Jan 2009 - molars, movers and shakers

[stripeywoollenhat]

there you go

dog logged on this morning hoping for news... ah bless you, it will probably be DAYS yet, but you should just try to relax. I remember how frustrating those overdue days were though - at this point you just want them OUT. Too exciting though.

pat yey for school! I'm so glad it went well for her. And so sweet that Z got to watch his thomas dvd in peace. I'm resisting all things thomas in this house for now, but N has plenty at the farm. He had a meltdown yesterday because he wasn't allowed to take the battery operated thomas in the bath with him.

Too bad about DH's back though - just when you need it too. Men, huh!

hkz sorry to hear of crappy night but glad she's all better now. Last night N was coughing and crying and seemed to be in teething pain, and could I find the damn calpol anywhere? Today I am buying 5 bottles of the stuff and leaving it everywhere.

hkz we have a rice cooker from Japan that I brought back - brilliant. I think they sell really cheap ones here if you go into a chinese supermarket, but I suppose then it's difficult to understand the instructions. Mine is really simple though with just one button at the front, you fill it with rice and water, and press the button!

My technique with basmati is to put big dollop of butter in heavy based pan, fry some fennel seeds lightly in it, add the rice and bravely let it sit in the sizzling butter for a minute. Don't touch it. Then add 1 cup of water for every cup of rice, plus an extra splash, put the lid on, bring it to the boil, turn down to very gentle simmer, with lid open a crack, and just leave for 10 mins or so. No stirring! Then fluff with a fork before serving. This way you get a lovely crust at the bottom from the butter. But you have to be brave.

That took ages and I am sure no-one is interested. I'll go now! Waves to everyone.

Gah Dog! Waving poms poms for you.

Thanks for all the rice advice....think I might have cracked it, using 1:2 rice to water and just leaving it...worked the second time. MissJ I am going to hunt for a rice cooker, we had ours in HK and I so should have bought it back...so so easy.

How are N's teeth? I found these calpol sachets which give one dose, you just tear off the corner and they suck it, great for middle of the night dramas. DD was all hot and wheezy in te night again but seems ok today.

Pat, good news about school going well, glad E loves it. I started back at school yesterday...chaos.

120 hope the viewing goes well have my fingers crossed for you.

J is completely grumpy today so have put him down for an early nap and baked a banana cake with DD....now I want a nap.

Hi all.

Still got my pom-poms out DOG.

Good luck for the viewing 120, and good to hear school was a hit Pat. Sorry about the back problem though!

I have impetigo on my nose, the skin broke from all the blowing. So predictable and tedious, itchy and painful. I hate going to work with these things. Feel like such a leper.

Hope ds wakes refreshed HKZ. I'd love a slice of cake, ta!

Dd slept from 10, until 4!!! Woooo Hooooo!! Made pancakes for dd1 and 2. I'd forgotten what it was like to wake up and not want to cry or be sick with tiredness and fedup-ness.
DD1 ate some pancakes, but dd2 wouldn't entertain them. I have decreasing sympathy for her at the mo, I know she is infected and under the weather. But she eats so little and so badly, refusing most of the foods offered to her. her immune system must be crap. if she'd eat like everyother baby then she would feel better

Glad DD had a good nigts sleep. Sorry about the eating thing, if it makes you feel any better all my DD will eat is pasta, toast, marmite, bacon, cheese, taramasalata and eggs (no veg and no fruit ) oh and anything packed with sugar...and she is 3 and1/2!

hope still twinging dog
good luck

hkz - m
y dd1 has always been fussy -
she wont eat any form of potatoe
only meat she has is birdseye chicken fingers
no veg
has lots of fruit
luvs marmite on toast
wont eat sandwiches
wont eat cheese
she luvs pasta and rice

Your dd's are like mine Tink and HKZ. SO so fussy. And now dd2 is just the same. Darn it.

It was really apparent how little they eat adn how little they enjoy when my Goddaughter came to stay. SHe just loves eating, and popped baby sweetcorn, pasta, dried fruit and so on into her mouth, very happily. What a pleasure it would be to cook for a child like that!

The playrooma mess and not finished but you get the idea

Can't wait to get the blind and curtains, and the red shiny doors ont he huge cupboard. They are sitting in the hall, but no one dare try them in case they don't fit!! They are going to be hard to fit, they are kitchen cupboard doors, but that isn't a kitchen cupboard, so who knows what hinges they will finally need

DD2 ate some chilli for lunch. Hurrah! Protein, 1. Vitmins, 0. Fibre, 0.

Its a pita, but I pretty much ignore it and if she doesn't eat what the rest of us are having she doesn't get an alternative. She is getting better though and luckily DS will try most things.

House looks lovely. Have given up ideas of home improvement for now as am determind to move out of London by next summer...

Having a dull day here, DD not up to much and DH is at work.....

Evening all

Quiet morning here. Dh let me sleep in a bit, as I was so ridiculously tired after all the stress and organisation of the return to school and then stupidly stayed up to watch Grosse Pointe Blank until 1.00 am. I knew I was being stupid but I absolutely love John Cusack and the music is such a blast from a past.

Went to the library for ds2 to collect his summer reading challenge certificate and make sure he was signed up to receive his medal in assembly at school. Both boys did it, but ds2 has had to work so much harder to complete his six books, especially as he chose ones that were much longer than the books he usually reads.

Decided to treat them both for completing the challenge, so bought a box of 12 Millie's Cookies and took them to their favourite local park to eat them and play on the equipment.

Seemed like a simple enough idea and was lovely at first, but then ds1 couldn't cope with the spontaneity of it all and started to tantrum and complain. Its par for the course with him these days really and ds2 and dd had a great time, so I should just let it wash over me. I know he has ASD and I know he can't help it, but it makes me so and when we try to do something nice as a family and he ends up spoiling it every time. When we got home he told me that he felt sad, but didn't know why and I tried to explain to him that when we do something nice and it has to end, we all feel a little pang of sadness, but that its just a little bit of sadness and we have to balance it with thinking about all the fun we had and, so that makes us more happy than sad iyswim. I say I tried to explain, because he wasn't having any of it and I ended up getting exasperated and giving up. Why does it all have to be so flipping hard?

Sorry, I didn't intend to come on here and be on such a downer .

Sorry to hear about the impetigo Tree, ds had it once, same thing, around his nose after a really bad cold and its horrible. Yay for dd's sleeping though, its great when you can get up in the morning and feel human isn't it, suddenly the whole world looks a much more sunny place in general. Dd has been sleept really well for a few nights now and I've slept like a log, which is really welcome, as I've hardly slept for weeks for one reason or another. Its made a huge difference to my ability to cope and to how much I am getting done in the day - feel like we are making small steps of forward progress for the first time in months. Its all a bit circular really, as the more sleep I get, the more I do in the day, so the more tired I am and the more I sleep. Hard to keep it up though and I fear I may have messed it up a little with my late night film watching last night. Also dd has cut one point of a new molar today, with lots of sobbing and wailing and calpol being required, so our run of good nights might be at an end anyway.

Your playroom is looking fab. How lucky your girls are to have a dedicated playroom that opens out into the garden. We have to stay in for the new tumble drier to be delivered tomorrow (am very impressed with Sainsbury's, cheapest tumble drier, free delivery and they deliver on a Sunday - we missed the Asda deal, they sold out before we sorted our backsides out bought one) so we are going to try and finish off in the boys' room so that we can get properly going on dd's room. We are aiming to get everywhere sorted and organised, then go room-by-room and decorate.

How are your girls feeling now? Any better?

Sorry to hear dd is still feeling poorly HKZ. Hope she feels better soon.

Another mahoosive post - my work here is done mwah ha ha!

Must be so hard Moose

Chef must be back. Lovely pics going up on fb. Hellloooooo Chef! We've missed you!

Chef your pics are lovely. MAkes me want to move! Everything looks so big, healthy, outdoors, pretty and natural. CAn't believe how big minichef is! Looks very grown up.

Aw Moose. It must be so upsetting for you, and for ds1 of course. If it;s any consolation, I often seem to push our days an hour too far. We are going great guns then someone's mood turns [probably mine] and it all gets tense. It is at that point I usually realise we have 40 mins wait and an hour on the train or in the car ahead of us!

Well done on gettng those certificates, dd1 managed to read one book

If it is any consolation, mine are both reasonably good eaters - they'll try most things and DS usually troughs anything, DD a little more picky. BUT it is very definately not a joy to cook for them. So much waste, some days meals go completely untouched if they just aren't hungry, other days they'll eat everything I have in the house, which is a bit of a PITA when you live in the middle of nowhere and it's a 20+ minute drive to a shop. I do thank my lucky stars though, it's hard not to worry when they don't eat. But none of your DCs look like they are starving or undernourished, they all look like gorgeous little babes to me, big ones and small ones.

Moose - on the statementing thing... it would be worth a conversation with your Ed Psych service about this. In some areas of the country statements aren't really being issued at all anymore for children such as your DS. Because of delegated SEN budgets they are becoming pretty meaningless to mainstream educated children in terms of budget allocation. Your area may not be affected by this yet, but it would be worth having a conversation to establish whether waiting is in your DS1's best interest from this point of view. It is also worth taking into consideration the fact that the process itself takes some time and you may find that by the time the application is in progress you have already got the supporting evidence you are waiting for. Can you remind me what kind of school his potential high school is? This also has implications as to whether statementing is more or less important. I would always advise though that you get a statement yourselves before the start of Year 6 if possible. It is important to have it in place before you select a high school and certainly before transition.

Tree - playroom is lovely.

DS pretty well covered with blue, black and a few cuts and scratches to boot. He's not a bit bothered though and the arnica seems to have worked wonders on his forehead. His hair is so long at the moment that you can't really tell he's in the wars under his floppy fringe, which saved me a lecture off my MIL.

Is there any way of paying for a private statement - or must that be done inhouse?

Thanks Lenni - I always imagine other homes to be a vision of children eating colourful wholesome fresh food - while mine eat precooked rice and 2 pasta shells [no sauce]

Poor ds, amazing how they don't give a hoot, then get to 4/5 and suddenly need 10 plasters for a small injured cuticle.

You can pay for a private assessment, but you then have to get this recognised by the local authority. LAs are very stubborn about this. It is an absolute minefield.

I can imagine.

My DD loves raw carrot, cucumber, olives, satsumas, apples, peaches, grapes, strawberries, blackberries and blueberries but that is it. She doesn't like potato - not even the chip or smiley face variety. She lives off pasta and rice and won't eat most meats even cut small. She does eat chicken though and sausages (if that counts as meat) and fish fingers. However like HKZ I pretty much ignore it and if she doesn't eat what the rest of us are having she doesn't get an alternative. I try and make a fuss of her when she tries things, as she often decides not to eat something if she doesn't like the look of it DS isn't as easy as he used to be about food but he is no where near as bad as his sister. So does that make you feel better Tree. Don't let them wear you down

I too would love to live there everything does look so big, healthy, outdoors, pretty and natural. Can you imagine being able to strip and swim in a lake, just like that Tree? Loving the fact Chef's DD could just be nekked most of the trip and swim/ paddle. Sounds like heaven, my two would love it!

Moose - Just to clarify - most LAs won't issue a statement where there is considered to be a need for anything less than 15 hours support per week. This level of support is considered to be the responsibility of the school, funded within their delegated budget. Any more than 15 hours is covered by a statement in some LAs, but others have taken the guidance to the letter and virtually no children receive statements. Schools may still use outside services such as the Ed Psych etc. for these children and will still do interventions, but they do this within their allocated time/budget rather than being able to attract additional central funding to cover those needs.

Another thread about red heads Tree I confess to being of your girls hair

Thanks for your help and interest Lenni. I'm always worried that you lot will get sick of hearing about ds1, so I do try not to bring his problems up too often. Its all a bit 'up there' at the moment though, what with him just going back to school.

We haven't seen an Ed Psych yet and won't do until his multi-dip assessment, which won't be before April 2011. That's 18 months from when we were first referred by the GP! I honestly don't believe he would get a statement, for much the same reasons as you state and I don't want to put us all through the inevitable stress of trying to get one, if there's no chance it will happen. I have seen people on the SN boards give up years of the life in the pursuit of a statement, it takes over everything and nothing moves forwards in the meantime.

Even with all his problems, he is unlikely to qualify for much actual 'help'. We have been referred for an OT assessment, separate to his multi-dip, but that was done by my lovely (sadly now ex) HV who kindly called them up and chatted with them about his fine motor and balance problems and asked whether or not they recommended he should be referred separately and if they thought they might be able to help. Other than that we only have the dietician, who is neither here nor there in the whole SEN scheme of things. The Paed we saw in January, who gave a recommended verbal dx of Aspergers has now discharged us to the multi-dip team with a short, rather useless report that basically just says he thinks a dx of Aspergers would be appropriate based on ds's history and presentation.

The secondary his school feeds into, is the best achieving school (other than the private ones) in the borough. Its a large school, with a recently created 6th form incorporated on site and is very much into academic achievement and heavy on homework etc. Apparently, they have just applied to become one of the government's new fangled academies though, without even informing the parents of the children already attending. This could be a real spanner in the works for us, as there is no requirement for these new academies to take SEN students, as they will no longer be under the control of the LEA. Mutterings on the SN board seem to suggest its highly likely that the new academies will 'cherry pick' the most academically able students and avoid any that need additional support and/or care that might have financial implications for them. Primarily because they will be answering to business rather than government for their funding. Not sure where that leaves us, as ds is currently pretty high achieving, but if something isn't done about the way he experiences school, his inability to organise and manage himself and the way his fine motor skills affect his presentation, I predict his achievement will start to slide.

I don't want to apply for a statement and have that end up preventing him from going to the same secondary as his best friend and his few other supportive peers. Also the other local schools aren't really an option in terms of location, not to mention the type of pupils within the catchment iykwim.

I guess I just feel sort of caught in the headlights about it all at the moment. We are in a sense in-limbo until he has had a proper assessment and we have a clearer picture of where his problems lie and whether or not they can be helped/improved.

Its difficult to get our heads around, because he has made real inroads in some areas recently, yet his anxiety and social/communication issues seem to be aggravated at the same time. A lot of his sensory problems seem to be resolving, he is becoming physically stronger and more able and is more willing to try new things. Yet at the same time he is getting really upset and over-emotional about the slightest thing and obviously finding it a lot harder to control his emotions (and his response to them).

I'll stop now. I could go on for hours, but I just seem to talk myself round in circles. At the end of last term I had made up my mind that we were definitely going to apply for a statement, probably this half term, but having ruminated on it over the holiday and discussed it over and over - and over with dh, I'm back to square one again, not having a clue what to do for best.

Thanks Tea I'm sure dd2 is getting more ginger everyday.

See thing is Moose, would a statement get hom anything you can't josstle together yourself? If he is high functioning nad doing well at school, is there a case to say he will get minimal help even with a statement- over and above that which is already there. And with well informed pro-active parents, maybe you can sort of smudge the gaps yourselves?
Then you remove the anxiety about secondry school entry, as if he has no statement he won't be on the 'radar'.

Now all that I have typed probably insults and underestimates the good work that the right team of the right people can do, put together on the back of a statement. I know nothing of these things really

You must be doolally trying to reason it all out. I hear there are some realy good day seminars parents can go to, to learn about various interventions. WHich you probably know all about anyway

I Am back on the immunisation case - we are going for the single measles jab. I just need to discuss it with dh Shame it will cost £100's with travel, but I can't pretend to not know about the emerging thoughts regarding the gut, immunity, and the spectrum disorders. DD2 is already showing some signs of flapping etc. Although this is probably 99% certainly her age and toddler antics, I can't just ignore it because it's inconvenient in regards to her jabs can I?

Am starving! My impetigo hurts. Wail.

That's kind of what I'm thinking Tree. I'm not sure what they can offer him in the way of help at school. He needs some form of therapy, that's for sure. Something to help him deal with his anxiety and emotions, maybe some CBT, but he won't get that via a statement. There's very little that they can offer in terms of actual help really, as his worst problems are social/emotional/communication and he isn't bad enough (in their eyes) to warrant one-to-one support.

I am inclined to think that once he has been fully assessed and we have some recommendations as to the type of things that will help him, they are most likely to be things we will have to organise ourself, rather than things that would take place in a school environment.

I was speaking to a friend (the bride at the wedding we went to recently) who was recently on placement at the multi-dip assessment centre. The centre itself is such a good facility that it is considered the gold standard for ASD assessment and actually teaches other LAs how to assess. She was telling me that they are constantly frustrated, as sure, they have state of the art, gold standard assessment and diagnosis teams and facilities, but once diagnosed there is very little (almost zilch in fact) support available for the children they diagnose. Its a piss poor state of affairs to be honest.

We have joined a local ASD support group and coincidentally the first meeting is being held in the hall at the ds's school the week after next - I felt that was a sign for sure. (The meetings are held at a different primary school each month.) Dh is going along with a friend whose 4 year old is also being assessed at the moment. I can't go as we don't have a babysitter.

I still haven't had dd immunised with any of her 12 month plus jabs. I just can't face it. She is so neuro-typical (nt) and if she should suddenly regress or change I couldn't bear it. Thing is, the little boy of the friend dh is going to the meeting with had single jabs and he still has AS, although the signs were clearly there from a very early stage really.

To be honest I wouldn't worry about flapping etc, as long as she is interactive, social ie chats to you and involves you in her world, you have nothing to worry about. As you said they are all proper little hyperactive flappy, whirling dervishes at this stage. Ds1 never flapped, but he also never once involved me or anyone else in his games, never pretended to feed his toys or tucked them up with a blanket, never pointed to show interest or indicate a want or need, never said anything like 'look at that/this mummy' and never once showed any empathy when other people were upset or crying etc. So for us the signs were there from the getgo, but being our pfb we didn't know that he should be doing any of those things, so the alarm bells didn't ring until he was much older.

I wouldn't have a clue where to go for single jabs. I also worry that the single jab clinics aren't as strictly regulated as the NHS ones and therefore won't be as careful with storage and expiry dates etc [paranoid emoticon] so still have no clue what to do and have had several firm prompts from the HV and gps already. However, I am also terrified of her catching measles and me never forgiving myself.

Go, eat woman - I have just had veggie chow mein and chips, followed by a double choc chip Millies cookie.

Have you got some cream for your nose?

I am single handedly filling up this thread with my self-centred warbling.

So sorry folks, will try to rein it in.

On a lighter note. I am once again on a quest for the perfect wallpaper for dd's bedroom. The room is fairly small with a deep set cottagey window and thick quarry tiled window ledge. I am going for a vintage/shabby chic look and the paper will only be on the small chimney breast which has a sweet little cast iron fireplace in it.

Anyhoo this is my current favourite another picture of it in a similar setting here and this is the coordinating fabric.

Whaddya reckon? I'm hoping it will have longevity and we won't need to decorate for a looong time, as its fairly ageless rather than just for a toddler iyswim.

It's totally beautful moose. It's £33 a roll. Eeek. Lovely lovely lovely though.
Have you seen the Farrow and Ball papers? Nice enough

Now these are probably too age specific for your needs, but have a drool anyway stickers Don't you just love the way they have them over that fireplace? We have a fireplace.....

I want them all. Obviously. DD1 wants dinosaurs, the playroom has asked for a huge hot air balloon, and the turn of our stairs wants a little Boo rabbit sitting in the corner.
I may be bonkers. But I like it.

Yep - I see where you are coming from on all you have written. It's grand to chase the diagnosis, but if it gets you nothing much.....then why the stress. Although Lenni will know what she is talkng about [unlike me] and will know the details of why it matters. Would ds benefit from Aba? Something else I know little about, other than it sounds very sensible.

Every home should have one