Monday, February 28, 2011

Spring cleaning.

I think I have been a little ( maybe an understatement!) down in the dumps for a bit here. Overwhelmed! Things seem to be lifting though. I think the whole asessment process gave me a lot of clarity and also rallied a bit of extra support , which I really needed.
Yesterday I spent the entire day doing some spring cleaning, only managed to do the kitchen. Our neighbour redid his entire property last year, including levelling his entire yard and levelling the huge slope in his yard. They had the bobcat going for the entire summer last year! We got the joy of a huge increase of dust in the house. Since I was pretty darn overwhelmed and pretty immobile with the joint stuff, I didn't get to ANY of the deeper cleaning all year. I felt like I was doing well just to keep the surface stuff livable! So I did every single nook and cranny of the kitchen.... washed walls, moved and cleaned underneath and behind everything, dusted the ceiling , washed the floors... everything. It feels so different in there! Clean and fresh and ready for spring ( kind of like my mental state right?!) Put up the window shelving to find some space to start seeds for the garden! Yay!
Things just feel on the right track again. Sprouts, ferments, flowers, plant starts, good creative food again. Whew. So nice to feel that fog lifting! Really looking forward to spring.
Spent the morning watching homesteading videos with the kids, planning and learning how to use the second hand greenhouse we got last year. Just about to dig around in the crawl space to find some pots and trays, and dig out the seeds to see what we have to look forward to!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Aspergers!


We finally decided to go for an evaluation for my eldest son through a private psych. Last meeting she handed me the book " Aspergers Syndrome and Your Child". She said that the final report will have that in the notes with " probable ASD " or something of the like. Then we go through the pediatrician and Speech and occupational therapists to confirm if we would like to go for full ministry Autism stuff. Sounds a bit scary. I still need to talk to some other moms about that I guess. It sounds as though you are assigned a social worker ... which I would liek to hear a bit more about. The psychologist was eying my younger guy, wondering when we will get him evaluated too. sigh. I know full well that they are both on the spectrum.... but still... It is pretty overwhelming. I am so happy to have some recommendations in place, and all of it written into his learning plan. The supports, even with homeschooling , are going to be helpful... not to mention that it will be in place if they ever go to public school.

Eldest has been going to a weekly after school program with the local kids for an environmental club thing. I was hoping that it would be helpful for him to meet more people. I know the mom who teaches the class and she tells me that he is doing great. I peeked into the class the other day and everyone was in a circle thing with the chairs. He had his pulled back from the group by about 10 feet. I kind of hate it when people tell me " he is fine... doing great" when obviously he could use a little more help or encouragement. I feel like they are just thinking I am overly concerned and trying to appease me! My son told me that everyone stares at him all class, but nobody talks to him.... but " thats ok , because I prefer being alone anyways". Meh. Not exactly my intention when trying to encourage social outings! Always a bit of a shock when you hear that he is doing well, but when you finally observe the behavior it seems the opposite.

We are doing well anyhow. My health stuff is still a mystery so far.... with a few things ruled out now, I am going to a rhumatologist to rule out ( or likely confirm) a connective tissue disorder. All of my symptoms actually fall under the umbrella perfectly. Since I have lost strength over the last year from feeling unwell, my joints have gotten progressively worse. They are all super loose and floppy, going out many times a day. Both the physio and chiro have been commenting on how super hyper mobile I am. I was so active before that my muscles were really helping keep me all stabilized! I have had these issues from birth... so this would be a huge relief to finally have a diagnosis and have a plan in place to get strong again! Hiking and biking , here I come!