#376 Sunday 18 September 2011

Hi y'all from Bali. All is well here with no problems found on arrival at the villa  (apart from the fact that the little birds think the open-air bathrooms are a great place to go for water ... and they poop everywhere. (I need to ask the cleaner why she isn't cleaning up the mess.)

It's 9am and I've up since 4:30am ..... already I've done all the set up things around the villa ... .put up the gazebo curtains, put up the umbrella .... I've been to Lottemart and bought 3 lots of  2 metre high by 1200 wide steel shelving unit for the store room. I expected them to be DIY assemble ... but no - they come already assembled! So we couldn't fit them in the car (as I expected to be able to do) and they will be delivered later today. I stocked up on the coffee and tea supply to take back to Perth .... the usuals plus a couple of new ones to try ...... a sachet tea with milk and sugar .... should be interesting!

I recharged the phone credit .... so SMS and maps are now operational again. Now it's time to relax for a little while before I go for a ride on the bike. I may go and visit John and Pat again.

I'm having a battle with the wireless network here .... I've forgotten the password I set up. Fortunately the villa laptop still has the password set so I was able to recover the password on that .... but only in HEX format ... which means that the password is 64 digits long! I have to find out how to convert from HEX to ASCII so I can see what I originally set the password as. The HEX password works in the meantime.

More later ......

The shelves are here already! ... and the guys even carried them inside for me!  (The photo below shows the storeroom ... the shelves are to hold the plastic boxes .... that are used to store linen, supplies, toys, ..... all the stuff we can't leave out when guests are in residence.)



We'll have to remember the Lottemart delivery service ... only Rp50k.

11:15  Wayan (cleaner) is here.  It seems that she has been cleaning ... the little birds are just very busy poop-ers!  I guess when people are around more, the birds will stay away.

5pm ..... After the last entry, I hopped on the bike and rode up to Hardy's.  There I asked   about the cost of new glasses .... multifocals are Rp1.8mil .... so if the optician in Perth won't cooperate and leave my prescription unchanged, then I can always get them made in Bali!.
After Hardy's I rode up to John King's .... he had visitors so I didn't stay.  Rode back to the villa .... swim .... sleep .... swim ..... sleep.

Update on the birds ... you wouldn't believe the mess they've made in the 2 hours since the bathroom was cleaned!  The S&*%$# little B*&%$#s  I wonder if having a radio playing there would deter them?

Now it's nearly time for makan malam!

Later:  Makan malam was nasi goreng with beef and satay. at Mama Putu's.  It's not a good spot for Kaylia but it suits me.  Now I'm waiting for Skype time with Naomi.

#375 Saturday 17 September

Well ..... that will go down in the annals as a "memorable" night.... in the bad sense! Not only did she make a ginormous mess with the paint .... she then wet the bed again! I woke at the appointed "wee time" .... to find that she'd already done the deed!



Last night I posted an ad on Gumtree for some building materials (that I'm never going to use) ..... Then had an email at 2am to say that someone wanted them! (I'm clearly not the only one who doesn't sleep!)

Off to Bali in a few hours! Yay!

#374 Friday 16 September

I'm going! (.... to Bali that is ....). The furniture is being delivered so I'm to be there to install it. Up Saturday, back Wednesday.

Kaylia is REALLY happy tonight ... she's been trying to go back to an old stim of bringing piles of toys out of her room ... so rather than say "No" .... and fighting a battle over it .... I've been saying OK ... and then we put them back. This seems to keep her quite happy.

STOP PRESS .... Big time!!!
It's 8:20pm and we've just had half an hour of "all hands on deck" to clean up a HUGE mess..... Kaylia had been very quiet and we discovered (to our horror) that she had found the play-paints .... and painted herself and most of the lounge room, lounge, carpet ..... Fortunately water-based .... but it was a frenzied cleaning session to catch it all before it dried!



This is a very small sample!

#373 Thursday 15 September

It's been a busy day with lots of work phone calls.


Kaylia in her special dress. She has had a good night ... she talks in her sleep at times .... "clothes" .... "car!" .... "park!!". The other day she was in the car with Naomi while I hopped out to pay for petrol .... I came back and she's in the front seat pretending to drive!
I wonder what this means in terms of imagination? Is she imagining herself driving? Or is she just repeating the physical actions? One day we will be able to ask her.

#372 Wednesday 14 September

Missed a day again! Drat! It's because I lie down early to cuddle Kaylia to sleep ... then I go to sleep too! So .... if we then sleep through the night, I don't get any writing time.
The moon time is past so Kaylia has settled.
We're trying a new tack on the medication .... splitting the Risperdal into morning and evening. If she has the larger portion before bed, she may sleep through the high appetite phase. It's worth a try.

No news on the Bali front .... it's only a few weeks now till we all go up for the school holiday .... so it seems strange to go before. But circumstances may dictate otherwise.

#371 Monday 12 September

Kaylia's had a good day ... very cheerful. It's a delight to see just how much she enjoys her time with Naomi. One of my hopes is that the higher level of understanding we have of her issues (compared with last generation or even just a decade ago) ... will mean that we can raise a happier, more well adjusted child.

One interesting observation from her therapist is that most of his other clients will stim while working .... whereas Kaylia is one or 'tother .... she works .... then she stims. Not at the same time though.

#370 Sunday 11 September

It's 5:30am and she's been up and down and in and out for an hour now .... she's gone downstairs for some play-doh time. Phew!
Evening: It turned into a good day .... we slept in till 10:30 ... we needed it after her performance!
Then it was off on a playground crawl .... Garvey Park, two Bassendean parks and then the Guildford Park (after an ice-cream). Kaylia is very cheerful ... stimmy but happy.