A good few days

We’ve had a few good things happening in the last few days. Yesterday (Friday) we went to see Flaxseed Guy again. I thought it would be the last time that we would have to see him but the virus still isn’t quite out yet so we’re going back again in a few weeks. It’s my own fault, because there wasn’t that much to go I slackened off a bit, then with Christmas being so busy sometimes I had only given it to her twice a day. I’ll be more diligent for the next few weeks. I also took a few foods for Richard to test with Beth. It seems that cows milk doesn’t agree with her, neither does butter or margarine. Surprisingly weet bix was ok but a white bread roll wasn’t so not sure if it’s the white flour or something else. Bananas were ok but apples were not, suggesting that perhaps a low salicyate diet might be in order, something we had dabbled with in the earlier years thanks to Donna Williams’ suggestion. Richard said that I could bring in all the foods that Beth eats (pretty much anything) and he can test them. I’ve decided to go to an allergist instead though as I need to know exactly what part of certain foods are the problems. Alan (the naturopath that works with Richard) suggested a milk called A2 as lots of people react to something in cows milk that isn’t in the A2 milk. Richard suggested bringing samples of soy milk and goats milk also. I will do this when we go as the milk is the easy part. It’s more the foods where there are various things in them. If Beth is ok with weet bix then it mustn’t be the wheat that’s the problem with the bread roll. I need to know if it’s yeast or additives, otherwise I might be omitting foods from her diet that aren’t necessary. I believe there’s an allergist in Emerald which isn’t far from the kids school so will check it out.

We went around to Deb and Neil’s place again last night because it was a stinker of a day, I think it got to 36 degrees. An old friend who was at school with Deb came along with her kids. Laurene has been around almost as long as I can remember and she has 2 girls, Steph who is 10 and Nicola who is 6. She also brought her nephew Tyler with her who is 11 and her mum Dot. Bridie and Nic took a while to talk to each other but eventually were racing and playing around like best friends. But it was Steph and Tyler with Beth that was the best thing. They were just fantastic! In the beginning I was worried because Beth started doing some of her silly voices and asking Tyler to do Spongebob character voices. I thought “oh, here we go” and actually asked Laurene to keep an eye out as I could see the kids laughing and I didn’t want it to escalate to Beth doing silly things and the other kids laughing at her. After a while though I realised that it just wasn’t like that, Steph and Tyler were enjoying it and interacting with Beth so well. They stayed in the pool from 6pm til about 10.30, all of them playing together so happily. At one stage they all took it in turns to make funny noises and then the other 2 would have to copy. Honestly, it was one of those moments. And the great thing was that the adults could see how Beth can interact with others as so often she just does her own thing and everybody else does their own thing. This time she was ‘there’ the whole time.

I enjoyed the night too. Cos (sorry Louise!) the kids were having such fun us mums got to play cards. Ali’s boyfriend Dan joined us so there were the 3 old boilers and a handsome young 18 year old playing. Poor bugger, Laurene and I started calling him Dangle but he took it all in his stride. I’ve found that all the things I said when I was drinking and put down to being pissed are actually just me, I still say the same things, even 3 years after going on the wagon! Dan made a hasty exit though when we finished up the last round and I told him he could rub all of our feet! I’m such a shitstirrer, I love embarassing the younger generations!

I also had a lovely surprise today. I’ve been reading a blog called Mr Smartypants for years, it’s an episode synopsis for the TV Show the Bold and the Beautiful. The man who writes it, David Martin, has decided that he’s not writing it anymore. I wrote him an email and told him how he had inspired me. It always had me in fits of laughter as his take on the soapie was hilarious and as we all know, there’s nothing like a good belly laugh! David sent me a lovely email telling me that I had made him cry and that he has looked at my blog and loved it! It’s always nice to get feedback, especially when written by someone that I admire. Just thought I’d share. xxxxx