Sorry I haven’t been on here for so long, I’ve been busy lately with sorting stuff for the new house and trying to sort the old house out. I’ve been going to kitchen places to organise the kitchen, splashbacks and benchtops, to tiling places to choose the tiles for the bathroom and to IKEA numerous times to buy cabinets and then the legs for the cabinets. Add to that psychology appointments for Bridie and doctors appointments for myself due to my massive gall stone, I’ve been flat out. Oh and of course I have to fit my socialising in there somewhere, something that I make sure I don’t miss! They say a woman’s work is never done, especially if she’s never home!
Anyway, things are going along rather well. Beth is happier than I’ve ever seen her. She still tries to bung on the coughs and sore legs etc quite a lot but not with the same commitment as she had last year. Of course she’d love to have the day at home with me but she does enjoy what she is doing at school. She’s been doing cooking, she loves art and they did a concert performance on Wednesday where she had to dress like a rock chick. She knows what’s on each day and tells me that it’s elective day or that it’s the day they do art. She tells me each night what she’s done that day and has started telling me the kids that she’s finally playing with and going to choir with. Every day I’m happier and happier with my decision to send her to special school, it’s been just what she needed at just the right time.
The only bad thing happening at the moment with Beth is her lack of sleep. Whatever time I wake in the night she seems to be wide awake. She’s sleeping in with me as if she was in a room of her own I wouldn’t know what the hell she was up to in the night. She often gets up to get a drink which in turn means that she needs to go to the toilet. And she hates any snoring sounds, even just the deep breathing that you make when you are just dropping off. We had Bridie in with us the other night and I was just falling asleep when I felt Bridie move next to me. Beth had pinched her nostrils together to stop her from snoring. This really worries me for the future. What if she eventually is able to have a child and she doesn’t like being woken by it in the night? What is she likely to do? I don’t think she gets the concept that it is dangerous, I think she could do the unthinkable and wake in the morning to think that everything was ok. Anyway, there’s no point stressing about that now. Beth constantly wakes me to stop me from making noise, I had to threaten the ban of the ipad once again as there’s nothing worse than dropping off only to hear a loud noise that startles you. I’m thinking of taking her back to the paediatrician but I don’t really want to keep medicating her. She’s already on an anti depressant, a preventative tablet for asthma and the pill to control her frequent, long and painful periods. Unless they could combine the anti depressant or give her one where the side effect is tiredness I don’t really want to think about it. Still, it can’t keep going like this.
I went back to see the psychologist about Bridie and we’ve established that she’s definitely not aspergers but has got high anxiety. We’re still doing the assessment stage with a questionaire going out to her teacher. I find it interesting that similarly to kids with aspergers, Bridie has sensitivities to certain clothing. Often in the mornings we have issues with what socks she’s going to wear. I’ve noticed that if she’s particularly anxious about something that day this seems to be worse. It’s hard though, if she wore them the week before with no problems, why is she not able to wear them today? I have to try to figure out whether it’s anxiety about something coming up or whether it’s her being argumentative. When I’m feeling calm I try to see her side of it and tend to err on the side of caution, believing that she truly can’t stand the bits of cotton or bally bits. It’s safer that way and really, I don’t know what’s going on in her mind. I don’t want to belittle something that is clearly bothering her.
I’ll leave you with a Beth funny. I’m loving that she’s liking communicating with me much more at the moment. Often when she’s playing with the ipad in the car she’s telling me what she’s doing or who she’s reading about. Of course she expects that I can read her mind and that I know all the same things she does about the Disney characters and movies that she studies religiously. I get this as I had a similar obsession with soapies as a child, something that I still do at times! One night we were lying in bed and she was telling me all about something but she did the whole think in a spanish accent. For the whole night. So not only did I not really know what she was talking about but I couldn’t understand half of what she was saying! She’s so entertaining!
Hi Sarah, so happy to hear that Beth is progressing so well at the new school, I remember when you were trying to decide where to send her, you’ve obviously made the right choice, just a pity you have to travel so much every day, it must be exhausting.
My son was a dreadful sleeper too, I’m on a facebook support group and so many of these kids seem to have difficulty getting to sleep. A lot seem to have success with melatonin, though it doesn’t work for everyone. We haven’t tried it, my son was put on catapres a few years ago for his anxiety, and the added bonus is it does help him get to sleep, I think it’s often used with kids with autism.
Good luck with the new house, it must be very exciting for you, Narelle
hi Narelle, yes she’s very happy thanks. I was thinking of asking to put Beth on to a similar thing, one medication that works for both issues. I’ll ask about that one, thanks.
It is very exciting building, we’ve never had new before, always lived in ‘renovators delights’ before! I can’t wait and neither can the rest of the family. I’ll post finished photos on here when we move xxx