Florilegium

Today went from bad to worse. Cable went out this morning and I rang Telstra who informed me it was my modem and that I needed to pay for a technician to come out. I was damned sure it was them as I had the pretty blinking lights thing going down.

Did more vile housecleaning stuff. Ventured into the cupboard I store the plastic containers in. Scary place. Ditched 9/10's of it. Cleaned out the microwave and the toaster oven. Eeeek. That's all I'll say about that.

A friend rang and we bitched about work, lack of work, weird kids, and peculiar people on mailing lists. She's actually seriously considering not going to a booklaunch of an anthology she's in so as to avoid a personage we both find very difficult to tolerate.

Went shopping. Thrill a minute being stalked by the family with 3 kids under 4. Parenting skills distinctly lacking. I always feel the urge to explain to anyone who looks in my trolley that while I may be a woman of a certain age, the Depends are not mine.

Came home. Bickered with G. Went to library. Went to bank and deposited $20 for L so she can go to her son's custody hearing in the morning.

This complete arsehole side-swiped us on the way home. He was driving a Ford Transit van with huge bull bars and he swung wide going round a corner. Now anyone (who can't drive well) could do that but the arseholery comes in that he drove off! G honked at him and tried to get him to pull over but he just kept on going.

We got the rego number and we went straight to the police station. Who could not have been less inclined to do the bookwork. She kept saying are you sure you want to report this? Ummmm, yes, you dumb cow, I am sure I do because if I do then I don't have an insurance excess to fix my car but if I don't then I pay for the repairs.

I know this is the heart of L....n and there's far more serious crime out there but geez... I thought it was a reasonably serious offence to leave the scene of an accident you were involved in?

I d/led the ROTK trailer. Oh my. I had the Asian download on the weekend but this is so much better. Oh my. I don't think I can wait until Boxing Day to see it. It looks magnificent.

Springcleaning sucks. I finally conceded that the house is out of hand on a deep visceral level that probably means I have to open cupboards and take stuff out and actually clean.

I started in here, my office/homeschooling room. I sorted out a carton of books to go to the op shop -- G's muttering darkly that he doesn't want to put them in a charity bin because they might get damaged. WTF is with that? I just want them gone. I found lots of scary cockroach effluvia and insane quantities of spider webs.

Going through the homeschooling books and putting them on a bookcase in subjects was interesting. Wheeee! There is lots of interesting resources which I really must get around to using instead of the same old crap.

I'll get this room finished tomorrow then start the kitchen. that shouldn't be too bad as it's been done in living memory. G's room is a terrifying prospect esp as I am getting the vibe he doesn't want me to go there.

What a fascinating life I lead lately. The depth and breadth of my intellectual life is stunning.

The mammogram went well but the ultrasound was painful, painful, painful. Lots of lumps there apparently.

Is there a person on the planet who obeys that sticker that says do not open the envelope unless you are the referring doctor? I of course opened it and the results are fine. Fibrocystic disease, not cancer.

G was remarkably laid back about it, he could have at least pretended he was worried but he said he would only worry if I actually had positive results. Where's the fun in that?

M's been difficult yesterday and today so obviously dropping the endep down to 1 1/4 is not a good idea. He tried to pick a fight with me about locking the windows before we left the house. Ummmm reality check please?

We had a meeting at childcare with Fay, Ma and me about the nonsense with the aides. I'm not impressed that the aides have tried to institute a program with K without consulting me, Fay or Ma. Just because the idiot case manager decided that K had to spend the next 5 months practising skills for school doesn't mean it's a good idea. We've spent so long normalising him that singling him out by giving him a lunchbox at lunchtime and the like is going to be counterproductive. I think that we deal with school issues when it's school time and until then he has fun at childcare.

And pigs will fly out of my butt before the aide and the case manager are the ones who take K on the school tour and help him settle him. As Ma said to Karen who was it that took her children to school for the first time?

Karen got the report from the meeting and rang Ma in tears, annoyed that she hadn't been invited to the meeting so that she could explain how wonderful the program was. She's lucky she wasn't there because I would have let her know in no uncertain terms what I think.

I'm sure she and Leeza meant well but I'm not willing to let K's last months at childcare turn into a brawl over issues which may not be issues when he reaches school.

Hot, hot, hot here. Major thunderstorm last night and big windstorms today. The chinese star jasmine will be in flower this week which is months earlier than normal.

It's 8.30am and already M has conducted a discussion on the death of Napoleon and is now trying to figure out why we support the military but can't get rid of world hunger.

It's gonna be a long day.

Doctor this morning for a referral for an endoscopy for him. I've made the appt with the gastro for Oct 9.

Yesterday my mother rang and asked if I wanted to go and hang out at the mall. We did, had expensive coffee which wasn't worth the money and a mediocre GF chocolate cake. Went and checked out all the clothing sales. I bought a couple of t shirts and a skirt at Kmart.

I went for a swim -- the water's very brisk but I'm going to try and swim every day and see if I can firm up some of this flab.

G's nearly finished his screenplay and I'm hoping it is finished today as he's not a lot of fun, very distracted and away with the fairies. We talked about one of his sessions at the festival and I was right to be concerned because the original proposal wasn't followed and he's left with an entire hour to fill out with whatever he wants. Gah.

The paed just rang. It's 7pm so I guess that's what you call dedicated, esp as he didn't have a problem with what I did with the meds -- he actually said I didn't need him at all but I pointed out I need him to write the scripts.

Interesting in any case. It turns out I lucked onto the most interventionist gastro in town so it didn't make sense to me or Michael that he's doing nothing but behavioural intervention. Michael agrees with me that I need to demand further testing. We decided I'll keep the appointment with the other paed gastro in late October and see how I go then. If the other paed gastro says to do behavioural stuff well then I guess I get to be the parent from hell and throw a major tizz until someone orders the testing. The GP agreed with me today that things are not right and further testing is not an insane idea.

Discussed M's results and he agrees we need to do the endoscopy and see what turns up.

Told him I am the parent from hell and he very seriously agreed with me and pointed out that it is the best kind of parent for kids like mine and that I really do advocate for them.

It was a nice end to a day of complete hell.

Just when you begin to think things couldn't get any more complex, they get more complex.

Saw the doctor today and got referrals for an ultrasound, mammogram and potential fine needle aspiration of cysts. Doesn't that sound like fun?

While I was there, i got her to check M's blood test results and there had been a stuff up -- it turns out that his results for coeliac were equivocal and he needs a colonoscopy. I know this means gluten free eating is in his near future and I feel beyond bad that I didn't have it checked years ago. We're going to go back and talk to the doctor about the testing. Poor M.

The accountant buggered up our tax again. This time he definitely is fired. How idiotic would you have to be not to ask why 2 months worth of expenses were missing from the spreadsheet? I mean in an ideal world, we would have noticed but we didn't. We were relying on him, well, we were kinda expecting he'd doing his freaking job!

M's better today. Didn't manage to speak to the paed but we agreed he would ring me if he were unhappy with the med changes.

I'm beyond tired and I have NO idea where I am going to drag out the energy to deal with all this.

K threw the world's most hideous tantrum at the library today. Then he screamed all the way home. He was in such a state that even when we were willing to do what he wanted he just couldn't cope and yelled.

I think I shall have another glass of wine or several.

It's been a perfectly horrible 24 hours. I wish M would schedule his meds crises when I can actually talk to the paed :(

He was edgy yesterday, got out of bed and apparently didn't stop talking. My parents were a bit concerned as he kept on talking even when they left the room. He was OK when he came home. I took K to the party and M stayed with Meagan. He apparently had a weeping spell when the tape deck ate G's favourite tape and she was concerned.

In the evening he had a complete screaming meltdown when the TV program he wanted to watch was replaced by football. He was unreachably angry and I'm sure he was trying to cut himself with the toenail clippers I removed from him. He swears he wasn't.

The morning he woke up and threw his books around the room. No, I don't know why and neither does he. G left for his course. K and M had a struggle over a toy of K's that he didn't want to share and M took a swing at K. I sent M to his room but he refused to go and just lay there screaming and yelling. I picked him up and put him in his room while he raged. He trashed his room again but did pick it up when I asked him to.

I was at my wits end by then. My first impulse was to blame the efexor but when I calmed and thought about it, this behaviour is what we saw when the endep stopped working and he's OK in the middle of the day, it's when the endep should be taking the edge of things he's cracking up. He's also been saying he feels awful in the evening.

::sigh::

It wasn't meant to be like this.

I'm going to crank up the endep tonight. I can't reach the paed until tomorrow.

K had a fine time at the party. He's come such a long way. He did have a bit of a panic at the start but then joined in pass the parcel and won the prize. Refused to join in any of the other games but spent ages on the trampoline and the swings. He called all the other children by name and he didn't throw a tantrum when he saw the computers in the house but just gazed at them for a bit.

I made a decision this morning that I am not going to take him to the neuropsych for an evaluation. Originally I was thinking it made sense as he'd enter school with a thorough report detailing all the issues but now the ascertainment is going through and he is in the unit I think I can hold off until I see there are actually problems which require me to spend $1300 on a report. I'm not seeing any LDs and I am really looking for them. I know there are sequencing problems but overall he's academically advanced with maths and writing and spelling and reading. Talked to Ma about it and she commented that probably we will need a test in the future if they don't meet his academic needs. But I'll only do that if I have to.

The testing that J was going to do was probably not going to focus on gifted issues at all and I guess I'm just not seeing enough to justify that kind of testing for LDs at such a cost. The dex has made a difference -- another concern I have is that she wants to test unmedicated and I honestly don't think it will work. And it would drive up the hourly cost, I'm sure.

Meh. How did I get so lucky in life?

Meh.

Liked the gastro, don't like being told to spend more time doing laxatives. Wish everyone would have the same story about what may or may not happen. T says no way will it go back into shape, M says surgery is needed, D says wait a freaking year, and the new guy says just keep on doing what you were doing and if his compliance isn't there, we'll look into a pull thru but he's sure it won't come to that. What I want to know is if there is neurological involvement, how are we ruling that out when no testing is being done?

I'd love to be wrong but my gut instinct is that this is not simple constipation.

I need to calm down and just sit with it for a while and then make a decision as to where to go from here.

G's doing his 3 day course. It involves homework and he's pretty unavailable when he gets home. It's going to be a long weekend for me. Meagan's coming for respite this afternoon so that I can take K to a birthday party.

M was great yesterday. Really settled and calm and self entertaining. He's pretty up and down on the efexor but it's mostly working. I think.

All the school stuff is progressing for K. I'm feeling very left out of the loop -- when we did the ascertainment for M, I was very involved but then that was probably because the teacher was so freaking useless. I was taken aback when Vanessa said she and Karen would take K to school for a tour. I don't think so! That's my role! I'm not happy that they have started the process this early in any case. It's Sept -- he starts school in February and is really excited now. That's a long time for him to perseverate about it.

The callistemons are in full flower but this year we've got a huge population of noisy mynah birds and willy wagtails who are driving off the rainbow lorikeets. Shame really.

I woke up this morning and decided I wasn't going to wait around any longer. I got on the phone at 8.30am and started ringing colonscopy providers and asking them if they knew of a paediatric gastro or if they would do a colonscopy on a 6 yo. Interesting variety of answers -- apparently some adult gastros do but they shouldn't.

And then I struck paydirt -- I was talking to the receptionist when the other line went and someone cancelled and we got the appt for this afternoon! My mother's able to come too so that's childcare taken care of.

The first appt is private but then apparently we can switch into the public system at the Royal Children's. I have no idea how all this works.

Waiting for the mortgage broker. Sheez, I hope we get this sorted this time! It's dragged on for so long.

I'm angry.

I'm feeling contempt to the point that I feel dirty.

I'm involved with a debate on a mailing list with a parent who is saying that her child is victimised because he found another child silly and annoying so he told the child so and called the child names and then ended up with a harassment order.

Well, big fecking deal.

The parent describes her child as popular and a social leader yet somehow because her child ostracises and bullies this other child, they're on an even playing ground. I'm disgusted. I asked her to find me some research which shows her kid places himself at risk of suicide with this behaviour but she just said her kid was at risk of suicide because he was persecuted by the school because he tried to exercise his right to not to have to tolerate kids he finds annoying.

This wasn't the day for her to start spewing this crap.

The lump's gone! ::does happy dance::

K's appt with the gastro has been put back until late october. I am seriously not happy. Spent some time on the phone trying to organise to see someone, anyone but to see someone privately would be late November. I'm waiting for Michael to ring me back and I am going to talk to him about a referral for a colonoscopy and an abdominal xray. We'd be doing that privately in any case as there's a long waiting list in the public system.

I can see that we're not going to have this sorted by school in Feb though :(.

In other news I'm sitting on the sofa eating mulberries and reading Sophie Kinsella and doing as little as possible.

Bleh. I found a huge lump in my breast last night. It feels like a blocked duct but I'm not bf'ing any more. I really don't want to deal with this at all. Logically it's a cyst or something as I have fibrocycstic breasts and it's the week before my period so the chances of cancer are very slight. But bleh. It's one more thing to deal with.

It's the homeschooling park day today and I'm dreading it. I don't know anyone but then nobody knows anyone, it's a totally new group. I think all the kids are younger than M so that's not going to be particularly fantastic for him. It's just hard going into a new group with a weird kid is all.

Man I'm cheerful this morning.

Finally made an appt with the mortgage broker and hopefully this time things will get completed. She tried to get me to drive to her house but excuse me? She's the one getting the big fee for this so why do I have to run round after her? It's not my fault she drove all the way out here when we didn't have an appt and not my fault that the time we did have an appt she went to the wrong suburb and got lost.

Feels like a change in the weather is coming through this evening. Bloody hope so. It's continued hot and windy all weekend. I nearly went for a swim. The longrange forecast is for a brutal November with temps over 100 degrees. Joy.

It's been a quiet weekend. Pa brought over the china cabinet and the sofa bed. No idea where the sofa bed goes but it can just sit there until I do get an idea. I was planning to move stuff into the china cabinet today but G got very sick last night. I was just about to give him the pleasure of my acerbic tongue as I cooked dinner for everyone and refereed the kids while he lay on the sofa. He took his temperature and it was over 40 degrees.

Then L rang to see if we were being evacuated. While I had seen the huge pall of smoke and heard the explosions, I'd just assumed it was a fireworks display and bush fire. It was actually 5 factories burning down complete with highly toxic smoke. I rang my parents to say we might be sleeping at their place but by 9 pm there was just some horrible smelling smoke and I locked the house up and put on the air conditioning. It turned out today that it was quite a distance from our house.

Today sucked really. I think I'm coming down with G's bug and I've just been limp and totally uninterested in doing anything at all. I've surfed the web, fed children endlessly and read rubbishy books. The house is really trashed.

Reading the Tichborne Claimant. What a story!

Hate neighbour's pool pump -- can it just blow up already? It's loud and sounds on the verge of death and is driving me and G nuts.

Hot, hot, hot here. Hottest September day for 21 years. Our pool is not yet swimmable which makes evil next door pump even more annoying.

Thursday we went to the West End to pick up a computer monitor from Green PC, a community group which does computers for poor people. Heh. I told G three times to ring them and organise it but of course he didn't. They didn't have one ready so we wandered off and had chicken at Nando's and looked at op shops. G got deeply interested in a record shop so I went to Bent Books. He of course went to the Avid Reader looking for me. Would be a fine thing if he listened to me in the first place ;)

K spent the evening being spectacularly obnoxious.

Today I was remarkably unmotivated to do anything at all. Forced myself to make banana bread, humous and put lamb in the crockpot but did very little housework.

The mulberries are ripening.

We went to Pirates of the Caribbean this afternoon and oh my! I loved it. I think Orlando Bloom can actually act which is a good thing. I would love to see Johnny Depp play Thady Boy Ballagh -- I don't think he could do the rest of the Lymond saga but he would be a perfect Thady Boy.

Dropped M at my parents. I would have thought by now G would know not to engage with my father on the subject of Israel. Went to Macdonalds and got K fries.

It's hot, really hot still. Might go and watch the TT for a bit until K is ready for bed. He had a good day at childcare with really good communication and sharing although threw major tantrum at lunchtime.

It's 30 degrees! That's about 85 degrees in US speak. I don't usually obsess about the weather but this is crazy hot for early spring. I'll have to get out there and water the garden this afternoon. The heat is killing those evil lantana bugs which is a Good Thing.

Still in a period of weird calm and peace. G went to a meeting on tues and is going to a rehearsal on Sunday of his story sports idea for the writers festival. He's not performing but is still involved with the development. Saw the accountant this morning -- G now agrees with me the guy is nice but a major ditz. The bill came in $500 less than I was budgeting but that makes the figures he gave us last year when he stuffed up even more bizarre. G's doing a screenwriting workshop at AFTR in a couple of weeks. I certainly hope it's worth the $250 and the 3 days alone with the kids I will be contributing.

It's at times like these I really am struggling with the concept of a meaningful life. When it's full on and I am juggling six things at once to make things work, I can see why I can't work, can't study and can't really commit to a sustained writing project. Now things are quiet (for the first time in several years though) I'm feeling like this is not enough. And I can observe some feelings of resentment as I watch G move forward in his career. Things are blossoming for him in a way they have not done before and it would be easy for the little worm of jealousy to flourish.

Finished reading _Reweaving the Autistic Tapestry_ and it has given me a lot of food for thought. It's a way of looking at autism and ADHD which I find interesting. Neither of my kids qualify fully for autism or Aspergers. Do the DSM checklists or the Gilberg checklists and they do not, either of them, have enough ticks in the boxes and yet their personal tapestries contain enough issues that subjectively they can be diagnosed.

I feel a rant coming on about natural medicine and ADHD in the near future. I also feel a rant about labelling and teachers who judge decisions made by parents ;).

Did some homeschooling with K for the first time in a couple of weeks this morning. He successfully read about 50% of a list of sight words -- there were about 50 words and he tried to sound out a few others. We struggled with the idea that we can just add numbers together without manipulatives. Think I'll just go back to using cuisinaire rods and we might work through Miquon. I'm astounded by how much the Q curriculum focuses on tessellating and patterns.

M's ticking over OK. He decided to handwrite some work but after being unable to read it back to himself, he's going back to using a keyboard.

I ran away on Monday and went to the city. Bought some books, nothing exciting though, had lunch, walked miles. The car had a flat battery so to get my day off I had to walk to W station which is miles away, take K to childcare on the train, walk to childcare and then back to the station. K behaved impeccably and didn't have a meltdown when it was time to get off the train.

Ma gave us two computer boxes and keyboards which weren't needed at childcare and G is putting together a 4th computer. Have no idea where it will go but maybe it's time to buy a computer desk for M's room. Oh for a bigger house!

Crazy warm weather. It's 8pm and nearly 80 degrees and it's only just spring. The neighbours were swimming today but our pool's deeper than theirs and it's still too cold.

Friday went by with nothing much happening. There's a form missing between the paed and the school and I got to listen to the receptionist blamestorm but I think it's sorted. I really do not believe that if the form were faxed from two different places that neither of them got there. I just hope it's sorted. ::sigh:: Monday I've got to deal with renewing prescriptions over the phone with her.

M excelled himself on Friday night. We dropped him at my parents and stopped off at MacDonalds to buy K fries and I spotted a pill on the back of the car boot. Now, call me crazy but if I give a kid a pill which is split in half, a strange pink colour and a weird shape, I think it's stretching credulity to ask me to believe that some random stranger spat it out on my car. These pills are rarely used now in any case. M was highly indignant and claims that he is being unfairly treated. G announced that he knew what it was like to be a kid and not be believed ::rolls eyes:: and that it was possible that the pill came from somewhere else.

Not on my planet, bud.

I read M the riot act on Saturday morning about how important it is to keep his med levels stable so that he's not bouncing around. One trip to the psych unit because of spat out meds is enough for me.

K threw an enormous tantrum on Saturday morning. Still don't know what it was about. But then I realised he'd not eaten much protein for the last few days so I fed him some yoghurt and he improved.

Today's been quiet. A rang from NZ for Father's Day. It looks like her mother is moving to Auckland so I guess that makes the possibility of them moving here even more remote. Had a dispute over the sofa bed Ma and Pa are giving us. They're also giving us a narrow china cabinet which makes me happy as I can put stuff on display. Cooked a nice dinner for Father's Day -- organic chicken with rosemary garlic potatoes, kumara and gravy. G burnt some brussels sprouts. I made a lemon-mandarin roulade with passionfruit butter.

Very windy and warm tonight. I wonder if the weather is going to break. Rain as always is desperately needed.

Finished reading Kathy Reichs' _Fatal Voyage_. Eh. I do prefer my books when the protagonist doesn't behave like a moron. It was curiously unengaging.

There's a new homeschooling group starting up locally. I've got reservations as most of the kids are younger than M or are girls. It would be nice if it led to a local social network but I'm not sure it will. We'll see.

We got an email from G's latest publisher today which said his new book had sold 800+ copies in the first two weeks. That's pretty interesting figures even when returns are considered. I knew I was right about moving into writing early reader books. Heh.

Respite day today. M and Meagan made lots of moon goo and various other kitchen chemistry experiments so they were happy. G and I went to Newstead House and had takeaways for lunch by the river.

http://www.queenslandholidays.com.au/brisbane/517001/index.cfm

Tried to find a site with a picture but no luck. I've decided that we will go and do tourist things on respite days so that G sees more of the city. I did try and make him go to the Breakfast Creek pub for lunch but he was totally fed up with the peculiar roads and wouldn't even try to get there.

http://members.optushome.com.au/dibingham1/brekkie_creek.htm

It's nice to have some time out where we don't have kids. He's away working tomorrow. Yay, money.

Still losing weight. It's slow but steady. I keep thinking if I switched to Atkins for a few weeks, I'd really drop but maybe it's better to keep on doing slow but steady and see it as a lifestyle change. I think we'll be swimming very soon as the pool is incredibly warm even without G's solar heating efforts and that will help. Probably if I gave up drinking wine I'd really be losing weight but I just can't get that motivated ;)

It's an odd lull at the moment. There's no crises actively in motion. Everybody's doing OK. I know drama will just be around the corner because it always seems to be but there's nothing that I absolutely must devote lots of time and energy to researching and making decisions. It's a weird feeling.

Splendid.

Just spiffing.

The accountant just cancelled with an hour's notice and nobody seems to be concerned about when we actually get to see him. I'm pissed off because it was a hell of a big deal to get it organised for tonight. Think I really will change accountants now. Last year's tax he added the deductions on instead of deducting them.

Think I'm coming down with a cold. Bleh. K's got one which is flourishing.

Got tax sorted and am now chasing the mortgage broker to complete on the mortgage. Wish I could remember what we said was the deposit and the full price of the house. G's income has jumped significantly this past year so that should help. I'm tending towards thinking I will choose a line of credit rather than a table mortgage. When I look back over the past couple of years I can see why we've paid off so little but if this place had been set up with a table mortgage we'd still not be much further ahead.

G's experimenting with setting up a solar heating system for the pool. I'm cross because he's pinched my concrete planter to do so. I don't think it will work because basically it will add so little hot water to the pool. He's a daftie but it will be nice if I am wrong and we get a few more months swimming time each year.

Aaaaaargh.

I feel like the more I run, the more I am standing in the same spot. Housework, housework, housework. Homeschooling stuff to organise. Found another two big-arse forms to fill out for the disability grants. How I missed them in the first place is beyond me.

Go shopping, buy food. Vacuum. Work on this tip of a room.

Begin to engage with tax stuff for accountant tomorrow night. Think about ringing mortgage broker. Then Ma rings to say that K is now really unwell and needs to come home.

Well that's just dandy. We decided to give him tomorrow off pro-actively and that gives me NO time without kids to do the tax. I'm not happy, not happy at all. Hate, hate, hate doing tax and this needs to be impeccable as the only appointment we could get before November was 7.30pm which means G is taking the stuff in which means it's got to be perfect.

I think I'll shoot myself now.

Oh and somewhere in there I had a fun conversation with Ed Queensland over the homeschooling regs. Oh man.