Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve been on here. It’s been sooooo busy lately! I’ve had kids home sick off and on for weeks, I’ve been madly studying and now it’s the school holidays.
Beth has had a rough trot with sickness. I was doing the old ‘touch wood’ thing that my kids had seemed to avoid getting too sick this year. Then bang, it all hit at once! As always it’s the lead up to the school holidays, when I have no time and desperately want to a) get things done and b) get in some important socialising before the school holidays begin. I reckon if I went back over my blog for the last four years and checked the times before the holidays it would read “Great, got kids home sick and holidays are next week.” First Beth had a sore throat, then she had the runs for a couple of weeks. Then I sent her back to school finally, only to have her come down with a snotty nose two days later. Last week I kept her home on the Monday and Tuesday, squeezing in a social day on the Wednesday. I got a call at 1pm asking me to pick her up! When I got there I told them that I was just going to keep her home for the rest of the week. It was the end of term and really, it was easier for me, rather than having to decipher her not being able to talk with her ‘I’m sick’ voice whether it was real or fake. Starting study has also been rather challenging and I thought it would give me an extra hour or two of not driving Beth to Dandenong. I broke my rule of no ipads when you’re sick and had a couple of lovely quiet days at home with my girl.
Now it’s school holidays. Yesterday we went to our (not sure what the phrase is when you only catch up on holidays – termly?) friend Catriona and Jose’s house. I met Cat when Beth did horseriding with Riding for the Disabled. Our friend Bec usually comes too but she’s about to birth her fifth child and had appointments so she kindly let me borrow her daughter Kasey for the day to keep Bridie company. Cat’s son Jose is nearly 16 and is attending a mainstream high school, doing rather well actually. Of course it helps that Catriona is incredibly proactive in making sure that things are in place with the school, she’s also on top of anything new that comes out for our kids. Bill and Jose played outside for the most part, Beth played on her ipad and watched a dvd and the younger girls followed the boys around a lot. And Cat and I sat and drank tea and ate and nattered and laughed which are my all time favourite things!
We’re going to our first movie today. Beth desperately wanted her friends Jessica and Erin to come from primary school but both are busy doing other things. Hopefully we can catch up at some stage during the holidays, she misses them dreadfully but then doesn’t really know what to do when they’re here. That’s why movies are always good, minimal talking is had but they all have fun.
My big excitement for Beth is playing Draw Something with her. I have come out of the dark ages and finally have a smart phone. Very exciting! Mind you I lost it two days after I got it which was horrendous. When I got home after running around Knox shopping Centre however Paul told me that a kind lady had called and she had it. Anyway, my sister Deb had sent me an invite to play Draw Something. It’s a bit like pictionary, you get three choices of what to draw, you pick one, send it to your friend and they have to guess it and send one back.
I’ve always been disappointed that Beth doesn’t play interactive games. She’ll play happily by herself but has never gotten into the xbox, playstation or wii games that we’ve had over the years, even though we have always had two controllers. It’s just not her thing, she likes to go at her own pace. Maybe it’s more a boys thing? I was playing Draw Something in bed the other night and Beth asked if she could get it. I hooked her up and we started playing together. Beth has a facebook account but it’s more for myself to play games on. I have however accepted friend requests for her from old school friends in the hope that one day she will chat online to them but she’s never been interested. I of course would always monitor that activity. Anyway, with this game, you hook up with people via facebook and send them the pictures. Beth got on to all of her old friends and started sending pictures to them. Her drawings are fairly basic, it’s not that easy to draw and you have to use your finger (must check for pens though) but it wasn’t the drawings that I was excited about, it was the messages. You can write a short comment after each picture and Beth’s humour came out in each one. So if I sent her a rabbit for example she’d guess it then message me with ‘you wascally wabbit.’ Or when she did a duck she’d write ‘despicable!’ which is Daffy Duck. My friend Bree’s daughter Nimi was playing it with her and Bree told me that when Nim drew an alarm clock for Beth, Beth wrote back “alarming!” Or when I sent her a foot she sent me back “footloose.” If Beth was in a room with Nimi she’d have to be prompted to even say hello so it’s so nice for people to see the funny side of her. Hopefully a few more of her friends will hook up with her on the game too.
