumped with as the guide leaders didn't like me or the two girls i was with, so they made their very best effort to get us the hardest to care for girl, the one who had full mental function but not very good physical functions, although i swear she wet the bed on purpose twice when we refused in the middle of the night to cuddle and rock her to sleep, (she was 115kg and we were 50 and 60 kg, there is no way we could "rock" her) we were 14 at the time and so was she!. I later found out (via one of the older girls who had had problems with her the year before) that this was just her, she was sexually active by the time she was 9 and liked other girls (and i had no idea what sex even was at that age) so it wasn't just me having problems with her.
This particular girl however is not the norm for any disability, although I have since met other children with heightened sexual interests, including one dear little boy who frightened the life out of his foster mother when he started producing semen at age 5 and took to rubbing himself on bins, doors and people, this same little boy however used to try and bleed himself by shoving his fingers, pencils, anything that would fit, into his nostrils to try and let the blood out as he insisted that the blood was killing him, poisoning him. This poor sweet child (who was also so violent he had to be rehomed after being with his foster mother for 6 years, because he kept trying to harm her elderly mother and her infant son, it broke her heart to do it but what else could she do) was not able to be classified as any one disability, he was on ritalin for his adhd behaviours, he was on high strength sleeping tablets to stop him self harming during the night (he smashed a window and tried slicing himself with pieces of it, he ended up with a mattress on the ground as he would climb up on any furniture and dive headfirst at the ground, but by law they were not allowed to restrain him, even for his own safety).
My own cousin was disabled physically after contracting polio as a baby. She wore those awful leather boots and metal stirrups for many years and made damn sure that everyone felt sorry for her (very spoilt only child from well to do parents) or they paid dearly if they didn't bend to her every demand (us cousins from the poor parents got her handme downs and she made sure she announced this at every party we were made to attend).
So none of this was new to me, but when DS was born and I knew he wasn't right somehow, I didn't know how to get any help. I was 20, unmarried and had a partner who hadn't touched me or spoken nicely to me since the night i told him i was pregnant and refused his offer to pay for an abortion. I had very few friends at that point, so suffered in silence through a pregnancy that was physically difficult and mentally and emotionally exhausting, not only from lack of support but also constant abuse from my partners family (his fathers exact words to him and me, when told i was pregnant - lol obvious by then anyway as i was at least 7 months : My prick got me into trouble with you, and now yours has done the same to you. You and the gold digging bitch wont get a cent from me.)
DS had many things that weren't normal, some i asked about, some i didn't. I will list them in order as i remember rather than timeline order.
His Birth, he was 43 weeks to the day when they decided to induce me, this after i had waters leak sporadically for weeks (my doona still has the stains) and break fully two days (19 days overdue) before hand. But when i asked the nurse could it be my waters breaking she told me i was silly little girl who had probably wet myself and to go back to bed - i was in the hospital with high blood pressure and heat exhaustion. I spent the entire night and the next day in a bed soaked with sticky amniotic fluid and when i complained that the fetal monitoring belt was making more gush out they ignored my request for a clean sheet or assistance to get to the shower (too dizzy to stand without assistance by then).
By the morning of 21 days overdue the ob/gynae decided to induce and put me on a drip at 8am(syntocinon, wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy) and told me to go for a walk with the drip on wheels to get it started (he didn't tell me how bad it was going to be when it did), so i waddled from the fourth floor to the seventh floor (with my partner who grumbled about lack of pay from not working) to go visit his father who was admitted there after having an infarct an hour before i had been admitted with high blood pressure (both happened during my partners birthday dinner, so i was feeling sorry for him). I barely made it back down to the birthing sweet before my legs could no longer hold me up the contractions and pain was that strong. By midday i was had it, i couldn't sit, couldn't stand, needed to pee but sitting on the toilet was too painful, the pethidine had no effect on me at all and there was no anaesthetist available to put in an epidural until 5pm, by then my best friend and my partner had to stand either side of me and let me hang from their shoulders as i could not stand, sit or lie down.
After the epi was done, the ob came back for the tenth time that day to check on me and stated that he was going to break the waters to get it moving as it had been too long. He went to break them to find there was NONE left. See the nurses that night hadn't recorded that i thought my waters had broken, so the ob didn't know it had happened. So DS had spent two entire days with his head pressed into my cervix with no fluid to shock absorb.
My cervix finally dilated at 9.20pm (went from 2cm to 10 cms in ten minutes) and DS was born at 9.54, coming out facing backwards (he was backwards the entire pregnancy which is why my stomach is so bad now), with the cord not only looped around his neck, but tied in a "true knot". The survival rate i was told later, is 95% of true knot babies are still born, 4% have brain damage and 1% are ok. DS was considered to be in that 1% and the Ob told me he had never seen a live true knot baby in all 40 years of practice. He cut the cord before DS shoulders were delivered as the knot would have tightened and cut off the blood supply before they could get him out.
He was purple, still and not breathing when they handed him to me and i remember wondering why they wanted me to cuddle a dead baby. They then seemed to notice that he wasn't breathing, yanked him away, did resuss procedures, took him to the neonatal ward for an hour (left me alone on the damn bed with two drips in and unable to move from the chest down and busting to pee but couldn't bring myself to pee on the bed). When he came back he was as pale as a ghost, and looked like he had been beaten up.
He had a haematoma on his head that was bigger than my hand, from where he had been forced by gravity onto my cervix without the amniotic buffer. This caused him to be quite badly jaundiced and took 8 weeks to go down. The pic below is DS at 10 days old, his first night at home and you can see the huge lump that makes his head look twice as big at the back above his ear and just how dark his skin is with the biliruben levels.
My tailbone (already fractured from one of the falls i had during the pregnancy) cracked fully during the birth (fucking painful) and even with the epi so overdosed i couldn't feel myself breathe, i still felt the most incredible pain while delivering DS (and was told i couldn't possibly). Years later (after DD was born) i had to have a hysterectomy (age 23) and was told that they had had to repair my stomach muscles which had been split down the centre vertically and one side had actually twisted (DS and his kicking) and my pelvic floor which had torn away from one end (i told them it hurt when he was delivered and i even heard them snap).
So all in all, DS and I were both rather traumatised by the birth. Even worse, because i had elected to be transferred to the private hospital after the birth (no birthing suite at the private hospital) they put DS and Me in a car at 1am to transfer us.
DS was still dopey as all hell. I was told later by a lovely midwife at the private hospital (who showed me how to breastfeed DS at 2am (no noone at teh other hospital thought to check if i was able to feed him) that the pethidine was the cause of the dopiness and possibly the fact he needed resuscitation.
And people wondered why we spent ten days in hospital and why i wouldn't let anyone hold him or touch him and why i developed PND (which went undiagnosed for the first 12 mths of DS life).
I remember when he was 2 days old, and asking for him to be assessed by a paediatrician because one of his eyes kept rolling backwards into his head. Seeing as his father had fairly strong family history (every male in that family for several generations had to have eye surgery) of having one weak/lazy eye and longsightedness, I was sure DS was the same but was told he was fine. Tell me you can't see that he is crosseyed in this pic, he was 2 days old.
He didn't crawl until 14 1/2 mths, and started walking at 15mths. He then walked around bumping his head into things so much that i bought him crash helmets and those padded head protectors to wear. Everyone thought i was insane (and i had lost my confidence in myself by then, so had no idea whether i was right or wrong). When he was two I was getting my eyes reviewed (i am short sighted but don't need glasses unless reading off a board or driving at night and needing to read street signs) I casually asked the optometrist what age they could test kids. The optometrist had a look at him, used a machine that can do auto reads (they use it all the time now before doing manual testing as it can pick up inconsistencies where people try to fake it so to avoid glasses etc) and announced that DS was infact WORSE than his father and NEEDED GLASSES ASAP! He infact was seeing several (five or six) points of vision out of each eye due to flat spots on his cornea, so his brain literally was swimming with images, NO FUCKING WONDER HE RAN INTO EVERYTHING!
Yet this same little boy had mystical language skills, he said his first word (parroted me) at four months old (i had it on video too, but dickhead ex took all my video footage). He said "BONES" after i asked him did his milk have bones in it (he choked). at 18mths when his father finally married me, we went on our honeymoon (laughable term really) and took DS with us. We went to every mountainbike (his fathers passion at the time) shop on the gold coast and in brisbane and while driving through tweed heads DS cried out and pointed "BIKE SHOP". Now we couldn't see a bike shop anywhere, no bikes no pictures, so we did a loop and came back around. We finally found it, ontop of a two story building was a sign SAYING "BIKE SHOP" in plain blue writing, no pictures or graphics, just those two words and no actual shop insight (every second shop was vacant at that stage). Apparently DS had learnt to recognise and read those words during that week when we visited all those shops. Noone would believe us though as we couldn't get him to repeat the performance.
Oh and language, well you know some kids when they see a truck they say fuck. DS did this, top of lungs everywhere we went. WHY, well see Daddy drove a truck, a large tilt tray to be exact, so DS knew all about trucks. Walking down a street with him was sheer torture some days, because at the top of his lungs he would point to all the trucks and list them off without pausing, just like this "DADDY FUCK MUMMY FUCK BIG FUCK PRETTY FUCK BLUE FUCK" and mummy is hurrying down the street with head bent, avoiding all the astonished looks from other people and trying to remember where she left her car so she could escape home and hide again. This was at about 10 mths old.
At 12mths, when the PND was diagnosed and the doctor recommended DS go to daycare at least one day a week so i could have time out, the daycarer's were amazed that ds could talk in 5 or 6 word coherent, context appropriate sentences and actually hold a conversation. Now this may have been my fault, because being home alone with DS for 12 months and very limited adult interaction, I spent most of my day talking to DS as if he was an adult. I also found that the only time i could put him down during the day, without him screaming til he spewed again (reflux baby) was to put him in his portacot right infront of the tv with the lion king or Oliver's tail on video and the sound up loud. Then he would lie there fascinated and watch it, leaving mummy free to go to the toilet with two hands rather than one holding the baby and the other to do what needed to be done (became very adept at one handed stuff during that first four months). I spent hours singing with him, reading him books and poetry, talking with him, playing games with him. I remember the early childhood nurse remarking that my bond with him at 6 mths was a lot stronger than any other mother child bond she had seen and that she had witnessed how well he reacted to my talking to him, yet sounds around us and colours and objects he didn't appear to notice at all, even when he ran into them.
Most of our early days were spent like this. DS would go to bed at 10pm, he would sleep soundly until 8am every morning, would not wake to feed, even when i tried to wake him (i had dreadful mastitis because of this) and then from 8am until 10pm, we would have 15min cycles. 5 minutes of screaming, 5 mins of feeding, projectile spew up to 6 metres away in whatever direction he was facing (i wore old towels most of the day) and 5 mins of him sleeping (unless i put him down).
So i learnt really quickly several things.
1. DS urine burnt his skin, so every single wee meant a nappy change, even for a tiny drop. 4 dozen cloth nappies lasted me until 3pm on the first day he was at home. his father arrived at 4pm to find me frantically trying to calm DS down while he screamed and screamed and liquid ran down his legs. He went to the shops and bought another 4 dozen nappies. He also reacts to zinc, it made the nappy rash turn into red raw blistered skin.
2. Giardia is actually catchable in australia, even though the paediatrician we saw in the childrens ward when DS was 10 weeks old, had 41 degree fever, constant diarrhea, dehydration and had gone from 9 pound 4 ounces at birth to 8 pounds at 10 weeks, told me that Giardia couldn't be caught in australia as we are a civilised country. I knew what it was though because my father had it too (*and he gave it to DS unknowingly after arriving back from indonesia). I must admit to laughing my head off manically several weeks later when the 6pm news announced that Giardia had been found present in the Sydney water supply. SEE DR SMILEY, GIARDIA IS NOT JUST A 3rd WORLD PROBLEM!
3. Reflux is not easy to deal with. The medications make the spew more slimey, which inturn makes it very hard to hold onto the wriggling, back arching, kicking, screaming baby that is now covered in slimey spew. It also is difficult to stop the baby from drowning when he spews while lieing on his back and it goes up in a fountain and straight back down onto his face. It does not suddenly dissapear, it is just that the projectile vomiting stops and it becomes sneaky reflux and burns babies oesophagus and lungs and causes chronic asthma and recurrent pneumonia's.
4.
Babies who continually smash their heads against the carseat, floor, midair, mums face and anything else they can touch, are NOT NORMAL!
Toddlers who do this whenever distressed, told no, put into their cot or their highchair are NOT NORMAL!
Toddlers who roll both eyes back into their head while telling you that "M is DEAD! I am bob the builder and M cant hear you!" ARE NOT NORMAL!
Babies who refuse to eat and actually starve themselves are NOT NORMAL!
However i have learnt that telling anyone about these episodes and trying to get help is more likely to get me examined for Munchausens By Proxy, than to get my child any help. This happened when he was 12 mths old and i insisted he was having strange choking fits at 2am each night and finally out of sympathy (i had been at the a&e every night for six weeks trying to get help) the nurse admitted us to the kids ward (unbeknownst to me labelled as mother suspected Munchausens By Proxy). However, in doing tests on DS to prove to me that nothing was wrong, they instead found he was infected with WHOOPING COUGH, which explained the middle of the night coughing/choking episodes. Its just that during the day his asthma meds were controlling the cough enough that he didn't ever WHOOP!
I have also learnt that hospital counsellors can not always be trusted. One of them rang centrelink without my verbal or written permission and accessed all my details (by telling them she was from the hospital) and changed my payments whilst i was staying in the children's ward with DS. This resulted in my getting home to several letters from centrelink to inform me of my changes and me putting a complaint into the hospital and the counsellor losing her job. This also resulted in me getting first an overpayment, then a debt, then an underpayment and then a repayment for the underpayment, causing me much more stress than i was already under.
Behaviour has always been an issue for DS. To this day behaviour is a big issue and because we still don't have an "official" diagnosis, people who SHOULD know better, still treat us as if DS is purposely obnoxious and badly behaved and regard me as an innatentive mother who doesn't discipline her rogue child. HELLO I AM STRICT AS HELL!! I CANT DISCIPLINE HIM ANY HARDER WITHOUT RESORTING TO ABUSE! I do however have little tolerance these days for people who SHOULD know DS by now, so if they build themselves a mountain by treating him as if he is purposely being obnoxious and then demand from me a way that they can get off their mountain without DS WINNING, then they can go to hell, because their is NO WAY DS WON'T WIN! If you ban him from joining in, HE WILL LOVE IT BECAUSE HE DOESNT HAVE TO EXPEND ENERGY! If you yell at him, HE WILL SIT THERE AND STARE AT YOU BLANKLY! If you try to guilt trip him, like saying "well the others miss out because of you!" HE WILL IGNORE THIS BECAUSE HE DOESNT UNDERSTAND OR FEEL GUILT IN THE WAY YOU DO!
People assume because he is High Functioning and High Intelligence that he is naughty on purpose. Now sometimes they are right, he is naughty on purpose sometimes. BUT he also has massive fears and these cause him to act out. They are not all rational, like the fear that i will leave him behind. I have never done this, but if i got out of his sight, he would scream like a banshee and try adn find me, even if it meant he ran infront of a moving car to where he thought i went. Even if i was only a metre away from him but out of his sight this happened until he was 8 years old. Part of this was because of his father, his father treats him like a toy, plays for a bit then hands him back, even when he lived with us (til DS turned 6 years old). But he was oncall 24 hours a day, 7 days a week most times (tow truck) as well as working a normal 40 hour week at work (panelshop & towtruck). SO he would arrive home at any hour, then could be here all night or be gone again in ten minutes, DS would hear the truck coming home and be all bubbly and chirpy and run at Daddy as soon as he came in the door (DADDYS biggest complaint was that he just wanted to come home to peace and quiet and why did the kids have to attack him first thing - my response :gee well maybe its cause they havent see you in three days!) and then scream and cry and cling to daddy whenever the phone rang, which meant Daddy walking out the door again. Daddy would simply remove theclinging growth from his leg, climb over the gate (DS was not a climber so we just walked over gates that kept him safe) and go back to work with DS on the verandah screaming DADDY DONT LEAVE ME!! This fear has subsided since we were seperated and then divorced, it took 2 years but i can now go next door without DS panicking and screaming or running out into traffic to look for me. He is now secure because he knows when and where i am going and while i am now mean and wont tell him where, just "we are going in the car, hurry up and get in" I think it is working, he is learning that he doesnt HAVE TO KNOW EXACTLY WHERE WE ARE GOING TOO to be safe and content, he KNOWS I WONT LEAVE HIM BEHIND or if I am going without him, THAT I WILL RETURN and that he is safe with whoever I leave him with.
Other physical issues, well the reflux damaged his lungs, but at age 4 he had his first endoscopy, colonoscopy and biopsy in preparation for a possible Nissen Fundoplication. THANKFULLY we were advised to try more food elimination first, and by 4 yrs 6 months, we KNEW that all the reflux, annorexia, pneumonias, diarhhea, bowel impactions, constant immune problems, anaemia etc were caused by FOOD INTOLERANCE! So by taking out everythign excepting rice, chicken and water, we went from a 4 yr old weighing 10kg who refused to eat unless forced (including needign a nasogastric tube and stomach pump) to 6 weeks later having a relatively healthy looking child that put on 8 kilograms, YES EIGHT KILOGRAMS IN SIX WEEKS! and he was no longer choking, arching his back, having stomach acid go up his throat and down into his airways.
We spent 9 months in total, doing the full elimination diet to find that he is severely wheat, gluten, rye, oats, barley, malt and any starch or glucose made from these intolerant. He is also mildly intolerant to MSG (naturally occurs when you concentrate tomato into paste or sauce) and SOY products. THIS FINDING SAVED HIS LIFE!
You see he was starving to death no matter how much or what we shoved down his throat. I say We but in reality it was just me and him most of the time and DD once she was born. When we removed it all and he went clean, his body was able to regenerate the Villi and Micro Villi and start actually taking in nutrients, which is how he managed to put weight on so quickly whilst eating only chicken, rice and water.
He has had to go through this process a second time due to stupidity on his fathers behalf, because when we seperated, he told DS that the food strictness was just mummy being mean and there was no such thing as food intolerance, so i then had an emotionally disturbed (parents seperated, kids and I had to move out as DH would not relinquish the house for six months, DH father telling kids really awful things, like when he told my 3 yr old DD that MUMMY IS A GOLD DIGGING SLUT!) SO poor DS had to go back on full eat anything diet and 9 mths later he was again, pale, anorexic, impacted with severe diarhea, refluxing, begging to go clean and not allowed until he could have another endoscopy and biopsy (because even the gp and paediatrician told DS food intolerance was real and he didnt listen to them, so we went the whole 9 yards to prove it to him).
So after going clean again, the first ten days is like a heroin addict going cold turkey. It is simply horrendous watching your child shake, sweat, vomit, cry, rage and pass out while going through detox and there is NOTHING you can do to make it better other than sit it out, cuddle them and do things like cool washers for the sweat, bicarb and water to help the impaction pass (which speeds up the detox a little). DS now KNEW what he could and couldnt eat, he KNEW WITHOUT A DOUBT that Mummy was not just being mean and HE CHOSE to be GLUTEN AND WHEAT FREE! He had to learn to read labels himself as his father first refused to do so an kept insisting on feeding him bad foods, DS also learnt to read and check what his baby sister was eating after she had a mild anaphylactic reaction to egg yolk and constantly had diarhea, vomiting, bad flatulence etc to dairy and her father fed her M&M's for breakfast each time he had them.
He also is missign half of his sternum, this is a physical abnormality that also was not picked up at birth or during the first two years even though we went to the gp and paediatrician almost weekly for years and he was hospitalised at least sixteen times in those two years. It was during one hospitalization that the paediatrician asked me "how long has your son had that skeletal abnormality?" and I looked at him and asked "what abnormality, you have been seeing him since he was born, what do you mean?". It was not long after this that we changed Paediatricians and found the good one who recognised the reflux, organised endoscopies and tests and recommended food testing.
Anyway missing this bone means his heart is not protected and his rib cage is weakened as the lower half of his rib cage connects to NOTHING at the front, directly over his heart. He also has a heart murmur, that we have to be wary of as he gets older. He can NOT play any form of contact sport, even school yard soccer is too dangerous. He does Physical Culture, Little Athletics (scary this year as he will be learning the "flop" in high jump) and SWIMS, although swimming is an issue.
Swimming is an issue as DS has TACTILE ISSUES. He does not like water touching him (although is getting better, he no longer has a total meltdown if he has to go out in the rain), which in one way is useful because while smacking has no effect and the naughty corner is a joke (punishment for teh mother who gets to hold the screaming biting punching kicking scratching child to keep him in the corner), a ten second burst of cold shower water near his head is enough that it only has to be threatened as a consequence and he behaves. However, it also means that swimming has to be relearnt every year at the start of summer, he loses all memory that he got right up to level 6 and squad swimming and goes back to clinging to the edge and screaming and meltdown if you try and help him leave the edge. EVERY YEAR! but within a few times, especially if friends are swimming around him, he will let go and start swimming slowly and last season he even dived into a pool. THIS IS A HUGE ACHIEVEMENT FOR HIM!.
Other tactile issues involve his head, especially his "sensitive sore spot" which unbeknownst to him is where the Haematoma was at birth. This spot can not be brushed or touched or rubbed (NIT COMBING IS HORRIFIC). He does not like his teeth being brushed so hasnt had them brushed more then ten times since he turned 5 yrs old (i got sick of losing tips of my fingers and having dints in my nails where he bit me while biting the heads off the toothbrushes). He can not sleep if there is a sheet, a pillowcase or a doonacover involved, so all his bedding is naked. He can not sleep if there is a mosquito (neither can i so i dont blame him for this at all) as the buzzing is too loud. He has spent years being terrified of the dark (blackouts are also horrific events as he fears the power and lights will never come back on again), so insists on sleeping with a light on, until earlier this year when we finally managed to get him to sleep without a light directly in his room, having light seep from the next room along instead. Daytimes he has issues with glare and brightness and gets headaches, so we have gotten him transition lenses that get darker when they are in bright light and go clear in dim light.
Oh and i could go on and on and on, he is such a complicated child, and i love him dearly and i feel guilty because he often gets 8/10ths of my attention while DD gets 1/10th adn DBF (nearly been 4 yrs now) gets 1/10th.
He is turning 10 years old in January 2008. I will be celebrating this milestone with glee, because it has been the HARDEST ten years of my life (and i did not have an easy childhood either) but DS and I will have survived the ten year mark!
This is not all of our story, there is much much more and its not even begun really. We now are fighting to get recognition so that DS can go back to school, get help such as an aide or things like chew items or fiddle items to help him with his concentration, extra tutilage for his learning disability (reads tolkein but cant spell most four letter words or write them very well).
but with all of this, this whole long rant, it came about from reading another page on an autistic child and all the things they have tried and programs they have been in and books they recommend and I realise i have tried, tested and done a lot of these things too, without knowing why or being told too, i just did them and i think this is why we are having so much trouble getting him diagnosed, because noone really saw all the bad stuff or documented it, and they have no comparison from then to now. I wouldnt change what i did, I am happy having a high functioning child, i just wish the system didnt require your child to be extremely low functioning and/or low iq to be eligible for any help or support.
Ok well that is enough for one post lol, will write more later. This is very cathartic to get this all out. If you have read all of this then you are amazingly patient (and probably have a headache by now, sorry).
HUGS!
Autism is not new to me, neither are other disabilities.
I knew about autistic children when i was in primary school, we used to go visit the autistic school to perform for them (i played third violin in our tiny ensemble/orchestra) and our guide unit went to another local special school on a weekend so that we could immerse ourselves in disabilities (by being strapped into a wheelchair and having to learn to get ourselves around the school, or having to look into a convex mirror to be able to see what we were writing or drawing, try doing dot to dot in a convex mirror, you will never complain again about your own short sightedness or long sightedness) all in preparation for the once a year camp where severely disabled guides and scouts camped with able bodied guides and scouts for several days.
Now don't get me wrong, i am no angel, infact i truly hated the girl that we got lumped with at camp - literally lumped with as the guide leaders didn't like me or the two girls i was with, so they made their very best effort to get us the hardest to care for girl, the one who had full mental function but not very good physical functions, although i swear she wet the bed on purpose twice when we refused in the middle of the night to cuddle and rock her to sleep, (she was 115kg and we were 50 and 60 kg, there is no way we could "rock" her) we were 14 at the time and so was she!. I later found out (via one of the older girls who had had problems with her the year before) that this was just her, she was sexually active by the time she was 9 and liked other girls (and i had no idea what sex even was at that age) so it wasn't just me having problems with her.
This particular girl however is not the norm for any disability, although I have since met other children with heightened sexual interests, including one dear little boy who frightened the life out of his foster mother when he started producing semen at age 5 and took to rubbing himself on bins, doors and people, this same little boy however used to try and bleed himself by shoving his fingers, pencils, anything that would fit, into his nostrils to try and let the blood out as he insisted that the blood was killing him, poisoning him. This poor sweet child (who was also so violent he had to be rehomed after being with his foster mother for 6 years, because he kept trying to harm her elderly mother and her infant son, it broke her heart to do it but what else could she do) was not able to be classified as any one disability, he was on ritalin for his adhd behaviours, he was on high strength sleeping tablets to stop him self harming during the night (he smashed a window and tried slicing himself with pieces of it, he ended up with a mattress on the ground as he would climb up on any furniture and dive headfirst at the ground, but by law they were not allowed to restrain him, even for his own safety).
My own cousin was disabled physically after contracting polio as a baby. She wore those awful leather boots and metal stirrups for many years and made damn sure that everyone felt sorry for her (very spoilt only child from well to do parents) or they paid dearly if they didn't bend to her every demand (us cousins from the poor parents got her handme downs and she made sure she announced this at every party we were made to attend).
So none of this was new to me, but when DS was born and I knew he wasn't right somehow, I didn't know how to get any help. I was 20, unmarried and had a partner who hadn't touched me or spoken nicely to me since the night i told him i was pregnant and refused his offer to pay for an abortion. I had very few friends at that point, so suffered in silence through a pregnancy that was physically difficult and mentally and emotionally exhausting, not only from lack of support but also constant abuse from my partners family (his fathers exact words to him and me, when told i was pregnant - lol obvious by then anyway as i was at least 7 months : My prick got me into trouble with you, and now yours has done the same to you. You and the gold digging bitch wont get a cent from me.)
DS had many things that weren't normal, some i asked about, some i didn't. I will list them in order as i remember rather than timeline order.
His Birth, he was 43 weeks to the day when they decided to induce me, this after i had waters leak sporadically for weeks (my doona still has the stains) and break fully two days (19 days overdue) before hand. But when i asked the nurse could it be my waters breaking she told me i was silly little girl who had probably wet myself and to go back to bed - i was in the hospital with high blood pressure and heat exhaustion. I spent the entire night and the next day in a bed soaked with sticky amniotic fluid and when i complained that the fetal monitoring belt was making more gush out they ignored my request for a clean sheet or assistance to get to the shower (too dizzy to stand without assistance by then).
By the morning of 21 days overdue the ob/gynae decided to induce and put me on a drip at 8am(syntocinon, wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy) and told me to go for a walk with the drip on wheels to get it started (he didn't tell me how bad it was going to be when it did), so i waddled from the fourth floor to the seventh floor (with my partner who grumbled about lack of pay from not working) to go visit his father who was admitted there after having an infarct an hour before i had been admitted with high blood pressure (both happened during my partners birthday dinner, so i was feeling sorry for him). I barely made it back down to the birthing sweet before my legs could no longer hold me up the contractions and pain was that strong. By midday i was had it, i couldn't sit, couldn't stand, needed to pee but sitting on the toilet was too painful, the pethidine had no effect on me at all and there was no anaesthetist available to put in an epidural until 5pm, by then my best friend and my partner had to stand either side of me and let me hang from their shoulders as i could not stand, sit or lie down.
After the epi was done, the ob came back for the tenth time that day to check on me and stated that he was going to break the waters to get it moving as it had been too long. He went to break them to find there was NONE left. See the nurses that night hadn't recorded that i thought my waters had broken, so the ob didn't know it had happened. So DS had spent two entire days with his head pressed into my cervix with no fluid to shock absorb.
My cervix finally dilated at 9.20pm (went from 2cm to 10 cms in ten minutes) and DS was born at 9.54, coming out facing backwards (he was backwards the entire pregnancy which is why my stomach is so bad now), with the cord not only looped around his neck, but tied in a "true knot". The survival rate i was told later, is 95% of true knot babies are still born, 4% have brain damage and 1% are ok. DS was considered to be in that 1% and the Ob told me he had never seen a live true knot baby in all 40 years of practice. He cut the cord before DS shoulders were delivered as the knot would have tightened and cut off the blood supply before they could get him out.
He was purple, still and not breathing when they handed him to me and i remember wondering why they wanted me to cuddle a dead baby. They then seemed to notice that he wasn't breathing, yanked him away, did resuss procedures, took him to the neonatal ward for an hour (left me alone on the damn bed with two drips in and unable to move from the chest down and busting to pee but couldn't bring myself to pee on the bed). When he came back he was as pale as a ghost, and looked like he had been beaten up.
He had a haematoma on his head that was bigger than my hand, from where he had been forced by gravity onto my cervix without the amniotic buffer. This caused him to be quite badly jaundiced and took 8 weeks to go down. The pic below is DS at 10 days old, his first night at home and you can see the huge lump that makes his head look twice as big at the back above his ear and just how dark his skin is with the biliruben levels.My tailbone (already fractured from one of the falls i had during the pregnancy) cracked fully during the birth (fucking painful) and even with the epi so overdosed i couldn't feel myself breathe, i still felt the most incredible pain while delivering DS (and was told i couldn't possibly). Years later (after DD was born) i had to have a hysterectomy (age 23) and was told that they had had to repair my stomach muscles which had been split down the centre vertically and one side had actually twisted (DS and his kicking) and my pelvic floor which had torn away from one end (i told them it hurt when he was delivered and i even heard them snap).
So all in all, DS and I were both rather traumatised by the birth. Even worse, because i had elected to be transferred to the private hospital after the birth (no birthing suite at the private hospital) they put DS and Me in a car at 1am to transfer us.
DS was still dopey as all hell. I was told later by a lovely midwife at the private hospital (who showed me how to breastfeed DS at 2am (no noone at teh other hospital thought to check if i was able to feed him) that the pethidine was the cause of the dopiness and possibly the fact he needed resuscitation.
And people wondered why we spent ten days in hospital and why i wouldn't let anyone hold him or touch him and why i developed PND (which went undiagnosed for the first 12 mths of DS life).
I remember when he was 2 days old, and asking for him to be assessed by a paediatrician because one of his eyes kept rolling backwards into his head. Seeing as his father had fairly strong family history (every male in that family for several generations had to have eye surgery) of having one weak/lazy eye and longsightedness, I was sure DS was the same but was told he was fine. Tell me you can't see that he is crosseyed in this pic, he was 2 days old.
He didn't crawl until 14 1/2 mths, and started walking at 15mths. He then walked around bumping his head into things so much that i bought him crash helmets and those padded head protectors to wear. Everyone thought i was insane (and i had lost my confidence in myself by then, so had no idea whether i was right or wrong). When he was two I was getting my eyes reviewed (i am short sighted but don't need glasses unless reading off a board or driving at night and needing to read street signs) I casually asked the optometrist what age they could test kids. The optometrist had a look at him, used a machine that can do auto reads (they use it all the time now before doing manual testing as it can pick up inconsistencies where people try to fake it so to avoid glasses etc) and announced that DS was infact WORSE than his father and NEEDED GLASSES ASAP! He infact was seeing several (five or six) points of vision out of each eye due to flat spots on his cornea, so his brain literally was swimming with images, NO FUCKING WONDER HE RAN INTO EVERYTHING!Yet this same little boy had mystical language skills, he said his first word (parroted me) at four months old (i had it on video too, but dickhead ex took all my video footage). He said "BONES" after i asked him did his milk have bones in it (he choked). at 18mths when his father finally married me, we went on our honeymoon (laughable term really) and took DS with us. We went to every mountainbike (his fathers passion at the time) shop on the gold coast and in brisbane and while driving through tweed heads DS cried out and pointed "BIKE SHOP". Now we couldn't see a bike shop anywhere, no bikes no pictures, so we did a loop and came back around. We finally found it, ontop of a two story building was a sign SAYING "BIKE SHOP" in plain blue writing, no pictures or graphics, just those two words and no actual shop insight (every second shop was vacant at that stage). Apparently DS had learnt to recognise and read those words during that week when we visited all those shops. Noone would believe us though as we couldn't get him to repeat the performance.
Oh and language, well you know some kids when they see a truck they say fuck. DS did this, top of lungs everywhere we went. WHY, well see Daddy drove a truck, a large tilt tray to be exact, so DS knew all about trucks. Walking down a street with him was sheer torture some days, because at the top of his lungs he would point to all the trucks and list them off without pausing, just like this "DADDY FUCK MUMMY FUCK BIG FUCK PRETTY FUCK BLUE FUCK" and mummy is hurrying down the street with head bent, avoiding all the astonished looks from other people and trying to remember where she left her car so she could escape home and hide again. This was at about 10 mths old.
At 12mths, when the PND was diagnosed and the doctor recommended DS go to daycare at least one day a week so i could have time out, the daycarer's were amazed that ds could talk in 5 or 6 word coherent, context appropriate sentences and actually hold a conversation. Now this may have been my fault, because being home alone with DS for 12 months and very limited adult interaction, I spent most of my day talking to DS as if he was an adult. I also found that the only time i could put him down during the day, without him screaming til he spewed again (reflux baby) was to put him in his portacot right infront of the tv with the lion king or Oliver's tail on video and the sound up loud. Then he would lie there fascinated and watch it, leaving mummy free to go to the toilet with two hands rather than one holding the baby and the other to do what needed to be done (became very adept at one handed stuff during that first four months). I spent hours singing with him, reading him books and poetry, talking with him, playing games with him. I remember the early childhood nurse remarking that my bond with him at 6 mths was a lot stronger than any other mother child bond she had seen and that she had witnessed how well he reacted to my talking to him, yet sounds around us and colours and objects he didn't appear to notice at all, even when he ran into them.
Most of our early days were spent like this. DS would go to bed at 10pm, he would sleep soundly until 8am every morning, would not wake to feed, even when i tried to wake him (i had dreadful mastitis because of this) and then from 8am until 10pm, we would have 15min cycles. 5 minutes of screaming, 5 mins of feeding, projectile spew up to 6 metres away in whatever direction he was facing (i wore old towels most of the day) and 5 mins of him sleeping (unless i put him down).
So i learnt really quickly several things.
1. DS urine burnt his skin, so every single wee meant a nappy change, even for a tiny drop. 4 dozen cloth nappies lasted me until 3pm on the first day he was at home. his father arrived at 4pm to find me frantically trying to calm DS down while he screamed and screamed and liquid ran down his legs. He went to the shops and bought another 4 dozen nappies. He also reacts to zinc, it made the nappy rash turn into red raw blistered skin.
2. Giardia is actually catchable in australia, even though the paediatrician we saw in the childrens ward when DS was 10 weeks old, had 41 degree fever, constant diarrhea, dehydration and had gone from 9 pound 4 ounces at birth to 8 pounds at 10 weeks, told me that Giardia couldn't be caught in australia as we are a civilised country. I knew what it was though because my father had it too (*and he gave it to DS unknowingly after arriving back from indonesia). I must admit to laughing my head off manically several weeks later when the 6pm news announced that Giardia had been found present in the Sydney water supply. SEE DR SMILEY, GIARDIA IS NOT JUST A 3rd WORLD PROBLEM!
3. Reflux is not easy to deal with. The medications make the spew more slimey, which inturn makes it very hard to hold onto the wriggling, back arching, kicking, screaming baby that is now covered in slimey spew. It also is difficult to stop the baby from drowning when he spews while lieing on his back and it goes up in a fountain and straight back down onto his face. It does not suddenly dissapear, it is just that the projectile vomiting stops and it becomes sneaky reflux and burns babies oesophagus and lungs and causes chronic asthma and recurrent pneumonia's.
4.
Babies who continually smash their heads against the carseat, floor, midair, mums face and anything else they can touch, are NOT NORMAL!
Toddlers who do this whenever distressed, told no, put into their cot or their highchair are NOT NORMAL!
Toddlers who roll both eyes back into their head while telling you that "M is DEAD! I am bob the builder and M cant hear you!" ARE NOT NORMAL!
Babies who refuse to eat and actually starve themselves are NOT NORMAL!
However i have learnt that telling anyone about these episodes and trying to get help is more likely to get me examined for Munchausens By Proxy, than to get my child any help. This happened when he was 12 mths old and i insisted he was having strange choking fits at 2am each night and finally out of sympathy (i had been at the a&e every night for six weeks trying to get help) the nurse admitted us to the kids ward (unbeknownst to me labelled as mother suspected Munchausens By Proxy). However, in doing tests on DS to prove to me that nothing was wrong, they instead found he was infected with WHOOPING COUGH, which explained the middle of the night coughing/choking episodes. Its just that during the day his asthma meds were controlling the cough enough that he didn't ever WHOOP!
I have also learnt that hospital counsellors can not always be trusted. One of them rang centrelink without my verbal or written permission and accessed all my details (by telling them she was from the hospital) and changed my payments whilst i was staying in the children's ward with DS. This resulted in my getting home to several letters from centrelink to inform me of my changes and me putting a complaint into the hospital and the counsellor losing her job. This also resulted in me getting first an overpayment, then a debt, then an underpayment and then a repayment for the underpayment, causing me much more stress than i was already under.
Behaviour has always been an issue for DS. To this day behaviour is a big issue and because we still don't have an "official" diagnosis, people who SHOULD know better, still treat us as if DS is purposely obnoxious and badly behaved and regard me as an innatentive mother who doesn't discipline her rogue child. HELLO I AM STRICT AS HELL!! I CANT DISCIPLINE HIM ANY HARDER WITHOUT RESORTING TO ABUSE! I do however have little tolerance these days for people who SHOULD know DS by now, so if they build themselves a mountain by treating him as if he is purposely being obnoxious and then demand from me a way that they can get off their mountain without DS WINNING, then they can go to hell, because their is NO WAY DS WON'T WIN! If you ban him from joining in, HE WILL LOVE IT BECAUSE HE DOESNT HAVE TO EXPEND ENERGY! If you yell at him, HE WILL SIT THERE AND STARE AT YOU BLANKLY! If you try to guilt trip him, like saying "well the others miss out because of you!" HE WILL IGNORE THIS BECAUSE HE DOESNT UNDERSTAND OR FEEL GUILT IN THE WAY YOU DO!
People assume because he is High Functioning and High Intelligence that he is naughty on purpose. Now sometimes they are right, he is naughty on purpose sometimes. BUT he also has massive fears and these cause him to act out. They are not all rational, like the fear that i will leave him behind. I have never done this, but if i got out of his sight, he would scream like a banshee and try adn find me, even if it meant he ran infront of a moving car to where he thought i went. Even if i was only a metre away from him but out of his sight this happened until he was 8 years old. Part of this was because of his father, his father treats him like a toy, plays for a bit then hands him back, even when he lived with us (til DS turned 6 years old). But he was oncall 24 hours a day, 7 days a week most times (tow truck) as well as working a normal 40 hour week at work (panelshop & towtruck). SO he would arrive home at any hour, then could be here all night or be gone again in ten minutes, DS would hear the truck coming home and be all bubbly and chirpy and run at Daddy as soon as he came in the door (DADDYS biggest complaint was that he just wanted to come home to peace and quiet and why did the kids have to attack him first thing - my response :gee well maybe its cause they havent see you in three days!) and then scream and cry and cling to daddy whenever the phone rang, which meant Daddy walking out the door again. Daddy would simply remove theclinging growth from his leg, climb over the gate (DS was not a climber so we just walked over gates that kept him safe) and go back to work with DS on the verandah screaming DADDY DONT LEAVE ME!! This fear has subsided since we were seperated and then divorced, it took 2 years but i can now go next door without DS panicking and screaming or running out into traffic to look for me. He is now secure because he knows when and where i am going and while i am now mean and wont tell him where, just "we are going in the car, hurry up and get in" I think it is working, he is learning that he doesnt HAVE TO KNOW EXACTLY WHERE WE ARE GOING TOO to be safe and content, he KNOWS I WONT LEAVE HIM BEHIND or if I am going without him, THAT I WILL RETURN and that he is safe with whoever I leave him with.
Other physical issues, well the reflux damaged his lungs, but at age 4 he had his first endoscopy, colonoscopy and biopsy in preparation for a possible Nissen Fundoplication. THANKFULLY we were advised to try more food elimination first, and by 4 yrs 6 months, we KNEW that all the reflux, annorexia, pneumonias, diarhhea, bowel impactions, constant immune problems, anaemia etc were caused by FOOD INTOLERANCE! So by taking out everythign excepting rice, chicken and water, we went from a 4 yr old weighing 10kg who refused to eat unless forced (including needign a nasogastric tube and stomach pump) to 6 weeks later having a relatively healthy looking child that put on 8 kilograms, YES EIGHT KILOGRAMS IN SIX WEEKS! and he was no longer choking, arching his back, having stomach acid go up his throat and down into his airways.
We spent 9 months in total, doing the full elimination diet to find that he is severely wheat, gluten, rye, oats, barley, malt and any starch or glucose made from these intolerant. He is also mildly intolerant to MSG (naturally occurs when you concentrate tomato into paste or sauce) and SOY products. THIS FINDING SAVED HIS LIFE!
You see he was starving to death no matter how much or what we shoved down his throat. I say We but in reality it was just me and him most of the time and DD once she was born. When we removed it all and he went clean, his body was able to regenerate the Villi and Micro Villi and start actually taking in nutrients, which is how he managed to put weight on so quickly whilst eating only chicken, rice and water.
He has had to go through this process a second time due to stupidity on his fathers behalf, because when we seperated, he told DS that the food strictness was just mummy being mean and there was no such thing as food intolerance, so i then had an emotionally disturbed (parents seperated, kids and I had to move out as DH would not relinquish the house for six months, DH father telling kids really awful things, like when he told my 3 yr old DD that MUMMY IS A GOLD DIGGING SLUT!) SO poor DS had to go back on full eat anything diet and 9 mths later he was again, pale, anorexic, impacted with severe diarhea, refluxing, begging to go clean and not allowed until he could have another endoscopy and biopsy (because even the gp and paediatrician told DS food intolerance was real and he didnt listen to them, so we went the whole 9 yards to prove it to him).
So after going clean again, the first ten days is like a heroin addict going cold turkey. It is simply horrendous watching your child shake, sweat, vomit, cry, rage and pass out while going through detox and there is NOTHING you can do to make it better other than sit it out, cuddle them and do things like cool washers for the sweat, bicarb and water to help the impaction pass (which speeds up the detox a little). DS now KNEW what he could and couldnt eat, he KNEW WITHOUT A DOUBT that Mummy was not just being mean and HE CHOSE to be GLUTEN AND WHEAT FREE! He had to learn to read labels himself as his father first refused to do so an kept insisting on feeding him bad foods, DS also learnt to read and check what his baby sister was eating after she had a mild anaphylactic reaction to egg yolk and constantly had diarhea, vomiting, bad flatulence etc to dairy and her father fed her M&M's for breakfast each time he had them.
He also is missign half of his sternum, this is a physical abnormality that also was not picked up at birth or during the first two years even though we went to the gp and paediatrician almost weekly for years and he was hospitalised at least sixteen times in those two years. It was during one hospitalization that the paediatrician asked me "how long has your son had that skeletal abnormality?" and I looked at him and asked "what abnormality, you have been seeing him since he was born, what do you mean?". It was not long after this that we changed Paediatricians and found the good one who recognised the reflux, organised endoscopies and tests and recommended food testing.
Anyway missing this bone means his heart is not protected and his rib cage is weakened as the lower half of his rib cage connects to NOTHING at the front, directly over his heart. He also has a heart murmur, that we have to be wary of as he gets older. He can NOT play any form of contact sport, even school yard soccer is too dangerous. He does Physical Culture, Little Athletics (scary this year as he will be learning the "flop" in high jump) and SWIMS, although swimming is an issue.
Swimming is an issue as DS has TACTILE ISSUES. He does not like water touching him (although is getting better, he no longer has a total meltdown if he has to go out in the rain), which in one way is useful because while smacking has no effect and the naughty corner is a joke (punishment for teh mother who gets to hold the screaming biting punching kicking scratching child to keep him in the corner), a ten second burst of cold shower water near his head is enough that it only has to be threatened as a consequence and he behaves. However, it also means that swimming has to be relearnt every year at the start of summer, he loses all memory that he got right up to level 6 and squad swimming and goes back to clinging to the edge and screaming and meltdown if you try and help him leave the edge. EVERY YEAR! but within a few times, especially if friends are swimming around him, he will let go and start swimming slowly and last season he even dived into a pool. THIS IS A HUGE ACHIEVEMENT FOR HIM!.
Other tactile issues involve his head, especially his "sensitive sore spot" which unbeknownst to him is where the Haematoma was at birth. This spot can not be brushed or touched or rubbed (NIT COMBING IS HORRIFIC). He does not like his teeth being brushed so hasnt had them brushed more then ten times since he turned 5 yrs old (i got sick of losing tips of my fingers and having dints in my nails where he bit me while biting the heads off the toothbrushes). He can not sleep if there is a sheet, a pillowcase or a doonacover involved, so all his bedding is naked. He can not sleep if there is a mosquito (neither can i so i dont blame him for this at all) as the buzzing is too loud. He has spent years being terrified of the dark (blackouts are also horrific events as he fears the power and lights will never come back on again), so insists on sleeping with a light on, until earlier this year when we finally managed to get him to sleep without a light directly in his room, having light seep from the next room along instead. Daytimes he has issues with glare and brightness and gets headaches, so we have gotten him transition lenses that get darker when they are in bright light and go clear in dim light.
Oh and i could go on and on and on, he is such a complicated child, and i love him dearly and i feel guilty because he often gets 8/10ths of my attention while DD gets 1/10th adn DBF (nearly been 4 yrs now) gets 1/10th.
He is turning 10 years old in January 2008. I will be celebrating this milestone with glee, because it has been the HARDEST ten years of my life (and i did not have an easy childhood either) but DS and I will have survived the ten year mark!
This is not all of our story, there is much much more and its not even begun really. We now are fighting to get recognition so that DS can go back to school, get help such as an aide or things like chew items or fiddle items to help him with his concentration, extra tutilage for his learning disability (reads tolkein but cant spell most four letter words or write them very well).
but with all of this, this whole long rant, it came about from reading another page on an autistic child and all the things they have tried and programs they have been in and books they recommend and I realise i have tried, tested and done a lot of these things too, without knowing why or being told too, i just did them and i think this is why we are having so much trouble getting him diagnosed, because noone really saw all the bad stuff or documented it, and they have no comparison from then to now. I wouldnt change what i did, I am happy having a high functioning child, i just wish the system didnt require your child to be extremely low functioning and/or low iq to be eligible for any help or support.
Ok well that is enough for one post lol, will write more later. This is very cathartic to get this all out. If you have read all of this then you are amazingly patient (and probably have a headache by now, sorry).
HUGS!
Sunday, 14 October 2007
More Bling!
Thursday, 11 October 2007
Thoughts for Thursday!
For household use, especially when remembering which telemarketer rang you today :
For Kelley, and all the other mothers whose survival (and children/coworkers survival) depends on mums coffee intake:
And a recent picture of Me:
Enjoy Your Day.
For Kelley, and all the other mothers whose survival (and children/coworkers survival) depends on mums coffee intake:
And a recent picture of Me:
Enjoy Your Day.
Mwuhahahaha!!!!!
Tuesday, 9 October 2007
Summer!
Summer is here.
How do I know this, well even though officially it is still Spring, it is now so hot and humid each day that we have started our seasonal afternoon thunderstorms. Bad enough that today, only our second storm of the season, brought hail, lots of it and some chunks as big as a 2.5kg shot put (i am guessing 5cm diameter) and lots that were golf ball sized. I watched most of these hit my car and my gardens, watched the magpies cowering undercover where they had been caught away from their nest, looking anxiously towards the tree where their baby is. And other than feeling sorry for the magpies and hoping their baby would be ok, I loved every minute of that delicious smelling storm with the cool but not too icey rain and the wonderous smells that a garden full of herbs, fruits and native plants puts off when rained upon.
Is it going to be a hot summer, well I would say so, it is far hotter already than last year was, last year we didn't get half the storms we normally do and last year we only got one hailstorm and that was the week before Christmas. Last year i was still wearing a jumper almost until Christmas.
The plants are a little confused, some of the citrus trees are currently sporting last years fruit, fruit that is a few months old because we had hot days in the middle of winter and they thought spring had come and then they are covered in the now springs new flowers. I am hoping however that with the heat and thunderstorms back to what is normal for this area, that maybe we will get a decent mango crop this year, it has been awful with next to no mangoes the last three years. I can imagine a heaven where unlimited mangoes could be eaten, bathed in and generally lived in.
As a teen i was initiated into the most heavenly tradition, you take a bunch of friends, have a wrestle in a mud bath (generally easy to find when each afternoon brings a storm), traipse down a hot steamy road til you get to the mango plantation, eat them hot and fresh, sun ripened, juices flowing over your lips, face, arms, chest. Once totally satiated, slowly waddle down to the creek and lazily wash the luxurious mud and mango skin treatment off, to emerge an hour later with cool, glowing skin and a totally relaxed mental state. On the way back you pick a bag of mangoes to take home for desert and midnight snacks.
Oh and the humidity, just in time to remind me how urgently i need the bathtub to be plumbed in and the walling done, because i don't like wearing swimmers or swimming in public. Well OK i don't mind night time swimming, but the council doesn't really approve of people jumping the fence at night time, why i don't know, because there isn't anyone there as a lifeguard during the day, and its well lit at night, so what is the difference? So i need to get that bath fixed so i can soak in my cold water and read and relax, oh how i miss that small luxury.
And lets not forget the constant power drops, brown outs they call them, where the lights dim and the computer crashes because all the people in Sydney just turned their air con up higher and us being at the other end of the state at the end of two measly skinny wires, well we only get full power when most of Sydney is asleep, let alone all the places in between. I read a report that was tabled with the NSW and federal government at least ten years ago where they stated exactly why the power system needs upgrading, why areas such as ours can spend hours without any power in summer because of air conditioners increased usage in Sydney and Newcastle. I know a couple of Country Energy guys, i asked them and they told me that nothing has changed, the upgrade was never approved or funded. The other problem is that the two skinny wires we get power from (which like the other day when one failed only half the town had power for four hours) is that the two are not compatible and don't run the same voltages. I am not an electrician, but it doesn't sound very good to me.
I don't even have a working air con unit, although i do have one, it came as part of the kitchen wall, built into the bottom of a window, but it crashes every other appliance and system in the house when the thermostat tries to cut in, so it doesn't get used at all. The ceiling fan and a spritz of water are it. My house is relatively cool, we get a decent breeze most days and if really pushed, I lay under a ceiling fan with a water sprayer, in a darkened room.
Worst of all is Daylight savings. Tell me how this makes my life better. DD who wakes at sunrise each morning will wake an hour earlier according to the clock, and will go to bed while the sun is still up each night, unless i try to keep her up later. And just up the road a bit is the poor Tweed Coast, who have half their town and residents in NSW and the other half in QLD. One half have DST time and the other EST time, but there isn't an identical set of services on either side of the border, some are solely located on the NSW side and some on the QLD side. The poor people who live and work in this area suffer dreadful confusion each year. Just take the mothers that work on the QLD side but live and have kids going to the school on the NSW side.
But all in all, this summer whine of mine, I actually prefer summer, its easier to lose weight when you cant help breaking a sweat while sitting still, its more comfortable to wander around in the skimpiest (or none if possible) clothing rather than having to wear five or six layers to stay warm. The best fruits are available in summer, cherries, mangoes, nectarines, plums oh even thinking of them makes me drool. And the heat makes a salad meal so much more appetising, and that cant hurt the waist any either. Oh and its easier to sleep when warmer, well for me anyway.
Now didn't i warn you this was a ranting and raving blog!
MWUHAHAHAHA!!!!
How do I know this, well even though officially it is still Spring, it is now so hot and humid each day that we have started our seasonal afternoon thunderstorms. Bad enough that today, only our second storm of the season, brought hail, lots of it and some chunks as big as a 2.5kg shot put (i am guessing 5cm diameter) and lots that were golf ball sized. I watched most of these hit my car and my gardens, watched the magpies cowering undercover where they had been caught away from their nest, looking anxiously towards the tree where their baby is. And other than feeling sorry for the magpies and hoping their baby would be ok, I loved every minute of that delicious smelling storm with the cool but not too icey rain and the wonderous smells that a garden full of herbs, fruits and native plants puts off when rained upon.
Is it going to be a hot summer, well I would say so, it is far hotter already than last year was, last year we didn't get half the storms we normally do and last year we only got one hailstorm and that was the week before Christmas. Last year i was still wearing a jumper almost until Christmas.
The plants are a little confused, some of the citrus trees are currently sporting last years fruit, fruit that is a few months old because we had hot days in the middle of winter and they thought spring had come and then they are covered in the now springs new flowers. I am hoping however that with the heat and thunderstorms back to what is normal for this area, that maybe we will get a decent mango crop this year, it has been awful with next to no mangoes the last three years. I can imagine a heaven where unlimited mangoes could be eaten, bathed in and generally lived in.
As a teen i was initiated into the most heavenly tradition, you take a bunch of friends, have a wrestle in a mud bath (generally easy to find when each afternoon brings a storm), traipse down a hot steamy road til you get to the mango plantation, eat them hot and fresh, sun ripened, juices flowing over your lips, face, arms, chest. Once totally satiated, slowly waddle down to the creek and lazily wash the luxurious mud and mango skin treatment off, to emerge an hour later with cool, glowing skin and a totally relaxed mental state. On the way back you pick a bag of mangoes to take home for desert and midnight snacks.
Oh and the humidity, just in time to remind me how urgently i need the bathtub to be plumbed in and the walling done, because i don't like wearing swimmers or swimming in public. Well OK i don't mind night time swimming, but the council doesn't really approve of people jumping the fence at night time, why i don't know, because there isn't anyone there as a lifeguard during the day, and its well lit at night, so what is the difference? So i need to get that bath fixed so i can soak in my cold water and read and relax, oh how i miss that small luxury.
And lets not forget the constant power drops, brown outs they call them, where the lights dim and the computer crashes because all the people in Sydney just turned their air con up higher and us being at the other end of the state at the end of two measly skinny wires, well we only get full power when most of Sydney is asleep, let alone all the places in between. I read a report that was tabled with the NSW and federal government at least ten years ago where they stated exactly why the power system needs upgrading, why areas such as ours can spend hours without any power in summer because of air conditioners increased usage in Sydney and Newcastle. I know a couple of Country Energy guys, i asked them and they told me that nothing has changed, the upgrade was never approved or funded. The other problem is that the two skinny wires we get power from (which like the other day when one failed only half the town had power for four hours) is that the two are not compatible and don't run the same voltages. I am not an electrician, but it doesn't sound very good to me.
I don't even have a working air con unit, although i do have one, it came as part of the kitchen wall, built into the bottom of a window, but it crashes every other appliance and system in the house when the thermostat tries to cut in, so it doesn't get used at all. The ceiling fan and a spritz of water are it. My house is relatively cool, we get a decent breeze most days and if really pushed, I lay under a ceiling fan with a water sprayer, in a darkened room.
Worst of all is Daylight savings. Tell me how this makes my life better. DD who wakes at sunrise each morning will wake an hour earlier according to the clock, and will go to bed while the sun is still up each night, unless i try to keep her up later. And just up the road a bit is the poor Tweed Coast, who have half their town and residents in NSW and the other half in QLD. One half have DST time and the other EST time, but there isn't an identical set of services on either side of the border, some are solely located on the NSW side and some on the QLD side. The poor people who live and work in this area suffer dreadful confusion each year. Just take the mothers that work on the QLD side but live and have kids going to the school on the NSW side.
But all in all, this summer whine of mine, I actually prefer summer, its easier to lose weight when you cant help breaking a sweat while sitting still, its more comfortable to wander around in the skimpiest (or none if possible) clothing rather than having to wear five or six layers to stay warm. The best fruits are available in summer, cherries, mangoes, nectarines, plums oh even thinking of them makes me drool. And the heat makes a salad meal so much more appetising, and that cant hurt the waist any either. Oh and its easier to sleep when warmer, well for me anyway.
Now didn't i warn you this was a ranting and raving blog!
MWUHAHAHAHA!!!!
Monday, 8 October 2007
Telemarketers!
I spent 45 minutes on the phone with one woman, quite happily wasting her time, after having her call me every single day for several weeks, wasting my time and sanity (which i have precious little of at the best of times). She kept telling me I had won a free phone, but I would have to pay the $30 postage and handling to get it, and I would have to sign up for a $20 or $40 dollar a month contract to use the stupid thing. So I spent 45 mintues asking, well if its free, how come its going to cost me $30 to get it and then another $20 a month minimum to use it, thats not a free phone at all! But Mrs (oh and she kept using my ex husbands last name, not mine, so earning her extra points in my anger system) the phone costs you nothing, it is free. We went round on this merrygoround for at least 20 minutes and then the next 20 was spent on me:”but i already have a good mobile phone, why would i want another one? I cant talk on two of them at the same time? Her: but this one is better AND ITS FREE. Me: What does it have thats better, mine already has internet access, bluetooth, sms, mms, 512mb hdd memory, plays any nintendo game (mind you i dont have any cause each game cartridge costs $70 but i didnt tell her that) AND it works as a personal calendar, notebook and planner and an alarm clock AND BEST OF ALL IT MAKES PHONE CALLS. What does yours do that this one doesnt?? Her: Well its new and its free.
PMSL, since then I have gotten severely annoyed with another one, cause he insisted he was australian and in australia, even though his accent was that heavy i could barely understand him (and i am good with accents) so when i mentioned i wasnt interested he got really angry, so i asked for his supervisor, he said no, so i repeated the request to speak to his supervisor as well as mentioning that i am recording this conversation and that it will be played for the telecommunications ombudsman, that got me the supervisor, who i then repeated the request that they stop ringing me, the supervisor tells me that I am rude and discriminatory because i asked for someone who understood english (hello i only asked him not to call me 20 times and got him ringing straight back 20 times, if he doesnt understand english, dont call me). So then I asked the supervisor what country he was calling from, he insists he is in australia, so I say, well you wont mind giving me your name and the company you work for name then, which he does, i then say well “”" I guess you are in big trouble now, because not only have you and your staff rung me 20 times tonight, you have rung a number that is on the national do not call register, which if you were IN AUSTRALIA you would have known not to call because it is now ILLEGAL to call someone on that register for telemarketing purposes and I have just reported you while we were talking on the Registers website. I hope you have a good day! He hung up and I have had NO calls from them again lol.
Hehe, my cousin worked as a telemarketer for optus at one stage, and DBF brother worked for one of the mobile companies as well. Both of them commented that they got people answering who said “oh well at least you speak English, but I am still not interested”.
My grandmother had (and still does, i actually pity the telemarketers that ring her) a fantastic solution. Years ago she had someone who used to ring several times a day and breathe heavy but never talk to her, so she got one of those really good post masters whistles and blue on it next to the handpeice the next time he called. He never called back. She does this as soon as they say good evening mrs “”" we are calling from xyz to offer you….
My most hated ones are the ones that ring up, say Hello is this MRS >>>> and I say NO, I am not a MRS I am MISS, but you have the first name and surname correct, Who is speaking? They reply with, My name is pete and I need you to tell me your address and date of birth before i can disclose any further information.
GRRRR that sets me off. I go on this big rant about how any damn person could ring me and say that, there is NO WAY i am giving out my address OR my date of birth. How about I ring them and ask for theirs?
They reply with, well if you feel this way then you can ring our toll free number and then give it to us. Hello, anyone can pay to get a toll free service, that still doesnt tell me who you are or that you are legitimate. If you are legit, how about you tell me my date of birth and address and what about the company name you are calling for. I will then look up your company in the phone book or internet and ring you on an official landline.
Their answer, which really peeves me :Due to the Privacy Policy, we cant reveal who we are as that would breach Mrs Such and Such’s privacy.
Me: Right, well DONT RING ME THEN!! SLAM.
Several days later i get a letter in the mail saying that the bank or centrelink or whatever tried to contact me by phone and that i was unnecessarily difficult and abusive.
hehe, you should see the written reply attached with a copy of the letter, which gets mailed back to their head office.
I think the bank has worked it out now, cause now they dont call, they just send me a letter.
I am nasty, I blame my father for this lol cause its his temper i inherited and its his temper that flares when this happens.
PMSL, since then I have gotten severely annoyed with another one, cause he insisted he was australian and in australia, even though his accent was that heavy i could barely understand him (and i am good with accents) so when i mentioned i wasnt interested he got really angry, so i asked for his supervisor, he said no, so i repeated the request to speak to his supervisor as well as mentioning that i am recording this conversation and that it will be played for the telecommunications ombudsman, that got me the supervisor, who i then repeated the request that they stop ringing me, the supervisor tells me that I am rude and discriminatory because i asked for someone who understood english (hello i only asked him not to call me 20 times and got him ringing straight back 20 times, if he doesnt understand english, dont call me). So then I asked the supervisor what country he was calling from, he insists he is in australia, so I say, well you wont mind giving me your name and the company you work for name then, which he does, i then say well “”" I guess you are in big trouble now, because not only have you and your staff rung me 20 times tonight, you have rung a number that is on the national do not call register, which if you were IN AUSTRALIA you would have known not to call because it is now ILLEGAL to call someone on that register for telemarketing purposes and I have just reported you while we were talking on the Registers website. I hope you have a good day! He hung up and I have had NO calls from them again lol.
Hehe, my cousin worked as a telemarketer for optus at one stage, and DBF brother worked for one of the mobile companies as well. Both of them commented that they got people answering who said “oh well at least you speak English, but I am still not interested”.
My grandmother had (and still does, i actually pity the telemarketers that ring her) a fantastic solution. Years ago she had someone who used to ring several times a day and breathe heavy but never talk to her, so she got one of those really good post masters whistles and blue on it next to the handpeice the next time he called. He never called back. She does this as soon as they say good evening mrs “”" we are calling from xyz to offer you….
My most hated ones are the ones that ring up, say Hello is this MRS >>>> and I say NO, I am not a MRS I am MISS, but you have the first name and surname correct, Who is speaking? They reply with, My name is pete and I need you to tell me your address and date of birth before i can disclose any further information.
GRRRR that sets me off. I go on this big rant about how any damn person could ring me and say that, there is NO WAY i am giving out my address OR my date of birth. How about I ring them and ask for theirs?
They reply with, well if you feel this way then you can ring our toll free number and then give it to us. Hello, anyone can pay to get a toll free service, that still doesnt tell me who you are or that you are legitimate. If you are legit, how about you tell me my date of birth and address and what about the company name you are calling for. I will then look up your company in the phone book or internet and ring you on an official landline.
Their answer, which really peeves me :Due to the Privacy Policy, we cant reveal who we are as that would breach Mrs Such and Such’s privacy.
Me: Right, well DONT RING ME THEN!! SLAM.
Several days later i get a letter in the mail saying that the bank or centrelink or whatever tried to contact me by phone and that i was unnecessarily difficult and abusive.
hehe, you should see the written reply attached with a copy of the letter, which gets mailed back to their head office.
I think the bank has worked it out now, cause now they dont call, they just send me a letter.
I am nasty, I blame my father for this lol cause its his temper i inherited and its his temper that flares when this happens.
Saturday, 6 October 2007
What is Physi?
Just incase you are wondering about my choice of utube videos over to the left. Physi is the short or nickname for Physical Culture. This is one of the sports that my kids do.
In the 1892 Hans Bjelke Peterson (uncle of the QLD Politician), who was soon after joined by his brothers Johannes and Harald, and his sister Marie started Physical Culture as a form of discipline and exercise for men. At some stage young ladies also started doing this sport and by the 1950's it had become a female dominated sport.
This form of Physi has become known as BJP. Although there are a few outside clubs that do similar work but are not associated with BJP.
To this day, a lot of the women and girls that compete still wear that 50's look with pride, they Boof their hair, tan so dark that they go orange and look like pretty female OompaLoompa's wearing leotards. Not all the girls do this, but there is still a huge percentage that do. The younger girls are not allowed to tan or wear more than a smidge of lippy, they also cannot wear the shimmers and fishnets that the older girls and ladies wear.
In 2005 the official reintroduction of boys occurred. However even in its third year, there is still a lot of resistance from the old school girls who firmly believe that boys do not belong in the physi world.
My DS has been doing this sport since 2003, although those first two years he was not officially recognised and was not able to be registered to compete. He did it alongside his baby sister, learning the baby girls work, to help her have the confidence to get up on the floor as the only baby our club had. She happily did anything her big brother did and as she needed to do Physi to help strengthen the muscles in her hips and knees (to stop her feet and legs turning 360 degrees in any direction), DS was encouraged to get up and help her do the work (didn't take much encouragement, he had been wanting to do Physi since he was a baby as our friend and babysitter did physi and he had seen her perform, so when she became a teacher he was going to do it, sister or no sister lol).
Now a lot of people think - oh well you are training your son to be gay (this was an actual comment at the Sydney Boys National Physi Event in 2006 by the lady manning the entry booth when a mother came running up to say her boy had won the event, much outcry happened about this comment and we hope that lady will not be working there this year). Just because my boy is learning to be flexible, to touch his toes, to move with rhythm and grace does not make him gay or will teach him to be gay.
My grandfathers era, all the men went to the dances every week or month, thats how they met the girls. Being able to dance with rhythm and grace meant you were more likely to pick up the best chicks. And most of those men then became the ANZACS, who were renowned for being tough resilient buggers. Tell me dancing made them soft, weak, gay?? So why would it do it to the boys now, and have a look at their work, it includes punching, kicking, pushups, reverse pushups, situps, bounces. Its tough work their routines, even the teachers, who have been doing physi for years, they work up a sweat teaching and practicing the boys routines with the boys. The girls who are lucky enough to have boys in their club, think the boys work is cool and often get up the back of the hall and mimic the boys work.
The girls work is pretty standard, each year they do five routines, all flowing one after the other. They get different music and different choreography each year, but it always has standard positions that were originally designed by the Bjelke-Peterson Brothers as medical gymnastics. Strong yet graceful arms, powerful legs with pointed toes, yet able to one minute look like a swan and the next leap as powerfully as a gazelle. 8 year olds onwards start doing the splits. The 15 year olds through to the Seniors do the most energetic and tough work and then the ladies come onto the floor, their work isn't the easiest, but they are no longer required to do the splits or big leaps, they don't do a frenetically paced dance, instead they do an "impulse" which is like a dance, but sways with the pulse of the music.
If you get a chance, go spend some time watching one of the Physi Comps, the girls are amazing and compete at Zone around Vic, NSW, ACT & Qld and then at National level at Homebush and then the 15's, seniors and ladies compete for the ultimate titles on the stage at the Opera House each year during November. The boys don't have a Zone competition as there are not enough of them year in most zones (our zone has three, the same three that are part of our club), so they go straight to Sydney each October and compete against any boy who has had the ability to attend.
This is why Virgin ticket specials from Brisbane, Gold Coast and Ballina going to Sydney in the months of October and November sell like hotcakes in July and August. Because each level of Competition is on a different day. For instance, my DD has Zone on the 20/21st of October on the North Coast of NSW. The following weekend the ladies and seniors have zone at the same location that DD did the week before, and the ladies are the same day as the Boys compete in Sydney (not great timing as there were a few mums that were going to compete this year that will now be flying their child to Sydney instead). The nearly every weekend in November is taken with the National finals and then the Opera House night.
Anyway, that's just a bit of information whether you needed it or not lol.
In the 1892 Hans Bjelke Peterson (uncle of the QLD Politician), who was soon after joined by his brothers Johannes and Harald, and his sister Marie started Physical Culture as a form of discipline and exercise for men. At some stage young ladies also started doing this sport and by the 1950's it had become a female dominated sport.
This form of Physi has become known as BJP. Although there are a few outside clubs that do similar work but are not associated with BJP.
To this day, a lot of the women and girls that compete still wear that 50's look with pride, they Boof their hair, tan so dark that they go orange and look like pretty female OompaLoompa's wearing leotards. Not all the girls do this, but there is still a huge percentage that do. The younger girls are not allowed to tan or wear more than a smidge of lippy, they also cannot wear the shimmers and fishnets that the older girls and ladies wear.
In 2005 the official reintroduction of boys occurred. However even in its third year, there is still a lot of resistance from the old school girls who firmly believe that boys do not belong in the physi world.
My DS has been doing this sport since 2003, although those first two years he was not officially recognised and was not able to be registered to compete. He did it alongside his baby sister, learning the baby girls work, to help her have the confidence to get up on the floor as the only baby our club had. She happily did anything her big brother did and as she needed to do Physi to help strengthen the muscles in her hips and knees (to stop her feet and legs turning 360 degrees in any direction), DS was encouraged to get up and help her do the work (didn't take much encouragement, he had been wanting to do Physi since he was a baby as our friend and babysitter did physi and he had seen her perform, so when she became a teacher he was going to do it, sister or no sister lol).
Now a lot of people think - oh well you are training your son to be gay (this was an actual comment at the Sydney Boys National Physi Event in 2006 by the lady manning the entry booth when a mother came running up to say her boy had won the event, much outcry happened about this comment and we hope that lady will not be working there this year). Just because my boy is learning to be flexible, to touch his toes, to move with rhythm and grace does not make him gay or will teach him to be gay.
My grandfathers era, all the men went to the dances every week or month, thats how they met the girls. Being able to dance with rhythm and grace meant you were more likely to pick up the best chicks. And most of those men then became the ANZACS, who were renowned for being tough resilient buggers. Tell me dancing made them soft, weak, gay?? So why would it do it to the boys now, and have a look at their work, it includes punching, kicking, pushups, reverse pushups, situps, bounces. Its tough work their routines, even the teachers, who have been doing physi for years, they work up a sweat teaching and practicing the boys routines with the boys. The girls who are lucky enough to have boys in their club, think the boys work is cool and often get up the back of the hall and mimic the boys work.
The girls work is pretty standard, each year they do five routines, all flowing one after the other. They get different music and different choreography each year, but it always has standard positions that were originally designed by the Bjelke-Peterson Brothers as medical gymnastics. Strong yet graceful arms, powerful legs with pointed toes, yet able to one minute look like a swan and the next leap as powerfully as a gazelle. 8 year olds onwards start doing the splits. The 15 year olds through to the Seniors do the most energetic and tough work and then the ladies come onto the floor, their work isn't the easiest, but they are no longer required to do the splits or big leaps, they don't do a frenetically paced dance, instead they do an "impulse" which is like a dance, but sways with the pulse of the music.
If you get a chance, go spend some time watching one of the Physi Comps, the girls are amazing and compete at Zone around Vic, NSW, ACT & Qld and then at National level at Homebush and then the 15's, seniors and ladies compete for the ultimate titles on the stage at the Opera House each year during November. The boys don't have a Zone competition as there are not enough of them year in most zones (our zone has three, the same three that are part of our club), so they go straight to Sydney each October and compete against any boy who has had the ability to attend.
This is why Virgin ticket specials from Brisbane, Gold Coast and Ballina going to Sydney in the months of October and November sell like hotcakes in July and August. Because each level of Competition is on a different day. For instance, my DD has Zone on the 20/21st of October on the North Coast of NSW. The following weekend the ladies and seniors have zone at the same location that DD did the week before, and the ladies are the same day as the Boys compete in Sydney (not great timing as there were a few mums that were going to compete this year that will now be flying their child to Sydney instead). The nearly every weekend in November is taken with the National finals and then the Opera House night.
Anyway, that's just a bit of information whether you needed it or not lol.
Why is it?
Why is it, I wonder, that in any group where a large gathering of women occurs on a regular basis, that there are the Cliquey elements, the Intermediates (who seem to flow in and out of the Cliquey group, as they wish to) and then there are the Outsiders (the ones that are just there. Occasionally recognised or spoken to by the Intermediates and only by the Cliquey when they need something from them).
There is the constant shifting of loyalties within the Cliquey and Intermediates and the occasional power plays. Bitching sessions are held regularly in hushed tones that are made just loud enough for the outsiders to hear snippets, putting the outsiders in their place, telling them so that they KNOW they are not included. Then there is the LOUD "Everyone can hear it" sessions, so that everyone will KNOW how special, elite and powerful the Cliquey group are.
I wonder this as I sit to the side whilst waiting for my children at school functions, sports events, sports practice sessions, and many other occasions where i see the same women present every time. It is like going back to 8th grade in highschool really, it hasn't changed a bit.
Do men act like this when there are no women present?
In one group i observe regularly, there is also the token male present, the husband of one of the Intermediates. He bitches, carries on, is part of the Cliquey inner circle, and puts on his show of dominance on a regular basis. Puffs out his chest and does his warcry (booming voice of authority). Does he not realise they are making fun of him, letting him behave like an idiot for their enjoyment, that they then bitch about him when he isn't there?
Does all of society act this way? Cause I don't get it. I didn't get it in highschool and I still don't get the need for it now. Maybe that makes me the weird one lol, oh well, I am enjoying my weirdness and have no need to be part of any innercircle.
There is the constant shifting of loyalties within the Cliquey and Intermediates and the occasional power plays. Bitching sessions are held regularly in hushed tones that are made just loud enough for the outsiders to hear snippets, putting the outsiders in their place, telling them so that they KNOW they are not included. Then there is the LOUD "Everyone can hear it" sessions, so that everyone will KNOW how special, elite and powerful the Cliquey group are.
I wonder this as I sit to the side whilst waiting for my children at school functions, sports events, sports practice sessions, and many other occasions where i see the same women present every time. It is like going back to 8th grade in highschool really, it hasn't changed a bit.
Do men act like this when there are no women present?
In one group i observe regularly, there is also the token male present, the husband of one of the Intermediates. He bitches, carries on, is part of the Cliquey inner circle, and puts on his show of dominance on a regular basis. Puffs out his chest and does his warcry (booming voice of authority). Does he not realise they are making fun of him, letting him behave like an idiot for their enjoyment, that they then bitch about him when he isn't there?
Does all of society act this way? Cause I don't get it. I didn't get it in highschool and I still don't get the need for it now. Maybe that makes me the weird one lol, oh well, I am enjoying my weirdness and have no need to be part of any innercircle.
Pretty Bling
Just for Kelley, who wished for a prettier one. Will this do??
I would give credit to the original designer of it (i just edited it for my purposes) but it has been that many years I no longer know who originally made it.
Oh and for Nicole, I found a pic of a pretty that would go well in your barn. Now you will just have to work out how to make one for yourself to go in there. Isn't it a gorgeous lady beetle?
Cheers!
Thursday, 4 October 2007
Blog Bling
Right well I am still a little unsure on the rules of the Blog Bling that is doing the rounds, I assume it probably is a bit like circulating emails, except that in this case it is to make more people aware of others blogs. If I am wrong, feel free to correct me here. Anyway I few weeks back, before I even thought about blogging, I got my first Bling, being that I am a serial comment poster (lol sounds a bit like serial pest). So now that I have a blog page, I have somewhere to put the bling and to say Thankyou to the lovely MagnetoBold Too! for thinking of me for this one.
Now I am supposed to send it to ten people who make me smile.
MagnetoBold Too! because she not only makes me smile, she makes me laugh til it hurts, she is very real and genuine, and deserves many more of these Bling.
Chookie because her garden blog is great, she isn't writing it along the lines of, you must do this or that, she is just open and honest and sharing what she does, thinks, feels and knows about gardens. I loved the description of the abandoned house and its rambling garden.
Kin well lets just say I completely get her study habits, I am always amazed at how much she does each day and week and how organised she is. I love your savings challenge too.
Precious_1 very down to earth, lovely lady. I enjoy reading her blog and she really is a Precious_1.
Barn Stories hehe I loved reading this, the trials of small girls, the barn, the plumbers and the cute finds from the emporium. Tis a pity WA is sooo far away from here.
Lightening oh my she is amazing. After all you have been through, you are so much stronger than you realise and such a great mother, even if there are days you doubt it.
Tess your stitching is amazing, I only wish I could do things like that (mine end up in loads of knots). It is very inspiring to see just how much you can focus on tiny stitches even when the rest of your world is throwing you the rollercoaster loops and curves. I think I would just lie there and be catatonic in the same situations.
Lizzie is a font of information and blog layouts, well i think it has changed many many times since she first started blogging, one could get severely sidetracked with all of Lizzie's links and stuff, definitely a good place to go when you need to just chill and not really have to do anything for a few hours.
A very special one to a special lady, who was celebrating her birthday on Tuesday.
Now I am supposed to send it to ten people who make me smile.
MagnetoBold Too! because she not only makes me smile, she makes me laugh til it hurts, she is very real and genuine, and deserves many more of these Bling.
Chookie because her garden blog is great, she isn't writing it along the lines of, you must do this or that, she is just open and honest and sharing what she does, thinks, feels and knows about gardens. I loved the description of the abandoned house and its rambling garden.
Kin well lets just say I completely get her study habits, I am always amazed at how much she does each day and week and how organised she is. I love your savings challenge too.
Precious_1 very down to earth, lovely lady. I enjoy reading her blog and she really is a Precious_1.
Barn Stories hehe I loved reading this, the trials of small girls, the barn, the plumbers and the cute finds from the emporium. Tis a pity WA is sooo far away from here.
Lightening oh my she is amazing. After all you have been through, you are so much stronger than you realise and such a great mother, even if there are days you doubt it.
Tess your stitching is amazing, I only wish I could do things like that (mine end up in loads of knots). It is very inspiring to see just how much you can focus on tiny stitches even when the rest of your world is throwing you the rollercoaster loops and curves. I think I would just lie there and be catatonic in the same situations.
Lizzie is a font of information and blog layouts, well i think it has changed many many times since she first started blogging, one could get severely sidetracked with all of Lizzie's links and stuff, definitely a good place to go when you need to just chill and not really have to do anything for a few hours.
GirlReporter Lol I love your blog, please keep it up and don't be afraid to take some wild imaginitive flights of fancy or to embellish if necessary, its great, keep writing.
Jess & The Girle wow that Girle can scrap and her mums scrapping is pretty cool too, can I send my girly to learn too, she is 6.5yrs and would kill to have the chance to do that regularly (don't tell her i own scrapping stuff, she will steal it before i ever have the chance to really use it, i need to get more photos printed and buy more bits n bobs for it, let alone finish things like painting the walls and redoing the bathroom before i start any more projects lol)
And I know this makes 11, but this wonderful lady Caroline has some awe inspiring designs and has made herself a business out of it, you go girl.
Ok well my first giving out of Bling. That wasn't too hard, well it would have been if i had to choose who the 10 out of the 11 favourite blogger's I know were.A very special one to a special lady, who was celebrating her birthday on Tuesday.
Hugs Ladies, You all make my day very bright and even in my grumpiest foulest moments, I can not wait to get my computer back and check out how your day has been and what coffee splurting stories you have in store for us all. ( I can not wait for DS room to be finished so the now repaired second machine can be set up in there, I wont have to fight to use my own computer then lol).
Erin!
Wednesday, 3 October 2007
Advertising!
Hehe, am all fidgety now, hmm i just remembered, i have lollies stashed where the kids couldnt find them. mmm off to eat lollies now.
Well, i just picked them up and guess what they have in great big writing on the packet, no its not the brandname, they dont have one on the front at all, its tucked away in small writing on the back near the barcode, on the front is a big circle with 99% fat free.
This makes me laugh and makes me angry at the same time. How stupid do the manufacturer's really think I am, that I am going to look at the lollies and go "oh well they only have 1% fat, so I can eat lots of them compared to that other brand".
HELLO, the main ingredient is sugar, the second main ingredient is wheat glucose syrup (so i probably should not be eating this brand at all). it is a 100g packet and total sugars comes to 57g, which means 57% of this product is sugar. What does sugar become when it is metabolised, well lets see:
Insulin stores sugar for later use, it stores it in two different forms, one for short term storage (quick access, muscle food), the other in long term storage, which is FAT. It doesnt store it half and half either, it depends what you are doing when it is being stored, so if you are running on a treadmill it is going to put it straight into quick access, so burn it as energy, but if you are sitting in a chair writing your blog post, as I am doing, it is going to put the majority of it into long term storage which equals MORE FAT.
So, if I take 57% of sugar and it all metabolises to fat, THEN THESE LOLLIES ARE NOT REALLY FAT FREE!!!
Advertising is so misleading, I hate it, really hate it. Obviously I voice it enough, because my kids now comment about what certain adds are depicting and how its not really true, the add isnt blatantly lieing, but they are not telling the whole truth either and they use pictures that are unrelated to the words so that while they might say the truth, your brain, which the majority of us process pictures first over sound, you see what the picture is saying and dont even hear the words.
Now in justification for myself because i am knowingly eating this 100g of lollies that contains wheat in it, I have read in one of my text books (possibly Frederick Martini - Anatomy & Physiology, but i have at least ten books right next to me on A&P as well as nutrition) that people who bounce their legs and tap their fingers whilst sitting, actually burn fat, especially the leg bouncers because the thigh and calf muscles are the hungriest muscles, so if you really cant be bothered to get out of your chair, sit there and try bouncing your legs really fast for ten minutes, I BET YOU THAT YOU WILL FEEL THE MUSCLE HAS WORKED AFTERWARDS!!! Only problem is the screen shakes at the same speed.
The lollies taste nice though!
Well, i just picked them up and guess what they have in great big writing on the packet, no its not the brandname, they dont have one on the front at all, its tucked away in small writing on the back near the barcode, on the front is a big circle with 99% fat free.
This makes me laugh and makes me angry at the same time. How stupid do the manufacturer's really think I am, that I am going to look at the lollies and go "oh well they only have 1% fat, so I can eat lots of them compared to that other brand".
HELLO, the main ingredient is sugar, the second main ingredient is wheat glucose syrup (so i probably should not be eating this brand at all). it is a 100g packet and total sugars comes to 57g, which means 57% of this product is sugar. What does sugar become when it is metabolised, well lets see:
Insulin stores sugar for later use, it stores it in two different forms, one for short term storage (quick access, muscle food), the other in long term storage, which is FAT. It doesnt store it half and half either, it depends what you are doing when it is being stored, so if you are running on a treadmill it is going to put it straight into quick access, so burn it as energy, but if you are sitting in a chair writing your blog post, as I am doing, it is going to put the majority of it into long term storage which equals MORE FAT.
So, if I take 57% of sugar and it all metabolises to fat, THEN THESE LOLLIES ARE NOT REALLY FAT FREE!!!
Advertising is so misleading, I hate it, really hate it. Obviously I voice it enough, because my kids now comment about what certain adds are depicting and how its not really true, the add isnt blatantly lieing, but they are not telling the whole truth either and they use pictures that are unrelated to the words so that while they might say the truth, your brain, which the majority of us process pictures first over sound, you see what the picture is saying and dont even hear the words.
Now in justification for myself because i am knowingly eating this 100g of lollies that contains wheat in it, I have read in one of my text books (possibly Frederick Martini - Anatomy & Physiology, but i have at least ten books right next to me on A&P as well as nutrition) that people who bounce their legs and tap their fingers whilst sitting, actually burn fat, especially the leg bouncers because the thigh and calf muscles are the hungriest muscles, so if you really cant be bothered to get out of your chair, sit there and try bouncing your legs really fast for ten minutes, I BET YOU THAT YOU WILL FEEL THE MUSCLE HAS WORKED AFTERWARDS!!! Only problem is the screen shakes at the same speed.
The lollies taste nice though!
Political Correctness
Please don't say "oh you are not being totally PC" to me. I will probably look at you with a blank or bewildered face until I work out what you are talking about, then I will quietly consider wether a KO or even a Slap will get me charged with assault, whilst glaring at you. Then I will just walk away, while berrating you loudly within my head.
Hello!! PC stands for Personal Computer in my world. PC does NOT stand for Politically Correct Language because there really is no such thing as Politically Correct ANYTHING!! Just watch tv footage of the Japanese parliament, pmsl they throw tables, jump on each other and blazenly brawl on national and international television whilst getting paid for it!! Or our government, they sit there and throw slanderous comments around the room and whoop and laugh and cheer or bang their fists on the table and stomp their feet like two year olds chucking a tantrum. So what right do they have to make up stupid suggestions on what parts of language are correct or incorrect in my everyday conversations.
Here is one stupid one, which hits home every single day because of where I live. I can not call my neighbour a black fella even though he does refer to himself and his family as black fellas, yet he is “politically correct” in calling my family whities!!
I am not WHITE, I am like Billy Connelly, I am pale blue from my scottish heritage, pale pink from my irish heritage, not sure what colour the english heritage comes in, and also have just a hint of black fella from my great great great grandmother who was a pureblood Murray, straight from the detention camps in North Queensland. As far as that concerns me, I AM PURE AUSSIE!!
So just because I am not officially recognised as an Indigenous Person (I don't chose to be recognised as anything other than AN AUSTRALIAN!!) I can not use the terms "black", "blackfella", "koori", "murray", "aboriginal" etc. I must use "Indigenous person", or "person of non-caucasian descent". Hello, have they not heard of the black african american couple who had a white skinned, blue eyed baby?? That baby certainly is NOT from Caucasian Descent, its DNA was tested and ALL of its markers showed it to be of Black African American Descent.
So when I am trying to tell the medical staff or ambulance officer which patient I am hypothetically getting treatment for, I am not going to say that black aboriginal man over there, I am going to say that male person of non-caucasian descent and point towards him, hoping that he is surrounded totally by white people, otherwise they might wonder if I am talking about the phillipino man or the greek man or the very black south african man.
I really don't think it matters what words you use, its the tone of voice, the indifference or obnoxiousness that goes with the words. Swearing is much the same, you can use swearing as humour, just check out my favourite comedian MR BILLY CONNELLY, or you can use swearing in terms of familiarity or endearment - I will laughingly call my friend a Bitch, especially when she KNOWS she has done something I wanted to do first, or has bought the very thing I wanted to buy. Or you can use swearing as a derogatory reference to hurt, humiliate, shock or scare someone.
And even swearing has words that are politically correct. Look at the court case where the accused told a police officer to Fuck Off. He got charged for indecent language (or something along those lines), so he took them to court and sue'd the police. I am not sure on what grounds he actually sue'd on, but HE WON! Fuck is now an officially recognised, politically correct word to use in everyday language in Australia. Go Figure!
Hello!! PC stands for Personal Computer in my world. PC does NOT stand for Politically Correct Language because there really is no such thing as Politically Correct ANYTHING!! Just watch tv footage of the Japanese parliament, pmsl they throw tables, jump on each other and blazenly brawl on national and international television whilst getting paid for it!! Or our government, they sit there and throw slanderous comments around the room and whoop and laugh and cheer or bang their fists on the table and stomp their feet like two year olds chucking a tantrum. So what right do they have to make up stupid suggestions on what parts of language are correct or incorrect in my everyday conversations.
Here is one stupid one, which hits home every single day because of where I live. I can not call my neighbour a black fella even though he does refer to himself and his family as black fellas, yet he is “politically correct” in calling my family whities!!
I am not WHITE, I am like Billy Connelly, I am pale blue from my scottish heritage, pale pink from my irish heritage, not sure what colour the english heritage comes in, and also have just a hint of black fella from my great great great grandmother who was a pureblood Murray, straight from the detention camps in North Queensland. As far as that concerns me, I AM PURE AUSSIE!!
So just because I am not officially recognised as an Indigenous Person (I don't chose to be recognised as anything other than AN AUSTRALIAN!!) I can not use the terms "black", "blackfella", "koori", "murray", "aboriginal" etc. I must use "Indigenous person", or "person of non-caucasian descent". Hello, have they not heard of the black african american couple who had a white skinned, blue eyed baby?? That baby certainly is NOT from Caucasian Descent, its DNA was tested and ALL of its markers showed it to be of Black African American Descent.
So when I am trying to tell the medical staff or ambulance officer which patient I am hypothetically getting treatment for, I am not going to say that black aboriginal man over there, I am going to say that male person of non-caucasian descent and point towards him, hoping that he is surrounded totally by white people, otherwise they might wonder if I am talking about the phillipino man or the greek man or the very black south african man.
I really don't think it matters what words you use, its the tone of voice, the indifference or obnoxiousness that goes with the words. Swearing is much the same, you can use swearing as humour, just check out my favourite comedian MR BILLY CONNELLY, or you can use swearing in terms of familiarity or endearment - I will laughingly call my friend a Bitch, especially when she KNOWS she has done something I wanted to do first, or has bought the very thing I wanted to buy. Or you can use swearing as a derogatory reference to hurt, humiliate, shock or scare someone.
And even swearing has words that are politically correct. Look at the court case where the accused told a police officer to Fuck Off. He got charged for indecent language (or something along those lines), so he took them to court and sue'd the police. I am not sure on what grounds he actually sue'd on, but HE WON! Fuck is now an officially recognised, politically correct word to use in everyday language in Australia. Go Figure!
Ditz Moments
Have you had a Ditz Moment??
Lol I have had so many it really isn't funny anymore, well not to me anyway. Although my horrid friends and family think it is, they quite enjoy laughing at some of my Ditz Moments.
The worst one to spring to mind at this moment is my handbag.
The people at Bunnings know me by sight because i managed to leave my handbag and mobile on the checkout and didn't even notice they were missing until my best friend rings me the next day. She says" I got a really weird phone call from your mobile this morning!" at this point I am confused because I was asleep this morning, having stumbled out of bed to find the offending landline (which is cordless and forever getting misplaced). My friend laughs and then says " Bunnings staff found your mobile and handbag where you left them at the checkout last night, so they rang the last person you had called to find out how to contact you". Thankfully that was my best friend rather than the kids school, how embarrassing would that have been lol.
You are now asking yourself how I managed to leave both handbag and mobile behind and not notice, well my keys have a clip on them, so I attach them to the belt loops of my jeans or over my little finger if i am not wearing jeans. My purse was in my handbag, and i had a handful of hardware items and 2 kids buzzing around me. So I have put my handbag down to unzip it and extract my purse, which then required two hands to get cards out, sign for purchase, get receipt, stuff it into purse and try to extricate myself, kids and purchases out of the checkout so the people behind me don't get roadrage at my slowness (I am really clumsy and checkouts just seem to be the one place where i can't move fast enough).
So i carried out my purse and already had my keys, as well as trying to hang onto a then 5 year old who has NO road sense (too busy yapping and singing) and my then almost 9 yr old, who just isnt altogether there somedays, he is unofficially (we are working on the official bit) somewhere on the Autistic Spectrum and he just doesn't see traffic, people or objects sometimes. He ran straight into a pole the other day, it is mounted in a 30cm square brick pilon and is one end of a shade sail, he didn't see it, yet we walk past it almost every single day.
Just getting both kids safely to my car whilst trying to carry purchases is enough to frazzle my brain somedays and this particular day was not an exception. Coming home I have automatically put my purse and keys in their spots, so my head has ticked off the put personal items away.
Unfortunately for me, my purse and handbag are a matching set picked out by DD to match my tattoo. The purse and handbag are mint green with a little fairy sitting in the flowers and has glittery wings etc, and other than a young girl (approximately 5 years old) at the shopping centre recently, I have never seen anyone else with this same handbag or purse, and obviously neither have the bunnings staff, because they still (its been almost 18mths) comment "oh thats the handbag that was left here last year, isn't it?" My best friend still ribs me for it everytime she sees my handbag as well.
This is why it has been hiding in my bedroom for months and I just carry the purse, keys and mobile (i go to Bunnings at least once a fortnight thanks to my forever needing fixing house).
Lol well I am sure I will think of many more Ditz moments to post later on, I will have you all dieing of laughter sooner or later.
Lol I have had so many it really isn't funny anymore, well not to me anyway. Although my horrid friends and family think it is, they quite enjoy laughing at some of my Ditz Moments.
The worst one to spring to mind at this moment is my handbag.
The people at Bunnings know me by sight because i managed to leave my handbag and mobile on the checkout and didn't even notice they were missing until my best friend rings me the next day. She says" I got a really weird phone call from your mobile this morning!" at this point I am confused because I was asleep this morning, having stumbled out of bed to find the offending landline (which is cordless and forever getting misplaced). My friend laughs and then says " Bunnings staff found your mobile and handbag where you left them at the checkout last night, so they rang the last person you had called to find out how to contact you". Thankfully that was my best friend rather than the kids school, how embarrassing would that have been lol.
You are now asking yourself how I managed to leave both handbag and mobile behind and not notice, well my keys have a clip on them, so I attach them to the belt loops of my jeans or over my little finger if i am not wearing jeans. My purse was in my handbag, and i had a handful of hardware items and 2 kids buzzing around me. So I have put my handbag down to unzip it and extract my purse, which then required two hands to get cards out, sign for purchase, get receipt, stuff it into purse and try to extricate myself, kids and purchases out of the checkout so the people behind me don't get roadrage at my slowness (I am really clumsy and checkouts just seem to be the one place where i can't move fast enough).
So i carried out my purse and already had my keys, as well as trying to hang onto a then 5 year old who has NO road sense (too busy yapping and singing) and my then almost 9 yr old, who just isnt altogether there somedays, he is unofficially (we are working on the official bit) somewhere on the Autistic Spectrum and he just doesn't see traffic, people or objects sometimes. He ran straight into a pole the other day, it is mounted in a 30cm square brick pilon and is one end of a shade sail, he didn't see it, yet we walk past it almost every single day.
Just getting both kids safely to my car whilst trying to carry purchases is enough to frazzle my brain somedays and this particular day was not an exception. Coming home I have automatically put my purse and keys in their spots, so my head has ticked off the put personal items away.
Unfortunately for me, my purse and handbag are a matching set picked out by DD to match my tattoo. The purse and handbag are mint green with a little fairy sitting in the flowers and has glittery wings etc, and other than a young girl (approximately 5 years old) at the shopping centre recently, I have never seen anyone else with this same handbag or purse, and obviously neither have the bunnings staff, because they still (its been almost 18mths) comment "oh thats the handbag that was left here last year, isn't it?" My best friend still ribs me for it everytime she sees my handbag as well.
This is why it has been hiding in my bedroom for months and I just carry the purse, keys and mobile (i go to Bunnings at least once a fortnight thanks to my forever needing fixing house).
Lol well I am sure I will think of many more Ditz moments to post later on, I will have you all dieing of laughter sooner or later.
Blogs
Blogs are still quite strange to me, I have avoided creating one until now, the same way I have avoided writing a journal or a diary.
For one, its out there on the net, where anyone can see it, and I am sure there are ways to find even the totally private and unadvertised blogs.
Secondly, my thoughts are often random and strange, my brain constantly shuffles random bits of information through my head, all day and all night. It has kept every single bit of information it has ever seen, heard or read just for the simple purpose of driving everyone around me batty and to deny me the opportunity for blissful slumber.
I quite often stay quiet in group or public conversations, as I have learnt the hard way that NOONE likes a KNOW IT ALL, even if they desperately need the bit of information I have in my head, they still won't appreciate me knowing it when they don't. I have had a teacher hit me over the head with a maths book and a police officer slap me for being able to correctly answer every single question she asked me (i was 10 years old at that point). I have had friends tell me that they can't be seen in public with me as being openly smart is not considered popular.
So with all of this combined, I am wary of putting myself out here in the public forum where people can not only read it, they can comment on it.
However, in consideration of the novel length emails as well as the multiple and large comments I often leave on other peoples blogs, as well as a huge bundle of stress related nervous energy that I can't expel physically at the moment, I decided to start my own blog instead of taking over the comments pages of the people I find interesting.
So anyway, I don't promise to be interesting or funny, I am eccentric and egocentric and quite often I am downright boring. I am also very stubborn (my father and grandmother are Taurus's and whilst I am a Virgo, I inherited their major stubborn streak), fiercely independant, quick to anger but I do not hold many grudges (the exceptions are for people who have knowingly and willingly hurt me or my children or the other people in my life that I care about) . For all of the above, I am actually a nice person, I am caring, I have great empathy for many people, animals, conditions, I am a sentimental fool about people, places, objects, songs (gee and i wonder why i have issues with clutter physically and mentally).
LOL it is as the title suggests, rantings from a self admitted Walking Dictionary, although I warn you in advance, I am not always politically correct, I have had two children and wayyy to much Eostrogen, and I was born a blonde, so if it sounds ditzy or dumb at the same time as being technically proficient, that is just me, I cant help it. I drive most people insane, and I would not be able to live with someone just like me, I would probably murder them within the first week.
This is my blog, consider yourself warned.
So if you don't like it, don't keep reading it!! If you do like it, please let me know.
Hugs!
For one, its out there on the net, where anyone can see it, and I am sure there are ways to find even the totally private and unadvertised blogs.
Secondly, my thoughts are often random and strange, my brain constantly shuffles random bits of information through my head, all day and all night. It has kept every single bit of information it has ever seen, heard or read just for the simple purpose of driving everyone around me batty and to deny me the opportunity for blissful slumber.
I quite often stay quiet in group or public conversations, as I have learnt the hard way that NOONE likes a KNOW IT ALL, even if they desperately need the bit of information I have in my head, they still won't appreciate me knowing it when they don't. I have had a teacher hit me over the head with a maths book and a police officer slap me for being able to correctly answer every single question she asked me (i was 10 years old at that point). I have had friends tell me that they can't be seen in public with me as being openly smart is not considered popular.
So with all of this combined, I am wary of putting myself out here in the public forum where people can not only read it, they can comment on it.
However, in consideration of the novel length emails as well as the multiple and large comments I often leave on other peoples blogs, as well as a huge bundle of stress related nervous energy that I can't expel physically at the moment, I decided to start my own blog instead of taking over the comments pages of the people I find interesting.
So anyway, I don't promise to be interesting or funny, I am eccentric and egocentric and quite often I am downright boring. I am also very stubborn (my father and grandmother are Taurus's and whilst I am a Virgo, I inherited their major stubborn streak), fiercely independant, quick to anger but I do not hold many grudges (the exceptions are for people who have knowingly and willingly hurt me or my children or the other people in my life that I care about) . For all of the above, I am actually a nice person, I am caring, I have great empathy for many people, animals, conditions, I am a sentimental fool about people, places, objects, songs (gee and i wonder why i have issues with clutter physically and mentally).
LOL it is as the title suggests, rantings from a self admitted Walking Dictionary, although I warn you in advance, I am not always politically correct, I have had two children and wayyy to much Eostrogen, and I was born a blonde, so if it sounds ditzy or dumb at the same time as being technically proficient, that is just me, I cant help it. I drive most people insane, and I would not be able to live with someone just like me, I would probably murder them within the first week.
This is my blog, consider yourself warned.
So if you don't like it, don't keep reading it!! If you do like it, please let me know.
Hugs!
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