#1410 Saturday 26 November

I wonder how long Kaylia will sleep in this morning?  It's 7am now and she hasn't made a sound yet.  These days she is really liking a sleep in ..... once again it's a very appropriate behaviour at her age.

At around 7am Naomi asked if the spa could have bubbles ..... and I remembered that it does have an air blower .... I just hadn't fitted it.  So the search was on .... and I found it.  The spa now has lots of bubbles and Kaylia loves it.  As soon as she got in she found the hot water hose ..... and that was it!! She was in stimmy heaven.  The water from the heater is +2deg each time the water circulates and it's delicious to have it pouring over you.  The pump circulates the volume of the spa every 15 minutes .... so on a warm day, it heats the spa quite quickly.

K and I stayed in for ages .... and now at 2pm she wants down time ...... and she even wants "no daddy"!

10pm .... she's still wide awake.  She's been singing away ..... lots of different songs. Both Naomi and I have tried all our ideas to try and settle her .... to no avail. It looks like it's going to be another very late night again.

#1409 Friday 25 November

The reports from school are that Kaylia has had a good day with the brace. She is give a target time and she gets an immediate reward when the time is up.

Her tooth problem is worrying .... the tooth is growing into the cheek and it's raw and bloody ..... and it is clearly hurting her. I'm trying to get a cancellation at the dentist .... it will be Thursday otherwise.

The spa heater is working well .... it reached 35deg today.  Today I completed the roof structure over the spa area.... the task will now be completed in a few days. I'll be glad to see the end of this project .... it's dragged on for too long.   After this I have one more major project .... moving the "bungalow" about 3m closer to the house ..... and then I'll call it quits.  It's getting too hard.

#1408 Thursday 24 November

6am .... we were discussing Kaylia's iphone habits ..... the things that she searches for are changing as she grows up ..... she watches less "baby stuff" now .... but her habits and interests are a bit anti-social.  But then she has no social network apart from the adults in this house so being antisocial doesn't really matter. 

3pm  Today I made all the connections between the solar panels and the spa ..... and it works!  the water temperature has gone from 21deg to 31 deg in about 4 hours.  The spa will be very good now. It will be interesting to see how it performs in winter.  It should just mean running the heater pump longer.  The heater pump is 200w so it costs about 20 cents to run it for five hours.

4pm Kaylia is home from school .... she just wants to relax.  I dangled various "carrots" .... drive ..... spa ..... but no ... she just want to chill out with daddy.

The strange thing is that she's not interested in the outside bath or spa at this time. A year ago her world revolved around the bath outside and she would play there for ages.  Not now ...... go figure?

#1407 Wednesday 23 November

I'm exhausted.  I've been up on the roof preparing the structure so that the roof sheets can be put in place ..... it's hard work and hot work .... so I only did 2 hours.  But even that short time was enough.  I hopped in the spa after that .....brrrr ..... it's too cold!!!
So ..... a Bunnings trip was needed to gather the fittings needed to set up a heating system for the spa.  I will finish the heater tomorrow when the weather's cooler. The heater will use the solar panels from the old HWS..... with a pump to circulate the water.

Kaylia has had her back brace introduced at school.  So the time that she is wearing it is increasing.

#1406 Tuesday 22 November

This is a rant .... it's because of Kaylia's tooth.  The tooth will probably have to be extracted .... because of her disability it will have to be done in hospital.
Now Medicare pays a benefit for dental work for children with a disability ..... but the benefit is not claimable if the dental work is done in hospital!!!!

So .... she is eligible because of her disability ..... but she can't claim because of her disability!!

Joe and Ellie have been doing great things this morning .... painting the railing round the spa.  I'm finding the stooping and bending to be hard these days so it's really good to have some help.

#1405 Monday 21 November

You may recall that Kaylia is no longer being medicated to reduce her "stimmy" behaviour ..... one effect of this is that she would rather stim on her iphone than go to school in the morning!  This could be considered to be a normal teenage behaviour ..... she will be a teenager in about nine weeks!

We have a bit of a fan club going on in our house  .... we are fans of our bobtail goannas!  .... and this morning I found that we have a family of them living in my shed!  I watched two very large ones come in under the door and go over to a spot under the shelves.  They were easily over 30cm long .... very impressive specimens. Chris, you would be very happy!  The lizards would like the shed .... safe from the birds and other dangers.  These two are so big that I think a kookaburra couldn't pick them up.

6pm  Kaylia still doesn't eat much ..... but tonight we had mince sauce thingie on rice ..... and she wanted lots of black pepper on it.  Then she wolfed it down.  

This afternoon, she has had 2 x 45 minute brace sessions ... so she earned herself a Calypo icypole.

8pm  While doing Dr Daddy teeth cleaning tonight, I found that a molar has erupted to the outside of the top right jaw ..... bugga!!!  Poor girl .... she really cops it.  ..... autism ...... kyphosis ..... and weird teeth!  I'll call Dr Comacho tomorrow to see if we need any prompt action on this.  I'm very surprised that this tooth wasn't seen in the x-rays that were done earlier this year.

#1404 Sunday 20 November

The "honeymoon period" with the back brace is over ..... it's becoming hard work to get her to wear it. ..... and as the days get hotter, the brace will become more uncomfortable.   The stakes are high though.  If she doesn't accept the discomfort of wearing the brace, then the consequence will be to have a spinal fusion to control the pain that she gets from the kyphosis.  The choices are not pretty either way.

11am  I've had a success this morning .... for a long time I've been stymied trying to get the spa filter/pump system working .... and this morning I looked on YouTube .... and the solution was easily found!  The  spa is now pumping beautifully.  Kaylia will be very happy.

3pm  she's had an hour of brace and she's now considering whether the prospect of an icecream is enough motivation for another hour.