Finished!

I’ve finally finished reading the Twilight saga books. I thought they were fantastic, well written, had a great storyline and I really enjoyed reading them. I think Breaking Dawn was a fantastic “end” to the saga, however I have been left with lots of questions.

What will happen when Renesmee is fully grown?    How will her relationship with Jacob develop/change?   Since Renesmee is half-human is she able to have children when she is fully grown?  If so will they be human, vampire or half human?  Will Nahuel return?   Will the Volturi return?  Will there be a battle if/when they return?  Will they find Joham? 

So many unanswered questions, will there ever be another chapter in the saga, I hope so, maybe one set 7 years on from where Breaking Dawn finished.  In the meantime I’m going to get started on the movies, really looking forward to watching them.

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Happy Birthday Mum!!!

I want to take this opportunity to wish my Mum a very happy 50th birthday! 

I’m sorry that we can’t be with you to celebrate but M said he’d have a cold beer for you! I hope you have a great party and you take lots of pictures to show me.

This is the second big event that we are missing now that we’re on the other side of the world, one of my best friends had a baby 2 weeks ago.  It’s hard to think not only about all the things, (birthdays, births, weddings etc), that we are going to miss but also the things that our family and friends are also going to miss, such as J’s first day at school, our birthdays etc. Hopefully with the help of photographs, email, phone calls, webcams and letters we can still share all of these special occasions, and of course there’s always holidays to look forward to.

In the meantime I hope my Mum has a fantastic birthday, I shall be calling her later so that J can sing Happy Birthday to his Nanny. xx

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The Great Behaviour Challenge

OMG What a week!  The last 10 days or so J’s behaviour has been outstandingly bad challenging, with the trip to the zoo being the only good day we’ve had.

He really has gone into overdrive with the challenging behaviour. We’ve been making excuses, (although still trying to deal with the behaviour), for the last few weeks, afterall he’s had alot of change recently with the move, starting playgroup etc.  However last weekend, (a disastrous day out), he pushed us to our limits with his behaviour and has continued to do so since then. We’ve had lots of screaming and I don’t mean screaming, I mean really really loud high pitched screaming and alot of the time lasting for over an hour, both at home and when we’re out and about. He has physically attacked us both on several occasions, usually hitting, kicking or scratching but has also included pinching, pulling hair, biting and poking/pressing eyes.  

This isn’t the first time we’ve had to deal with his behaviour. At 9 months J would have hour long temper tantrums, these can now last for the whole day, (and night at times). These day long tantrums started when he was about 2yrs old, so we’ve had abit of practice at dealing with them now but they seem to be getting more severe as he gets older. At 18 months he started hurting himself, banging his head, hitting and biting himself, the majority of the time for no reason and only occasionally because of frustration, anger etc. Thankfully this has now eased and he now only occasionally hurts himself. J likes routines and has certain ways of doing things, he usually gets very upset if anything is done differently. J is also very easily frustrated and can erupt at the smallest of things.

We’ve tried pretty much everything trying to control manage and deal with his behaviour. We’ve had a time out mat, star charts, a contract and rewards, we’ve tried ignoring the negative and praising the positive, we’ve tried talking to him, we’ve tried taking things away, (toys, tv time etc). Nothing seems to work and his behaviour is so random there is often no warning so it’s very hard to predict when he might erupt and what we could do to prevent it. Most of the time there appears to be no trigger.

We tried to seek help when we went back to the UK, unfortunately we saw a terrible “specialist” who told us that he was clever and he needed to be stimulated more, (thanks for telling me I’m not doing a good job!). She then went on to tell me I was only worried about his behaviour because I was depressed because it was Christmas and we were trying to sell the house! mmmmm………..Great help she was!!!     We did however have a fantastic Health Visitor and a wonderful Children’s Centre with various courses and a few new friends. Thanks to our Health Visitor, the Children’s Centre and my fantastic new friends I learnt new ways of dealing with J’s behaviour and new ways of encouraging positive behaviour.

Unfortunately not alot works with J and his behaviour is very unpredictable. He can be very good at times and even when he displays challenging behaviour the majority of the time he’s not being “naughty” (we use the word silly at home, never naughty), and we don’t think he’s doing it for attention as he has that whenever he wants it. Everything we’ve tried has so far only worked once and only for a small period of time.

So what do we do, we don’t want teachers, parents and other children to label him a naughty child because that’s really not the case. He is actually a very loving, happy, well behaved boy. I know that probably sounds like I’ve got my wires crossed but as I said the majority of the time the outbursts are for no reason at all and can happen while he is happily playing a game, it’s like he has a switch.  Who knows what is going on in his head. How do we help others to understand him?  How do we help him to try to control/ manage his emotions better? How do we deal with the behaviour?  How do we cope with the unpredictability? How do we explain it to others without sounding like over reactive parents?   He’s not a naughty badly behaved child, just very unpredictable and extreme. I’m sure there’s something more going on with him but I don’t know where to go to find out and until people witness it they don’t really appreciate and understand just how random and bad it can be. I think most people just see us as over reacting parents but that’s not the case. We just want to know what’s going on with him, so we know how to help him and how to help us to know the best way of dealing with it and to help others understand. I’m sure the move and starting playschool has unsettled him and that this along with his dislike of change has made things worse. As the time for starting school gets closer the need to understand what is going on with his behaviour is increasing.

So where do we go from here?

If anyone is going through or has gone through similar issues or has any ideas on what we can do I’d love to hear from you.

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Delayed!

We have just been informed that our container has been delayed……again. Originally it was due in Brisbane on the 13th May, then we were told it would be the 20th May. So yesterday we were looking forward to being told that our belongings had arrived and would be with us in 10-14 days. That didn’t happen and we’ve now been told that it has been delayed once again and is now due on the 28th May.

I’m surprised at how little we’ve been living with over the past 2 months and it’s made me wonder how much we actually need, of our belongings what do we really miss?  Obviously as a mechanic hubby is missing his tools, J misses some of his toys, some photos and his bed. As for me, I miss my photos, the washing machine, my bed, a sofa and of course my computer. As for everything else I’m wondering do we really need it all. I’m sure once it all finally arrives we’ll realise how much we need want everything. Fingers crossed it all arrives soon.

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Money Well Spent

I took J to Australia Zoo last week and he loved it. Instead of just paying the entrance fee I bought myself, J and hubby yearly tickets. A yearly ticket costs about the same as 3 visits, so since we only live about 20-30 minutes drive away I’m sure we’ll have lots more than 3 visits.

I took J for visit number 2 yesterday, however I was very nervous and unsure of how he would behave after our disastrous day out at the weekend. I’m really glad that i took him and I’m pleased to say that we had an amazingly good day out.

It’s like no other zoo I’ve ever been to and there are lots of opportunities to interact with the animals. J loves interacting with the animals and it’s great fun watching him. As we went through the entrance, staff were on hand with a variety of animals and photo opportunities. First we spoke with some parrots, I couldn’t stop smiling  as I watched J’s face light up, he was amazed that they could talk and wave to him!  We then learnt about a lizard and J had great fun stroking him. Then J had his photo taken with a koala and we spent a few minutes stroking it, ( very soft and very, very cute). We then made our way to the farm animals where J spent a good 1/2 hour stroking and feeding them, the piglets were his favourite.

Mid morning arrived and J decided that he wanted to feed the elephants, so we joined one of the queues, (there were 3 of them one for each elephant). Alot of the younger children in the queues were a little nervous as they approached the elephants, they are enormous creatures, however J simply grabbed a piece of fruit, put his hand out to the elephant and said hi! He wasn’t bothered at all by the size of the elephant, in fact he insisted on joining the other queues so that he could feed the other 2!  After the elephants we made our way to Roo Heaven, it was exactly that for J. We spent 30 minutes or so feeding and stroking the kangaroos. The kangaroos were definitely his favourite animal at the zoo.

I’m really pleased that we put our disastrous day out behind  us and went out. We had a great time and I was very proud of the way that J behaved. The day was made even better by the fantastic staff there, they were patient and interacted fantastically well with J.

A yearly ticket was definitely money well spent. And of course another thing off my list of 101 Things in 1001 Days

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A Disastrous Day Out!!

We got a couple of coupons out of the paper for Dreamworld, (a family theme park on the Gold Coast), so we thought we’d have a family day out.

The day started off well, J was very excited, the sun was shining and we were all looking forward to a day out.

Then we arrived and it all turned sour! There were big queues at the entrance, we chose the smallest queue, always a mistake. We soon discovered the queue wasn’t moving and we had to queue for around 20 minutes in the blazing sun, (there was no shade set up), to get in. J’s mood soured very quickly.  When we finally got in we discovered that J was about 5 cm too short to go on most family/kids rides, so we were a little annoyed that it had cost so much for him to get in, (just my opinion but, maybe charging fees over a certain height rather than age would be more appropriate). We thought, “nevermind we’re here now so let’s make the most of it”. J had other ideas!!!!!  We queued for about 1/2 hour to go on a wiggles ride that he wanted to go on, (and was big enough to go on), when it was finally our turn he had a tantrum, screaming and kicking, he didn’t want to go on it!! This was the start of the screaming etc……

After around 2 hrs of this hubby and I had had enough and we decided to go home, this of course only made J worse!!! I had to carry him to the car mid meltdown. Everyone that we walked past had a good look, one middle aged woman in particular gave very disapproving looks, obviously not a parent! It then took hubby and I 15 minutes or so to get J strapped in his car seat. It was quite a battle, he got a good clump of hair and I got a few new bruises and scratches. LOL.  I then had to sit in the back of the car with him, trying to keep him still, he was trying to escape from his car seat. I should explain at this point that J has always had some behaviour issues, he’s not like it all the time and can be very good but then when he loses control and has a “meltdown”he can last a whole day……and/or night! Quite often this is without warning and over very trivial things, eg I’ve driven a different way home!  Because of this we couldn’t simply sit and wait for him to calm down before we started the drive home, we could have been there for hours, you just never know with J how long it’s going to last.   After lots of screaming etc, the movement of the car and his exhaustion finally sent him off to sleep. He woke up just before we got home, still grumpy but calmer……thankfully.

All in all a disastrous day out!!!!!

What really bugged me was the looks and comments from other parents. I know that J’s behaviour can be extreme at times but surely their children must had tantrums of some sort also. Maybe next time they could consider giving understanding looks and supportive comments rather than the disapproving ones.

How many of you have gone through similar experiences? Does anyone else out there experience extreme behaviour issues with their children?  J is 4 at the moment and I worry all the time what he’ll be like in 5 years time, he’ll be bigger then and if nothing changes will I still be able to cope with the meltdowns? How will other deal with him? How will he cope with his behaviour? He starts school soon and I’m really worried that if he has a couple of meltdowns there, is he going to be labelled the “uncontrollable child” or the “naughty child”?  I don’t want this to happen as he’s not a naughty child he just has “moments” that can be a little more extreme than other children his age. How do I explain all of this to his school and how do I help them to deal with it when it happens, which I’m sure it will but as I said before there is quite often no warning and he can lose control over very trivial things.

Advice and comments welcome.

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On The Move…..Again!

After alot of consideration we’ve decided to move …… again!! We’re not moving far, just a few km south to the next town, it’s much nicer there than where we are at the moment. We’ve already started looking for somewhere to rent  and are hoping to move around the end of the month. The reason for moving so quickly is simple, everything is due from the UK around the end of the month and it would be alot easier, (for us), if the removalists deliver everything to the new house.  As for the move itself, well the reasons are also just as easy to explain.  The house that we are currently renting is quite small and when all of our belongings arrive we won’t fit everything into the house so we are looking for something a little bigger. When we first started renting the house a few weeks ago we weren’t planning on renting for too long so we would have put up with being cramped and having a garage full of our stuff but things have changed slightly. Hubby is enrolled on his diploma course and is hoping that in a couple of years he’ll be working in a career that he wants and I have put my name on a list to do the Diploma of Nursing, however there is a waiting list so I may be waiting for a little while. We decided that until we are both working towards the careers that we want it would be best to rent, once we’re both settled in good jobs and in a better financial position, then we’ll look at buying  somewhere.

So there we go, fingers crossed we’ll find something quite quickly and get moved in before everything arrives from the UK.

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101 Things Update

Hi all, for those of you that have read my 101 things in 1001 days  page I thought I’d update you with my progress so far. I’ve managed to get quite a few things done in the past few weeks so here’s what’s been crossed off the list so far.

1:  Get us back to Oz  – obviously if you’ve been reading my posts then you’ll know that we’ve finally made it back to Australia and are now starting to settle into life here quite well. Although I do miss my friends lots and can’t wait for my pc to arrive so that I can have a good old gossip chat with them again.

2: Get J into Daycare  – J started daycare a couple of weeks ago. He’s only going 2 days a week but has been experiencing a little seperation anxiety, see my post How Can I Ease the Guilt.

4:  Find a House To Rent – We’re renting a small 3 bed house at the moment north of Brisbane but we are looking to move to a bigger house rather than buying somewhere asap. I’ll update about this later.

6: Write a letter to my Nan  -  I found this really hard to do, before I had J my Nan was probably the most important person in my life and I miss her everyday. I actually ended up doing it as a post on my blog,  dear Nan  , which made it slightly easier to do.

10: Have a clearout on Facebook – All done I was surprised how many deletes I had!!

11: Update my Address Book – Moving back to Australia was the perfect excuse I needed to do this. I was given a new address book for my birthday so got started with the update. There were a few people who for one reason or another I didn’t transfer and I also had a few new names etc to put in thanks to my fantastic friends at my local childrens centre, (in the UK before we left)

20: Sort out my wardrobe – This was another thing that got done before we left for Oz, afterall we wouldn’t need our thick wooly jumpers in Qld would we?

21: Open a Bank Account for J  – This was pretty straight forward and we did it when we sorted our account out here in Oz, so he’s an active saver now.

24: Buy a new car for me  – We did this our 1st weekend in Oz but have decided that once we get everything here sorted we’re going to change the car. It’s a 3 door and it’s a pain getting J in and out of it so we’re looking for a 5 door. It doesn’t have air con either and when the summer months arrive here that’s going to be a must!

25: Buy a new car for Hubby – We finally found a car for him last weekend. He’s got a small 4×4 that’s cheap to run but he can also go offroading with it.

88: Let J do an Easter Egg Hunt – The weekend before we left my nieces, Z and S, came round for a final play. Whilst they were with us for the day not only did J, Z and S make Easter Bonnets but they also did an Easter Egg Hunt. They all had a great time and I’m planning on letting J do one next year too.

93: Buy New Lunchboxes – Hubby started work just a couple of days after ouur arrival so he needed a new lunchbox asap. J needed one for playschool so I took him shopping so that he could choose his new lunchbox. He ended up with a small one with monsters on…..naturally!! lol

That’s it so far but I’m going to keep working on it and hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll be able to cross a couple more things off the list.

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Anyone Hiring?

We’ve been looking at moving south but having had a brief look around down there we’re not that keen and really do prefer where we are and the surrounding areas. So now that we’ve decided where we want to be, J is in daycare 2 days a week and hubby is working I think that the time has come to go back to work. Easier said than done, what do I do?  I’ve pretty much always worked with children in one role or another but my only work experience since J was born has been as a Nursery Officer at his old nursery. I was only there for a few months and then my time there, (and J’s), ended quite abruptly when the nursery closed.  However, whilst I was working there I realised as much as I loved the work I was doing it wasn’t what I wanted to do “forever” anymore. I’ve always thought about going into Nursing but I can’t really afford to study again, hubby has discovered that he has to study for a Diploma in Justice in order to apply to join the police force here. It’s not possible for us both to study and he’s always been very supportive so I think it’s my turn to be supportive.

So until he’s got his diploma, what do I do and is anyone hiring???

mmmmmmmm………….think /i best make a start on my resume.

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I’m Hooked

A couple of friends of mine, (Supersinglemum and Mummymatters ), are BIG fans of the Twilight saga. They’ve been going on about it for months now so I thought I should see what all the fuss was about. I should make it clear to you all vampires are definitely NOT my thing, (I had nightmares after the Lost Boys!! lol).

I don’t do things half-heartedly, so I didn’t just buy the first book in the saga I went straight into the store and purchased all of the books, well there’s not much point only reading part of the story is there?

There wasn’t much on the box last night so I decided to get snug in my camping chair, (our furniture is still on it’s way from the UK), and began to read Twilight.  I couldn’t put it down!!!!  I read about half of the book before I decided that maybe I should stop and go to bed! I think it’s safe to say that I’m hooked and I can’t wait to finish all the books and make a start on the movies.

Thanks Supersinglemum and MummyMatters, ……..Oh and Supersinglmum I think I may also have a tiny crush on Edward Cullen! lol

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