#1445 Saturday 31 December

New Years Eve!  The day has begun with very heavy overcast .... I thought it was about to bucket down. .... but it didn't.

Kaylia had a very good night ..... I stayed with her and she slept right through the night.  It's now 8:30am and she is still asleep.

3pm  After a morning of  car trip for Kaylia, we are now back home with R&R time.  Kaylia is focused on a  noisy toy that she can stim with ..... while the adults watch "Penguins of Madagascar"  .... what a wacky, exquisite movie!

While at Hardys I discovered another form of corruption .... it's blatant theft by the internet company.  I had bought 1 Gb of data ..... the phone says I have used 400Mb .... yet the credit is all gone and I have to buy more!!  Sheesh.

4pm Kaylia is now in the bath .... with lots of bubbles.  She will be there till teatime I'm sure ..... so we can relax a bit.

6:30pm  While extracting Kaylia from the bath, Naomi suggested that we go and have tea ..... Kaylia responded "Cool!!" .... isn't that good!

 

We're at Gardenia for tea ..... and here is the resident dog ..... he's a sweet natured  dog.

8pm ..... back at the villa ..... Kaylia has gone to bed .... and I'm waiting till just before midnight before climbing onto the roof to watch the performance that welcomes the new year. Climbing the ladder is getting harder .... but I have a few more years yet that I can do this.

Happy New Year!  Naomi and I both climbed the ladder and saw in 2017 in the midst of a storm of fireworks.   

It was a very impressive time.

Photos taken at midnight on the roof.

#1444 Friday 30 January

It's been another sleepless night for Kaylia ..... this is one of the unpleasant effects of autism.  She can be very tired yet she still doesn't sleep.  This then starts a cycle of anxiety attacks leading to more tiredness.  All this is hard on Kaylia .... and hard on us as well.  We get exhausted by managing her at the same time as we are living our regular daily life.

As we were leaving the villa this morning I noticed this snail on the brick pavement outside our door .... it was huge!



Our system for managing Kaylia is to go for a drive .... somewhere .... so that she has a fixed routine for the day.  So it's drive .... then lunch ... then rest .... or swim .... or bath .... till tea time .... then bedtime around 6pm.  She then has stories and iphone time till around 8pm ... or earlier if she settles.

This routine works well much of the time .... but sometimes it fails.





On our drive this morning we headed over to Kerobokan .... to find a new Puri Mas Bakery!

They have delicious nibbles which always leave us hankering for more.


The traffic was horrendous while going north along Jn Sunset .... averaging around 500 metres per half hour.  Fortunately when we headed south for the return trip, the traffic was very light.   We stopped at Carrefour shopping centre for lunch ..... and the photo to the right happened!  (The headphones Kaylia has on are just for noise control ..... no sound ..... it helps her with anxiety.)

Kaylia is getting quite tall now .... and she hasn't had her teenage growth spurt yet!  Last night as we were walking back from Acquaviva, she walked beside me with her hand on my head.

I made a bad mistake in my trip preparation this time .... I didn't bring enough Vit D tablets.  In Australia I get bottles of 200 x 1000iu tablets and I take 16 per day .... so it lasts me a week and a half.  I only brought one bottle and they've run out.  In Bali, the 1000iu tablets are not available .... 400iu is the maximum.  And at 60 per bottle, I'd go through a bottle per day!  And it's not cheap here.  So I shall have to suffer till we go home.  After two days without the Vit D, I can feel the effect and I must walk very carefully.

#1443 Thursday 29 December

After that positive feeling at the end of yesterday, the night disintegrated into a "stress battle" ..... an unpleasant time that finally ground to a halt when tiredness overcame her anxiety behaviours .... it was not nice.

Today has potential to be a low stress day .... J and E are in Ubud ...... so it means that we can arrange the day to be optimal for Kaylia.   We're asking ourselves "Why do we go on holidays?" The very basis of a holiday .... the change in routine ..... the relaxation ..... is a big cause of Kaylia's anxiety attacks.  So the holiday is usually the very opposite for us.

Evening
It's been a good day .... a couple of times she began to escalate into an attack but we've been able to defuse the situation each time.  We began the day with a drive to Hypermart ..... then sate for lunch at home..... then rest time ..... milkshake at Acquaviva .... more rest time .... then home delivery pizza.  If we program the day and explain it to her, it improves the chances of making it through the day .... and of is keeping our sanity.  she is regularly talking about school .... but that's OK .... we have to be hard on her when she starts talking about "airport" .... she means that she wants to go back to Perth. 

#1442 Wednesday 28 December

Kaylia seems to have welcomed our change in management ..... she was much happier yesterday and last night.  She settled quickly and slept well .... she even slept through the noise of a thunderstorm which went past very closely at 2am.  There were some very loud claps of thunder .... but she didn't stir.

We were going to go to Ubud for two nights ..... and we'd booked a place .... but with Kaylia needing us to stay in a familiar routine, we are not going after all.  Joe and Ellie will still go so the booking isn't wasted.

A new air-conditioner is being installed this morning   ..... it's the third in six years! The only good thing is that air-conditioners cost about one third of the price in Oz.  Much of the difference is in the cost of installation.

5pm  Kaylia had a tough time this afternoon and she was upset for a long time.  Naomi was finally able to persuade her to have some bath time.  This calmed her and she's been there for about an hour.

Our life seems to revolve around Kaylia .... no ... not seems .... it does.  This afternoon Naomi couldn't even have time to go into Starbucks to buy a cup of coffee ..... while Kaylia and I were waiting in the car, Kaylia dissolved into a bad time.

#1441 Tuesday 27 December

The adjusted management plan seems to have been a real improvement ..... her behaviour was much easier to handle yesterday.  We'll continue that change.

Teatime:  Today has been a bit of a disaster .... we went out for a drive and I bought some plumbing parts .... when we got home, nothing was correct!  It means another trip tomorrow.

Then we had guys working on the faulty aircon in room 1 .... and it's not worth repairing .... it's only two years old!!  Air-conditioning units just don't last here.

Now we're at AquaViva for tea.

#1440 Monday 26 December

..... last night continues!  Naomi managed a very awake Kaylia till 2am ..... all her skills at helping Kaylia to sleep were to no avail.  At 2am Naomi "tagged" me and I took over. After another 2 hours of trying to slow her breathing and to control her constant body movements, she finally slept. Phew!

We're doing something wrong here ..... either error in medication or error in activity .... 

On a more slithering topic .... Naomi suprised a snake in the bathroom this morning.  It went along the top of the wall and down the other side. From the description, it sounds like a nasty one.  We will need to be wary ....... and revise our first aid plans in case of snakebite!

10am .... Off to the waterpark near Uluwatu.  It was almost completely empty of people .... maybe it's a school day.  Anyway we're not complaining. Kaylia doesn't have to cope with the usual noise.  We were all impressed by the giant tipping bucket .... it's literally a huge bucket  holding about 3 or 4 hundred litres of water .... it's about 5 metres up and it tips over when it is full .... and cascades down over a roof.  If you sit in the right spot, you get hit by this large mass of water.  It's quite an experience.

I nearly injured myself .... I went on the biggest waterslide and managed to wack my ankle.  I'll be limping for a day or so.

Then it was back to Sanur .... sate for lunch

Sate untuk makan siang..... lima puluh!

4pm Our new management plan for Kaylia is working so far ..... it means adjusting our daily activities so that she gets chill out time in the afternoon ..... and use of Lovan when we can see her stress levels rising.

#1439 Sunday 25 December

Happy Christmas everyone! Selamat Hari Natal!   Our plan for the day is to drive to Ubud and find a restaurant that we remember from other times .... hopefully we will be able to get in for a Christmas lunch.

During the night, Joe and Ellie had a visitor... a small python.  It's about a metre long.  I took it outside and released it away from the villa. I think these reptiles are great ...... but others don't share my enthusiasm. Are you reading Chris?  You would be very excited by this.

11am. We're now at a restaurant in Mas .... to the south of Ubud. This will be our Christmas lunch.  It was a nice quiet spot ... we were the only guests. 

Of the six of us, four had nasi campur ......

..... and just near our table we spied a mass of   caterpillars .... the restaurant staff were not impressed and removed them very quickly!

Then it was a drive round Ubud area .... and by that time Kaylia had reached her limit and we had to head back to home.

Night time:   Well ..... the day turned out badly ... Kaylia was overtired by 3pm and the rest of the day was a torrid session of managing her repetitive nagging.  She took hersef off to bed by 5:30pm and by 7pm she was asleep. 

At this point both Naomi and I are very despondent about being in Bali and we are seriously considering aborting and flying home.  Kaylia would be easier to manage if we were at home.  Her behaviour means that this time in Bali is not a holiday at all.

I went and had a good massage and then stayed awake till the 10pm wee run.  At 11 Kaylia woke and went for another loo run ... and then she was awake ..... and stayed awake. Naomi took her to the spare room to let me sleep.