#214 Saturday 2 April 2011

It's 6:30am and Kaylia is running round downstairs .... very happy ... singing songs ... it's a nice sound to be a background for a "sleep in"!

Yesterday when I took Kaylia to school she decided to have a little dance around at the front of the room ... this is before school started ... After a few minutes she had a group of other kids all dancing with her! She has an infectious happiness and I think this attracts the others to join in. Fortunately this happiness probably couldn't be squashed out of her even if someone were horrible enough to try! I don't think Kaylia would even notice their efforts!

The "nosh up" last night was good. This is a dessert pizza ... Banana caramel!


Zoe has two days left with Kaylia .... we are all going to have a hard time saying goodbye. I console myself with the thought that Zoe will always be a traveller ... so she'll be back! (that was in an Arnie sort of voice)

#213 Friday 1 April 2011

I missed a day ... yesterday was a pleasant, normal day till late afternoon ... I'd misjudged the timing of taking a tablet for the wrist pain ... and everything seemed to fall in a heap. It ended up a mess. I'll have take the drugs at just 2 to 3pm in future.

Kaylia had a good day at school and finished with a swim after. She is still going haywire with anxiety attacks ... fortunately Naomi has a good technique for calming .... this was really needed last night. We're trying an increase in medication .... the Risperdal seems to be losing effect.

This morning Kaylia was talking in her sleep .... "shopping!"

Later:
I'm at Lil Ceasars in Mundaring ... getting the good stuff for a "going away" party for Zoe. (So sad)
I've been for X-rays of my wrist this afternoon .... even to the un-trained eye, it looks bad ... big gaps where there shouldn't be ... and no gaps where there should be! It burns all the time and my use of pain-killers is going up.
The problem is to decide what to do about it .... any course of action is serious with no retreat if it fails.

#212 Wednesday 30 March 2011

Today has been significant .... one of the important social habits that Kaylia has to be taught is that of greeting people .... saying hello! Her first task on arrival at school in the morning is to say good morning to her teacher .... and today she did it without being prompted!

The other significant event is the arrival of Sally ..... she is a Kiwi who started life in the UK .... she trained as a teacher ... she loves travel and her next destination is SE Asia. "I think she's gunna be OK! Whadya rekun."
Zoe cooked Fettucini carbonara tonight ... Yummo!

#211 Tuesday 29 March 2011

Today you will have to put up with a D&M session .... I've been thinking and I want to capture the thought before it gets lost in the day.
Yesterday I was sharing with another parent of an auty one ... We were talking about grieving for our child ... and I recalled a quote from a past counseling session ... "I cannot hope for a better future till I stop hoping for a better past."

I realized that this applies to grieving too. The grief cannot end till I stop hoping that Kaylia will somehow suddenly become a neuro-typical 7 year old child. I think I'm a fair way down that road ... appreciating her as she is ... but the niggling "what if" still hangs around at times.
It is hard in many of the daily situations that we take Kaylee ... school ... watching her classmates and their easy communication. .... a party ... watching the alertness of her friends as Kaylee struggles to lift herself from the quicksand of her stimming.

It's a subtle difference .... between hoping for a better future .. or a better past.

#210 Monday 28 March 2011

210
Lately Kaylia is becoming insistent that the surroundings conform to her "rules" .... certain lights must be turned on, certain objects must be in particular places. When her world is 'right' she then becomes very stimmy and she is content. This morning that happened to be at about 4:30am. It's going to be a loonngg day!

Her loose toenail came off during the night. I think she is more comfortable now that it's off.

Yesterday as we were driving around (doing the 'car' runs!) ... I noticed that Kaylia has become very, very 'attached' to Naomi .... everytime that Naomi left the car to go into a shop, Kaylia became highly anxious and needed heaps of reassurance that "mummy will come back" and even then, the reassurance did not calm her.
We realised that the planned "Bali Break" for Naomi in May was not going to work. Kaylia's anxiety would be out of control if Mummy were to be away for 5 days. Our options were to either cancel Naomi's trip .... which would mean that she wouldn't get a break of any form ..... or to add two more travellers to the planned trip.

We chose the latter. By tea-time Naomi had booked two more fares. She has cancelled her Ubud accommodation and the money saved there will offset one of the fares. We will instead stay in Pete's wonderful villa in Sanur. This will be the first time that Kaylia has been there and it will be a test.

#209 Sunday 27 March 2011

Twice this morning ... while she was still asleep.... I heard her saying "shopping!". At 7am we're vainly trying to persuade her that she really wants to sleep a bit longer.

Zoe has gone off on a day bus trip to the Pinnacles. We have one week left till Zoe leaves ... this leaving will be hard. Kaylia has developed a very strong attachment to Zoe and I'm sure that Kaylia is going to miss her very much. We all will.

STOP THE PRESS. (now there's an expression from a by gone era! Insert ... Paste!)
At 10 past 7 the phone rings .... It's Zoe (who has to be in the city by 7:30) .... "There are no trains till 8:00, the car is on empty and I don't have cash for petrol! Help!"
So Kaylia got her car trip after all! .... and Zoe got to the bus in time!

And Naomi had a good sleep in undisturbed by Kaylia's nagging ... a good start to the day after all!