The new school year

Isla, 5yrs old

Monday will see the start of the new school year. 
I'm excited. My 5yr old Daughter finally gets to start school. She has been waiting for the day to come for MONTHS. She is so ready & I am excited for her. When we left NSW she lost her little circle of friends & has not really made any new friends here yet. She has buddies at playgroup but she has not attended any "preschool" or daycare in the last 12 months. We did try for a few weeks but the timing wasn't great & she was not enjoying it. I'm hoping with all my heart    that she finds school enjoyable & "easy".

                                                                                 

Evan on his first day of school.
Before it became hard.

     Glenn will move onto year 2 & Evan into year 4. I'm not as excited for my boys to be returning to school. Its not an easy place for them. They struggle with mainstream schooling. Evan tries his hardest to keep things together while at school. He fiddles & fidgets most of the day. He finds the work confusing but not because he isn't smart. He is very intelligent.  But because he is misunderstood. He  is very rigid in his mindset & often doesn't try as failing is to scary a thing to happen.
Glenn's struggles are more social & communication. He is a wonderfully loyal little boy. He has a unique was to describe things that are often misunderstood by his teacher & peers. This causes great frustrations.
In the 12 months of yr 1, he struggled to recall any of the children's names in his class. He only spoke of one girl as his friend. She isn't in his class this year. This saddens me as I am unsure he will seek her out in the playground if she is not there in the class room with him. 

Glenn on his first day. Keen & excited.

Simply put school for the older boys is overwhelming.
I am not looking forward to the meltdowns & anxiety associated with the return of school.
But we have worked hard this past year to get the support in place for the boys & I am hoping that this year will be different & will be a new start to what will be an enjoyable school life.
They have so much still ahead of them, its gut wrenching to think its going to be difficult always.

Iain, ready to learn!

 Next off the ranks is Iain. He is venturing into 2 half days a week with the Early Child Development programme. This will be his first experience of any sort of "care" or "school" type setup with out me there. I think he will do just fine. He enjoys the centre as we use to attend last year for the playgroup sessions they held once a week for the little ones too young to attend the official days,
I don't know how long it will last that he wont notice if I leave. But I don't plan on going far. I might just sit down the road with a "coffee" (I don't drink coffee but it sounds more grown up then "A milkshake" which is what it really will be) & enjoy my 2 & half hours of just having Rohan.

Once I know he is comfy, I might try & venture a little further & make use of my time with just 1 child. Find a nearby gym maybe. I also want to make it too the morning sessions with the local Autism Support group & become more involved with that. They have given me so much this last year. I want to do as much as I can to return the support.

So the new school year brings mixed emotions. Hope is my main one. Hope that this year sees things improve. Hope that this year is the start to a new & enjoyable school life for my children.
But then there is also the realisation that they are not babies any more. I am down to just 1 baby.
They all grow up too fast!

But even Rohan is not
really the baby anymore.

                                                                                      

Ping pong ball

As previously mentioned I have five children. My oldest is 9 & my youngest is 9 months.

Some nights, like tonight I swear they think I am a ping pong ball.
My oldest *needs* me when going to bed. He has trouble switching off & settling in for the night. So I do spend a bit of time back & forth from his bed side.
But because of this, the others do miss out on that level of attention from me at bed time. Their dad is good at picking up the slack in this area though. But on occasion he himself is out of sorts & heads to bed as soon as he can. So tonight everyone wanted a bit of Mum. It went like this:

I would sit thinking ahhhh.. Ok time to load my 365 project photo...Muuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmm....

Get up, go tuck in the Princess..

Walk out.. half way out the door ... *very muffled* muuummm, can you sleep with me?
From my 2nd oldest G. No mate, Im not ready for bed yet, I will come check on you again soon.

As I walk out back down the hallway past E's room.. Mummm.. Yes Mate? Can you get me the heat pack?
Ok.. go heat that up.

All the while Mr I (3yr old) has been back & forth taking crackers from the kitchen in to his bed. Each time I seen him I would tell him to get back into bed!

So heat pack is in place.

Mr I, {Insert words/sounds only a mother can decipher} which translates to Muuuuummmmmm can I sleep in your bed? No Sleep in Iains bed not Mums bed.. {more gibberish} Mum sleep here while patting his pillow..
No buddy, Mum sleeps in Mums bed.. AWWWWWWWWWWWW No Mums bed!
So I sit down & sing 1 song.. Do your ears hang low do they wobble too & ..... Mr I interrupts with request of a song change to incy wincy spider..

MUUUUUMMMMMMMM CAN YOU GET MY PONY?! MUMMM MUUUUMM MUM!

shhhhhhh you will wake Rohan! What did you want? .. goes & gets pony & returns it to the Princess.. Now go to sleep!

Walks away back down the hall way.... Mum can you get Honey (the cat)..
Goes and finds the cat..
MEOW MEOW MEOW... Translation Mumm, can you get me some bikkies so I can eat them in E's bed before I snuggle in with him for the night & so I can wake you up at 4 am wanting to go out again?

The last request I heard was from Mr I wanting his train drink (sippy cup with thomas the tank on it).. But I knew if I just said Ok & did not return he would fall asleep. Which he did finally. All finally asleep around 10.30 pm..

Not a bad night! No screaming at least lol.

And no one woke the baby up even though G did go into my room a couple of times to ask to sleep with Daddy.

Little Green Men

One of the biggest issues Mr E suffers with, is anxiety. Generalised Anxiety. He worries about anything & everything.
It effects him most at bed time, when the house is quiet & dark. I stay up till I know he is asleep as he usually wakes in a bit of a panic after about an hour or so of falling to sleep. He takes Melatonin to assist in sleep onset other wise he is awake late into the night & his anxiety runs wild.

Last night he was scared, tummy cramps, restless legs, hot... the usual run down for his evening while going to sleep.
We have tried many different techniques to help him relax at bed time. But most are short lived before he claims nothing works.

One thing I have found to work well for him is a weighted item. Some use weighted blankets or lap bags to help.
It provided a deep pressure that helps to feel secure. In the past I have used a large cotton blanket (similar to those in hospitals) folded in 4 & that worked well. Now that its warmer its too hot for him. But I have a heat bag that has a good amount of weight in it. Its a long one, designed to drape over your shoulders. He tells me he likes that one as the warmth & having it draped across his back feels like I am still standing by his bed.

Last night though, I got him to try visualising. I asked him to visualise an army of little green men working their way from the top of his head to the tip of his toes, charging though & fighting the anxiety, forcing it to leave his body.

I think he tried. He was sleep not long after I left the room. So fingers crossed his new little army can help fight his anxiety!

Challenge Accepted!

I follow a number of different blogs which with time I will add to my side bar. A new one I follow is of a local mum, 

her blog Getting Sorted (facebook page is here) .

Today on her blog she set the task to clear off your bench. We all have that space.. You know the one that gets filled with all the crap of daily life. The stuff that you seem to have needed/used at some point but then it has sat in that spot for the last how ever long..
Well we have that space.. Its the bench space below the cupboard where all the dinner plates are kept.
To the kids its "Where daddy keeps his phone"...
Well.. here it is

The bench - Before.

So after going back forth all day in dribs & drabs. I got it all cleared. I will be honest though & admit that there is still a small pile of stuff that needs to find its "real" place. But as you will see below, I have another area I need to tackle first *blush*

The Bench - After.

So to take the challenge one step further.. I have two other area's I need to do. First is a walk in pantry/storage cupboard off the kitchen. Just left of the above bench in fact. It is home to my sewing stuff, the board games, craft items etc.. plus anything else that needs to be out of the way.. It is no longer a "walk in" its more a "step over & balance on while you hope you can find what it is you want & don't get eaten by anything that may live in there" space..
If I post a photo of it, it means I have to clean it up! So here you go *Gasp!*

The not so walk in storage cupboard.

The second space I want to hit is outside, under the back patio area. We had plans of having a nice outdoor dining table as the space in side isn't that big. All I can say is thank goodness we never did get around to that as I could just imagine the state it would be in.. I want to reclaim this space. At the moment it is hard for even the dog to get to her bed! AND I can't open the back door that comes off the laundry which means I have to take the washing baskets out the other doors. We have a garden shed up the back of the yard. I have no idea why all this stuff sits here!

Outside patio area.

So this is my own challenge. I have posted it for all to see so stay tuned for the "after" shots & then bug me in a few weeks for follow ups to see if I managed to keep it organised & tidy!

New year, New blog,

Fresh from its chrysalis..

2012 All new & fresh!

So here we are.. A new year. I have decided I want to try & keep a regular Blog. I have become rather stuck.. On Auto I guess you could say. I need to give myself a good kick up the rear end & get thing things in my head out & happening.

So here we are 1st day of a new year & its time to make a change. time to unfold my wings & let the warmth of the sun dry them out as I get ready to fly.

For those of you who don't know me, here is a brief run down..
I am a mother of 5 children. 4 boys & 1 girl.
We live in Cairns Nth QLD, Australia.
We moved here when my husband secured a job working for the QLD TAFE. He grew up here & always wanted to raise our children here. With a bit of kicking & screaming from me. Here we are.
I am settling in & finding new friends & have discovered a great support network.

Of my 5 children, I have 3 (and counting) who have a Autistic spectrum Condition.
My oldest E, who is 9. Is our biggest handful at the moment. After many years of asking for help, knowing something was not right. He was Diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome. He also has a little list of other issues that go hand in hand with ASC's. Sensory processing, Visual processing, Anxiety, Dysgraphia.. These are just those that we are aware of.

E loves myth busters, science, pulling things apart & figuring stuff out. He is full of questions & has a strong need to know.

My 2nd oldest, G, who is 7. Was also recently diagnosed with High Functioning Autism. Like his brother he also has a number of processing issues. He also has a speech/language delay, Low muscle tone & a few other little things that add to his troubles.

G is our little computer nerd. He will be a gamer.. what am I saying.. he is a gamer! He lacks confidence but I know once he finds it he will go far.. He is very smart.

Then we have I, he is 3. Recently diagnosed with PDD-NOS. He has troubles with his speech (assessed recently & put at the level of a 18 mth to 2yr old). He is also a bit OCD & a tad controlling.

I, loves to collect rocks. Watching Pokemon (Pikachu is his fav), He also likes "Cars"
He is a sweet boy who I think with the early intervention that my older 2 missed out on he will hopefully not have the same amount of issues.

Then with have my little Miss I, she is 5 & about start school.
I will be honest & say I do have my concerns about some of her little quirks. But I am trying to not read into things too much. She is a princess in her own right & loves anything girly.
Being the only girl with 4 brothers it amazes me that she is still sooo girl!

Last we have R, he is 9 months old. Smiles, chatting & pulling hair are some of his favourite pass times.

One of my aims in having this blog is to share my ideas & thoughts on having children on the spectrum. Its a bumpy road but its all we know. We are here to make sure our children find their place in this world. I am going to do my best in making sure they are comfortable to be who they are & succeed despite the extra struggles they face.

Happy New year! Welcome to 2012!