A QUICK CATCH UP

Hiya

Well, got a few days to catch up on, but as we are still not 'back to normal' there isn't loads to write about.

We went to the home ed meet in Faversham last week and although Callum did spend quite a bit of time on his own playing on his DS, he did eventually disappear off with his mate Stewart into the computer room. So getting there slowly.

The following 3 days were a right off as Phil was off again and we couldn't really get on with anything.

Saturday, Callum went off with his dad to the fire station thing that we went to last weekend on the wrong day!!!






Saturday night was also Earth Hour. Between 8.30pm and 9.30pm we turned off all the electricity, lit candles and sat chatting. Earth Hour is run by WWF and happens every year. Callum loves doing it and I think it is something we should do more often than just the once a year. The first few minutes are the worse as there is no TV, no computer, no nothing, but actually it always turns out to be really enjoyable as we find other ways to entertain ourselves which normally means having a really good family talk.

Sunday we had a lovely walk with the dog at Riverside.

Then this week we had our friends Lorraine and Amy over on the Monday, which was lovely and relaxing and the kids spent all afternoon in the garden firing Nerf guns at targets and giggling.

Tuesday we had trampolining and Callum finally managed to nail at least 3 somersaults onto his feet which made him feel a lot better as he now understands what the movement feels like. Just need to work on getting them consistantly right now. Kim, his instructor, seemed pleased too. Then it was off to another friend's house for the afternoon where I again didn't see him the whole time we were there. Thank you Liz.

That brings us up to yesterday where we spent a glorious sunny morning with Terri and Merlin down at Riverside doing the Easter Bunny hunt. They had two types of card bunnies to find - yellow and blue. Yellow had clues for younger children and the blue had clues for older kids. Obviously we did the blue clues. Was a little easier than last year to find the bunnies, but still took approx an hour to complete. Callum got a chocolate egg for his troubles and then we went to the cafe for a cuppa and an ice cream. Decided to walk home as it was a lovely day and we can walk the majority of it along by the river.

Today we are having a proper day off. Pjs all day, no visitors, no dad, just us chilling out and watching some telly. Sometimes it's just necessary.

Cya

MID WEEK SUNSHINE

Hiya

Had a lovely, pleasant, ploddy day today. The sun was shining, although still chilly and we had a bit of a lazy start, then off up town to do a bit of shopping.

Firstly we went in search of some Borax; first port of call was, of course, Boots. Unfortunately Boots in Gillingham doesn't stock it anymore, although we were informed we may be able to get it in the larger stores. So we left with liquid paracetamol and Vit C tablets instead (we all have colds). We then scoured Savers (came out with large box of Bic of Soda), Wilkinsons (box of Quality Street) and Superdrug (nothing at all), all to no avail.

Why are we after Borax? Well we have some science experiments we want to do and we need Borax. One of the experiments involves growing crystals and one results in a bouncy ball, so the search will continue as I don't really want to have to buy it online. Oh well, we did manage to find the big box of bicarbonate of soda (£1.19 for 500g) which is always handy for volcanos and anything requiring a fizz and the Quality Street, which is actually for the coloured cellophane wrappers as we are going to do a project on light and colour (the chocolates are just a bonus, honest!).

Then off to a friend's house for general chat and a cuppa. We managed to leave there with a complete DS + games and a big pack of white A4 paper. We offered money for the DS, Callum even saying he would give her his £10 that he had in his wallet, but she wouldn't take it. So a humongous thank you to Kim!!!!

Next was the hairdressers for a trim. Callum had his hair washed for the first time at a hairdressers and I think he quite liked it, then next door to the 2nd hand shop to see what goodies we could pick up. Left there with another book on tanks for Callum and a PS1 game as well, both for 75p!!

A nice walk home, followed by a cuppa and a sort out of our wares.

All in all a lovely day with lots of goodies.

Cya

Helllllloooooooo!!!

We spent a lovely morning on a Spring Food walk at Capstone Park today - walked miles!!! Callum not amused by length of walk, but he did enjoy it and we learnt quite a bit too.

I ached like hell, but it was soooooo worth it!

Weather was beautiful, we saw lots of squirells and ranger took us up to Shawsted Farm ruin which was really interesting. Callum collected some of the things that we were told we could eat and tasted most of them! Were walking for about 2.5 hrs!

Back to base and we decided we'd have an ice-cream before calling Phil to pick us up. Sat down by the lake and watched the ducks and the fish eating the bread people were throwing in!


Callum wanted to go round to the other end of the steps and as he ran(!!!) across he went flying! 5 mins before we were due to be picked up - not good. He slipped on the steps by the lake, nearly ended up head first in said lake and now has a lovely graze on left knee, both hands and chin and a very large hole in trousers! I was concerned for him and he was more concerned about losing the stuff he'd collected!!!!!!! Brave little man!!

Got home, stripped him down and washed everything out, antiseptic cream and a couple of plasters on the knee. He insisted on having one on his chin even though it was the smallest cut and he looked a bit daft. He said it was the one that hurt most!

Sat in the garden for rest of the afternoon. Then it was feed neighbours cat, eat dinner and he was then on computer for the evening.

All in all, apart from the accident, it was a good day. Fishing next week!

Cya

FIRST DAY OF SPRING!

Hello all

Happy Ostara to you all. It's the first day of Spring today and it's been a beautiful day. The sun has been shining and Callum awoke in a very good mood.

He came down and decided to make a cup of tea for me and for him and sort himself out some cereal. He then sat down on the sofa with his breakfast AND his maths! He whizzed through his questions, pointing out that he wasn't up to date on some of the sheets, so he was going to do extra to get them all on the 50 mark. He'd finished both breakfast and maths by 9am!

As I was totally unprepared for this rush of inspiration, I decided I needed another cuppa to get my head around it. So Callum played on Wii Sports until I'd done what was necessary.

He then spent another hour on the computer researching pictures and some pictorial information about two of our projects that we need to sort out. Doing title pages for both and cut and pasting relevant pictures he'd found. One was for Waves, which we are doing at the local Home Education Science Fair in May and the other was for Transport which we are hoping to cover in a couple of months. He still has Titanic (we are going to the exhibition at the O2 next month) and Space, which we have been covering off and on since Christmas, to do, but he'd had enough and, to be honest, he'd done quite a bit.

After lunch, and still happy, we went off to trampolining. He was fine on the way there, fine when we got there, fine going in and then suddenly he was playing up. Wouldn't listen to James and started mucking about and being very half hearted about the whole thing. We let him have a play bounce to see if that worked, but it didn't. 20mins in he still wasn't himself and I stopped the lesson and asked, seriously, what was wrong. "I don't want to do it, it's boring!" was the reply. Well, I know for a fact that he doesn't think that, so I asked if anything was bothering him. He replied "no". I told him that he was wasting James' time and his if he was going to muck about and asked him if he wanted to continue or get off. He said he'd get off and then promptly burst into tears! This is when Asperger Syndrome can be it's most challenging. I know Callum's triggers and I hadn't seen any. I rechecked in my memory and still couldn't see any. James had a think and he couldn't come up with anything either. I know that there doesn't always have to be a trigger, sometimes it just is, but it's a lot easier to deal with when you know what's going on.

Luckily James didn't need to rush off so we gave Callum plenty of time to relax and 'come round' before we had to leave. When asked if he wanted to do a lesson next week to make up for it, he replied that he would. See, I knew it wasn't because it was boring. At least at the end, we ended on a good note.

Afterwards we went up to the Medway Park sports complex to ask about swimming lessons and we had a nice look round and a cuppa in the cafe. By the time we left Callum was much happier and we had a nice laugh and joke whilst doing a bit of shopping.


On our return we got out the Arts and Crafts drawer and started making flowers, buds and butterflies to go on our Season Tree (a bunch of twigs tied together which we decorate in accordance to seasons and festivals). So we now have a nice Spring themed 'tree' with chicks around the bottom. And mini chocolate eggs in a basket to nibble on as we walk past the table.

So in conclusion; we started the first day of Spring on a good note, it spiralled a little downwards in the middle, but it's ended back on a high again.

Cya

PS: We've just had a bit of a crisis. Some chick shaped candles just burst into flames!!!! Callum was a little freaked, but didn't panic. One wet T-towel later and doors open to stop the fire alarm, all is well with the world again. Plus a nice little lesson on fire safety! ;-)