The Gallery – Animals

This week’s theme for the Gallery over at Sticky Fingers is Animals.

This is an easy theme for me, it’s one of J’s favourite topics. He has an amazing connection with animals and tends to get on much better with animals than he does people. It still amazes me when I watch my beautiful little man, the child who hates to get his hands dirty, quite happily cover his hands with kangaroo, sheep or even elephant slobber whilst feeding them!

Whilst this is an easy theme, it’s not so easy to choose just one photo so here’s a few……..

One of J’s favourite things to do, whatever the weather is to feed the ducks

………………………. Or whatever else decides to say hello when we’re out at the local park

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We don’t always have to go to the local park to see wildlife, as well as a geckos, frogs and a whole lot of different bugs we’re usually treated to frequent visits from these in our garden.

Since arriving in Australia early last year we’ve seen a whole host of beautiful Australian wildlife, most of which at Australia Zoo……………….

J's favourite Australian Animal

 

my favourite Aussie Animal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And ofcourse everywhere we go, Special Doggy goes too

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Roadtrip!

We arrived home yesterday from our little roadtrip, all a little tired and sad to be home.

The journey to our destination was a long one, J was in a terrible mood which continued on throughout the day even after we had arrived and unpacked. Last week was the first time he had attended 3 full days in a row at school and I think it just wore him out, which resulted in a tired and VERY grouchy boy pretty much all day Thursday.

However he woke up Friday feeling and looking much happier, a huge relief for us because we had another day of driving around and it would have been a nightmare if little man had been in his bad mood again! We drove around various little towns/suburbs, checked out the local schools, visited the local tourist offices to get information about the area and just generally checked out the whole area.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday we spent the morning doing pretty much the same thing and decided (despite the threat of showers) that we’d get some chips and let J spend some time on the beach. He’d been so good we thought it would be fair to let him have some fun

 

We were very sad to leave on yesterday but returned home with the knowledge that this was definitely somewhere that we’d like to consider moving to.

As for today………… well it was back to the same old, same old………………. J insisting that he was sick and couldn’t go to school, appointments with doctors, surgeons and therapists………… and back to my little addiction to coffee

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The Gallery – World Photography Day

This week Tara over at Sticky Fingers made the theme for the Gallery World Photography Day and left instructions that today’s post should be a photo from today or the weekend.

We’ve decided to “bite the bullet” and go away for a few days, only the second time we’ve done so as a family since J was born. Last night I managed to get J to pack his small case with toys that he absolutely had to take with him

Then I rushed around packing a case with clothes and such like ready for our little trip. We’re going on a small road trip to check out some areas that are on our “we might move to if the area’s right for us” list. This means we will be in the car for quite a long period of time, this is something I’m dreading because half an hour in the car with J is usually more than enough so wish us luck! (I’m thinking we may have a few stops along the way, especially since he hasn’t been in the best of moods this week)

So I took this picture today especially for the Gallery. I think it’s quite a big moment in our lives, we’re all packed and ready to go on our second holiday as a family, hopefully all prepared for a long journey in the car with little man and excited to be visiting what could possibly be our next home.

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“I Don’t Want To Go To School!” – Wordless Wednesday

I’m linking up with Trish at My Little Drummer Boys

 

 

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Sometimes It’s All Just Too Much – Silent Sunday

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We Created A Rainbow Of Colour

We’ve had a colourful start to the weekend

Yesterday I decided to start having another huge sort out and when you have a child who collects everything, trust me there’s alot to sort out! As a reward for being such a good sport about the big sort out (which has continued on into today) and for allowing us to put together a bag of things for the Salvos, a box for ebay and a huge bag of rubbish (J collects packaging!), I told him we could do any art activity that he wanted. (Ofcourse without him realising we’ll also be working on his OCD clean issues and his fine motor skills)

J asked if he could tie dye a t-shirt. I bought some things a little while ago in order to do this but have been waiting for J to be interested enough in doing it. He seemed very excited and couldn’t wait to get started so I grabbed the opportunity with both hands, afterall he doesn’t very often want to do messy art.

 First we made the dye up in little squirty bottles (he didn’t want to put his hands too close to the dye, hence the use of bottles).

Then I helped J put a collection of elastic bands (yes he collects those too!) around the t-shirt in a variety of different places, great use of his fine motor skills

Then it was time for the messy bit!  He had a ball squirting all the different colours over our elastic band tied shirt.

We left it to dry in the sun and after removing the elastic bands (more fine motor work), discovered the rainbow of colour that we had created.

Looks pretty good doesn’t it?

I’m amazed and so proud that he had a go at something so messy, six months ago J wouldn’t have even come close to doing something like this. Yes it doesn’t happen very often and he still hates being messy but just look at what he’s created and how far he’s come in a short space of time

Bring on the messy play…………………….

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Order And Angry Birds – Wordless Wednesday

 

I’m linking up with Trish at My Little Drummer Boys

 

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Am I Getting Old?

Last night I awoke from a short nanna nap in my chair, I sat watching the late news drinking a mug of hot milk, wrapped in my woolly dressing gown, my feet wrapped in slippers…………………I couldn’t help but ask myself “am I getting old?”

Every night it’s pretty much the same thing, pj’s nap, news and milk. Whilst our guests were here I missed my naps, only having one the night they went to Sydney…………… I really missed my naps.

When I put my head down to sleep each night I don’t usually get more than 3 – 4 hours of unbroken sleep (last night I was up 3 times with J) and get through each day with the help of caffeine, my daily dose has trebled over the past year.  Ofcourse the caffeine doesn’t really help, it just encourages the insomnia. Some nights no matter how tired I am I just can’t switch off, maybe it’s because of everything going around and around in my head, (we have had one of those years!), maybe it’s stress, maybe it’s the caffeine that I’ve consumed throughout the day or maybe it just simply over tiredness.  What I’m trying to say is that by the time I’ve got through the day, completed the bedtime battle, finally settled J into bed and all is quiet in our house I.am.shattered.

I don’t know how I’d cope without my short nanna naps!

As for the hot milk, well what can I say

……… I love milk, plus it does help a little with the insomnia. I usually drop off to sleep a whole lot quicker when I had a mug of my favourite tipple

I’ve really been thinking alot about the future lately too. I want to get back into the workforce and whilst I love working with children I want a more serious career. In the UK, (before J), I managed a couple of childcare centres but over here in Australia my qualifications and experience mean nothing and I have to re-study for a lower qualification than I already have, at the end of which I will be able to work as an assistant. It seems like abit of a waste of time when I could study for the same amount of time and at approx the same cost for a qualification that could enable me to have a career over here. I’m thinking of going back to accounts, something that I also studied in the UK. If I did this then I could earn a decent wage, develop a career and provide a little more security for all of us.

So does all of this mean I’m getting old? I certainly feel “older than my years” at the moment.

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My Mini Masterchef – Silent Sunday

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They Chose Me Of All People!

Of all people they chose me!

Yesterday J’s teacher handed me an envelope and informed me that we had been randomly selected by the Department of Education and Training to complete a survey about how satisfied we were with J’s school……………….hahahahaha I’ve been laughing lots at this, anyone that regularly reads my blog will know exactly how we feel about his school.

So going through the list we had to fill in boxes, very satisfied, satisfied, 50/50 neutral, dissatisfied and very dissatisfied for each question. The questions varied from how satisfied we were that staff listen and support to how satisfied we were with his education.

A couple of questions really stood out for us like, how satisfied were we that our child was treated fairly at school, in our opinion he isn’t treated fairly. He has an Autistic Spectrum Disorder, he has Aspergers, He has extra needs, all of which are ignored by the school because he’s “high functioning”. If he was “lower functioning” then the school might offer some support to him, unfortunately this doesn’t happen and too often they (the school) forget that he has any extra needs at all. For example the school trip earlier this year, he was expected to go on the trip despite my fears, he hates travelling, let alone sitting still on a crowded bus for an hour but we were told “he’ll be fine all the kids love it”……… Guess what school all kids are different and some are extra special and the idea of sitting on a crowded bus for an hour each way was hell to J. So do you think it was fair to expect him to just tag along with the rest of his class………. NO!

Another stand out question for us was how satisfied are you that your child is happy to go to this school ……………….hahahaha This one really had us in fit of giggles. We filled it out together as a family, J was playing on his Ipad whilst hubby and I worked our way through the questions, when J heard me reading this one out to hubby he yelled out, “I am not happy, I hate school, I thought you knew that!” LOL  Could really only put one answer to that one – very dissatisfied!

Whilst filling it out J also had us in fits of giggles when he stated “They don’t teach me anything so I’m not getting an education!”  lol  Guess we had to put dissatisfied with the questions regarding education.

Ofcourse with all of the issues we have had with the school we had to put dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with questions regarding the communication and support within the school. To be fair his new teacher does seem very nice and supportive and also seems to be picking up on little things with J and he does have some wonderful teacher aides that go into his classroom, (not to work with J ofcourse) so I did put a couple of 50/50 neutral (it wasn’t many)  and the school has recently updated their website so I felt I had to put 50/50 neutral for the two questions regarding that.

I don’t think anything will be done with the results of the surveys but it felt really good to be telling a higher authority (than the school) what a crappy school it was

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