The 10th Gemini bus - 2nd Christmas stop

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I'm so lucky to continue to have you ladies to chat to Let's all have a merry Christmas and an even happier 2015!

DH wants to know what to buy me for my birthday. First year that I'm absolutely stumped. A baby? I could not be less excited about my birthday this year

OOOOhhh sounds lovely pear ! I'm so glad that you got the chance to enjoy yourself! Roll on 2 weeks from now!

So glad that you were able to get away with your mum as well Lor!

Thanks though. It is really really complicated and unfortunately my mom wants to confide way too much to me about things and since I'm the only one out of our siblings who's married and actually has a clue of what a shitload of work it can be to be married, I feel like I'm the only one who understands my mom's position a bit more whereas everyone else is trying to side with my dad. I don't want to be on anyone's side... but I just feel like I have a better understanding of my mom's perspective than anyone else and feel a bit more sympathetic toward her. Ugh. Anyway....

All better here, mostly! Runt's recovered from his mystery illness, although is still a little clingy & more prone to bursting into tears for no apparent reason! Calf found one of my pots of food colouring powder which I thought DH had put away for me because it didn't seem to be where I'd left it... We now have green patches on our sofa! On the plus side, we've been growing caterpillars - they're cocoons at the moment - & doing lots of caterpillar/butterfly related activities!

Had a meeting with Calf's key person & the preschool's SENCO yesterday. They really surprised me with how enthusiastic they were about looking into his possible ASD now. Most other people, including other nursery workers, have insisted that "they" wouldn't do anything about it for at least a few years yet so there's not much point doing anything. They were really keen to look at exactly what areas he struggles in & what we could do to support it. I did feel a little patronised by the SENCO - she talks to adults the same way she talks to the children! She was talking about how they "support" lots of children with throwing issues but clearly had no concept of the sort of throwing we were referring to - it's not an isolated lobbing of one object, it's a manic flinging of anything he can reach while flailing his arms & laughing hysterically. There's no reasoning with it & the only way we've found to stop it is to shock him out of it - usually by pinning his arms & legs under our arms & shutting him in his room. He doesn't like the door being shut even though he's perfectly capable of opening it again! It's terrifying! So her telling us about how they "get down to their level" & discuss what is & isn't ok to throw & turn it into a game by getting them to throw things into a bowl... yeah, that's not going to happen. You get "down to his level" when he's like that & he'll mostly likely knock your glasses to the other side of the room! His key worker has seen him like that once though so I think she understood, although couldn't really argue with her boss! Is it bad that I don't feel like doing anything they recommended because he's my son & I want to be the one who figures out what works for him?!

Sorry about your parents bring - it's never easy when you feel like you're being made to pick sides between people you love!

pear don't eat too many biscuits or you'll only be exacerbating your symptom spotting with "unexplained weight gain"! Do you think you ovulated early enough this cycle to have a decent length LP?

Agnu - glad to hear everyone's on the mend! I don't know anything at all about ASD so I sort of feel like anything I say may come out patronising?! It sounds positive though that you had a meeting about it with the pre-school. Have you thought about filming one of these "moments" your DS has at home so you don't have frustrating people like this lady not getting it in the future? Some people have to see it to believe it...annoying but true! I love that you're growing butterflies!! What a lovely subject. I tried to do a theme week on colours but it only lasted 2 days It was maybe a bit spontaneous and not really planned. Definitely not a nursery teacher

So, AF is due on Monday giving me a 8 day LP. In previous months she has been late and moved to av 10day LP.

Bring - never easy when you're on different sides to siblings I hope as time passes it will get easier for all involved. It's weird how divorce changes the dynamic so much no matter what age you're when it happens.

Last cycle was 39 days and I had a 10 day LP with late ovulation. Looking back at my 8 last cycles no cycle has been the same length. My average length is 34 days. I'm now on cd 30.

What a conundrum to be in agnu The very person who is supposed to understand the variations in behaviour in children who could be on the spectrum and then down-playing what you are trying to describe to her as something she could just talk the child out of. WTF! I don't blame you at all ignoring her "recommendations". You are the one who is the expert on your child and knows whether something would work or not. Seriously, how did this woman get her job.... . I don't know what the recommendations are in the UK for evaluating and receiving an official diagnosis for ASD as far as age goes, but is this something that a GP would diagnose? I know that in the US they start screening for ASD-type behaviours as early as the age of 2 when we go in for yearly well-child check-ups and then a doctor would give the diagnosis and then refer to a specialist- which in turn would kick-start the extra support for children who need it in nursery and school. I do hope that you get some extra support and answers for yourself and your little guy!

So. Shittest and scariest afternoon. EVER. Amazing what can happen in all of 5 seconds of taking your eye off of someone. We were in front of our house (we have a private driveway for our single-family home) and the trees are dropping their seeds and pollen everywhere so the boys were sweeping up the pavement. M was pushing around a little wagon and was standing right next to me one minute and the next after I turned to answer a question that DS#2 had about his broom, M was out in the middle of the road with the wagon as a disabled bus came cruising down the road on the opposite side and by the time I RAN down the drive to scoop her up the bus was honking at me and another very large truck was coming straight for us in the opposite direction. Our road faces east-west and so in the afternoons you can't see anything as you go down the road toward our house due to the sun being in your eyes and this truck didn't see us and didn't slow down so I had to RUN back onto our driveway with M in my arms and a wagon behind me so we didn't get hit. OMG. I can't stop shaking whenever I have flashbacks of what the scene looked like and the urge to just start bawling keeps welling up. DH came home about 20 minutes after it happened to find me BAWLING my head off, M bawling her head off because I shouted at her. He keeps saying that nothing happened and that I need to just let it go because it will continue to eat me alive. Which it is. I don't know how to let it go. The whole scenario was one of my worst fears and it actually happened today. I mean thank FUCK she didn't actually get hurt but holy shit adrenaline rush running down the drive to grab her and I can's stop replaying the whole thing over, and over, and over again. I feel like this is the last straw and we have to move. We've been talking about moving because of the road we live on for the past 2 years and now they are building another 18 houses in a new housing development just further down our street which will increase the traffic even more than what we have to deal with. I could understand if we lived on a city street, but this is a private road that unfortunately happens to be linked to the main road in two places, making it a thoroughfare street and people drive down it going like 35 mph. The fact that we live near the corner and the way that the road is facing, drivers will start to speed up right as they come around the corner and the idiots can't even see the road! TIME TO MOVE.

Bring - Poor you! TG you're all safe. I can understand how shocked you must feel. We have such a responsibility to keep little ones safe don't we...your heart must have left your body in the moment I have a similar situation with my house and I've been nagging DH for weeks to get a new high gate that goes from our back garden onto the drive which then leads onto the corner of our road. I basically don't let Bpear be in the front of the house unless he's holding my hand but it's horrible knowing it would just take one spur of the moment run onto the road Our new gate is arriving at the end of the month and I will just feel so much better about being safe in the back garden. At the moment any little one can open our small gate which is just scary

Oh and as a result of not being able to spend time at the front of the house I've lost 2 of my rose plants which I am just gutted about ?? It looks a mess and is costing me money. Why my mum encouraged me to buy roses when she knew I had such little time on the way is just beyond me! I am feeling a little about it but trying to not get and put life in perspective!

AF has arrived 2 days early ??

Oh boo pear! There's always next month!

Crikey, bring, that sounds terrifying! How are you feeling today? Hope you managed to get some sleep last night! Is there any way of putting a large gate in across the drive to stop the DC getting out? Some friends of mine have one - bit of a pain when you're coming & going but it doesn't need to be shut unless the DC are out the front. Sometimes I'm really grateful that we live in a little terraced house with no garden at the front!

Pear. I'm really sorry, lady. Lotsa .

Feeling a bit of PTSD today to be honest. Did not sleep very well and kept waking up thinking about what happened. DH and I just both said "yep, that's it, we're outta here". We were extra super duper cautious today and picked up some traffic cones to put in front of our drive way to at least keep other drivers' eyes open to be more aware, but with the nice weather and all this kids driving around to get to the beach at the end of our road, it didn't seem to even make a difference in terms of how fast they were going. M made several attempts to run toward the road again little nutcase but of course we wouldn't let her within 10 feet of the end of the drive. She seemed pretty entertained with the water table so thankfully drama-free today. I feel really bummed out about leaving our house because I adore my house. We've put so much work into it and it has all these character little features that are so beautiful but its just the location. So now we have the problem of finding lots of houses in the area that have several acres but the houses on the properties are just 'meh' so this may be a very difficult task.

Thanks Frus, it's helpful to have someone who's a bit more knowledgeable than me about these things! At the moment I have more faith in their ability to get him a referral than our GPs. They were mostly helpful & encouraging & talked a lot about gathering evidence & having another meeting in 6-8 weeks to discuss how things are going. I'm in no great rush to get an official diagnosis but I feel like it would give me more confidence in the future if I could explain to people that, for example, a last-minute weekend away with us won't be a fun relaxing break because we'd spend all night trying to pin Calf into his bed, in a way that doesn't make us just seem like inept parents. I guess some people will assume that whenever we mention an aspect of his behaviour we struggle to control - those will be the same people who claim ASD is just a pseudonym for bad parenting.

I can't imagine visual timetables would help Calf either, he'd probably just rip them off the wall... He does like to know what we're doing & when & gets upset if we change our plans without informing him. Timetables really helped my niece when she stayed with us though - I wrote out activities we could do & she helped choose what we'd do & when & kept running back to check what we were doing next!

No idea about the eating thing, sorry! Calf refuses to eat mushrooms, eggs & potatoes. He can identify the tiniest scrap of mushroom & will inform me "there's something I don't like here"! He's been fine with chips until tonight - I think he's sussed what they're made of. Might try him with French fries, I'm fairly sure it's a texture thing. Runt, on the other hand, will eat absolutely anything - also including soil, crayons, etc!

Do you think seeing a dietician would help at all? They might be able to make sure he has a balanced diet & work with you on introducing other things. Is it a texture thing or does he just refuse-on-sight?

Thanks, Frus! I want a weighted blanket now. I currently use a single duvet & a heavy, double size blanket to hold it down. I basically swaddle myself to sleep every night! Even when I'm sitting on the sofa I have to have a blanket over me to feel properly relaxed. I'm definitely a 'deep pressure' person! Maybe Calf is too, I'll investigate making one for me him - they seem to be ridiculously expensive to buy ready made!

I've been looking into it & I can get cot sheets from Tesco with Clubcard vouchers & stuff them with £21 worth of pellets & have 2 blankets. One website I looked at was charging £70 for one similar. Even including the cost of the material that's nearly twice the price it cost to make for sewing a few straight lines. Makes me a little about her claim to be "just a mum trying to help others"! There are cheaper ones on eBay but I'm already breaking out the sewing machine in a few days to make him some hankies - he can't stand to get dirty & has to wipe his face a hundred times a day & is making his lips dry & sore using tissues! Might as well have an epic sewing day!

That's fab Frus! I was planning on doing one that's bigger than he'd need at the moment so it'd last a while. I'm liking this cot duvet cover set - I could make the pillowcase into a travel-size lap-mat!

Bring how are you doing now? Found a new house yet?