I can’t believe we’re into our third (or is it forth) week of term 3 already. Time just flies. We’ve been very busy in our family but not a great deal autism related so not much really to write about Bethie. I had a parent teacher interview last Monday, Beth is doing pretty well. She’s slowly seeming to improve her attitude in class, doing what the rest of the class is doing without complaining and independently doing these things which for me is a big thing. We did have a bit of a laugh. Miss H. told me that Beth had pretty much convinced a teacher that there was such a thing as an umbrella bird. They were doing an alphabet challenge where they had to name an animal with each letter of the alphabet. I asked Miss H. if she had checked if there really was such a thing as Beth has excellent general knowledge and usually doesn’t make facts up. When I got home I checked it out and yes indeed there is such a thing as an umbrella bird. I got great pleasure in writing in Beth’s diary about it!
There was an incident at Beth’s school last week. My son Bill has gastro on Thursday and I just couldn’t drive the other kids to school, firstly because he couldn’t be in the car for that long, secondly because I couldn’t leave him while he was ill. I opted to give the girls the day off. Usually with gastro we all get it one after the other so I wanted to be on alert just in case. (It turned out just to be Bill thank goodness.) Beth of course then developed a fake cough and even tried to make herself vomit so that she could have the Friday off. Which is a shame as she’s been going to school happily for the first time in years. Anyway, on Friday Beth got in the car when I picked her up and told me that a boy I shall call Sam was arrested and put into prison for stabbing the cooking teacher in the hand. She told me that their principal had told them all at assembly. I had forgotten about it until yesterday (Monday) when I saw all the mums for our coffee afternoon. They told me that on the Thursday when we weren’t there apparently they had the carpark cordoned off with police and they ended up having to taser the boy and take him away for the night, right at pickup time. I was speaking with Beth about it, asking her if she knew if Sam had come back to school or if he had been expelled or suspended. Beth asked why he would be and I told her that it was very dangerous and he shouldn’t have done what he did. Her response; the worst possible punishment : I bet he lost his ipad for the night! Yes I’ll bet he did!
I’m still taking Bridie to the naturopath with success. Her tummy aches are almost gone and she has been enjoying going to school which is such a win. Whenever she gets a tummy ache we look at what she’s eaten. The time before last it was after spaghetti bolognaise and garlic bread, she had already been cleared for wheat so I was confused. It turned out to be the garlic. This time it was after fish and chips so she was treated for all the different oils. We had spaghetti last night with no problems whatsoever. It’s a bonus that Bridie really likes Theresa, they even read the Faraway Tree together!
I have made an exciting decision. I am in the process of enrolling at University next year to do a Bachelor of Counselling. I have thought about it on and off for a while but a cuppa out with a rather influential friend convinced me that it was the natural path to take. With running the autism support group I knew that it would be something I felt confident in doing and I would like to work with parents of special needs children. It’s a three year degree so I will do job placements during that time to confirm in my own mind that is the path I want to take or to see what else is a possibility, there’s such a variety of counselling roles. I’m very excited, I haven’t studied for 30 years! I have to do a couple of short courses to qualify so I’m doing one on university assignment writing and one on how to study at university. My sister Deb and I went to the campus open day on Saturday, it’s a lovely modern campus, just off the freeway which means I can drop Beth off and go straight to school. It’s flexible in it’s learning styles so I could even do it all by correspondence if I chose. I like the idea of going to a campus though, I don’t think I’m disciplined enough to do it all from home and as I missed out on the uni life when I was younger I’ll enjoy it even more now. Now the biggest dilemma is what do uni students wear?!
