Sorry

Blogging has temporarily taken a nosedive!
We are all still alive though with varying degrees of sanity!

In brief:
School= Xmas= busy busy busy.
Home = decorating before Xmas= Ikea flat pack = lots of swearing and a few missing screws!
Abby = Interview at Exeter on Friday = medical school= major stress on my part! I found myself dreaming that *I* was at the interview and I was wearing a nappy... (psychologists figure that one out...!)
Zach = busy at college and work, curfewed, better for it:)
Lucy = Mock GCSEs = major stress though she doesn't need to be as she is fab, works hard and will do fine.
Charlie= counting down to Father Christmas on a minute by minute basis . No I'm NOT kidding, sadly. He was a narrator (which they didn't tell me) and a camel (which they DID) at the school performance today. I missed it as I was at the Farm with the older boys from my class, and while sad to miss Charlie, I certainly wasn't sad to miss the nightmare that is our class attempting to participate!

My brother was mugged at knifepoint last weekend, kicked about and unconscious and I hope whoever did it is a) caught b) eats poisonous runner beans for Xmas!

My cats are annoying me to point that Portia is beginning to look appealing as a pair of fur lined gloves and if Morph uses his cat litter tray just ONCE more (when it's NOT raining..he's just lazy) he might be the matching pair of Ugg boots....

So we are still here....

Obsessions

Ok we all have them. I'm not Spikefreak (one of my emails lol) for nothing. Abby, myself and Lucy have been Buffy fans since, well since Abby was about yr 6. She and her then best friend Katie, forced me to watch a whole season of Buffy in one wet half term day..and I was hooked. We recently revisited the experience in a (successful) attempt to initiate Alice (Lucy's best friend) into the world of Buffy .Alice was sure she wouldn't like it!

A couple of episodes later and Alice wasn't going home! In fact she has pretty much lived here as we have worked our way through seasons 1-5 (22 episodes in each) We are now on season 6 and still have the final season to come. 40 Mins an episode. That's a LOT of Buffy. And Angel. And Spike.

Yup we have obsessions!

However I can put down the DVD box and walk away. Despite my ability to quote Buffy scenes , I don't do it every 5 minutes, and usually only with those who can quote back even faster (Abby!)

Charlie's obsessions are something else however, and far more wearing to live with.
He can quote Wikipedia at you til you scream ,but has absolutely no idea that other people are not interested. His most glaring autistic trait is his repetitiveness. He can walk beside you and tell you something (that you probably already know) His language will be copied from whatever he has either read or watched on television.
Exactly.
When he has finished he will start again, repeating the exact same information, in the same tone and using the exact same words. There is no deviation from the script. If allowed he can continue in this loop indefinitely.Usually I can manage three 'loops' but by the fourth my patience is wearing thin.

Charlie has absolutely NO concept that this is not conversation. He cannot 'chat', he merely downloads his information. He loves talking to people and his total lack of stranger awareness as a child has not changed one whit, it simply looks more intimidating when he stretches himself to full height , far too close to some stranger who is about to discover how tall Charlie is!

The more anxious Charlie is, the more obsessive and repetitive he becomes.Even something which, in theory, he likes, can cause him intense anxiety and obsessive stress, and this weekend we gave him his dad's old phone. Bad move. He wanted it, but the stress of it has almost been too much for him. His one school mate who has a phone, rang him. yay. Now he watches it constantly, fiddles with it (it is a basic one thank heavens) and hopes for phone calls.And stresses.

I hate how nothing can be a simple pleasure for him. Even his Wikipedia obsession doesn't seem to make him actually HAPPY. Everything is anxiety and uncertainty.

Autism isn't a good thing no matter what some of the able Aspie forums suggest.It makes every aspect of life harder for Charlie and for those of us who love him. Autism sucks.

not unbailed

Never mind. Something better in fact although I'm pretty sure Zach doesn't see it that way.

The local constabulary have decided to take action against the group Zach hangs round with and have imposed Behaviour contracts with most of them..Zach included. He didn't have to sign it, and the contents were negotiable, but the essence of it is that they have to stay off the streets for 6 months.
Basically he is curfewed 10pm every night (unless he works later..they know I'm picking him up so there was no problem there, and they are glad he is working and away from the gang)
Also his moped is officially dead , which is gutting from a financial viewpoint but on the other hand the reason for his behaviour contract was 99% moped stupidity and so it is NOT going to be replaced. It's a massive pita for me, not to mention the cost of running him to work and fetching him (30 miles a night) but it means that he can't be pedding somewhere he shouldn't be, or letting mates (with no insurance or CBT) use it or any of the other 101 stupid things he has done since he had it. It's a bus pass (and he'll have to pay) for college and mother from now on.

He is gutted.. but I couldn't be more pleased, because ALL I have wanted is to get him away from Bad Harry and the others and with the lot of them curfewed and Zach working a lot, there will be little time left over, especially now we are into cold wet winter nights.Also his stupid behaviour is having tangible consequences for him.. something he badly needs. I love him enough to know he needs this and I really really hope he takes it on board.

He might have to pay for X box live membership.. going to be at home a LOT!

ahhhhhhhh

Half term has finally arrived. That was a long eight weeks. Too long.
The children are tired, and as for the staff.. gruesome!

I'd like to relax next week but that just isn't going to happen. People to see, house to clean, children to (hopefully) get UNbailed....

However. I have achieved something.. tho it feels a hollow victory. Having had the term from hell at school, I bunched up my panties a couple of weeks ago, and told the head that it couldn't continue.. it was change things or I leave. Sounds drastic and drama queen-ish doesn't it? It felt it too. Generally I'm considered easy going at work, I work with the most challenging children, I get bashed up a lot and I deal with it ok because I care about the children and I like the people I'm with . But this year we were otld that three of us had to rotate every three weeks into a different class on a different site. Bad enough but this was for children with severe ASD in both classes who need absolute consistency and structure...

Needless to say it hasn't worked and those of us doing the three week stints have been stressed beyond what is fair, and all the children have suffered from the lack of continuity. You just can't DO that in classes with children with such profound needs.
I've been ill over it.. not being able to do a half decent job in either class has been distressing for me and I knew I couldn't continue. Luckily the teachers agreed it wasn't working for the classes either, but it meant that one of us needed to move.
I was one of the lucky ones and despite sticking my head above the parapet (or perhaps because of that!) I am now in MY class full time.
I express how relieved I am; the alternative was leaving and financially that would have been a disaster.. but I am very sad that my friend is having to move class ..tho just next door.. and all because management couldn't figure classes effectively. Having to get stressed, having to stick my head up and shout, horrid:(

Still for now I can relax.
Sort of.
Police station at 12 tomorrow and fingers crossed that Zach will be Unbailed and NOT curfewed as that would mean him losing his job. His crime was something foolish, not something nasty, and IMO the local police have massively over reacted to a bunch of teens who do daft things and don't think ahead.I did way worse as a teen and no-one ever arrested me!

Ho hum...

very very fed up

Not even going to go into details.. lets just say that parents of teenagers understand why some animals eat their own young.

Remind me someone that this too shall pass, and in the end people have to be responsible for their own actions...

I am glad I'm not a cat tonight!

Most of the time I am jealous of my beasties... they sleep 20 hours a day, do nothing for their keep, yada yada.
Tonight I discovered the flip side. Morph waved his tail past me just after a quick loving and I inhaled a large loose clump of long fluffy main coon tail fur. Five minutes of gagging later I think I coughed up a hairball.

Hairballs suck!

Of course I just happened to be talking to our newly allocated social worker... how to make an impression!! We are thinking about applying to do some weekend respite care..can't go for fulltime as we don't have a permanently free bedroom (yet!). However under the new regulations we have to do the full assessment for permanent carers and would be adopters. I am feeling really unsure about it right now as it seems incredibly invasive and while I don't have great secrets I am quite a private person and feel uncomfortable at the thought of raking over every element of my life.Maybe it will be good for me, maybe not.There are some things I don't wish to discuss!

Well we'll see.. we'll start the process and if it leads somewhere it was meant to be; if it doesn't... it's their loss!!!!!!

Crawling to bed now with paracetamol as feeling less than wonderful. I am supposed to be taking a child swimming tomorrow morning and have refused which won't make me popular but I feel grotty and know that spending time in a freezing public pool will only make me feel even worse! Being militant scares me tho...!

Karma lifts its fat and exceptionally ugly arse and shits once again in your general direction.

I'm sorry for pinching that line (you know who you are!) but I couldn't just let it disappear into the ether.. it is just too perfect!

The line actually refers to my own come-uppance for laughing at a friend who has felines with dodgy tummies.At least I WAS laughing, til my own beloved Morph stalked in behind me to his litter tray and proceeded to blast it (with sound effects) before heading off leaving large brown foot prints. Need I say more? Sufficient to say I now have every smelly candle I possess burning and and the bin men are truly going to hate me for the bag I have just dumped in the bin outside.....

Another day in my life!!