Loads of books, and a punch to the head

Duncan and I took his brother and sister to summer scheme. He asked to look in the charity shop and being in no hurry, I parked the car and off we went. Well talk about hitting pay dirt. Someone must have cleared their book shelves and dropped the boxes off very recently. There were a good few children's book spilling out so I asked if I could dig through the lot and the man working there, a good guy as I've learned from previous visits, said to work away. So we plonked ourselves on the floor and shifted through the boxes. Duncan made a little pile of those he was interested in and I made a huge pile of my own. Then ecstasy, we found 3 Thomas the Tank Buzz books, Duncan's absolute favourites. I hauled the booty to the pay desk and told the man I'd probably need to nip over to the ATM as I didn't think the £10 note in my purse would cover it. He asked me for a fiver. No way, I said, take a tenner for all those. Nah, said he, give me £5 and tell all your friends to come over and look through our stuff. So off you go to to your local Action Cancer shop. They are the best.

Here's what I bought:

1. 2 Mister Men books
2. 3 Thomas the Tank Buzz books
3. 2 children's videos
4. Winnie the Pooh Ladybird book
5. Alexandre Dumas- The Three Musketeers
6. The Usborne Internet Linked Science Encyclopedia (beautiful colour hardback)
7. James Joyce - 3 novel hardback
8. Robert Graves- Greek Myths
9. Anthony Burgess- A Clockwork Orange
10. Teach Yourself Irish
11. Marcel Proust -Remembrance of Things Past
12. Anita Shreve- The Pilot's Wife
13. Ian Rankin - A Question of Blood (I love me some Rebus.)
14. Minette Walters- Fox Evil
15. Kazuo Ishiguro- The Unconsoled
16. The Oxford Library of English Poetry Vols II and III
17. Francosi Mauriac - The Knot of Vampires
18. Leo Tolstoy- Anna Karenina
19. Sylvia Plath- The Bell Jar
    

How fantastic is that? I don't think I've read any of these before.

Duncan was so grateful, telling the man "thank you very much" and on we went to the pet shop to buy a new run for the guinea pigs. We passed the indoor play centre and he asked to go in. Again, feeling very spontaneous, I consented. We were the first people there. For a while after it was just Duncan and a younger boy, then a large group of 6-10 year old boys arrived. I had to redirect Duncan from the area reserved for 1-3 year olds, as he liked the slide there best of all. He was a bit frightened of going up to the first level of the frame for children his age. But when the gang of children arrived he felt a bit braver and followed them up the ladder and had fun in that area. I stuck by him all the time, moving about to keep him in sight. When his play time was almost over, I witnessed him and another boy bump each other going up some steps. They each tried to pushed past the other a bit then I watched as the other boy raised his fist and punched Duncan hard on the forehead. I called out to him to quit, and asked Duncan to come to me. He was very upset. He fell into my arms, tears streaming. He shook and shouted and bit at my shoulders saying over and over he was sad, angry and a bad and horrible boy. I just held him and sympathised and agreed that he was angry and felt bad. We moved to the chairs and he had a drink of water and sat on my lap for a while crying. One of the staff checked he was OK, she'd seen the whole thing. One of the woman accompanying the group of boys, one of which was little master hit a lot, came over to say sorry too. A while later she brought the boy with her and he said sorry. Duncan just said sorry too. As we left the other staff member asked after Duncan. They had been very kind, oh yeah, they'd given me a free cup of tea earlier when I hadn't enough change to buy Duncan's bottle of water and my tea. In the end, Duncan had enjoyed himself prior to the incident and I think he will want to go back again some time.

And the guinea pigs love their new run, they're popping (and pooping) all around while Pippi looks on greedily/curiously.

Our Thrilling Weekend

I'm just being ironic...but it's my blog, I'll be ironic if I want to.
I'll also post a dull-to-read catch-up of the past few days if I want to.

So Friday, it was a cold crisp sort of day. I took the children to a big Tesco supermarket. I had to buy markers for the budding artist and the big sets sold by Tesco are the best we've had. I took a trolley, and feeling a bit like I was about to invite a bull into the Belleek show room, went into the shop. Thomas rode in the trolley and I'd asked Duncan to hold on and help me push. He dashed off right away to look at some comics, but came back when I called him. I'd told him we were buying markers and doughnuts with pink icing (the best kind, apparently) so he knew he was about to benefit. We passed a display of Thomas trains and again he went to have a closer look. We examined a few engines, then I asked him to put them back and...he did! No problems so far. Next we picked up the doughnuts then Duncan and Lady helped me put a few other items in the trolley. Duncan was singing as we went, 'I want you back' by Take That. Lady told me proudly that some teenage girls were smiling at him; she reckons they thought he was cute! We didn't buy much, I didn't want to temp fate by going beyond Duncan's comfort limit. But I was so pleased with how well he managed to deal with all that temptation, to choose to stay beside me and to even help.

Afterwards, we went to a lovely little playground, overlooking Belfast Lough and the children had fun and I played chase to keep warm.

On Saturday I took the boys to another playground for a run around, while Gordon and Lady went to the sports centre for their Saturday gym/Jujitsu sessions. I called into a shop with Thomas and Duncan and this time had much more difficulty controlling Duncan. I wondered afterwards if it was having the trolley that he could push and hold on to, that had helped him to stay calm the previous day.

Well, we called up to see Gordon's Mum for a while. She looked after the children while Gordon and I escaped for a quick, grown-up lunch at a nice wee cafe. I do like it when we have a little break like that.

My brother called to see us on Sunday. The second he came in the door, Duncan ran up to him saying 'chase me!' Obviously that's what big uncles are for. It was a lovely sunny day and the children played in the garden for ages. The children from next door care over and Lady and her friend disappeared upstairs. I heard them giggling in the bathroom and my special trouble sniffing sensors were alerted. They had the guinea pigs and our digital camera, and Lady had taken loads of photos of their exploits. She had decided she wanted to send in a photo to one of those little-girl comics, since they're always publishing photos of cute children with their pets. There wasn't much point in her denying any wrong doing, since there was a load of evidence of what they'd been up to on the camera!

Also on Sunday, my sister abseiled down a 40m high building in London, to raise money for the Macmillan cancer charity. She's a Macmillan nurse herself. She was terrified, it was windy and lonely (she told me after) but she did it. I'm so proud of her. Go C, ye big gir-ul ye!!!

autism northern ireland

Sisterly Pride

Lady

Duncan

Thomas

Lady was just admiring the photo of her brother on the last post, and I was telling her what I'd written about. She said that I should write, 'I don't mind autism because Duncan wouldn't be Duncan without autism and he's a nice boy, he's very funny and he was a cute baby.' She wanted me to include her opinion, so there you are. She also asked me to include a photo of Duncan as a baby and just to show off my gorgeous children, I've put up pictures of each of them.

Another brother and SIL and their children came for a visit on Saturday. Lady and her cousin A (who's just over a year older than her) had a great girlie time together, playing with the guinea pigs, dressing up, making up dances and acting out Harry Potter games. Thomas and my only nephew were together all day, Duncan joined them in building a huge train track in the living room. Gordon had to work in the morning but joined us for dinner, and Dad and G. came in too to get a chance to see everyone. It was another nice, family day.
It didn't hurt that the Irish rugby team roundly defeated the English...in Croke Park!

On Sunday we went to a Potato Fayre; why its spelt like that I don't know. But anyway, there was a donkey, who was coping admirably with hundreds of small children feeding him hay, a horse and trap jogging around and stalls with hundreds of potato varieties. A band was playing, and Lady and Thomas had a go at chucking a welly boot as far as they could, each winning a prize (pens and rulers) for their efforts. I'm making it sound a bit like the fair in Father Ted (the world's worst funfair) but it wasn't quite that bad ;-)

We walked down to the beach after, all the children eating ice-creams in spite of the low temperature and drizzle. Duncan was fine until he saw all the dogs out walking and then he got upset that they wouldn't tickle him!

He (and Lady) desperately want a dog. I'd consider it and could possibly be persuaded, but not Gordon. I recently read about how the Irish Guidedogs charity have been training assistance dogs for autistic children. It appears they have been very beneficial for these children. Now if someone was to offer us a well trained dog like one of those, I'd be pretty keen. But so far, only people resident in the republic are eligible.

Ah well, we've still got Daisy and Crookshanks!

Counting down

I'm amazed that November is ending. We've several things to get ready for the Christmas season; gifts to buy, cards to make and send, Christmas cake to make. We'll be making a paper chain advent calendar this year again (tear a link off per day, the chain gets shorter as Christmas gets closer) and I want to make a Christmas pudding for the first time. I'm also counting down the days until Gordon and I head off to Barcelona next week for 2 days. It's his birthday (a big one) and I'm so excited. I've never been to Spain and I've heard and read so much about how wonderful Barcelona is.

Today, Duncan had one of those days when he just wanted to be around me all the time. He dictated another book, all about himself and his siblings.

Lady puts on her Jasmine top. Lady wears her Jasmine top.
(Duncan loves it when Lady wears this dressing up outfit, from Disney's Aladdin film. He likes to hug her warm, bare tummy, but she doesn't wear it often and has now hidden it from him.)

Duncan was good as new. Duncan was delighted today. He gets Daniel's Thomas the next time.

Thomas watched Harry Potter in Duncan's room.

I can remember getting all excited about Duncan using 5 words in a sentence for the first time, now he's dictating stories then reading them.

I also had to do several drawings; Buzz Lightyear, several trains, Rocket from the Fimbles, and lots of Chinese Dragons; and he is so particular, it took many tries before I was able to produce what he was describing. He'd seen one on the DK World Explorer CD Rom, a few days earlier with Lady.

Lady wants to do some badges for Brownies. She's starting with a care for animals badge, and has to write about looking after the guinea pigs and a few other things. She read through the book listing all the options, and has decided that she'll do the sports badge (jujitsu) and disability awareness badge next. She wants to inform people about her brother's autism, so we'll look at it together and see how that could be done.

They're all asleep now, poor Duncan fell asleep with his little hand stuck into a pot of frozen peas. He burned his finger tip by opening the printer, when some paper became stuck then he, as usual, tried to sort stuff out for himself.

We're all learning something!

On my last birthday, I thought about a few things I wanted to do, to be more fulfilled. One thing was to learn to dance, and last night, I went to my 2nd Salsa dance class. After only 2 sessions, I'm hooked. It's great fun, I've enjoyed chatting to the other people there, and I get to dance without needing to wait for someone to ask me to their wedding!

This morning, I took all the children out in the car with me. I went to the dump (as I'd cleared out our garage yesterday) and then we went to the shoe shop and they each got new trainers. I had a bag of mini-marshmallows to dispense when needed, and we managed fine. I was impressed at how smooth it went actually. Lady was great at looking after Thomas. He is always worried about going down unknown stairs, and Lady let him ride on her back so I could keep close to Duncan. Lastly, we called into a charity shop and left with a cuddly rabbit toy, a teddy-phone and a Muppet video (Duncan recognised it from a trailer on another video and asked for 'Pig falling in the water.')

There's been lots of learning happening here. Lady has worked hard at some maths worksheets I wanted her to do. When left to her own devices, she's played with her 'Human Body Explorer' CD ROM, watched her new DVD, (Bugsy Malone), invented endless new outfits for her dress-up wooden doll, drawn pictures and filled in her Brownies book, told stories to the boys using the trains and various props, composed a poem about the guinea-pigs and played outdoors on the trampoline. (She's learnt how to somersault-the other day she wanted mustard on her hot dog; she carried it outside, turned a somersault, and told me it was to shake the mustard!). Whew! That's not half of it, but what I can remember for now.

Thomas and Duncan pootle along as usual. Yesterday, I overheard Thomas asking Duncan to play a Pingu game on the computer with him; 'Duncan play Pingu falling in the water with Thomas? Yes play Pingu?' Duncan obviously thought that was a good idea as they were chuckling away together later, while gathered round the computer.

Duncan has been inputting all the train names into Google and YouTube by himself. I stay close by when he's doing this, to check the YouTube stuff especially. There are hundreds of Thomas The Tank films on YouTube. Yesterday, he was really getting into a film someone had made, with Thomas set to Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen!

Thomas loves the set of Magic Key books I got and asks me to read them regularly, then he gets all excited doing the 'game' at the end of each story. Sometimes I try to be clever and get him to read some words, or notice rhyming pairs, but he snorts in derision and says 'just read the story Mummy!' Fair enough. He is recognising all sorts of words now though, and wrote a letter to his friend in England (who really is called Thomas) ; I LUV YOU THOMAS.
I had to spell you, he spelled luv himself, and he copied Thomas from a DVD. Smart boy, eh?!

New lines

At 6am, Duncan came bounding into our room and jumped into bed beside me, wrapping his skinny wee naked body around me, and squashing a Percy train, a Thomas train and Bulstrode the barge, in between us. He'd obviously wet his bed, so he was clever enough to shed the wet pyjamas and choose a nice, dry bed to lie in. He entertained us with some choice moments from the Thomas stories for half an hour before asking for the fan heater (which he loves to crouch in front of like a cat) and some cheese and carrots and apple juice.

Thomas intercepted me as I tried to go downstairs and I was obliged to return to my bed with him for our morning hugs. That done, we were able to go down to eat. Thomas and I played a marathon game of snakes and ladders over breakfast. I never played the game for so long before.

Lady got busy fixing breakfast for Crookshanks and Daisy, the guinea pigs. They are really part of the family now; I mean, I even dreamt about them the other night! She put them in the run which they spend every dry day in, then cleaned out the hutch and washed it down with water and vinegar. Thomas was fighting to get a turn with the scrubbing brush too. Right now, they (the children that is) are playing with my (little used) spools of thread and all the buttons, making a model of a chocolate factory. Like you do.

Duncan has a few new phrases. A few days ago he was muttering to himself as he played beside me, when he suddenly took hold of my face in both his hands, looked at me intently and said in an earnest manner, 'It's all right Harry, He's home, you both are.' After a bit more muttering he came out with 'He's back, vol-em-on's back!' I asked him what film it was, he said it was Harry Potter. That one cracked me up.

One other night, I was watching a bit of Doctor Who with Duncan snuggling on my lap. He didn't appear to be paying much attention to the TV, when something happened on screen that made him grin and shout the line 'don't touch the baby!'. He said the word 'baby' in a funny faux-English accent, sounding like 'bai-bay'. (Can anyone who happens to read this figure out the esisode?)
This line has entered our repertoire of things to say when playing chase, I shout 'don't touch the baby' and he runs off, laughing delightedly.

I need to fix Lady's hair now. She wants to look good as one of her summer scheme friends is coming over this afternoon.

Lost and found

We're surprisingly organised here today. Lady is writing a letter to her very best friend in the world. Thomas is in his room playing with the wooden trains. Well no, as always, he's telling a story. Earlier he said, 'Get me the wooden trains because I want to tell a story called The giant boy and the other way of the tracks!' That title sounds a bit Harry Potter-like to me. He always refers to himself as the giant boy when he's playing with the trains.

Duncan is sitting on my lap, wriggling and singing and closely examining a Lego 'Magic Roundabout' sword he made. Some people don't even realise that there was a sword in the Magic Roundabout!

I'm a bit scratched. We had an incident with the guinea pigs last night. I took them out and laid them on the grass in our fully enclosed and Duncan-proof garden. Then I cleaned out the hutch. Thomas came to have a closer look at them and Crookshanks ran away towards our garden fence. I know now that Duncan-proof does not equate to guinea pig-proof! Crookshanks (she's the brown, black and ginger one, i.e. camouflaged) scooted under a gap into the garden next door; the unoccupied and overgrown garden next door. I climbed over the fence and spent about 20 minutes trying to find her and then trying to catch her. My forearms were scourged on all the branches and brambles and my left palm was jabbed by something so it looks like I've got a stigmata ;-)
The poor wee cavy though was frightened and I feel so guilty for putting her in that position. I placed her in the hutch with lots of apple and dandelions to make up for her poor treatment. My Dad said he'd build a proper run for them so I must get that sorted as soon as possible.

Woes and cavies

Earlier in the week, I read on Action for Autism about an appalling article describing antenatal screening for autism. A UCL geneticist is applying to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, to use pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to screen out male embryos, as there are thought to be 4 times more autistic males than autistic females. She wants to offer this highly invasive and very novel screening to families where autism had 'inflicted severe suffering'.
This is horrible is so many ways; autism isn't an illness, there is no way of knowing how any child will develop and anyway, you do get autistic women you know.
I looked at the comments on the Daily (hate) Mail site on this topic and was distressed at the horrible things people had written. I should know better than to read that stuff.
Thankfully, there is Ballastexistenz, where every post is amazing, but this really hit home.

All this was getting me down and I was also full of woe, as I periodically am, at all the unremitting, thankless drag of cleaning and tidying and keeping a house in which everyone is dispensing toys and books and stuff into every corner, every day. I really need to get out more. I feel jealous sometimes of Gordon, stepping out into the world and making his mark in a very obvious and respected way. I think sometimes, this blog is the only way I exist outside my immediate family. Then I feel a bit guilty for thinking like this.

But it's not all doom and gloom round here. The children are on fine form. And we have 2 new family members; we picked up our 2 guinea pigs from the animal shelter on Tuesday. Lady has named them Daisy and Crookshanks, can anyone guess what inspired the later?!
They are the cutest wee things. They're still very nervous so we've left them to settle into their hutch and just stroke them when they are willing. Lady is very sensitive to their needs. Duncan however wishes they could chase him, somehow I think they'd run in the opposite direction.

Just to record a new addition to Duncan's diet; oxtail soup. He loves it! He has also nibbled at bits of raw carrot, when we were pretending to be guinea pigs!