We’ve had a pretty quiet week this week. Beth’s been mostly behaving pretty well. There’s been a few of her obsessional behaviours like insisting that she’s going to her friend Jessica’s house for a sleepover. It’s been a bit like the glasses and the camp incidents. We’ll be at school having an after school play and she’ll see Jessica leaving so she’ll call out “Bye Jessica, I’ll see you tomorrow at your house.” A couple of nights she’s gathered up her pyjamas or dvds and when I’ve asked what she’s doing she’ll tell me that she’s packing her case to go to Jessica’s for the night. Most likely what has happened is that Beth has heard Jessica inviting a friend over for a sleep and Beth figures that if that friend can go then she can too. It’s hard to reason with her because it’s like she really believes that it’s going to happen. I’m not really sure whether she does or not.
We had a similar thing with a girl called Megan from her school. We were having Megan over about once a week or once a fortnight and she’s a lovely girl, really good with Beth and with Bill and Bridie too. But then Beth started to obsess about her, crying if for some reason she was late for school or if she couldn’t come for a play at any time. And when I started to ask other kids for plays instead I learnt quickly not to ask Beth about it in front of them because she’d say things like “No I don’t like such and such, I only like Megan.” I tried to explain that that’s not a nice way of putting it, that I understood that she liked Megan more but you have to phrase it differently but when she’s in a meltdown moment I’m talking to deaf ears. I’m sure a lot of you can relate to that.
I’ve had some lovely feedback recently about my blog so thanks so much to those that have sent me emails, I really appreciate them. I went to see Julie and Julia last night with some of the HAGS girls last night which was great fun. In that movie a lady called Julie starts writing a blog about doing every recipe from a Julia Childs cookbook. It was a great movie and really inspired me to continue on with this. She eventually turned this into a book and then consequently into the movie. Please feel free to leave comments on here, I love the idea of an interactive blog. And if you know anybody that may be interested, please send them a link so that they can have a squiz themselves. Ok, enough of my self promotion, what’s this blog about again?!
Bridie had her first proper transition day on Wednesday for school. I took photos of the three of them in their school uniforms, she looked so cute! She’s a real girly girl. I remember when I found out that I was having another girl being worried that I would be always comparing the 2 and wishing Beth was more like Bridie in her ways but it hasn’t been like that at all. As all parents know, all your kids are individuals so even if Beth wasn’t autistic her personality traits would more than likely still be the same. She likes to wear dresses too but doesn’t know the meaning of elegance so will lift it up over her head or sit with her legs apart. Thank goodness for bike shorts is all I can say! In assembly this morning she was at the front of her class and while singing Advance Australia Fair was jumping up and down and swinging her skirt around, very excited she was!
We’ve got horse riding again tomorrow so we’ll see how she goes there. It’s not as good without Marion there, Rick does his best but all the volunteers seem to have dried up so the whole atmosphere had changed a bit. Then we’ve got Halloween at Amanda’s tomorrow night. She puts on a great night, living in Canada for a while they celebrated Halloween each year so she has a stack of stuff so it should be good fun. I think there’s 4 hags and families so a full on night awaits. Speak again soon xxxxx