Stuff With Thing

Annie wrote a shopping list for me.

Top of page left to right: (descriptions in Annies words)

1. The Milk of course

2. Chocolate

3. Iceberg, crossed out because we don’t need it.

4. Chicken for lunch

Second Row left to right:

1. A teddy bear for Heidi, its going to be a medium sized one.

2. Bike polish

3. Rubber duckie, that isn’t crossed out because Heidi loves duckies

Smiley Saturday time again. If you want to join in then click on the Smiley Saturday link above and head over to Lightenings to enter your Smiley Saturday link.

Heidi got assessed and diagnosed on the autism spectrum last year at La Trobe University. This week the University opened the Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre.

Looking at their current projects it is reassuring to see they are not getting side tracked by the whole vaccine issue.

I’m currently ploughing my way through “A review of the research to identify the most effective models of practice in early intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders”.

We are also smiling because the Sensory Diet is working really well for Heidi. We’ve spoken to the Occupational Therapist at our early intervention centre a couple of times and fine tuned the diet a little.

If you think your child or yourself would benefit from a sensory diet, then please seek professional help (Occupational Therapist) as you really do need expert guidance as doing the wrong thing can end up very very badly. With the right guidance a sensory diet can be a huge benefit.

A few things we have been doing that I’m so thrilled about are:

1. The chewy necklace which I mentioned in the museum post.

2. Changing what foods Heidi eats, alternating between crunchy food at meal times and chewy food at snack times. Also making her drinks much thicker (by adding yogurt) and making her drink them through a straw.

3. More yoga / gym ball work. Lying Heidi on the ball on her stomach and rocking her back and forward. Or sitting her on the ball and bouncing up and down. Or lying Heidi on the floor and rolling the ball over her.

4. The joint compressions that we have been doing for a while, now doing in conjunction with other activities.

5. Swinging upside down - Heidi just loves this - like really really loves it. Sadly my back is not up to it and we have to figure out other ways to get Heidi her upside down swing. She does enjoy hanging upside down over the arm of our couch, so that is a good start.

6. Sensory tactile play - sort of a formalisation of things we had been doing like the “poke slime” experiment (Slime progress - Heidi will now hold the slime and poke her hand in to pull out the ball . She still does not like the slime all that much though )

7. Sensory mouth play - blowing whistles, bubbles, harmonica, kisses. One big success has been feather blowing races, I give the girls a feather each and they have to blow them along the floor to the finish line.

8. We are trialling a vibrating pillow (like the one halfway down this page) which so far has made it much easier to to Heidi’s joint compressions (she does not try to escape as often) and helps at meal times to keep Heidi at the table - although I am worried about it getting dirty.

9. Jumping and bouncing and all those fantastic proprioceptive activities. My personal fav. proprioceptive input is for Heidi to get the wet washing out of our front loading machine, carry the basket full of wet clothes to the tumble drier and fill it up. Heidi really seems to enjoy it also, bonus of teaching her a vital life skill.

The sensory diet is all good stuff, heaps of extra work but well worth it to see Heidi much calmer and happier. It gives us more ways to help Heidi through difficult times.

One really fantastic positive is that Heidi does the sensory stuff with us and then starts to do it herself. She knows when she needs more / less sensory input and self-regulates really well, once she has the tools and the knowledge. We need to watch to see if she needs help or re-direction.

The second fantastic positive is that Annie is really on board with the sensory diet stuff. She enjoys doing the activities with her sister. Is a great example to Heidi of how to proceed in some things that Heidi does not understand and even leads some of the activities with Heidi.

I’m as proud as punch of both my girls.

If you think your child or yourself would benefit from a sensory diet, then please seek professional help (Occupational Therapist) as you really do need expert guidance as doing the wrong thing can end up very very badly. With the right guidance a sensory diet can be a huge benefit.

Some of you may remember as far back as July last year when I wrote the Anatomy of Toy Sale, thus revealing in its full glory my OCD planning streak.

The K-Mart toy sale is once again almost upon us.  Starts on 3rd July, catalogue available online from 27th June.  And I’m not one little bit planning to go and buy anything!  Astounding myself and many of my friends and family.

Okay to be honest, I’d love to go and get lots of cool toys but there is no way I can physically do it this year and so I’m saving up my pennies for the ultra cool wooden toys at our local Steiner toy shop.  I’m going to get the girls some furniture to go in their wooden dolls house that I painted.  Perhaps I might even splash out on some wooden dolls to hopefully supplant Barbie :grin:.

In the meantime I’ve got my in hospital tests on Monday the 30th June.  My MRI has now been scheduled and is on 6th of August.  So I’m looking forward to Monday when I get at least 5 hours to have a really nice nap whilst the Doctors sedate me and stick cameras up my rear end (lucky them).  Peace. Quiet. Sleep.  I think a camera up your rear end is a small price to pay for such luxury.

Annie woke up at 2am this morning screaming and has been crying ever since, painkillers been doing nothing.  Turns out she has a nasty case of swimmer’s ear.  We’ve got antibiotic ear drops, antibiotic syrup to drink and permission to increase her dose of painkillers for a couple of days.

Edited to add - and I totally caved around 6am today and rang Foxtel (our cable tv provider) and ordered the childrens tv package because I couldn’t deal anymore. 2 hours sleep and sick kiddies make for insane mummy.

Yesterday (Monday) the girls and I went to the Melbourne Museum with my good friend S. Her partner J had to work which is a shame as we had lots of fun and I missed J being around to laugh with me at the antics of S and the children.

Particularly amusing to me was the horrified reaction of S and Annie to the conception and birth movie. I pulled them out as the baby’s head was emerging. Both had such similar expressions of horror and disgust it kept me giggling for the rest of the day.

Heidi loved the museum and I loved seeing what interested her. We all had fun in the childrens area, Annie latched onto a primary school group and I think would have happily stayed with them for the rest of their tour (if the teacher had let her).

We visited the display on the human mind and all had fun playing with the interactive displays that mess with your sense of perception.  One interactive display showed what your level of alertness was - calm, alert, watchful, worried, stressed.  You put your hand on a metal plate and it played a sound and a graph charted your response to the sounds.  I started of at ‘watchful’ and remained there the whole time, in a constant steady state of watchfulness no matter what sounds popped out.  Thats the way life is when you are out and about with two pre-schoolers.  S remained in a steady state of ‘alert’.  Annie started off as ‘alert’ but when the sound popped out the graph skyrocketed to ’stressed’, then down again.  Interesting stuff.

Both girls were wearing their “Who Am I look inside” tags which was greatly reassuring as Annie had a tendency to wander off out of sight.

Annie wandering off - yet again

I also took the pram which gave Heidi a place to hide when everything got a bit too much and she used her new chewy necklace a couple of times. Which reminds me I must post about her new sensory diet at some point.

All in all a great way to spend the day.

Now my screwup.

Screw Up Tuesday is the brainchild of Bettina. Once a week we can confess our screw ups, good for the soul right :D.

I ordered my groceries through Coles Online last week and got them delivered. This was fantastic, no impulse purchasing, no major dramas taking the girls grocery shopping. All smooth sailing… that is until I realised I’d not purchased anything for my lunches. I remembered to get stuff to make lunch for hubby. I remembered to get stuff for the girls to eat for lunch. But nothing for me and I’m not a great fan of vegemite sandwiches :(.

I also neglected to purchase any convenience meals for days when I’ve just had too much. So we ended up getting McDonalds for dinner last night. 12 days of no-takeout. A record for us. Ah well. Now I just have to try and beat that record.

Quick health update. Monday 30th June I will be going into hospital for the day to have some further tests done for my Crohns. Wooo. So much fun. Not. I need to have an MRI and am waiting on the hospital to call back and tell me when that will be. Very likely things will go quiet for a few days around here over this weekend and the beginning of next week.

Pictures taken by Annie and Nephew M.

On the 11th of Feb 2008 my girls height and weights were:

Heidi 3yo
Height - 102.50cm (= 3.36 feet)
Weight - 17.10kg (= 37.69 lb, lbs)

Annie 4y9mo
Height - 110.20cm (= 3.61 feet)
Weight - 19.60kg (= 43.21 lb, lbs)

Had a check up with the paediatrician today.

Annies blood test results came back with low iron but not too low and low white cell count which we have to get checked again in a couple of months. Her platelets were good and clotting tests came back normal. Negative for gluten intolerance. When we get the white cells checked again we will do more obscure clotting tests. We are now doing a stool test for H.Pylori to see if that is causing the reflux.

Annie 5yrs 1mth
Height - 117cm
Weight - 20.1kg

Heidi 3yrs 4.5mth
Height - 109.5cm
Weight 18kg

Annie is on the 98th percentile for height and weight, Heidi is as usual off the chart

Paed was happy with what we are doing with both girls. Just have to keep an eye on Annie’s bruises in odd places (upper thighs, lower back).

Smiley Saturday time again. If you want to join in then click on the Smiley Saturday link above and head over to Lightenings to enter your Smiley Saturday link.

This week Lightening has suggested using as our Smiley Saturday theme the idea that we need to care for ourselves more. Taking care of myself seems like a good reason to smile.

One big way I’m taking care of myself more is not doing Kinder duty as often. This week the Aide started at Heidis kinder which means Heidi and the other two special needs children in her class have someone on hand with experience who can help them.

My health is still problematic but I’ve started to get test results back and we’ve been able to rule out a few things that were worrying me. Plus I’m working out how to balance my diet to keep the latest flareup under control. Whilst the Crohns flare up has not really improved it has not gotten worse either and I’m working out how to manage with it as it is, sort of stability within the instability. The head cold and asthma have mostly gone away for which I’m very relieved.

I was flicking through TV stations 20 minutes ago and realised that the latest Barbie movie is on channel 7 today (started 10 minutes ago) AWESOME! I now have a guaranteed hour of children glued to tv so I can get some precious me time. Then once they get wriggly I should have enough energy to take us out to the park and run off those wiggles.

Reading over my journal for this time last year when we had our week from hell, in a period of 7days the following happened:

Ralph had just started a new job.
I was applying for that camp managers job.
Mr H passed away.
SIL L went to hospital.
One of the playgroup mums had a baby.
Got Heidi’s diagnosis.
Tante Anita passed away.
2 funerals to go to.
Lots of time spent at FILs house.

Life is super busy now but it is so much better than it was 12 months ago. That is something to reflect on and to maybe think that in 12 months time it will be just a little bit better again.

Edited to add another reason to smile is Stitch Pinks latest giveaway. Head on over and leave a comment to enter, you could win the kit to make this -

Annie has 3 kinder sessions a week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Two weeks ago after Thursdays Kinder session Annie regaled me with tales of kisses.  She and a young lad named “C” had taken a liking to each other and decided this new friendship must be sealed with a kiss, and several more kisses followed from there.

Tuesday last week Annie and young C were overjoyed to be reunited after a long weekend apart and they went about holding hands.

Wednesday our young couple exchanged posies of flowers, made cards and paintings for each other.  It could be even be said that they behaved in a sickeningly romantic fashion.

Thursday came around and young C decided he wanted to play with the boys.  Annie sat on the climbing frame and sang songs about her great sadness, her wish to play with C and be friends once more.  Young C the foolish lad did not heed his fair maidens song and continued to roughhouse with the lads.

Tuesday came around again and Annie was despondent.  C had abandoned her.  What is worse, he pushed her in the stomach and called her a ‘poo poo head’.

Wednesday saw both Annie and young C take a day off kinder.

Then Thursday, once more our young couple are reunited, overjoyed to see each other.  hands are held, cards exchanged but it would seem our fair maiden has learnt.  No longer does she sit on the climbing frame and sing for young C when he proves fickle and wanders away with his mates. Our fair maiden turns her back and finds another boy to amuse her.  Young C did not like this, no indeed he did not and promptly returned to his Annie.

Oh and look and WIP report.  All I have to do is a tiny bit of back stitch and the calendar will be finished!

Heidi and Annie working out a computer game together.

Things are slowly getting better, calming down.

Last night I handed over all the fundraising stuff for kinder which eases a great burden of responsibility off my shoulders.

I heard today that Heidis kinder sessions are being increased by 30 minutes each. An extra half hour without one child. Bliss.

Plus I found out I can get a small refund from Centrelink for both the girls kinder sessions which I didn’t think I would be entitled to. Woo. Got to fill out a ton of paperwork but even a small refund is better than nothing.

Annie fell asleep talking last night - like she does most nights, just suddenly stops mid sentence and she is out. As per usual she woke up talking, actually yelling “2 plus 3 is 5″ at 4.45am, the joy It woke Heidi up also.

Today was Annie’s second swimming lesson, she has a problem with swallowing pool water and choking because she can’t keep her mouth closed because… wait for it… she wont stop talking.

:: falls over laughing ::

chatterbox much.