Dec '06 - Still clinging onto sanity.

[EasilyConfusedIndith]

New thread

Hi Amapoleon. Nice to see you :)

I cant quite believe they're all off to school either. DD is so excited. She keeps drawing pictures for her new teacher

I got a puppy

Hello Ama!

Jabber your puppy looks absolutely beautiful.

How can they be big enough for school? Ds had a fantastic time on Friday at his second settling in visit and didn't want to come home. He is being very cuddly though which I am rather enjoying :).

Uniform all ordered, have spent a small fortune due to buying about a million pairs of trousers as the boy is not exactly doing well in that area at the moment.

I feel like shite. Great fun. Need dh to come backfrom rowing so I can go and collapse.

We don't start back until late August here. I hope we all survive it. The boys go from being best friends to mortal enemies several times an hour day.

Am hoping the puppy provides some distraction. Ds2 is over the moon about him. Almost too much so! Am about to start a convo on book suggestions to read to little ones about introducing a new family member.

Luckily the little guy and I had 3 1/2 days to get a schedule down before dh and the boys descended on him.

Good to hear from you, Ana. I hope AQ is OK. And someone tell eli to pop in once in a while! I miss her.

Jabber I hijacked a thread recently that Eli was on and told her to step by. She cant have seen it though or she would be here :)

Jabber, your dog is gorgeous!
I havent done any school shopping yet. My mum is bringing a load over from England as although we have British shops here we don't have British prices haha.

Congrats Indith!
EV, I don't think ds really knows whats going on, we don't have settling in days or inductions here. we have been to look round the school, so he knows he's going but he doesn't sem that bothered, hahah

hello all, sorry to have been away so long. Life just speeding past. Will try to catch up tonight now I've found you but Indith, congrats on the appeal. That must be such a relief!
School holidays start on Friday arghhhhh although I have applied for several weeks of (unpaid) parental leave so the summer is not so stressful. DS2 has his new little boxroom, big bed and a pile of uniform. Cried for the entire story session in new classroom eek. Have the feeling it will be a very teary term. DS1 seems to showing signs of depression, which is incredibly worrying. Bullying about his soiling (which has improved substantially) has taken it's toll on him, I'm hoping some of it is just end of term blues but he talks about killing himself so I don't know what to do really or how seriously to take him as most 7 yo I know are drama queens. No help from the authorities as usual. DTs are 3 in a couple of months, we have some friends with slightly older dts coming to stay in a few weeks so that should be a blast with 6 running riot! Sleep has been in short shrift as the 3 younger dc are catching up to the upheaval of moving house.
Hullo ama :)

AQ I cannot possibly even begin to imagine how worrying and heartbreaking that must be. I hope that the summer off school gives him some time and space to relax away from school and feel better about himself.

Soiling and wetting improving agin here, finally after MIL oh so kindly knocked everything out by taking it upon herself to stop giving him his fibrogel when he stayed with her . I'm finding though that he has no idea when he needs to wee anymore so we need to work on relearning all the signals. At the moment I'm on a pretty strict routine of telling him when to go and bar the odd hissy fit when he refuses we are doing ok. When I see him starting to do a wee dance then I tell him to go and explain how what he is feeling means he needs to wee. We still get lots of "but I don't want to" even when he needs to. Fingers crossed we are now doing a poo every other day without soiling by keeping a close eye, watching for farting and making sure he sits on the potty twice a day for 10 mins or so. I have a shiny new sticker chart I need to get out over the summer to work on getting him onto the toilet instead of the potty before school. He will not poo on a toilet for any money. I'm just hoping that we can keep the poo regular at home, I know his teacher is understanding and will just tell him to go for wees.

I need sleep. As usual.

Thanks, indith, he finishes school tomorrow so hopefully he'll be happy at home with me all friday! Looking at some acting classes to help with his confidence as sport seems too competitive right now.ds2 not interestd in money either although he gets pocket money. It was once ds1 went to school that money was a motivator! DS2 quite happy with a high-5 if he does something on the toilet after several weeks of doing it in pants. Urgh.
BTW I'm not really doing FB anymore as it was sapping my limited time.

AQ, so sorry about ds1. I decided a couple of weeks ago that ds1 really needed to go back into OT and possibly speech for his palilalia (repeating himself in a whisper). Went to the pediatrician for the referral and I think ds1 ticked lots of boxes for ASD :( He is referring us for big workup and dh really doesn't realize yet what it's truly about... I've really known suspected for years but feeling a little weird now that we may get an official diagnosis.
Ds2 is doing pretty well but seems more sensitive to loud noised and is developing an aversion to having his hair washed

On another topic, loving the new puppy :)

Hello everyone! Doesn't time fly past?! Stop the world, I want to get off!!! Can't believe they are starting school in September & :(

Oh Jabber :(. Well, the sooner the diagnosis comnes in the sooner you can make sure he gets the tailored support he needs at school. Hopefully without too many battles!

Solo I know, September is so soon! Ds is very excited and keeps telling everyone he meets that he is starting school.

Just some navy shorts for PE, plimsoles, school shoes, plain socks, bag for PE kit and lunch box to go. I think! .

It's expensive isn't it?! I've been buying uniform for months now, since having confirmation of a place in fact. I'm going to buy some navy poly cotton and make a PE bag, then it's just tracksuit and plimsoles and I'm pleased to say 'I'm done!!!'

Ds1's school just added uniforms for this coming year. I haven't even read over what we need but I know it's not as much as you all have to buy.

Our list is bloody huge! I feel annoyed that we have to buy tracksuits for winter PE because I'd like to bet they wont go outside in the cold during reception. It's certainly money I could do without spending!

We have "trainers and tracksuit bottoms are sensible for outdoor PE". I doubt very much they will take them out in reception if the weather isn't nice, I'm not buying trainers unless they actually do take them out and school asks me to! I have jogging bottoms just because Blacks was closing down and had an "everything £1" sale so I grabbed joggers in various sizes and thermals for the kids!

To be fair to the school the only thing with a logo we need is the sweater, I've just had to invest in industrial quantities of trousers due to the soiling/wetting issue. I got them nice and big though, will spend an evening turning the hems up so I can take them back down again when he grows .

It is the shoes that will kill me, mine usually only have one pair of good, sturdy shoes (then cheap wellies and supermarket crocs) but of course ds is now going to need school shoes and then sturdy shoes for walking up and down the lines and playing in the park. Thinking of getting cheap school shoes and rather than walking to school in them he can change when we get there, at least in winter.

Hello everyone! I've been uniform hunting too - v expensive especially when they say on the list "no logos or patterns" for sportswear which leaves us with the school shop £15 - I could get some for half the price in other shop. Grr.

The children are mostly arguing. Or sleeping. But mostly arguing.

Induth - how about m&s for school shoes? Cheaper than Clarks.

Feel lucky that uniform here fairly minimal, just the sweatshirt at 9 quid each but no way buying 5 each! Fwiw indith ds1 just has trainers and wears them everywhere have never bought black school shoes - must you? Thought ds2 could wear mostly handmedowns but he's nearly same size as ds1 now 75th for height and ds1 was 2nd centile at 4. Rats!
God the arguing today urgh. Ds2 finishes nursery altogether next week so t will only get worse! Ds1 doing sports rest of week tho so should be quiet.

I bought dd school shoes from marks last year and they were really good qulity and hardly scuffed. I paid about £18 for them in Gibraltar , so they are probably about 15 in UK.

M&S have a bit of a promotion goimg on on school uniforms until 30th July I'm told. Tracksuits work out at well under £7.
I have bought Clarkes school shoes in a size bigger (loads of growing space) for £8.50 too. Both my Dc's have wide feet.

the arguing is full force here! Ds1 has been spending the last two days with me at the office and it really has been better for all I think.

I'm all stocked up on uniforms now. Logo stuff from school shop, and everything else from M&S and Asda. Just shoes to do at the end of the holiday.

I'm just trying to forget about school now, ds1 so miserable when he's there he makes the rest of us miserable too.
Jabber, so sorry I didn't acknowledge your post about ds1 and ASD I know that you have recognised some traits in him before but I'm sure it's a great deal more of an impact to be close to a diagnosis. And if dh not realised, there's a lot of adjusting to be done. We tried to get ds1 seen by a specialist in that area just because of his social skills issues (lack thereof and becoming more noticeable as the years go on) but they wanted 3,000 pounds for 6 appointments so we had to rule that out. Is artistic ability more likely in asd children as ds1 is particularly gifted in that area? Anyway, thinking of you and the family

Ah happy days. Ds wanted to go to bed without a nappy last night, by 9.45pm he was sodden, absolutely dripping wet. Duvet was soaked, pillow was soaked, he had wet hair. I've had to wash the bloody duvet in teh bath as it won't go in my machine and I don't have everything dry because it went and bloody rained . Then the boy had growing pains and then he fell out of bed and really hit his head which came up in a massive egg so I was applying cuddles and ice packs at 3am in the bloody morning. All of that and any time that I actually managed to get to sleep were of course punctuated by dd being her usual charming self and then dh's alarm goes off at the crack of dawn because he is getting the train to London-and-nice-food-and-sleep (yes he has to work and no he doesn't really like it but I am bitter) and as usual dd starts tossing around at the hint of the possibility of morning and then she throws herself into the bloody radiator next to her bed and that is it, both of them flipping well awake for the day just as the dorr goes and dh leaves the house.

Argh!

Dd, I am warning you. You have until February to bloody well start sleeping because I cannot feed a newborn all flipping night along side all of that!