Its a madhouse

Well its feeling like that around here at the moment. We are in the midst of planning to birthday parties, one for our youngest who is turning 5 and also for her sister who is turning 7. There is only 4 days seperating their birthdays so we have one birthday one weekend and the other the next weekend, which works fine. But the madness is not from the closeness of their birthdays, but more that it has been real easy to buy presents for my 7yr old this year and not the 5yr old....so far the 5yr old has a school bag and a lunch box and thats it.... the older one is getting singstar and clothes and possibly some books (not that she can read them but its the thought that counts), but just don't know what to get my 5yr old and its getting really really frustrating.

School holidays...

Are often a stressful time in this house, the change in routines will often set off tauntrums amongst the older two, and on more than one occasion I have had my eldest begging for schoolwork. Not this lot of holidays. he was looking forward to the holidays...though the fact he has spent the last two weeks complaining of being bored at school it doesn't really surprise me. I think the only thing he goes for now is to play on his nifty little laptop he has on trial from GSE, to see whether a laptop would benefit him in class. so far it has been much easier than trying to keep up with the class with handwriting. No.2 child spent the first week of the holidays in a state of fatigue, with all the hard work she has put in over the last term catching up with her. We even had two migraines in a rwo...usually we might just get one. This week she is a little bit more perky, its just a shame that the weather wasn't a little better. No.3 child, she is counting down until school...only 3 weeks to go!

RDA

RDA is amazing for those kids that get the chance to experience it, it really impacts upon there lives in a postive way with many kids beginning to do things they have never done before. My daughter has been very privlidged in being able to do two blocks of RDA so far (hopefully we can do more next year or the year after), with today being the final session for a while. I managed to get out with one of the other mums and watch our children go through their routines on the horses and it was amazing. They all ahd so much confidence and big smiles upon their faces. Even those kids who would hardly look you in the eye held their heads and looked around at everyone.

Yesterday was parent teacher interviews

and it went very well.... Kyle is doing really well in everything but maths (he understands it but is just not fast enough) and the teacher had done a reading test on him and it showed he was reading at the top range for a 11/12 yr old... not bad for a 9yr old. Though hubby and I were the same at that age so we aren't that surprised, and of course if you ever saw our house you would see nothing but books....i mean lots of books stacked two deep on some shelves. lol. The teacher was quite happy with his behaviour and that he was becoming more independent with fine motor tasks such as Art and simple things like gluing work sheets into his books.

Molly's is always the same..the teachers love having her in the class as she is just so friendly, eager to be there and will always try to answer questions even if she doesn't know the answer. That the class has benefited by having her in the class, as the all look out for her and one girl whom she had problems with last year is this year very good at helping molly......especially when molly may not understand the task in front of her, seemingly molly will often ask her to check her work to make sure she has done everything she needed to do. Only thing for this poor girl is that she is often on the end of molly's venting when she becomes frustrated about something....but seemingly these days the wee girl barely bats her eyelids when molly gets like this anymore...think I might have to give her a little pressie at then end of the year to say thank you!

Sometimes being GF can be a pain....

Especially when you want to go out to a cafe, as not all cafes stock items that are GF and many that do the product isn't often suitable for a small child. Over the years we have slowly found good cafes to go to with our youngest and sometimes the best cafes are not the flashiest looking ones such Crave Cafe in Tauranga, which always has at least 1 or 2 things available in the sweet treat range and then they can also do up GF paninis and taoasted sammies as well. In the weekend we found the best one yet, though it is a little bit far to go their all the time, but out in the suburb of Greerton a little cafe called The Lemon Tree, had plenty of differing options that were GF...but most of all to my daughters delight thay had GF Lammingtons! YUMMY!!

While it doesn't affect us directly....

...it does many of my friends, and that is our govts decison to axe funding to Special Needs Schools, for high needs kids. Or should I say instead of finding more funding to pay for teh increased costs of those with disiabilites who are mainstreamed, they have instead taken funding from one sector of special education to pay for the other. This really is flawed logic and pretty much descrimates against sector of the community. Many of the schools are already barely keeping themselves finacially a float and some have had to let important therapists such as OT's and Physios go because they no longer have the funding for their wages. The govt says it wont let these schools close, but unless they plan for these kids to start recieving substandard care, then the only option is for the schools to close..... Now this really isn't an option for many of these kids parents as they work...and in these tough times for many the loss of one parents income to remain at home to look after their high needs child is just not possible. In this time of reccession I feel that the govt has lost focus while trimming the fat out the budget and is forgetting that these kids are people too and deserve just as much respect as every able bodied child and should not be pawns in an education system that is obviously failing. They are kids first, disability second....hopefully some one pulls there head out of the ground soon and sees what a terrible cock up they have made!

High Hopes....

Lat night my big boy started asking me questions about schooling and how long each stage is and so I explained it to him and then he asks about Uni and well I told him it was three years for a basic degree and the 4 years for honours.. and so on. Well he has now decided that he will get a Phd and that he also likes the sound of being a Professor.. i think he likes the sound of the word....I have no idea what he will get his Phd in as he still has many years before he gets there, but he is getting very excited about. He as also said that he is getting bored at school, which is not very surprising to me as the teacher this year doesn't really no what to do with him between his disabilities and his intelligence, but sometimes i feel as though she isn't really making much effort either. She has been very focused on getting his handwritting up to standard despite the fact that the OT's have documented his poor moto co-ordination in this area and that it also causes him physical pain to undertake this task for long periods. We are in the proccess of applying through GSE for access to a computer and appropriate software to assist better in this function and then hopefully he will be able to express his knowledge much better. Then the next task will be to convince the teachers that what comes out of his mouth knowledge wise is not just him reciting what he has read but is sin his own language ...just very formal and correct...and that he does understand the vast majority of what he reads....for us this is easily seen as he will often explain things to his youngest sister.

THe youngest child has just began her journey into the world of school, having her first school visit today. She was very excited about and when the 9am bell rang she burst into a smile, gave me a kiss, waved goodbye and went and sat on the mat. I decided that my presence was not really needed and she didn't really want me their so I cam home and are trying to fill my time until I have to go and get her at morning tea time. That is of course if she wants to come, in which case it could be a bit of a struggle to get her home...but she still has to go to kindy this afternoon.

WInter morings can be a real pain....

Winter mornings and our house can sometimes be a battle of wills trying to get my eldest to stop hiding under is blanket and get ready for school. Its not even that its that cold here most mornings, nor is it becuase he doesn't like school....its more to do with that in winter the sun isn't shining in the windows fully until about 8am and of course he wont get up until the sun is shinning....grr. On top of this he refuses to organise himself for school... refuses to pack his bag, refuses to put his lunch in his lunchbox and will often go to school forgetting the library book that is due back...which of course is mums fault...!

My kids

  I have been trying to start this blog about my kids for the last month but have never quite found the right words to start it off. I have three wonderful children and like kids they do have there annoying days, but my two of my kids are anything but normal and some days the whole world just seems to be out there to annoy and confuse them. This can be frustrating not only for them but for my husband and I too as simple everyday things we take for granted or can do without even thinking they struggle with everyday.

My son has Aspergers (sometimes referred to as High Functioning Autism or Autistic Spectrum Disorder) and Dyspraxia (problems with co-ordination) add to this mix a very smart 9 yr old boy and some days its a recipe disaster. For him simple tasks like writing are painful and awkward, making it very hard to complete the simplest of school tasks that other kids just take for granted. He was 7 before he could manage to colour in a picture without going outside the lines and even then it took him 3 nights to complete it. The flipside being that he was reading way above his level very early on especially if its a NF book and has been known to take various science dictionaries to bed with him.

My daughter was born next and things didn’t really get much better. Her pregnancy and birth became more like a comedy of errors, with small things that weren’t done or not noted down as the pregnancy progressed turned into a giant snowball, with result being a rushed trip to a NICU in the next town with a 36hr old baby who’s brain was bleeding. By the time she was 48hrs old she had just endured 2hrs in surgery, received two units of blood and an MRI of her brain that looked like an apple with a bite out of it…….24hrs later the Drs had given up on her and told us turn off her life support as in their opinion she would be a ‘vegetable’. We didn’t and 10hrs later she was breathing on her own and despite their predictions she walks, talks and now at 6yrs old attends a mainstream school, with help from a teacher aide. Yes she has her problems but she is a survivor!

Last but not least is our little fashion diva, who is counting down the days until she starts school….about 9 weeks to go. For her life is difficult too, and not just because of her older siblings disabilities, for her its food that is the problem in particular anything containing gluten…..so its been a steep learning curve getting the birthday cakes to come out right!

So there, I’ve finally started!