My Little Boy is Growing Up

I like longer hair on boys.  The Boy looks so cute with the blond shaggy surfer look hair.  And when his hair grows it get curly at the back, so it never really grows over his collar.

But…The Boy has had a hair cut.

Normally this is something that he hates.   In the past I have cut his fringe while he was asleep in bed.

He absolutely hates electric clippers.  The noise scares him.  The vibration frightens him.

I think that he is frightened of his lack of control when getting his hair cut.  Being in a vulnerable position while some stranger is wielding very sharp scissors about your head is a scary thought.   I am sure that there are a lot of unpleasant sensations that really upset The Boy associated with hair cuts.

But he has, on rare occasions made the announcement that he wants his hair cut NOW!

He has had a professional hair cut 4 times.  Each and every time he has asked for a short hair cut but has refused to let the barber or hairdresser use the clippers.  They must cut his hair with only scissors.

As you can imagine, some of those haircuts have not been very good.

Last week The Boy announced that he wanted his hair cut again.  And he wanted it very short, like a buzz cut.  And it had to be a home hair cut.  No Way was he going to go to the barber or hairdresser.

I tried to talk him out of it.  I tried to convince him that very short hair would make his head cold especially now it is winter.  But he was insistent.

The Boy has only had one other home hair cut, and he refused the clippers that time, just like with the professionals.  Neither The Other Half nor I give great scissor haircuts.

This time  The Boy is too old to have a bad hair cut.  He is too old to blame it on a scissor mishap.  If the other person inferred from that statement that The Boy had cut his own hair, I certainly wasn’t about to swallow my pride and correct him/her!

The Boy is now in grade 3.  He is finally making some friends of his own amongst the boys in his class.   So he certainly doesn’t need a bad hair cut to make him the target of teasing.

So we told The Boy that if he really wanted his hair cut really short then we would have to use the clippers, scissors were not an option this time.

I was hoping that he would refuse the clippers, and therefore keep his lovely long blond locks.

Nope, he has adamant that he wanted short hair.  Afterall, he is a boy, and boys have short hair.

So he got his hair cut.  He closed his eyes and cringed throughout the torture, but sat mostly still while the clippers worked their magic.

His new hair cut make him look so much older.

It has taken me a while to get used to his short hair.   When I pick him up at school I find myself looking for the kid with shaggy blond hair, only to find that The Boy has sneaked up in front of me.  I have to take a second look to make sure that it really is my boy.

I’m so glad that The Boy is growing and learning to tolerate if not accept many new things into his life, like hair clippers and hair cuts.

But I really miss my scruffy, shaggy little boy.

Oh well, I can always hope that he will let it grow out again some day.  No sense getting emo about hair.

Organ Donation

Organ donation is a serious topic, but one that is close to my heart.  It has touched my life in many ways.

My aunt died waiting for a heart/lung transplant.  She was only in her late 30′s but had lived with a congenital heart problem all her life that significantly limited her stamina and endurance.  It also prevented her from having children.

The Girl has a friend with severe cystic fibrosis  She will probably require a lung transplant in a few years time if she wants to live past her late teens/early 20′s.

A boy I used to babysit had an 8 year old cousin on the wait list for a liver transplant.

The brother of a very good high school friend had a live donor kidney transplant.  The donated kidney came from his father.

I don’t want my organs to die with me.   I’ve discussed this with my family, including my primary school aged children.  They fully support organ donation.

Organs are for life, not death.

If you are Australian and interested in registering as an organ donor, more information can be found on the Medicare website.

disclosure:  I have not been asked to do this post by anyone, nor received any compensation for doing so.  I just wanted to share my beliefs and experiences for something about which I feel strongly.

Things I Know

I’ve decided to jump back into the blogosphere, and what better way than to join Shae from Yay For Home with the Things I Know Meme.

I know that:

- I am terribly lazy blogger, but I’m going to try to get back into the blogging groove.

- I am terrible at remembering to take pictures, so there aren’t many pics to go with my blog posts.

- That these school holidays have been the worst in terms of weather, but the best in terms of the kids getting along and not fighting and having fun playing with each other.

- That play dough is not just for preschoolers – Even 11 year old girls get excited when I suggest making play dough.

- That play dough can keep an 11 year old and an 8 year old amused for many hours on multiple days.

- That I really hate winter in regional Victoria, despite having lived all but the last 13 years of my life in Canada and experiencing -40 degree celcius days. (yes, that is MINUS 40, and yes, that is damn cold, cold enough to freeze the snot and hairs in your nose.)

- A patio enclosed with bistro blinds makes a wonderful sunroom and is a very pleasant place to sit and read in on a sunny, but cold winter’s day especially if you tend to suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD).  It is also a great place to hang out in on a cold and rainy day when there is a roaring fire in the wood heater in the corner of the patio.

- When you send the kids out to play on a day that is bitterly cold, but the fire is roaring in the sun room, and the sun is trying to shine, you just might find the kids sitting up close to the fire playing their Nintendo DSs rather than running around using their large muscle groups.  (they sometimes live to letter of the law, if not the intent)

Trampoline

When I was a kid, I always wanted a trampoline.  But they weren’t very common way back in the dark ages in Canada.

But the day I became a mother I decided that trampolines were dangerous and there was no way my kids would ever have one.   Never.  Ever.

The Other Half works in the operating theatre of the hospital.  He has seen many kids come through needing surgery to fix bones broken in trampoline accidents.  He also said no way ever would our kids have a trampoline.

But now we have The Boy.  As a baby The Boy needed to be cuddled.  All The Time.

As a toddler he always laid down to play.  He never sat.  He needed maximum body tactile  input.

He is very sensory seeking.  But definitely not hyperactive.

So for Christmas this past year The Other Half and I decided to eat my own words.

Santa brought the kids a trampoline.    With pads and nets.

And it has been the best thing.  Not only has it given The Boy an outlet for his sensory seeking, it has also helped his gross motor control, balance and co-ordination.  At Christmas he could not balance on one leg.  Now he can.

I’m glad we have a trampoline.

 

 

Squawk

Sometimes The Boy doesn’t talk to people.  He’d rather make noises.  Like squawks.  He squawks a lot when he is feeling nervous around someone who he knows.  With strangers he is usually quiet and hides under my shirt.  But sometimes when he is feeling happy and silly he squawks at strangers too.

Turns out, others on the autism spectrum also squawk

I found this video that sums it up fairly well.

Second Hand Saturday

Following leechbabe’s Second Hand Saturday theme

2-3 meters (I didn’t measure it) of new light blue cotton fabric – $2.00 from Vinnies

puffy sleeved dress pattern (from 1983!) – $0.50 from Salvos

white petticoat – $1.50 from Salvos

apron borrowed from friend – free!

Add in several hours of frustration trying to sew a dress. (I had to sew the damn skirt on 3 times before I got it right!)

The Girl as Alice in Wonderland for Book Week – Priceless

Regional Living

We live in Regional Victoria.    While we like living here it does have it’s drawbacks.

Unlike Melbourne or Sydney, there is not a lot of choice for fun things to do on school holidays.   Especially if it is cold and rainy.

But…we are within range of Melbourne for day trips.  Well, almost.  It is about 3.5 hours to drive one way to Melbourne.   So 7 hours of the day trip is spent in the car.  Not a lot of fun for anyone, so day trips to Melbourne are few and far between.    Normally our day trips into Melbourne are tied into medical appointments.   And tram rides.   Because The Boy loves Melbourne trams.

Regional living also means that he kids have limited opportunities for fantastic school excursions.   No trips to big museums and historical sites etc.

The Boy’s school keeps school excursions to within local areas.   Yesterday The Boy’s class went to the Police Station, earlier in the year they visited the local Fruit and Veg Shop.

The Girl’s school, however, does not let our location get in the way of cultural and educational excursions.  They consider Melbourne to be within reasonable range for school excursions.

Today the whole school is off to Melbourne for the day.  Yes, just for the day.  They left the school at 9:00am.   They will return at around 2:00am.   2:00 AM In. The. Morning.

They’ll be doing some theatrical stuff in the afternoon, then attending an evening theatrical performance.

2:00 AM.   Gee, I wonder how many kids will be at school tomorrow?

Chewelry Product Review

Two weeks ago on May 27th I was surfing the web for something that The Boy could use to chew on at school.   He already had something to chew on, his shirt, but I was hoping to come up with something better as a chew-up wet shirt doesn’t look very nice.  A further criteria I had was that I didn’t want something that looked like a baby teething toy.   The old stand-by of chewy tubes just seemed to me to look too much like either a baby teething toy or a special needs therapy tool.

I came across the Chewelry website from Canada.   Their necklaces looked quite cute.  I could definitely see any of the kids in The Boy’s year 1/2 class happy to wear one as a fashion accessory.

Shipping from Canada to Australia was only $3.50.  So I decided to order the black circle necklace.  At CND$17.49 it wasn’t cheap.  My total paypal bill in Australia dollars was AU$24.44 .  The Aussie dollar has dropped even further since I ordered, so I’m glad that I didn’t put it off hoping the dollar would rise.

When I showed The Boy the website and told him that I ordered one, he was somewhat negative.  “But I like the taste of my shirt.”  Ugh, they’re ugly!”

But one week later and The Boy was asking me when his new chewy necklace would arrive in the mail.  He was looking forward to trying it out.

So this past Monday it arrived.   It only took 10 days, including weekends, from placing the order to receiving it.  Seeing as it was mailed from Canada I was impressed.   Communication from Pida was excellent.

On inspection, the clasp on the lanyard seems to be a bit weak.  It is designed to be a breakaway clasp.  However we have not had any problems with the necklace coming undone unexpectedly, so I suppose that the weakish clasp is ok.  I am not sure how it will stand up to repeated opening and closing.  Only time will tell.

The only other niggle I have is that in some places the black seems to be a separate layer from the white, and in one or two places seemed to be not well cut off so that there was a very tiny flap of black.   If you look very closely in the above picture you can see this on one or two of the small white circles.  However, despite a full day of chewing on the necklace there has been no evidence of the black separating from the white material.

The Boy has now had the chewy necklace since Monday afternoon.   Together we read the instructions.  It was recommended that it be washed before first use, and thereafter washed on a regular basis.

The Boy insisted that I wash it up straight away.   After doing this I gave it to The Boy.   He was delighted to find that on the reverse side of the necklace there were white dots in the black circle.   He thought that the dots resembled a person, like a star constellation, and that they were “really cool!”

He seemed to enjoy chewing on the necklace absent-mindedly whilst watching tv on Monday afternoon.

The real test came yesterday when he wore the necklace to school.

I am pleased to say that The Boy said he had “a great day” at school.  “I didn’t chew my shirt at all today mummy, I just chewed on my necklace!”   I asked if anyone asked him about his necklace, and he said that one kid did, but The Boy just answered matter-of-factly that it was his chewy necklace.  Nothing more was said about it.

This morning The Boy took his necklace into the bathroom to wash it before putting it on for school.   He is very happy to wear it and use it.   And he looks damn cool wearing it too!

I am interested to know how The Boy goes with the necklace when he is in distress.

The only thing I wish was different with the necklace was that I should have ordered it with the 20cm lanyard rather than the 18cm lanyard.  Although it fits it seems a bit short on The Boy.

Thanks Chewelry for making cool, socially acceptable chewy necklaces.

I also discovered that the necklaces are available from an Australian company Special Needs Toys Australia for AU$19.50.  Shipping to regional VIC for one necklace works out to $5.95, so total shipped price is AU$25.45.

Gardening Prowess – I sorta haz it

I’ve long desired to have a good veggie patch.  But having lived in rental housing for the past couple of years it hasn’t been possible.

Last November we bought a house.   Summer was too hot, and with water restrictions, not a good time to start a garden.

Finally, around late March I started planning my veggie patch.  Not only veggies, but fruit too.   And in doing so I started to dream about being able to feed my family the food they love straight from my garden.

Unfortunately, the veggie patch isn’t going well.   I took out a couple of overgrown daisy bushes to make the garden clear for veggies.   Then I added several bags of compost and dug it in well.

I planted potatoes, pumpkin, carrots, leeks and onions.

The potatoes seem to be doing ok, but until they are dug up I really wont know.

For the pumpkin and carrots I sewed seeds direct into the soil.   They’ve sprouted, but not really done anything else since them.

I bought a punnet of seedings each of leeks and onions.   They’re doing fine, nice and green.  But they are not growing.   The are the same size as when I planted them a month or more ago.

I also planted a couple of blueberry shrubs,  6 raspberry canes and a couple of strawberry plants.  One blueberry bush and all but 1 of the strawberry plants died.   But the other blueberry bush and the raspberry canes are growing nicely.

And today….The Girl got the chance to pick and eat her favourite fruit.

I may not have a green thumb, but at least it has some greenish tinge to it if you look closely enough.

Footy Proud

We are not really a football family.  We don’t usually watch it on tv.  I’ve never been to a game.

But Adelaide is our ‘Australian home town’.   Even though we are both from Canada, The Other Half and I met in Adelaide, and our kids were born there.

I moved to Adelaide from Canada in early 1998.   The Crows had won their first final ever in 1997.  I was somewhat swept up into the whole Crows fever thing during the 1998 footy season when the Crows were once again the team to beat, and was in the crowd at the celebratory parade when they won the 1998 championship.

So although we aren’t really a footy family, we consider the Crows to be ‘our team’ even now that we live in Victoria.    We check the papers on Monday to see how they did over the weekend, and if by chance we notice that their game is televised we will flip back and forth during the game to check on the score whilst watching another programme.  But other than that we don’t usually give footy or the Crows much of a thought.

When we were living in Sydney The Other Half took The Girl to a Crows vs. Swans football game 2 years ago.  She has talked about it ever since.     The Boy has expressed his wishes to go to a game too.

So this past Saturday we made the long trek into Melbourne to see the Crows play North Melbourne at Etihad Stadium for an evening game.

The Boy is very sensitive to loud noises, hates crowds and usually has trouble sitting through a movie at the cinema.  So we warned The Boy that it was likely to be noisy and crowed.  We bought general admission tickets so that if The Boy was too bothered we could either move away from annoying spectators, or leave early without it costing an arm and a leg.

We also made sure that he had is mp3 player and headphones with him.  This was a double barrelled defence in that The Boy could wear just the headphones to muffle the sounds if things were too loud, or he could let him withdraw into himself and listen to his mp3 player if he needed to.  We also took along a blanket that he could wear to hide himself if needed.

The Boy was so keyed up and excited.   When we went in there weren’t many people around, so all was good.  We bought him and The Girl each a Crows guernsey, which they were very proud to wear.  We found a section of seating where other Crows fans were sitting, but was not too crowded.

The siren startled The Boy, but once I explained what it was, and when it was likely to go off he accepted it and did not cry out each time it went off.

Surprisingly, we didn’t really need to worry about all the precautions we had taken.  The Boy loved the game.  He couldn’t really follow what was happening on the field, but he enjoyed the whole essence of attending a footy game.

The Boy kept either telling me how excited he was to be at the game, or cheering.    He stayed in his seat the whole time.

There wasn’t too much of a crowd to get down to the carpark at the end of the game, so once again no worries for The Boy.

The Boy was so carried away with the excitement of game that he stayed awake for nearly an hour of the 3 hour car trip home.

We got home at 1:30am.   A very long day, but so worth it to see The Boy so happy.

Please forgive the quality of the photos.  The Other Half took them with his phone