Friday night too tired for anything...

[Ineedalife]

Hi all have never started friday night before so I thought I would kick it off.

Dd3 still not dealing with me looking after DGD.

We have the feed back from the DISCO assessment on monday[ feeling sick emoticon].

Hoping all is well on Monday for you Ineed.

This week has been the strangest in ages, illness at the beginning of the week, the LA climbdown which was the biggest high and now just calm and a feeling that I haven't been so chilled in months.

Dd has come home in a strop so she is on the stairs calming down through choice because she knows she is within a whisker of losing her Friday Mcdonalds treat.

My lovely ds is bringing home KFC for tea tonight, his treat yummy and no cooking.

Hi Guys, It's quite nice starting things off needa, (or maybe that's just me , am thinking of you waiting for results, so you have anything nice planned for the the weekend to take your mind off it?

was thrilled for you insanity (sign has embarassing confession here, I always mis read your name as 'insanity scRatching' had visions of itchy madness... oops .

Chez sign has been a relatively nice place this week, Ds still knackered but less so than last week, so may add in an afternoon at school next week, also went on fabby free course run by carers centre 'jewellery making from scrap'. really enjoyed it, and also have confirmed I am on for the PGCE starting in 2 weeks, so need to get prepared.

Thanx both, yes sign we have a busy weekend planned as it is also Dd3's birthday on Monday.

We are out for her birthday treat tomorrow and then she has earned an ice skating trip on Sunday by doing her physio everyday this week. Would like to say without a fuss but that would be silly.

Great news about the PGCE sign.

I have had an interesting week at work this week, it seems that our new intake has a number of quirky bods in it, still it will keep me busy.

Good days and bad days here. Today was a bad one. Dickhead came around to pick up loads of paperwork and I found stuff stretching back 20 years. The more I see him the more I realise that this is permanent.

Oh well, DS2 is still enjoying secondary, despite the homework and a few bus issues. I said I was feeling a bit sad today because of daddy leaving and he said, " But it's been two weeks!" as if that is ages and I should be over it by now! He's over it! DS3 said, "I'll give you a cuddle, by the way, can I have an apple now?"

DS1 is the only one who gets it a bit, but I'm trying not to moan at him all the time.

Ineed, good luck for the DISCO.

Still cheered up by your news, Insanity!

Glad things are going well chez sign.

Just popped in to say 'HI'- I'm about to go OUT .

SIGN...me too;sorry INSANITY ! WOW good on you with the PGCE

Glad you're having a chilled time INSANITY

INEED have a

Got to go- have a nice evening all !

hi ellen, did like the 'cuddle and apple' treatment.

ds made us laugh this week by forgetting how whispering worked... he wanted to whisper to me, so he came and put his ear against my ear and whispered, . when I said no that's not it, he put my mouth against his own ear and whispered... bless him, he knew it was ears and mouths, but confused about what went where...

into, have a fabby eve

A quick HI to Ellen,who I x posted with-yes 2 weeks can be a long time-

By popular request

Evening all. Feel a bit manic - but also gloaty this week
Manic as i've started my diploma to be a TA (NVQ3 as was) and suddenly realised i need to be much more organised. I'm thinking of reviving the cleaning thread to get some more ideas of how to cheat do it properly
Gloating as when i had a quick word with the SENco - he's already acting on the OT assessment results that he received in August (still waiting for my copy - and they have now sent it twice). He did have a bit of a moan that there were so many different areas to work on and it didn't really highlight which ones to start with. Had to laugh when he said that he would have liked it to be written in a SMART format so that he knew their priorities and could slip it neatly into his IEP. So we have a meeting coming up to discuss where i think the priorities should be.
OT has also offered 10 sessions of sensory therapy to start with - all NHS grin]
Must away now as takeaway has arrived - minus anything for me as still on an exclusion challenge
Hoping for a happy sun filled week to come for all

We have had a good week but I'm starting to feel the pressure of what's ahead building up.

DH travelling loads and away all week next week, then has at least two work trips that will cut into the weekend. House move feeling closer, all that plus DS reaction is giving me the fear, plus new school. Really really want to look into ABA but have been too busy with work (being busy is good, but freelancing is so feast or famine!) and starting a course next week which I'd sort of assumed would be squeezable into exisiting spare time but will not... getting that sick feeling just thinking about the next couple of months.

But hey-ho, it's been a good week and DS very sweet today.

OMG and now I am, found a headlice in dd's hair, oh yuk yuk yuk

Evening folks

Ineed - good luck for Monday.

Insanity - I am still so chuffed for you. Its lovely to hear you happy and chilled.

Sign, congratulations on getting on your course.

Ellen, good to hear ds2 is still happy at school, but sorry its been such a hard day for you. Hope you can manage to relax a bit this evening.

Ridiculously hectic week here. Monday feels like a million years ago.

Following my frantic thread about speaking with the SENCO on Monday morning, I was so relieved at the way she responded. This was also borne out by ds's inclusion teacher, who I emailed informing her of the state of play. Unfortunately, they are unable to do 1:1 with ds during Thurs/Fri maths lessons, but the Lead Inclusion Teacher (our Teacher's boss) is going to come in and do several sessions, mainly in Maths and Literature at other times over the next few weeks, so that we have the evidence of ds1's need for 1:1 that we need for our SA request.

Fortunately, this Thurs and Fri's maths lessons have been a lot better, so obviously something has obviously changed with the teacher.

Saw the paed on Tuesday and found out that ds1 is apparently in a lot of pain with his abdomen, but hadn't thought to mention it. They are running some tests for possible pathogens and/or enzyme problems, so at least they are looking into his gut problems properly now.

Both my boys were their classes' 'Star of the Week' today, so dd and I went and saw them get their certificates in assembly. Ds1 got his for settling in well to year 5 and for an excellent attitude to learning. Ds2 got his for a top notch piece of literacy work in class - which is fantastic, because he's generally not very confident about his classwork and tends not to see how far he's come since he lost all his reading and writing skills and had to start over from scratch just before he was five, following a serious case of pneumonia (he's 7 now and got mostly 2a's and one 2b in his y2 sats).

Ds1 fell in the playground today and hit his head. He has a little cut above his eyebrow, but no lump, despite the fact that apparently his forehead hit the tarmac pretty hard. Unfortunately, he didn't think to report this to a teacher and was pale with a headache, dizziness and ringing in his ears when he came home from school. Obviously we are keeping a close eye on him and dh is on standby to take him to A&E if necessary, although he seems quite a lot better than he did when he came home and has baked cakes with me this evening, so I don't think he's concussed.

I'm still plodding on with my diet and exercise. Its coming off more slowly now, but at least its still going down.

moosemama - Saw the paed on Tuesday and found out that ds1 is apparently in a lot of pain with his abdomen, but hadn't thought to mention it.

GAPs diet, GAPs diet, GAPs diet You need to read it.

I know Indigo, I know. I have looked into it, but I just can't possibly see how we could ever get enough of it into ds to make the difference, what with him being veggie and having a list of texture and smell sensitivities etc associated with food. I would never have a hope in hell's chance of getting him to eat anything fermented.

I work really hard to keep his diary as healthy as possible and make sure he gets all his nutrients, but if he's not absorbing them I feel helpless to sort it out.

We are also having almost daily tantrums about him being gluten free and missing out on things that his friends eat at the moment. I'm hoping as he matures, we might be able to have a sensible talk about the benefits of the GAPs diet and he might agree to try it, but there's just no way at the moment.

:(

Would he at least take a probiotic? I found one at Holland & Barrats that tastes like a sweetie.

Does he have to be veggie?

I've been really, really lucky that DS noticed the benefits straight away (no longer felt sick all the time :( ) and has been happiesh to do it. And he has made amazing progress. All of the staff at school have noticed how much better he's doing this term.

Whereas DD won't do it, complains about all the dietary changes, and isn't making any progress. Her tummy is sooooo bloated. :( But after seeing it work so well for DS I know I have to persevere and force her to change her diet.

I guess all you can do is keep asking DS if his tummy is sore, if he feels sick, what his poos are like, and hope that he can make the link between feeling bad and what he eats....

Will he have eggs for breakfast? Then you can at least start the day off with food that's good for him, and hopefully his tummy won't hurt when he goes to school........

Evening all

Good luck Ineed for monday! Sorry to hear DS fell down moosemama it never rains but it poors as the saying goes but at least you had an excellent outcome with the school palava

Insanity I agree with the "yuk" on the nits its a nightmare isnt it. No problem all summer then as soon as they hit school of we go with the daily combing which DS hates. Cant use any of the lotions as he screams that it stings even the natural ones so its conditioner and a big twisted prong nit buster for me lol

Well mixed week for me. Got EP report which tore my heart out and still a bit raw at the edges. Had to put MILs dog down when she was on holiday and break the news on her return which was horrible. DD is still gutted and DS is still matter of fact about it which is not helping DD.

On a good note DS finally got his first assessment with SALT. It was very promising and DS didnt run out the of the room on the basis there was a nice big trampoline in the room. He made her dinner from plastic toys and delivered it backwards as he wouldnt look at her but at least she had a response from him and said she feels he is intelligent enough to learn his social skills and proper verbal communicative language. I was glad to hear this and have got another appt mid october so not too bad.

Another good thing is I finally received DS date to see the psychiatrist for assessment on 5th Oct This is the only person DS has not seen towards dx so everything is coming in thick and fast at present.

Kids are off to bed and I am about to get myself a coffee and a friday night baileys

Hiya all.

"interesting' week with DD (the so-far-seems-NT one) with tummy aches and general unhappiness which I've been ignoring. GP checked and thinks she's not ill so I'm assuming it's all linked to the new school year plus home situation.

DS1 still on new class honeymoon period but now won't go to after school club anymore. This may be due to dropping his med dose as I was fed up of him being unnaturally quiet, not eating his tea and having a wear-off manic phase at 7pm. DS2 is (sometimes) sleeping in the cot now so long may it last! DH is out having fun with work friends and is busy on Sunday so hopefully should be driven by guilt to extra-helpfulness tomorrow.

And I won't get started on me cos that'd be a really long post...

We did used to have him on a really good quality probiotic (annoyingly I can't remember the brand) but I find it difficult to get into town often enough to buy it from the health shop. I did look into buying them online, but got confused about how they can be delivered when the best ones need to be kept refrigerated. We can't really afford it at the moment either. The cost of his omega oil and vitamin/mineral supplements, plus his gluten free food is already a problem. I am in town tomorrow, so will pop into the health shop and ask their advice about it though.

Orginally he was veggie, because we are and that's how we automatically chose to raise all our dcs. We have been careful not to indoctrinate him with our views about eating meat though and were quite prepared for him to do so should he ever express the wish to. Unfortunately he read a book about meat production/farming at school and instantly became the most militant veggie out of the 5 of us! There is no way he would ever eat meat again now.

He has already made the link between how he feels and eating gluten, from the very occasional time he's been 'glutened', but still has regular tantrums because he can't eat what his friends do. He also realised he was having a really bad stomach every time he had a milk drink before bed, but he is adamant that even if it's causing him problems, he doesn't want to give up dairy.

Part of his morning routine is his porridge. He was so upset when we had to stop him having it because he couldn't stomach the millet flakes version and we hadn't found any gf oats, that it made every morning hell for a while. He now has gf porridge and fruit every morning. He loves poached eggs though, so that might be worth trying, if we can convince him that he doesn have to eat porridge every morning, but we're talking about a boy who has a strict order of things he does in the morning and if we start messing with it we end up with lots of anxiety and ultimately struggle to get him to school.

Its so blooming hard sometimes to do what's best for them when they seem to be doing everything in their power to do the polar opposite. I find all this frustrating beyond words really. I just want to help him heal his gut and get better, but he seems hell bent on stopping me. I'm really hoping this will change as he matures. We've seen a lot of signs recently that he is starting to mature, school have been very impressed with him this term as well and feel he has matured significantly since this time last year - so I live in hope.

Coff33, sounds like a rollercoaster of a week there. Good to hear you are making some progress with the professionals and things are coming together in terms of a dx. Sorry to hear about your MILs dog - I think that's a worst nightmare scenario when pet-sitting.

Maria - feel free to offload if you need to, that's what we're here for and anyway, we need someone to best my humungous posts!

INSANITY

Ineed, hope all goes well on Monday (presume you are hoping for dx, but also hope they come up with 127 good reasons why you're imagining everything). Sign and aunteveil, let me know when you set up your school

Have no idea about special diets, but Hedrin (dimeticone) is by far the most SN-friendly of the nit lotions, costs a lot but can sometimes get it on prescription. And it really works.

aha, dh home now so will have to save the offloading for next week .

Well dd has been lotioned overnight so hoping I will have caught the blighters early. They are rife in dd's school unfortunately so I always have lotion in ready. Hedrin last night but alternate with Full Marks just in case I get a resistant few.

sloped off early last night, to watch TV with dh, am sitting in jim jams with ds having a 'Mr Tumble Fest' this morning, well I am sitting her MNing, and he is bouncing with joy at the new Something Specials. .

he is literally jumping round the room saying 'a lift! a lift at her house!!!!'. we are about to watch it backwards, which will make it even more joyous,