Nuffnang

Thursday 19 April 2012

I Wish Kids Would Keep Their Bugs to Themselves!

One of my children passed a delightful little bug on to me.

It has meant I have done absolutely nothing for the last two days.

I probably should have been in hospital on a drip, but being me, I didn't even ring the doctor.

I have not even eaten in more than two days.

Apparently I was ridiculous and obviously delirious in the early hours of yesterday.  The Workaholic force fed me paracetamol.

Thankfully the Workaholic worked from home yesterday, except when he went out for a boozy business lunch for three hours.  This was of course when the heavens fell and the house was leaking and of course to put a cherry on top, the power went out.

Somehow from my bed I convinced the boys to have a nap till Dad came home and fixed the power.

They did and I went back to sleep.

The Workaholic came home, fixed the power and took the boys to Officeworks (what a treat) when they woke.  He made them dinner, played some very messy titanic game with them and got them back into bed.  I slept through the whole thing.

I wish I could sleep through until the cleaning fairy has been.

Imagine this inside your lounge room, kitchen AND sunroom...
image from here


Why do they make so much mess when I am sick?  I swear the Workaholic is the worst.  The carpet will not recover and poor old Freddy the Fighting fish may or may not have been saved by my intervention today.  Only time will tell.

Anyway I am off to phone the carpet cleaners...


Wednesday 11 April 2012

Tuesday 10 April 2012

It's My Birthday Today...

I'm older than yesterday!

I have had a lovely snuggle with my boys this morning and a lazy home day with them.

The Workaholic had to work, but he left me gifts with the little guys and they opened them with me.

I am completely spoilt today.

An iPhone and a new Kindle Touch.

A techy birthday to me!

The best bit was the card which is covered in cats and when you open it a chorus of cats miaows "Happy Birthday to You" including "and many moooore".  Very cute.

I wanted to put a photo of it in this post but it has vanished into the playroom...



Linking up with Jess at Diary of a SAHM for IBOT today.


Friday 6 April 2012

Labels

The other evening on Facebook I was involved in a discussion on introverted children.  It was interesting until someone had to say  "I love that people are labeling their kids" .

The image that started it all...

I hate these Facebook comments that stop a discussion dead in it's tracks.  I do not know this guy.  He is a friend of the friend who started to the discussion, so I restrained myself and chose not to comment on his comment.

I did however, have a quite extensive chat with my Mum about it, which made me think about writing this post.

First up I hate labels, in principle, but in reality they are a necessity.  Labels are required in a bureaucratic society. There are so many situations where if you don't have a label for your child then you miss out on vital stuff, like early intervention for a child on the autism spectrum, for instance.  Without a label of autism spectrum disorder, a child has no chance of accessing the kind of resources that may mean there is the possibility of a "normal" life for the child and their family.  The chance to intervene early and increase chances of a mainstream education and coping in our society.

Let me tell you about my friend D.

Her now 8 year old son has obvious issues, in several areas and unfortunately that has been a big part of the problem in getting a label for him.  Since he was three she has been trying to get a label for him so that she could get the right help for him.  He does not conform to the usual norms for autism, aspergers, auditory processing etc.  He exhibits bits of all of these.

The pre school needed a label to get funding for the extra staff and time he needed.  He did not get it.
The school needed a label for similar.  They have him in a support class.

Medicare needed a label so that his therapies would be covered.  Expenses are pretty much all out of my friend's pocket

To even work out what help would benefit him and help him lead a normal life, he needs a label.  Instead he has been to everything.

Nobody can give him a label.  He has been tested and tested and the only thing "the experts" agree on is that he is not normal.  So for five years she has been battling to get him the help he needs.  She runs from appointment to appointment, sometimes up to eight of them a week and pays for it all out of her own pocket, as he has no label.  He has extra school work coaching, sees a speech therapist, an occupational therapist, a chiropractor, podiatrist and behavioural optometrist to name a few.

Without a label she has tried everything suggested by any qualified person along their journey, just so he can attend a regular mainstream school.  And he has no label, therefore no funding and no help for her.

I think that it is important that people who make the judgement that labelling your kids is wrong, should walk a mile in my friend D's shoes.  I think it would change your mind.  I don't know how she does it, their schedule is exhausting and that is just me hearing about it on the phone!

As for the original discussion on dealing with and understanding introverted children, I am surprised that anyone would dispute that people fall into either category and that they have very different needs.  I was an MBTI consultant in the 1990's, so for me this is a universal truth of humans.  As a teacher I used that knowledge to adjust my teaching style to suit the individual.  I don't see how knowing how to best meet the needs of another human being can be considered a bad thing.

What is your take on labels?

I used Autism Spectrum Disorder as an example of a "label" in this post because April is Autism month, but I could have used any number of other examples.



Thursday 5 April 2012

The Letter of the Week, O

O was a tough one.

There are not very many things that start with O and could be taken in and discussed for a news item.

We came up with:

  • Olive
  • Oranges
  • Owl
  • Onion
  • Octopus
  • Ogre
Not a very inspiring list and pretty much covered by the rest of the class before the Little Man had his turn on Wednesday.

So on Tuesday morning he told me that that afternoon, we would make orange cupcakes and take those in.  Bossy little bugger, but I liked the idea, so I agreed.

This week on our sheet we showed photos of the Little Man
making the cupcakes.


We used the easiest cupcake recipe that I have (no creaming of butter and sugar) so that he could make them without too much help from me and added orange juice freshly squeezed from half an orange. We used red and yellow food colouring to make the batter orange also.  Then for the icing we used the other half of the orange's juice for moisture and again used yellow and red food colouring to make it vibrant orange.  It was orange news on many levels!  They were a big success.

No letter of the week next week because it is school holidays! Yay!

Wednesday 4 April 2012

Wordless Wednesday


This week I discovered that Woollies let you pick your fish and sauce,
and seal it in this nifty bag that you pop in the oven.

Opening the package...

Nomnomnom...



Linking up with Trish from My Little Drummer Boys for Aussie Wordless Wednesday.


My Little Drummer Boys

Monday 2 April 2012

The End of Daylight Saving

I know I may be considered a total freak for this, but I love the end of Daylight Saving time!

image off my harddrive, no idea of it's origin. I love it though.

Yesterday I was not woken by children, my Mum and Dad were, thanks to some last minute clever thinking on my part.  I arranged to drop them off after soccer on Saturday and the Workaholic wandered over and picked them up yesterday afternoon.  Both he and I got to sleep in.  Magnificent!

Then they came home exhausted at 2pm after a morning playing with their cousin and both had two hour afternoon sleeps.  Amazingly the Munchkin asked to go to bed at 7pm and the Little Man followed at 8pm.  One smooth day!

This morning we were all up at 6, which is about 45 minutes early, so breakfast, teeth and dressing were all completed smoothly and we were in the car early.  Early enough for me to do a coffee run BEFORE the school run, and we made it to school almost 10 minutes before the obligatory 8am.  Flying start to the day!

I'm not sure how we will fare with swimming lessons this evening, but I am remaining optimistic that this will be a good day all round!

How's the end of Daylight Saving transition treating your family?