#325 Saturday 23 July

Kaylia will be a mess today! She didn't sleep after the her 12:30 'wee break' and she was on the iPads for the next 4 hours. We finally threatened the 'empty room' when she started loudly insisting on DVD time .... this did the trick and she still prefers bed to the prospect of the 'empty room' so she settled for a few hours sleep.

I was trying out the 'pagoda' with it's special cushion this morning .... very comfy .... and musing over this trip. Overall it has had the potential to be a bad time ... but it hasn't been! Thanks to Sally and the smooth way she has of stepping in and giving us a break, we have actually had a good holiday and we've been able to accomplish a lot. We feel as though our goal (of having the villa able to be rented out) is well on the way to being achieved.

Today we get our signs for the front .... the villa will have it's name. We are looking for a Buddha statue to sit above the entrance and smile on all who enter.



While at Mitre 10 yesterday I noted generators ..... one the size we need is about $600 ..... half to a third of the cost in Perth! I will discuss this with the 2 other villa owners .... the logical thing is to have one generator for the three villas. (Bali has regular electricity cuts to share the load ... insufficient capacity in the country.)

Night: A good day .... Chris (Sally's) arrived midday and after a suitable "Chris crash" it was time for tea at Gardenia .... and massages (x 3) back at the villa .... then crash for the night! Kaylia has been very good.



(Kaylia in "wah-wah" mode .... managing her anxiety.

Location:Barwee

#324 Friday 22 July

It's 2:15. Kaylia is sleeping well. She was up till after 10 because she'd had a 3 hour sleep in the afternoon .... this was after a big session "at the bitch" in the morning.
Why are we awake? Me .... aching wrist and arm ... not helped by all the drilling / screwing. Naomi is wrestling with a work situation which has developed while we've been away. So ... It's ice-cream at 1:00am!

Evening: It's been a very busy day! Meetings this morning for the purchase contract, warranty, fitting of gas hose to the stove. Then this afternoon I went off to buy four mattresses and to arrange for 15 "keyed alike" lock fittings. (At present we have a crazy situation where we have 20 locks ..... And 20 different keys! Of course keeping track of them is very difficult.)





Rice padis in the middle of Denpasar.
We've been buying paintings to liven the decor. We have cushions on all furniture.



We have a curtain round the poolside "pagoda".


Tomorrow will be the last day ... Phew!

Location:Barwee

#323 Thursday 21 July

Th dratted pump has done it again! It's 3:30am am and (after taking Kaylee for a wee break) I could hear the pump just continually turning on & off. The unit is very hot to touch so I've un-plugged it. From past performance, it probably will not work at all in the morning. At least I have a tangga (ladder) now ..... so I'll be able to fault find and work out why the system will not gravity feed. (It has a reservoir on the roof .... so even with the pump off, water should feed to the taps at low pressure. This is not happening .... why not?)

I'm sitting at the desk in the living area as I write .... there's a tall floor lamp casting a soft red glow ..... thanks Biaritz! Naomi introduced me to the wonders of this shop yesterday. It has 3 floors of things to pretty up your home .... nearly all at very reasonable prices. It takes the worry out of it .... you just wander round thinking "... one of those ..... three of those .... yes, that one too!" Great place.

The internet modem installed on Monday will have to be replaced .... it only has about a 5 metre range! It barely reaches Bedroom One .... Bedroom Two? Forget it! This might be tolerable for a private situation but in a rental situation, it would cause many problems. A long range modem is needed!

Kaylia's eating habits are becoming a worry .... lately she has begun "stuffing" food into her mouth. Then she might find that she can't chew because her mouth is too full ... so she empties it out! Yuk! I think a social story might be needed.
(For those that don't know, a social story is a page with some simple sentences .... and pictures .... that outline the process that is to happen. So if a change in her routine is coming, we prepare her so that she knows what is going to happen. This reduces anxiety. In the case of eating habits, we can use it to help her understand a new set of behavior patterns.)

Managing anxiety is a major factor in our life .... if we are to have a pleasant day, we must be constantly watching for factors and events which will produce anxiety for her. If we can avoid these .... great! If they are unavoidable, we need to prepare her for them and manage her through the situation. For example ... babies! A crying baby is highly distressing for her. So where possible we move her away from them. Then we help her to manage the distress.

We use a method which she taught us! For a long time, a barking dog was also distressing ... then we noticed that when Teddy barked, she was saying "woof ... woof" .... and it helped her. So we've taught to do the same thing with other noises. When a baby cries, we all say "Wah ... wah" .... she can then manage the distress herself. The sound is still upsetting but she doesn't dissolve into an anxiety attack over it!

4:03am Coffee time
Warranty .... there've been a few issues to do with faults with the villa .... which have been covered by the builder's warranty. The main one is probably the doors! "Green" timber has been used to manufacture the doors and as it ages, it dries and shrinks. So .... doors no longer fit the opening, locks no longer lock, timber panels have strips of unvarnished wood showing. Not good! It seems the builder bought the doors from a manufacturer .... so he hasn't created the problem .... but he has to fix it.
The stove fitting is not complete ..... there is no pipework from the cooktop to a gas bottle! (The builder's man said "... oh it's an electric stove ... no gas." I don't th.i.n.k so!!!

There are other issues but we'll get on top of them. The big problem is that we're not here often enough .... gee .. isn't that tough!

8:30am Coffee time
I'm the only one up! I've been working on the plumbing. Very strange. It has pipes going in unusual ways ... it will demand study!



Story of the day (at breakfast)

"If it looks like .... and it tastes like ..... then it probably is .....!!"

Sally and Naomi both ordered fruit salad and yoghurt for breakfast. It duly arrived and Sally devoured hers while Naomi was dealing with Kaylia. When Naomi took a mouthful, she immediately stopped and said "This is not yoghurt .... it's mayonnaise!" "Oh" said the waitress "We have a trainee cook! So sorry!" Sally thought it tasted a bit strange but this is Bali!

The rest of the day has been busy with fitting of all the bathroom items, the paintings, the key-safe ..... the place is taking shape! The pump has been fixed and now works perfectly. It worries me because I don't know why it went wrong!


This is a tired girl! (On the way home from shopping.)

#322 Wednesday 20 July

It's 1:40am and she's awake. She may be a little sunburnt ... it's been that sort of day. Sally is burnt ... she's glowing so much we were able to use her to light our way in the dark on the way back from tea!

7:30am. That developed into a really bad night. She didn't settle again at 1:40 and the usual routine of DVD just seemed to escalate .... at 3:30 we finally insisted on "bed" ... And the escalation continued to the point where we "timed her out" in the room next door - this room is completely bare! This changed her tune! She'd prefer quiet in bed to noisy in the bare room!
So we slept at about 4 or 4:30 .... and woke to a sodden bed! Revenge!

Today? The current command is "b'fast a bitch" .... Breakfast and beach. We'll see.




Rasta the bat .... jus' hangin' roun mon!



Evening: The day has been very successful from the shopping angle .... we have many of the homey things needed to set the villa up for rental .... we've bought some paintings .... we've bought much of the bathroom items needed ... towel rails, toilet roll holders etc.
We've ordered the villa name plate! We've hopefully sorted some of the building warranty issues. It's been a busy day.

I had some fun .... buying a basic tool set so I can do things like fitting the bathroom items.

Kaylia has come home from tea and kicked us out .... she's having stim time.

#321 Tuesday 19 July

Autism is not a word .... it's a sentence .... a life sentence. There's no weekend release ... no parole period .... no "time off for good behavior".
But there's also no offender .... only victims ... any we all pay the penalty.

On the bright side .... We now have WI-FI in the villa! After waiting all day yesterday, the man came at 5:30 and ... voila!







I frequently cop flak for the family "stoic" trait ... but at present that fault is a virtue I reckon .... without it I'd have stayed home and nursed the pain .... "sucked it up" as instructed by the doctor! (Don't ask for help with pain control!)
Last night I thought I'd get a hand/arm massage to help the tendons and muscles ... but I tried at three places and all refused when I explained why I wanted help. Today I'll ask if they will do a "warm stone" treatment ... that might be OK.

9:30am Sitting on the beach in front of the Mercure. It was Kaylia's command for a post breakfast outing. It gives us a good walk and a pleasant swim. Kaylia's breakfast tactics this morning were the usual...... Devour hers while constantly watching daddy's to see if there's any chance of getting some more!
I tried out the fish tank!



Later went to Macdonalds .... the playground is always in K's list.



Evening: K has been in fine form today ... lots of character! I feel privileged to be watching her grow and I wish the blog could do her justice.

I went off with Yudhi today to do battle with the bank ... I found out "which bank" was the best choice and was able to get half the process completed .... the rest must wait till we're back in Perth.
(The Australian Commonwealth Bank has an Indonesian subsidiary and hence it simplifies the banking setup.)

Now ... I must sleep!

#320 Monday 18 July

Sleep in! It's 7:00am ... Kaylia has slept well .... we've slept well. I'm lying in bed watching a kite in the sky (no curtains yet) ... the sky has kites wherever you look ... large ones flying high (Zoe take note!) I'll investigate having a "Villa Frangipani" kite! We could fly it when in residence.



Today? Manage anxiety!! That was a doozy last night. Still only about 70% of the severity of the early day melt-downs .... but we've grown accustomed to a calm Kaylee ... It was a shock!

Afternoon: it has been a waiting day .... waiting for people to arrive .... managing the anxiety monster while doing so. She has a repertoire of possible activities ... We cycle through them. The trick seems to be to survive through the period where she is working out what those options are. Once she has decided the sequence of routines, we then maintain the sequence and try to manage our needs around it.



A startling stormy sky from the kitchen.

#319 Sunday 17 July

Barwee today! After a dry night we were up and off to the airport. It was the quietest departure we've ever had .... the terminal was almost deserted and we whisked through passports and customs with no hassles. The x-ray machine didn't even beep at all the metalwork in my wrist! Kaylia is clearly excited in anticipation of the trip.

After her last therapy review, we are concentrating on trying to get her to talk about things that are not related to wants/needs ... so the excitement of the time in Bali is a great topic. As one of the items for setting up the villa, I'll look for a small printer to leave in the villa ... This will mean that Kaylia can write stories about her time ... We can email the stories home and she can use them at school. With Kaylia's growing ability to use the computer I think it will be time soon to set up her own email address. I can imagine her writing to a friend via email. (Wow ... What a long way she's come in the last couple of years!)

11:00am After an hour and a half it's time for some calming ... melatonin and painstop. She's getting noisy ... seems to be boredom rather than anxiety. If the painstop doesn't slow her down, we'll try the new tool.

I've had a half hour session with the TENS machine on my wrist ... an amazing thing ... it generates electrical impulses and I'd thought they would be just random impulses ... but each separate burst of stimuli activates a different set of muscles! So the impulses are not random. They produce a hand rotate, then a figure wiggle, then a hand clench .... then something else .... then the sequences begins again. It reduces the pain during the session and the arm muscles are more relaxed after.

(I wrote all the above on the plane.... But I did it on the iPad! ... and it's not easy to transfer! It had to wait 2 days.)
It's 7:30pm .... we've had swims in the pool.... been to get donuts ... been for a walk (this was a furphy - she actually wanted food so we ended up at the cafe for tea.) The new furniture arrived ... and we made a bad mistake! We had moved room and this messed up Kaylia's routine big time .... she's only had 4 nights in the other room but already that room is firmly in her mind as "the room". The change of room produced a BIG meltdown .... bad for Kaylia and bad for us too. The question is ... Do we change back to appease the monster? Or do we tough it out to change her routine?