#670 Saturday 3 August

I'm stealing a photo from Brynn's FB .... it's such a nice photo that I want it in my blog .....

.... We only have a week of Brynn left.   I feel that it has been a very special five months ... being able to share a little bit of Brynn's life.  Thankyou Heather .... for sharing your daughter with Kaylia, Naomi and I.

.. and then I noticed this on her FB too .....

How profound!   If I were still a teacher I would frame this and hang it prominently in my classroom.

Midday
Kaylia is still out and about with Brynn. 
Naomi and I have just had a phone call from  "Human Services"  (now there's a joke!) regarding an appeal I had lodged about 18 months ago .... the appeal was against the rejection of a claim for the 09/10 Family tax benefit.  The government had changed the rules some time back so that this benefit was no longer automatically paid to families.  Prior to that point, it was just calculated and paid when the income tax return was lodged.
Somehow I missed the announcement of the news that I now had to remember to manually claim the benefit.  When I I found out about this change  I proceeded to lodge claims for the three intervening years  .... only to find that I was 5 days too late for the first year!
I had appealed this rejection on the basis that this was a major change to expect a family under stress to keep up to date with ..... but the response delivered today was that their policy does not allow any grounds for appeal!

We feel as though we have been kicked in the teeth .... once again the Australian cultural attitude that disabilities are a problem for the parents .... the community isn't going to help.