When shall we three meet again? The not quite NT, not quite weightloss thread ......

[moosemama]

We were full up ladies, so we finally have our very own weightloss-ish thread!

Hello LV, think it's optional as to whether it's the poster or the child who is not quite NT, in my case it's both

Happy birthday Moose, can't beleeeeeeeeve I am so slow on the uptake in realising that. MMMMMMMM to the daim bar cake.

Lol at cake for brekkie! Deffo a birthday only treat!

Hi lollipop!

Morning abdication did not go so well this morning. At two minutes to 8, both Ds and dd2 were still sitting at the table. Ds had eaten a yoghurt and one mouthful of banana. And he didn't take his meds. So now I don't know if he forgot his meds because he was having a bad morning (he's taken them fine for the last two days) or if he was having a bad morning because he didn't take his meds. I didn't realise until he was out of the house.

They both went to school without cleaning their teeth. Dd2 cried hysterically for five minutes because I told her I was disappointed in her and she out to be disappointed in herself. I think she was still weeping as she went down the road, but she was giving me the evil eye as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if I get a call from school today. She also doesn't have her glasses.

Ds has psych this afternoon. She is coming to the house. I've just been into his bedroom, and his whole bed is sodden (and he didn't get out of it when I woke him up - just laid there for twenty minutes and picked up a book.)

She is going to have the devil's own job on this. How can you persuade a kid to put some effort into being dry when he doesn't even see the need to get out of a urine soaked bed in the morning? How on earth do you persuade him that if he needs to pee in the night, he has to get up? Or even that he needs to use the damned alarm to wake him up if he pees? (this is where we've struggled before, he destroys the alarms, unplugs them, or breaks the wiring. And then claims he doesn't know anything about it. He told the psych that the dog chewed the wire. Yeh. Right. Whilst it was pinned to your pyjamas in the middle of the night...)

So mostly today I want to curl up in a ball. But rationally I know I can't. So tonight I need to do the 'so, what caused the problem this morning?' discussion, and reiterate the 'get out of bed!' thing. And not give him any choice in that particular aspect this morning. Urgh. He has been fab, so this morning was obv a test. And I failed.

I was tragically chuffed all day yesterday in my old new jeans, though.

New girl at work is v lovely, and am less perturbed, I think. I can absolutely see why they wanted her and were willing to give her ft hours (doesn't alter the fact it makes me a spare part, lol, but I get the rationale). She's from way the other side of the country in Nova Scotia, but is currently studying fine arts in Paris. she's on her break from uni and just wrote to all the spec arts libraries across Canada as she couldn't find a holiday job at home. The idea of a fine arts stude willing to cross the entire country and work for peanuts was an opportunity too good to miss.

Not bored yet - spent the day repairing all the books on the repair shelf. I think they have been there for a couple of months...

How was the gym, lollipop?

Well done for getting the letters sorted, moose. I love it when you can take five, with the whole 'ball in your court' thing. Breathing space!

How's the anxiety? You sound a lot calmer?

Madwoman, that sounds hectic and stressful. The only think I can think of re the wetting is finding something ultimately motivating for your ds, but I guess you've been there - done that. Hopefully the psych will have something up her sleeve.

Not tragic at all to be chuffed re old/new jeans. I was like the cat that got the cream when I got into my new size 12 Next jeans, even though everyone says a Next 12 is actually a 14 everywhere else.

Glad you like your co-worker, it always helps if you actually like the person - that is unless you desperately want to not like them, iyswim.

Ds1 and I are off to a meeting about his year 6 residential in a few minutes. Dreading it to be honest (that applies to meeting and trip). It's a week long residential, outward bounds thing with lots of heights and water sports and ds still can't swim.

Anxiety is much better, in face I hardly feel stressed at all since I took control, but sadly my neuro symptoms remain. Dsil popped in today with flowers and a birthday card and I really struggled to speak clearly to her. Also had a funny turn in the local garden centre when my legs refused to do as they were told and I suddenly felt like I wasn't connected to the rest of the world - most odd.

Hmm. I had a 30 second blip yesterday as well...

Residentials so tricky. We have cub camp looming again. I'm ignoring it. Hope the meeting goes well x

I wonder if our blips are something to do with the 'Matrix Reloading' or a glitch in the Matrix perhaps?

Meeting has made me feel worse about the trip rather than better. Need to head over to MNSN and ask people's advice on it.

I'm back. I had a great workout, food wise is a bit meh, had a healthy lunch but then met my boyfriend and we had a platter that I nibbled on, although did better than I normally would.

As an aside, your own music whilst at the gym is soooo much better than the rubbish they play! I did my workout to a mix of Iron Maiden, Guns N Roses, and Dragonforce, amongst other things. Heaven :)

Hi Lollipop.

Glad you had a good workout.

Agree with you totally on the music thing, although think my choices may be a little different to yours.

A feminist friend of mine took her gym to task over playing mysoginistic music and videos recently. Apparently the male gym instructors choose what's played.

That is so funny - exactly what it feels like - sort of everything goes either backwards or slo-mo, and then reloads back into place! Ha!

Glad you had a good workout, lollipop.

I have had a couple of matrix type blips in the last year, where the world has sort of turned sideways or I have found it harder to balance than normal . So are you going to phone/e-mail your neuro guy /gently pester

Am glad you are feeling less anxious. On DS's residential they were all heavy swimming jacketed up for all the watery stuff (he can only swim 4m) so hopefully that won't be a major issue. Sympathies Madwoman re:sheets etc, I know the feeling well, things have improved over last month in movicol department but still not 100%.

Madwoman, saw your thread in SNs.

I think my reaction would have been similar to yours, given that this psych is very new to ds and doesn't seem to be singing from the same song sheet as the first one.

I would be pretty that she hadn't bothered to consider or ask whether or not you've already used strategies such as getting him to strip his own bed.

Iirc, your ds has absolutely no objection to sitting in it and has done so in the past when you haven't been there to sort him out, so expecting him to suddenly want to be clean and dry sounds unrealistic.

In my experience, you pick it up pretty quickly when a so called professional is implying you are either the problem, or at least a part of it and that always rings alarm bells, especially when they are very new to the case.

Also, as Star said, I would be concerned about some of the language she used, as I can't see it's ever a positive approach to makes someone uncomfortable. To be honest, taking someone out of their comfort zone is the same thing, but any good psych would know it's a much better way of phrasing things.

The other psych sounded like she was being very careful and considered in her approach and making sure she had the measure of the situation before jumping in with strategies that had either been tried and failed, or she didn't have enough info to know whether would work or not.

Is this psych under the old one, or have you been referred on to her. If it's the former, I'd be inclined to call the first psych for a chat.

Odd morning here. We were woken at 6.00 by a full on screaming ds1. Turned out he'd banged his head. Dh got up with him and I came down later, to find ds1 decidedly odd. Very spacey, not responding, emotionless and well, just not right really. It didn't feel like it was connected to the bump, more emotional/ASD related. There was an upset at school yesterday and seems to be a problem/clash developing with a boy that he used to be very fond of, so we had tears about that last night and there was the trip meeting, but other than that nothing big going on.

I tried to draw him out and ask him what was wrong, but he said he didn't know and he wasn't sure there was anything.

Then, just before he went to go out I asked him to zip up his backpack. He went over and looked confused/starey, like he didn't know how to do it. He sort of fiddled with his folder that was sticking out, but couldn't work out how to get it into the bag to do up the zip. Then I saw his hand shake and dh stepped in to help. At that point we told him we thought he should stay home today and he just stared into space and said "if you think so", when usually he would have argued like hell that he wanted to go and even moreso on a Thursday, because it's cricket club.

Then he stood up with his backpack (which isn't heavy) on and lost his balance backwards twice and walked out the front door. Called him back and said, "I thought you were going to stay home" and he said "Am I? Was I? Why?" Dh suggested he walk with them to school (it's literally less than 2 minutes to the playground) to see if some fresh air helped and he could either stay at school if he felt better or come back with him.

Dh called about 10 minutes later and said he'd seemed brighter and chatted with another boy on the way down the road and automatically went to line up when the bell went. Dh went to speak to the teacher, but it was the trainee teacher, rather than CT that took them in. He explained we were concerned about ds and weren't sure it was a good idea for him to be in school. The TT said he was having him first thing and would keep a very close eye on him and call us if he felt he wasn't coping.

Not heard anything yet, so I suppose I have to trust that he's ok, but I know from experience that they have to practically have a limb hanging off for the school to call you. ... and blooming dh didn't mention the bump on the head to the TT.

That's three bumps on the head in recent weeks. He had the one on his forehead while we were at Bearded Theory, got hit on the top of the head by a cricket ball on Tuesday this week and then banged the back of his head this morning.

I wouldn't normally fret like this, I just have an odd gut feeling that something's not right - to the extent that when dh called to say ds1 had gone into school I found myself starting to cry. All very odd indeed. Still feel really unsettled and if I wasn't so exhausted would be pacing up and down trying to keep myself busy.

I think the head injury is a red herring. He's been so much more ASDy than usual recently and my guts are telling me it's related to that. Hoping and praying it's not the start of transition trauma, because if it's this bad in June, what's he going to be like in July and September.

how's DS1 been today, Moose? Can see why you are concerned. Could he possibly have been glutened inadvertently, have heard some people with dairy intolerance describe feeling odd/spaced out/remote when they have ate dairy.

Well, went to check he was ok after school, before cricket club and somehow managed to miss him while I was speaking to the trainee teacher.

TT said he thought ds had been ok, but admitted he didn't really know what he was looking for.

Ds says he has been absolutely exhausted all day and can't explain how he's feeling - just that it's not right.

Typically they haven't bloody well done his feelings diary - again, so I had no insight into how the day went as it happened, iyswim. It won't be done tomorrow either as the Friday teacher hasn't done it at all either this year or last and she has a child with ASD herself.

On top of that, I sent a note in this morning explaining that there is a problem developing between ds and another boy with whom he has always been friendly historically and that a badly handled situation in class (by the TT) yesterday inflamed the situation caused ds a lot of upset. I asked to see her, as I felt it needed a proper discussion. She has initialed the comment, but not responded.

So, it seems things are going to get a lot worse now we are going to tribunal. As it is they stopped all his additional group work (including social skills) the week they sent in their SA report. Every bit of support he has had this year, that has been instrumental in his improvement has been chipped away at and now they aren't even doing the basics.

Don't think he's been glutened - no bad stomach, or at least no worse than usual and that tends to be fairly instant.

He's got that totally blank, expressionless ASD face on, when normally he is fairly expressive facially.

After all that, I've just received a text to tell me that my 2 year old great nephew is being referred for ASD assessment. He saw the HV last week, started nursery today and the head of nursery took dniece aside to ask her to go to the GP. She thinks ASD - I think ASD and ADHD, plus some physical issues. Poor dniece has struggled with him from day 1 really and she is a young single mum with no local support network. She became really isolated and developed severe depression as a result.

My mum asked me for advice last week and I said GP and HV plus Surestart for some help for dn. She did HV and Surestart last week and has a GP appointment booked. I am so glad she took my advice, as she has been struggling for so long and now there's been a definite shift and some forward movement. She started a college course today, when dgn went to nursery for the first time, so not only is she getting a break from coping with him, she also has something for herself and can start rebuilding her self esteem. She is such a lovely girl, but lives a long way away, so I can't help hands on. At least I can help her through the SNs maze.

I am a bit at the nursery bod telling dniece directly that she things dgn has Autism, as she is not qualified to make that call and it put dn into a flat spin. I had just been talking to her in terms of getting him checked out by the docs to see if they can offer any insight and support. She knows my ds1 has AS, but not what that means really and she is so young and vulnerable that frankly telling her that they think her ds has Austism after one nursery session is totally unacceptable.

As an aside, if he does get an ASD dx eventually, then that backs up the genetic basis for ds1's AS. We know dh's family has a long history of AS family members, but have always wondered about a couple of individuals on my Mum's side.

Blimey, what a day!

really worrying about ds, moose. i know a wee chap who would sometimes have seizures first thing when he woke and act v similarly - i don't want to worry you, but is that possible? the odd spacey stuff and then gradual recovery sounds a bit post-sz, too? I know considering neuro stuff is probably somewhere you don't even want to go...

I am in shreds. I can't believe that one woman has got me so completely doubting myself. v teary and random, and frankly hopeless today. and my internet keeps crashing, which isn't helping my sanity. I post something that makes me cry, then have to repost it as my connection drops out.

How worrying about dgn - sadly we know how many people get nurseries suggesting ASD, so I can't even bring myself to be surprised, just an increase in my annoyance and frustration levels on her behalf. V sad to see someone else starting on the sn path, but at least she is making headway to getting some support and respite.

Well, madwoman, you wouldn't be the first to suggest it. He's been to the paed before about possible absences. Last year, his brother and best friend both told me within a week of each other than he had been freezing and then he twice walked into his bedroom froze and peed on the floor whilst being totally uncommunicative and blank. I also saw it happen through the classroom window when he froze while waving at me and his teacher confirmed he was missing instructions and seemed 'not there' sometimes. The paed got him to blow at a piece of paper for 60 seconds whilst standing and then pronounced him to have ASD related zone out and definitely not epilepsy.

I haven't seen him have any obvious absences at home, although he does get starey sometimes and the paed said if he was having absences we'd know about it and so would his teachers. I disagreed with that, having known children who had their absences missed for years by both parents and school, but he was adamant that no further testing was required.

His first cousin (dh's brother's son) has AS and absence epilepsy and dh's mum has recently been dxd with epilepsy after a lifetime of ignoring the signs - she went from absences and freezing to having a full on fit that didn't resolve before the ambulance arrived and was still fitting when the ambulance arrived at the hospital. She was under a neuro, but refused to accept she had epilepsy and wasn't taking the meds - crazy woman was even driving because she refused to accept the limitations on her freedom.

So, it's not as if there's no family history.

He's just told me that he has been having dizzy spells all day and his head feels 'heavy'.

Dh is en route to gp himself about his suspect moles as I type. Honestly, I sometimes feel like we should have a seat reserved in that waiting room.

So sorry you are feeling so tearful and unsure because of that psych woman.

I know it's hard not to, but please don't let one so called professional have that power over you. These bloody idiots all seem to think they know our dcs better than we do and that, quite frankly, is just a big pile of steaming horse manure.

No-one knows your ds better than you do, she has hardly spent any time with him, or you and thinks she has the whole situation sussed. Don't doubt yourself madwoman, you are an incredible mum don't ever doubt that. I would still recommend ringing the first psych and talking it through with her. Sound like this new one has a very different approach and it's unlikely the first one would advocate it if she knew.

i need to call the other one anyway to sort an appointment. he is supposed to be seeing them in tandem, with the second one providing hands on support to encourage his motivation for the continence thing (which i thought was a brilliant plan), whilst the other one looked at the wider picture. She was very definite about not handing him off. So we'll be seeing her pretty soon.

epilepsy stuff a nightmare, moose. you must not know whether you are coming or going, really.

thanks for ego boost, too.

Good to hear you are seeing the other psych soon. I wouldn't agree to any 'strategies' with psych 2 until you've talked it out with psych 1 though and remember you don't have to agree to anything you aren't happy with, your opinion and experience should count for a lot here.

I was very stressed about the epilepsy thing last year, but haven't seen anything since (well until today) so had to accept the paed's decision. I suppose we will just have to monitor him closely and take him straight back and insist on neuro referral if necessary.

I have now managed to get out of him that the head bang was caused by him flouncing onto his bed and landing on the corner of the headboard when he realised it was still too early to get up - so at least that wasn't caused by any fitting-type activity.

He still seems decidedly 'odd' though - even for ds.

that's kinda good - but sz can also be triggered by bumping head etc, if you are susceptible... lol at him admitting to a flounce though.

He actually used the word 'flopped' - I interpreted it based on previous experience.

lol. i'm trying to work out if i've got pmt. it's the only rational explanation.

hmmm that doesn't sound the most thorough of tests, staring at pieces of paper v sleeping EEG, does it?

yy to all that Moose said. Don't let some silly woman get you down, I do wonder how far they are trained to assume parents lack all common sense and are supernanny candidates...

Who says it has to be rational - ds1'll tell ya, feelings are never rational.

TLP, yup that's exactly what I thought. Who'd've known blowing a piece of paper for 60 seconds is as efficient a piece of complex electronic medical equipment at diagnosing epilepsy. It was a bad consultation all round though really. We had a trainee paed, who barely spoke English and totally missed the point about why we were there, so he had to call in ds's usual paed, who was then a tad peed of at being disturbed. He was actually bloody rude and dismissive at the time.

Morning all!

Had another gym session yesterday - but still keep giving in to the post gym sugar cravings :(

It's my degree show opening night tonight, so I won't be about on the Friday night thread - can someone put in an apology for me? :)

I will be having my latest film screened, so I'm quite nervous, but will have DBoyfriend by my side so all will be well :)

Hi Lollipop, well done for getting through another gym session - hopefully the sugar cravings will lessen as you start seeing the results of your workouts.

Good luck tonight - I will put in your apologies on the Friday night thread.

Just picked ds up from school and he told me that he was playing at lunchtime, when he suddenly felt as if a huge force hit him and the world stopped. Apparently he fell forwards. He landed on his hands though - so it sounds like he was aware enough to have some self-preservation response. Although he says he didn't put his hands out - they just happened to land there?

He looks a very odd colour this evening and is very very tired, but cheerful enough in himself.