#684 Sunday 18 August

5am

It's been a good night .... dry with crucially timed wee-breaks.  Kaylia has a cold .... coughing with a stuffed head and a  "ruddy doase".

She is watching Baby Einstein on YouTube .... at least she has slept till now .... I'm not complaining!  Headphones are a great invention.

7:50am ..... and we can't even sleep in because the electricity people have come to check the switchboard ... and Teddy is MIGHTLTILY offended!

10:40

RED LETTER DAY!!

In 1978 while teaching at a remote spot in the Kimberleys .... the school received Sesame Street videos .... and one of the sessions was about "Morty Moot Mope". Very Funny.   Ever since I have searched for a copy of that video .... to no avail.  It seems to have been lost..... 

.. http://youtu.be/_ehFz4OPn0Q

... and this morning I found a link to the video and the words!  Here are the words. ....

Once in a kingdom of Boppity Bope, 

there lived an old king named Morty Moot Mope.

Morty Moot Mope was the old king's name, 

and he loved to hear words that sounded  same.

But, the saddest thing about his rhyming game, 

was that he couldn't find a word that would rhyme with his name.

He searched through the country and he searched through the town, 

until he finally found Same Sound Brown

"Oh boy, oh joy! I'll bet my crown, 

that fellow there is Same Sound Brown.

Now Same Sound Brown was a rhyming man...

"I can rhyme words faster than I bet you can."

You see if you said moose...

"I would say goose."

If you said moose juice...

"I would say loose goose."

If you said loosey juice moose...

"I would say loosey goose loose."

Now Morty Moot Moot Mope began to feel pretty good, 

and he sent for Brown  just as quick as he could.

And before the king could turn around, 

there in the court was Same Sound Brown.

He bent one knee and bowed to the king,

and said, "Morty Moot Mope, I can rhyme anything. 

"Well," said the king, "I'm glad you came, 

now make me a rhyme to rhyme with my name."

"I'm sorry king, but there's very little hope, 

I've rhymed some hard ones in my time, but Morty Moot Mope...is...hard to rhyme..."

"Well, if you can't find a rhyme, here's what I'll do,

I'll put you in a cage in the royal zoo!"

"You'll have to catch me first," said Same Sound Brown, 

and before you're off your throne, I'll be half way out of town.

"And I'll tell you something else, Morty Moot Mope, 

you couldn't catch me with a 40 foot rope."

"Forty foot rope?" cried Morty Moot Mope, 

"Forty foot rope rhymes with Morty Moot Mope!"

"Of course it does, I knew it all the time; 

there are very few words that I cannot rhyme."

"See here, young man, I'll make you a knight!" 

"Oh no thank you, sire, that's allright."

"Since you were going to cage me when you thought I couldn't rhyme; 

I'm going back and do my rhyming in my own good time." 

The moral of this story is: Never threaten to put someone in the royal zoo,

because the person who winds up in the cage just might be you.

#683 Saturday 17 August

It's 3am .... I give up!   She is not allowed to drink ever again! We need two corks .... one for each end .... nothing in and nothing out!

Despite several trips to the loo ( where she produced prodigious volumes of wee) she has managed to flood first my bed at 10pm and then her own bed at 2am.  There's a mountain of sodden bedding waiting to be washed in the morning .... and the layers of plastic sheeting still didn't stop the flooding getting through to the "last resort layer" below!  Henceforth she will not drink and she will not sleep! Maybe then the bed will stay dry.

11am
I've just had a "survey" phone call ... and I've found an effective, polite way to deal with it .... when asked "Can you help us with our survey" I responded "Yes ... our company specialises in surveys and we only charge $150 per survey. If you give me your credit card details, I'll process the payment and then we can proceed."   ....... and the response?   "..... er no thanks. Bye"

Of course if they called my bluff, we have the EFTPOS terminal waiting and I'd be happy to do a survey for them!

While doing the mountain of washing from last night, I've been playing with my birthday present .... a twin-blade cutter!  I've been lusting after one of these for ages and they finally got down to a price that I could "live with" .... so I used my birthday vouchers to visit my favourite shop.  I grabbed one and went to the checkout .... and found that the checkout price was 25% less than the marked price!  Bargain!  .... I didn't question it ... just paid and ran!

#682 Friday 16 August

The full moon is coming in a few days .... and she's not sleeping well tonight. It's 3:40am and she has been watching the iPad for a fair bit of the time since midnight.  She watches for a while .... then puts it away and dozes .... then gets it out again.   It disturbs me much more than if she just stayed awake.

Later
She finally slept at about 5am ..... the funny thing about "bad nights" is that she usually has a good day afterward!

7pm. True to form she had a good day .... but it was a sports day and so she has "hit the wall" already .... she's settling to sleep.  She was so tired she couldn't lift her food to her mouth during tea!

#681 Thursday 15 August

Wow .... what a good night!  Best sleep I've had in a long time.  .... and before sleeping I finished the book.

Fortunately there's a sequel in the pipeline ... #4

(I think I'm firmly in the "Heather Dickson Fan Club").

http://www.hleightondickson.com/

Evening

It's a wild and wet night .... it's not even 5pm but it's dark and cold already.  Naomi is asleep in bed .... she's still sick .... it's not good.

Kaylia and Jo are not home yet.  They're probably at the library or the shops .... good places to be!

7pm ..... they were swimming!  It seems ludicrous given the weather but an indoor heated pool makes a big difference.  Now we're winding down to the bedtime routine .... she's tried to get a car ride down to the big office ... no way ho-say!

#680 Wednesday 14 August

Opening "Google Search" today brings this up!  It may be corny but I like it!







Kaylia had a good night .... she's such a "cuddle-pot"!  She just likes to be touching us.  It occurred to me that all the bad times that we had years ago .... when she would scream for hours in the night and we had some really bad times .... may have been due to anxiety.  We know so much more now about how she ticks .....  if we could have that time over again, I think we could do a much better job.  We still have the task (in future) of  re-training her into a more normal sleeping arrangement but I think the key to this will be to wait till she is able to manage her anxiety herself.  Once she can do that, we can make many changes.  ..... a change of house would help too!  Our current house has her bedroom downstairs and our bedroom upstairs .... re-training will be much easier if the bedrooms are on the same level.

Evening

The birthday cake!

#679 Tuesday 13 August

5am ....  Cramp again .... so while I'm in the "concentrate on relaxing" phase, I can blog.  Cramps are a "bugga" part of life .... my research shows that they are common .... and apart from drinking more water and taking magnesium supplements, there's not a lot that can be done. There's lots of "quackery" but not much in the way of real solutions.

Kaylia is at a delightful stage of development.  The autism and anxiety still require a lot of work and extra / different handling .... but we seem to have worked out a "satisfactory method" that produces an acceptable quality of life.   ..... and Kaylia herself has become a delightful person.   

I wonder .... if Kaylia had been "neuro-typical", would we appreciate her the way we do?  .... or would we be blasé about our child?

Everyday there are little "wow moments" where she does something that makes me just sit and marvel at how far she has progressed.  Sure she still has a long way to go .... but the child is brilliant!

5pm .... nearly finished therapy.  As usual she is really "into it" ..... what a far cry from a few years ago when the therapist would have to struggle to keep her attention from one moment to the next.

Aliso was just doing an exercise for recognising emotions and facial expressions .... and Kaylia says (in context) ".... I'M EXCITED!"   The capitals are for her big voice! She was very excited!

7pm  STOP PRESS!  I've just had an email from Anni!  .... and she is aiming to do her PhD in accounting then move to Australia ..... so in a few years time we might be able to see her more regularly!

Anni was with us in 2007 when Kaylia was 3 going on 4  ...... Anni had the horrible task of sharing Kaylia's toilet training with us!  (We will always be in debt to you for that huge thing alone, Anni!)  Anni also helped us select the fur-ball Teddy .....    (grr grr)

#678 Monday 12 August

  At last!  The next book is available .... this is available on Amazon 

Evening ..... Wooo oooo .... the book's good!

Kaylia has had a good day. .... no transition blues so far.  This may be due to the fact that she has had 3 weeks to get used to Jo.