Its Friday so its time for that Friday thread again.

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

First off, I would like to thank all who sent their best wishes and condolenses to me regarding my late friend last week. Your thoughts were and remain very much appreciated by myself. Her funeral takes place next week.

I hope you and your family have all had a good week this week.

Have obtained a pair of tickets to see Bruce at Wembley next summer!:).

And its now just over two weeks till the end of term, Huzzah!

Hope the funeral goes as the family would like Attila

I have no presents either. And no Christmas delivery slot. Thinking of moving Christmas by about a ...... Year?

How the frig can you know what you are doing next summer?

zzzzz wow to peeing in a public loo and dd saying her lines.

Attila thinking of you at funeral next week.

Life here is still stressful! Not being doing too well myself ME (or whatever it is) wise. Dd still struggling with joint pains. We have two support workers coming in 2 nights a week each to help with Ds's extended evening rituals and hopefully reduce them. We have been waiting about 18mths for this to be put in place but now that it has I'm not sure how I feel about it. At the moment it feels intrusive and just extra stressful but it is early days.

I am supposed to be finishing the Christmas cards but of course am MNing instead.

Attila I missed seeing about your friend (erratic MNing). So sorry for your loss. Hope the funeral goes as well as it can.

I'm not usually around for Friday threads because you usually start in the evening, by which time I've usually I've collapsed in a soggy heap, so this is something of a novelty for me .

Mixed week for us. Ds doesn't seem to know whether he's coming or going, he's all manic and hyper and rude and silly and not very nice to be with, frankly. I'm starting to get a bit panicky because he's set for three IGCSEs next summer and if he keeps this up he won't learn anything . I'm hoping it's an aftershock from his birthday in November which will right itself after Christmas, but it doesn't usually last this long. Fourteen year olds are bad enough but they're horrid with ADHD and AS on top.

Wheest thanks for reminding me to finish my Christmas cards, though frankly I wish you hadn't .

Very impressed at zzzzz's ds .

star I have booked next Summer's holiday. It is so much less stressful to book a holiday when there is lots of chilcie and it always has to be Self catering for DS alllergies to it is a way to dream of sun and heat when it is sleeting outside.
Attilla I hope the funeral goes well.
Zzzzz glad to hear life is good.
Ds's birthday party tomorrow so I have to go and bake egg free bowling ball shaped cake and ice it. Wish me luck ( curses to DD who suggested it) .

Hi all, this thread is early this week ,

We've had a relatively quiet week, only one little freak out at school when DS was given a banana (his school give out fruit once a week) but wanted an apple so refused to leave school, was in tears and started attacking other children . Luckily another teacher found an apple in her class so ran back and gave him it.

DS met Santa last night too, he just gave him one word answers back and wouldn't look him in the eye but he was really happy and turned into a chatterbox as soon as we left the grotto, telling us all about how Santa said he was on the good list.

We're off to a camhs appointment this afternoon, then both DP and I are taking part in a phd study on receiving an ASD dx for your children. It should be interesting.

Any nice plans for the weekend anyone?

(zzzzz DP doesn't get paid until the end of next week so we can't start present shopping until then, argh!)

Oh and just to add - it's my birthday tomorrow :o

Happy birthday for tomorrow, Mockingbirds.

Thanks nohaudin!

Ooh good an early thread.

Ds is a snot crusted monster, and had to be held upright half the night because he was snorting and grunting so much, plus his reflux is playing up, which isn't much fun.

A week of form filling and frustration, as ds's nursery are arseing us about, and yesterday they and his SALt witnessed the full force of ds, when the SALT kept me talking out of the room for nearly 20 minutes, during which time ds worked himself into an absolute frenzy. When I came back in, he lay on my lap, barely able to keep his eyes open, and then stared blankly into space until the end of the session, it was as though he had to blank out everything and everybody in order to cope. It was horrible, but there finally seems to be an understanding that what ds is going through is not 'just' separation anxiety. I have been telling them over and over that when he is upset, he hates being touched, especially by people he does not feel 100% sure of, but when I leave the room for 2 minutes, I come back and someone will be cuddling him. I think they realised yesterday that touching him just makes him more and more distressed. So after nearly a year of me saying, can we make me leaving the room a bit more structured, with a goal in mind, they have finally sorted out a plan.....about 4 months before he is leaving and supposed to start preschool.Idiots.

Sorry to hear about your friend, Atilla. Hope the funeral goes ok.

Zzzzz, well done to your dd and your ds1 - sorry to hear about sickness, though.

I have come to a standstill with christmas, I was going to do cards today, but have made stollen instead!

hello everyone

I am just back from dd2's Nativity, where she played shepherd no. 4027 with great gusto
dd1 was fabulous too (had to wait for 40 minutes before the performace, and then performance was another 45 mins) - she waited brilliantly, chatted appropriately with a few parents (some of whom she had never seen before), clapped in all the right places and sang enthusiastically when required (thankfully not Adele this time )

ds behaved well too, although hisd presence meant that all photos are at bizarre angles/a bit shaky

can't believe its only a week until dd2 breaks up

Hi thanks to my youngest being at home today, I am joining in early too. Well, my dad finally died in hospital on Sunday. I wasn't there but I had been in the afternoon and held his hands and chatted to him and he did seem to have some awareness. He was asleep when I left but I knew he would die very soon. The call came late Sunday so we were straight into the week with school runs and my youngest was home sick. What a strange week it's been. Next week will involve meetings with school. The following week brings a funeral and an ADOS assessment two days later. Bad timing but I am goings ahead with the assessment and hopefully 2013 will be a time of moving forward in many ways :-) Despite all this, I am looking forward to Christmas and hopefully away from the uncertainty around my son and away from the cloud of illness that has hung over my family for five years. It's a really tough time but I think it might be getting us to a better place flipping hope so

Learning so sorry to hear about your father. As you say difficult timing.
When my dad died 4 years ago although it was very sad, I was glad in a way that he had not had to struggle on any longer. Sounds as if you feel a bit the same? Hope funeral arrangements and Ds's assessments both go well.

Oh Learning I am sorry for your loss. I know what you mean by moving forward. Us that's left behind still have lives to lead and if we can't look ahead it will all fall apart.

Saw DS in his nativity this week too. It was a whole school performance and everyone had a part. One of the leads got stage fright and it was up to the year 6 lot to adapt and make it work. The teachers left them to it. Leading boy with stage fright was not replaced but encouraged instead to get close and closer to the stage and read the odd word until for the grande finale he was fully there. Parents acknowledged his achievement quietly without going OTT.

It struck me that these kids wouldn't have been given parts in a ms school and stage fright boy woukd have had a teacher take over.

It struck me that

Oh learning what a tough time you are having, be kind to yourself

Attila Sorry to hear about your friend, hope the funeral goes ok

silver glad your Dd didnt sing the "not gonna stand shit" bit of the Adele song in the school play[fgin]

zzzzz Wow using a public toilet is nowhere on our agenda ATM, well done you and you Ds

hazy sorry to hear about the snot

anyone I have missed hope you are ok.

Poor Dd3 is still ill we are on day 14 now, I think the UTI has gone but am waiting for results of her 2nd urine test. She has had diarrhoea for 6 days!
Gp said impossible to know if it is a bug or a reaction to the antibiotics. He saw her on day 4 and told me to starve her, poor thing has hardly eaten for 2 weeks. So I starved her for 28 hours by which time she was horrid and needed to eat so she ate a couple of small bits of pizza and then had diarrhoea again

Feel so sorry for her, am taking her back to the docs later as I think they need to do something for her. How can she get better if she has constant diarrhoea.

Anyway moan over

Lol silverfrog. Am I the only person who thought it strange that Adele left the word shit out of Hometown at the Royal Albert Hall, then effed and blinded her way through the rest of the performance? Lol.

learning, I just wish she had left it out on the album, Dd3 is obsessed now and keeps making a humming noise everytime the word "shit" is mentioned

We last had this problem with Wanting to be a millionaire so *freaking" bad for which she got into trouble at school

Oh dear having trouble with my * and "

Learning, so sorry to hear about your dad, and at such a difficult time.

Ineed - your poor dd, she must be wiped out. I think dd2s uti/constipation/dehydration had been going on for ages, and she is a lot better since antibiotics and me having firm words with school about making sure she drinks. We stil have to sort out the constipation, seeing gp next week. Hope your dd's problems are sorted soon.

Thanks hazy, she is totally wiped out, she is sad too because she is missing out on stuff, she missed a big concert with her choir this week and has missed 2 weeks of choir and cubs

I am also worried about how I am going to get her back to school when she is well enough.

Hope your Dd gets sorted too.

Thinking of you for next week, Atilla

It's been a snowy and snotty week chez yve. I've had DS2 in the buggy all week so I don't end up skidding to school on my backside. I had DS1 home for a couple of days, with a cold, but I have them both home today. It's seriously icy and I managed to get DS2 wrapped up in his waterproofs a full 5 minutes early - but then he decided he had business to attend to.

By the time he'd done it and we'd decontaminated him, it was 9am. DS1 was in a right tizz and insisting school would be closed because we were late. Then he stepped on the ice. By the time we'd gone 300 yards and he'd slipped several times (even the road was icy which was scary because so many drivers were in their usual hurry) we met someone who said the estate where the school is was even worse. So we turned back. It's a full km and it would have taken us 40 minutes at the rate we were going and we were already on the verge of ending up with a puddle of DS1 in the middle of the pavement.

So, we got home and ended up with a rare DS2 meltdown, instead. At least it was a warm, dry one, though, which I could ease from my side with a :o

How can there be 22 posts already? I'll never keep up.

Atilla, hope your friend's funeral is a fitting celebration of her life.

Learning, sorry to hear about your dad. 2013 will be a better year. X

Hazey, hope support start progressing a bit for your DS.

Happy birthday, Mockingbirds.

And 'Hi' to everyone else.

I'm out to the school fair shortly. The boys are with the dick this weekend, but DS3 has a pass to come to his last primary school Christmas fair. (Gulp, my last one too. I'm helping Santa in his grotto, luckily the elf costumes only fit Y6!) So at least I'll see him tonight for a bit. Then I'm off to a friend's house to meet up with a group of us who all had DC around the same time, back 15 or so years ago. Looking forward to it. No though, I'm driving.

I think a soothing pot of tea is required for a few people here, this week.

I'll fetch down the wine when I've eaten dinner and had the chance to have a desperately needed bath.

Had a busy week. Dad was over from Canada for a few days, so I had a lovely time with him. He spent time with the DC, playing wii games and battleships with them. DSis was 40 this week so meals out for a change. A rare treat for me! Tackled the Christmas shopping, while trying to ignore the unwritten Christmas cards and the blank DLA form. Both need top priority! It's the twins 13th birthday on Monday, so DH is taking them to the Tower of London on Sunday with DS3. I'm at home with DS4 as it would be too much for him.

Looking forward to a busy weekend.