Living with Autism

Those of you that read this blog regularly (and thankyou to all 3 of you) know that I am a bit camera shy. Total stage mom when it comes to exploiting my children's beautiful faces but not so happy for me to appear.

Truth is I hate having my photo taken because I quite factually know I am going to look manic (at best) or about a thousand years old. (at worst)
This is not false modesty, it is a fact. Just ask anyone who has tried to take my photo with a digital camera. There is always a lot of looking into the view window and "oh" noises as they try to find a decent shot.
So imagine how delighted I was (NOT) when Mr Hammie answered the door to a fellow offering family portraits and agreed to book a session in the new year.

I could see where he was coming from, we have never had a formal family photograph taken.

(well, one that didn't involve me annoying a high ranking member of the government and a freelance photographer working for the national press)

My family have als…

Like a lot of you I am still feeling very sad when ever I hear the news on the radio. I have tried to imagine it what it was like for the special families who fled or didn't on Saturday 7th. - on the irishautism blog.


Many of my fellow aussie and fashion bloggers have posted on this so please check out Imelda, Super Kawaii Mama and Trish Hunter Finds.

Here, we were complaining about the snow. I had to collect the kids at lunchtime on Thursday as the school is on high ground and the snow was falling hard.

I might not have got the car in if I waited until hometime so, with the usual 30 minute drive taking well over an hour each way on the main, gritted roads, I got about an hour of work done all day.

On Sunday we didn't go out at all as even Greystones was snowed in. We were safe and warm and there was food enough in the fridge. Lucky us having the choice.

The people who died on Saturday didnt have that choice. Some died trying to escape. Many died in their homes having no warning a…

I am creating a unique wait card for theiPhone Grace app.
It's for when your child requests an item that they can have, but they have to wait for it. You put it at the end of the sentence that they have presented. You also print off a copy to keep in their picture exchange book to give to them during table top tasks that require waiting.
Purple is the one used in theGood School, Amber is based on traffic lights and a clock was suggested by one of my Facebook friend-mums. I like that one because there is a timer on the phone that our tutors have been using with the kids as it is big and visual.
What do you think?

It's Saturday night and I am enjoying a glass of Australian - Murray River Shiraz and reading blogs for pleasure, as you do. I blog for work now over on irishautism and while I feel incredibly privileged to be paid to blog; reading other blogs connected to autism or not-for-profit-marketing, can feel a little bit like Research. It's like having to read wine magazines and articles when you work in that industry or the financial times if you are a stock-broker, ahem.So on Saturday night it is lovely to sit down with the ole lappie and scan through all my favourite fashion and thinking blogs and just enjoy the pretty cleverness.To this end I am going to pass on the above award which was given to me by the wise, good and beautiful Seeker, many many moons ago (sorry to be so tardy my darling.) Seeker is an exotic bird in a flock of little brown wrens and grey sparrows. I imagine she charms and delights her co-workers every morning as she arrives in to work in her fine feathers. And…

Boo at the Glenview Leisure Club Pool So, what am I up to with the new "behaviour" curve we took before Christmas? After consulting with my big sister, a mother of a teenage boy; I realised the need for a lot more exercise for my growing boy. Der! you say. Apparently it is well documented that adolescent boys need regular exercise or they start to exhibit aggression. And in the dark afternoons of December we lost the habit. When I was 11 I lived in the country so for exercise I would: Ride my horse, ride my bike, play complicated chasing games involving boys taking my hat and putting it up a tree, (what was that about?) climbing trees to get my hat back (I'm an excellent climber) forming gangs and making huts, raiding and eventually knocking down other gang's huts while simultaneously trying to defend ours; and, since it was 1980; disco dancing. Seriously - imagine a darkened century old school hall with colored cellophane over a few lights and a p.a system playing &quo…

So, yeah, the whole going back to work thing has been pretty funny and I am learning some things about myself that I didn't fully understand last time.

I don't know if you understand Aspergers Syndrome - a form of autism; but one of the aspects of it is the tendency to take things literally and therefore not understand turns of phrase.

There is a joke that explains this tendency

Q: How do you diagnose Aspergers in a typical classroom setting?
A: Go into the classroom and give the kids a stern lecture finishing with
"and you will all have to pull your socks up"
-then count the number of kids with their heads under the desk adjusting their socks -you have your Aspies.

(told that at a Psychology Conference once- how they roared!)

Since having my kids and doing a lot of reading about autism I have recognised my own aspie tendencies (and hyperactivity/obsessiveness) but it is only since I have gone back to work that it has really given me cause to think. Because I genuinely canno…

We parents of special needs kids are used to this feeling - fear. Fear about the future, what our kids will turn out like, where and what they will be when we pass from this mortal plane. Ireland is in crisis and we don't know how deep, but we do know that services for folks like us are in the firing line; it's all about the fear.