#979 Saturday 30 August

It's been a good night.  Kaylia was tired last night after lots of swimming ..... she took herself off to bed and slept.

Today Kerrie is taking her on the train..... and this is what they found in the city!

Cool eh?

Later:  we've had a lot of rain in the past day .... and this afternoon I noticed that a drainage system that I had built 10 years ago is actually flowing for the first time.

The past 10 years have been so dry that the drains have not been needed.

#978 Thursday 28 August

4:30am and it's another wet bed. I misread the signs .... and thought "I'll wait .... she's not restless enough."

I won't make that mistake again.

8pm. Naomi is home again and Kaylia is very happy.   Despite having her favorite person back she still had an anxiety attack this afternoon that required a lot of TLC to get her through.  She was asking about "HOLIDAY!!!" as usual .... and at one point, Naomi asked her "Which is best?  Holiday or Mummy?"  .... the answer..... "MUMMY!!!"

#977 Wednesday 27 August

It's 5am .... she's been up for a while.  It's been an unsettled night .... story time didn't happen because the wifi at the villa had failed   .... then there was a wet bed at 11pm ..... then, after a wee run at 4am, she hasn't settled again.  Ah well .....

10:30am  .... and she didn't settle again!  She was up and down till shower time .... she would come up and warm her ice cold legs against me .... then back downstairs again!  Needless to say neither of us slept much.  Once in the shower, she wanted a cold shower!!  Brrr!

Kerrie did her "ice bucket challenge" ..... Brrrr!  This challenge is raising funds for research into ALS .... and there's an interesting twist here .... I've been looking into the biochemistry of the effect of the levels of free glutamate in our diet .... and it impacts on ALS as well as autism .... and many other disorders.  There seems to be a real "trail to follow" in this.  There are many confirming incidental factors without any conflicts.  Stay posted.

We're all looking forward to Naomi's return tomorrow.





In the meantime ..... this is at Statham Quarry nearby in Boya ....

#976 Monday 25 August

Kaylia's had a good day at school .... and when she got home she wanted to know all about the 5 weeks till "holiday at Yanchep"!  She's in "hose/bath mode" at the moment.

Kerrie has been nominated for the ice-bucket challenge and plans to do it this afternoon!

#975 Sunday 24 August

We were expecting Kaylia to get annoyed again when Naomi went to the airport last night ..... but bribery works!  A visit to Red Rooster for tea and all is forgiven.  I don't know why she likes RR .... but it seems to be the ultimate in her mind.

Once we were home, it was the usual upstairs - downstairs routine before settling to sleep.

Today it will be Aunty Moo's and the usual routine.

3pm ..... back at home.  Neefi was at Mim's so it was the usual lively conversation.   We loaded the chairs onto the trailer and headed home .... after a detour to Maxine's.

Maxine has come across a research paper where a large number of autopsies of children at ages 2 to 20 were studied.  There were children with and without autism. 

The study showed that the brain selects the neural links it needs as the child grows and discards the un-needed links.  It was found that in normal children the links had dropped to 27% by an early age .... where in children with autism, the number of links only dropped to 57%!  This would explain the sensory overload aspects of autism.

Not that this really helps us .... but it points in a direction for future study.  Why the difference?

Then home.  The chairs are unloaded and installed.  One of the chairs needed repairs and I still haven't got it working properly.  Fortunately the "rocker" is fine.

Kaylia has been under the hose and is now in the bath.

Kerrie is sitting in the sun on the balcony .... in one of the chairs we've replaced!  I think that one of the chairs will become the "balcony chair".  I'm scavenging parts from the other .... so it will eventually be burnt.