Ausblogcon lightbulb moments and Real! Live! Adult! Human Beings!

This weekend just gone I ranned away to Sydney to the Aussie Bloggers Conference and, not only did I recharge my mental batteries by socialising with Real! Live! Adult! Human Beings! (who didn't suddenly chuck a wobbly and have a meltdown at my feet....although they were more than welcome to, I was so freaking nervous I'd have probably stepped over them and given them a time out in my vagueness *snort*)...

But anywho!
I got to meet some fanTABulous people who I've been reading for umpteen gazillion years, they are all wonderful.
Yes, they're Real! Live! Adult! Human Beings!
*gasp*
(Does it show that I don't get out much...?)

Something...well, several things 2 speakers in particular made a point of mentioning rang bells with me.
The first was to be careful what you blog - heck, sure we all think we're being careful but hindsight is always 20:20 and looking back over some of the confidences I've shared about Aspie teen there are a number of things he could easily misconstrue or see in a completely wrong light.
Cos the internet is forever.
Will he wonder, in years to come, if I loathed him at those times?
Did I, perhaps, write these posts as payback for his personal mental hell we've travelled with him?
The answer is, of course, no to both of these hypothetical questions but it needs to be made clear.

Another point was made by a chickybabe with a fabulously wicked wit and manner, Carly - she was, essentially, talking about how people think they know all about her medical condition just by watching a single doco when it actually varies from person to person, her comment was ;

"Only the person with the condition can really explain or discuss it."

And it hit home that while I might babble about what my son is going through from a parents perspective only he can really explain/explore what is happening.
I can certainly tell you how many walls he's smashed, how he's burned up enough calories in a single meltdown to make a weight loss company CEO green with envy or how we're all on tenterhooks just waiting for the next upset.
Yes, I can babble that crap til the cows come home but I cannot slip inside my boy's wonderfully fragile head and tell you how he thinks, what he thinks about, what irritates him, what makes him happy, all that guff.
Only he can do that.

So, having a little cry on the bus on the way home on Monday morning (after I'd cleverly tucked the free Kleenex tissues in my backpack that was in the luggage compartment under the bus *snort*) I thought about how I needed to discuss with Aspie teen about him joining this blog.
He has said yes but there are no promises as to when or what he will blog; he's finding the demands of distance ed quite difficult (even doing only 4 subjects) and anxiety-causing on most days.
We have sat and chatted about what I've written, some days I have asked him if I can mention certain incidents, other gut-wrenching things I've deliberately omitted cos there is no need to share some of the really graphic crap with you (and neither Aspie teen or myself would thank me for doing so).
Taking each day as it comes and, most probably, we'll be returning to home schooling where he can feel more in control and enjoy learning again.
And he might blog.

Bye Bye Homeschooling

Homeschooling is now a thing of the past in this house.
We've done it for 4 years and it was the best thing for our child for that time.
But.
Once he started Uni last year the genie was out of the bottle and it's been difficult to get him to settle back into homeschooling while he's taken a break from Uni.
And while his anxieties have climbed sky high.
The battles over schoolwork are just.not.worth.it.
So, we're hoping to enroll him in Distance Education Centre for next year.
He needs someone, other than myself, teaching him.
I'll be able to guide and support him at home but as a parent, not mum-teacher-lecturer-curriculum maker-excursion planner-person-to-argue-semantics-with all rolled into one.
Homeschooling is great; we are so lucky here in Victoria we are able to have that option to explore for our children when other mainstream schooling options are not suitable, but people change and Aspie teen has grown, matured and his needs are now different.
Like all things in life nothing is forever and this is the end of a chapter in our lives but also the beginning of another, newer, one next year.
Now we just need to fill in a bajillion forests' worth of paperwork and get things organised for him to be enrolled!

Geek kid alert

Hi-de-ho, yo sexy Mums of all kidlets!
Nah, she's not getting all creepy and crap, we need to praise the carers... cos we're the ones who cop the flack so let's cop some slack ;)
Had a fab meeting with the Paediatrician of Wonderful, who assured me Aspie teen will only tower over me a little (I'm 5ft 9) and he estimates he'll hit the 6ft 3in mark sometime in the future but we're happy to wait for that to come along.
I gave Aspie teen his laminated schedule and asked him to pick out at least one thing each day he wanted to keep, as we're re-evaluating everything to give him more down time to de-stress and off-load his anxiety.
So far, he's picked maths (text books), maths online and by email, science (text books), science online and by email, art, history, geography, culture and homeschooling excursions.
Yeah, he's ditched all the fiddly fun stuff, typical Aspie *snort*
Then promptly checked out the Open University units he'd like to do next year and followed it up by making a bajillion Lolcats.
We popped into the local library tonight where we bought a shedload of books, many near-new for 50 cents each - our library culls its books and sells them off regularly.
A book Aspie teen almost threw himself on to grab is a beauty The Physics of Atmospheres.
Yeah, 50 cents.
He's a happy lil camper but, almost as important, so is his mother's hip pocket!

I am soooooo bad at mummyhood

I am such a horrid mummy.
I dragged my dear son to the op shop which he loves and bought him a long stitch kit for a measly $3.
Yes, I realise he's a boy and, no, I'm not having retro-post-natal-aspirations for my offspring's gender.
His fine motor skills need tweaking now and then; he burbles along quite well then something happens and I'll realise he's out of kilter - like a growth spurt has made his spatial awareness skew-whiff and he needs to relearn to adjust his personal space with his size 14 feet, etc.
So, yeah, yesterday we all discovered the fact he had nfi how to thread a needle.
Much angst and meltdowns and screaming, grunting, and crapola ensued
No it didn't, really.
Just thought I'd throw in a drama queen moment.
He managed to thread his first sewing needle about 2 hours into his first real sewing project.
And who taught him how to thread a needle and how to do long stitch?
Don't look at me, it was his Dad what done it.

I'm such a party animal *snort*

So far, so good (touch wood, fingers crossed and all that).
The medications have found their way down his throat with only a mild reminder each morning without any meltdowns, grunts or glaring looks - such a nice routine rut to get stuck in, don't you think?
He's currently doing textbook work !!!!!
Without complaint!!!!
Explanation - up until a few months ago he'd happily do textbook work as well as online work but he's been unable to focus/concentrate/get into the groove of the textbooks, preferring the online studies.
But today he's trotted off to a quiet room to complete his textbook work.
And...he got up out of bed without anyone calling him.
He also got his brekkie without being reminded.
Only one small quiet reminder to take his medicine and it was gone in a flash!
Someone has either frozen Hell or he's been abducted by aliens.
He's in a happy groove right now, double woot and bust out the party streamers!

Sex ed and the Aspie teen

Yeah, I reckon there'll be a fair few hits from some weirdos doing bizarre searches.
Begone, you unclean wretches!
No, not you, good reader, you can stay right where you are.
The offspring has watched National Geographic, Discovery Science, History channels, et el for years, since he was a tiny tacker.
He taught some teachers at school that kangaroos can balance on their tail and impart savage tears with the claws on their hind feet (they poo-poohed him until I corrected them that it was true *rolls eyes*), they then refused to believe that goannas could inflict nasty cuts (which could quickly become infected) or that wombats had sharp teeth and claws and shouldn't be picked up.
When he explained that some sharks laid eggs and that the 'spiral seaweed' another pupil had brought in was actually the remains of one of these eggs, well.....!
Crikey, you'd have thought the sky was falling in!
Yes, ok, he was 7 at the time but, c'mon.
Kids on farms see this everyday and their teachers don't call parents at home to get the tv viewing changed.
*excessive eye rolling*
Anyway, the other week there was a nature special on the procreation of different species including the 'very rare footage of a baby kangaroo (joey) being born and climbing up its mother's fur to the pouch'.
This footage is so rare it was the same footage the hubby and I (and probably most of you lot) watched as fascinated 10 year olds back in primary school up on the projector screen in the darkened multipurpose room.
I reminded hubby of it and he asked, with tongue in cheek,
" Geeze, what were they thinking, showing that to us kids?! D'ya reckon they'd be allowed to show it in schools these days or do they demand a different channel?"
*snort*

Stuff

Have had an interesting day with the kid and spouse.
Both are off doin' their manly man thing of footy training after orthodontist and illustration sessions.
The teeth and the drawing were separate, by the way.
I have me a stalker copycat that borrows behaviours, events and incidents from my life to dramatise its own life. And not just my life but other friends' lives, too.
Aspie teen was outraged at first to hear the hassles he's been struggling with have become fodder for someone else to garner sympathy but he's 'meh' about it now.
He's now off yeast as we've discovered the revolting flatulence was from yeast in bread, even GFDF bread, so the list is growing.
He was proven to be allergic to it when he was little but it was thought he'd outgrow it.
Guess he didn't.
I'm having a horrible thought that he may still have an intolerance to bananas *sob* after mastering the GFDF banana bread muffins of late.
Let's not go there, just yet.
Thank goodness for allergists and paediatricians and specialists who listen and follow through!

Beaufort homeschool excursion & Eltham heritage walk

Good evening, all you uber-sexy cosmonauts surfing the Aspergian highway!
No, I'm not on drugs nor have I opened a bottle of vino.
Had a brilliant couple of days with my boy; flittered off on Friday to Beaufort (near Central Victoria) for a homeschooling excursion on my Dad's, my grandmother's and my great-grandparent's old home ground.
We didn't let the family know we were in town as we wanted to kick around the place anonymously and explore for ourselves (besides several of the older ones have been quite ill and it was easier if they didn't feel they had to have us out to visit, if you get my drift).
The Aspie teen researched as much as he could on Beaufort before we set off and when we hit the community centre we found a fab heritage trail already printed with a map.
Many rural towns are now providing these printed heritage/history trail/walks/tours and are a great resource for visitors; not only are you able to wander about at your own pace learning fascinating bits of history but sometimes these trails lead your off the beaten track and you get to see things you may not have found if you'd stuck to the main thoroughfare.
We explored to our hearts content, found the cemetery and were amazed at the age of the burials; we found an original wooden grave marker, Chinese graves, an Aboriginal grave and some sad forgotten unmarked graves that were only lumps in the dirt.
The heritage map found us the old woollen mills, primary school (where my dad was a sometime pupil with his cousins and where his mother sometimes taught), my great-grandfather's blacksmith forge, the old Primitive Methodist Church which is now a lovely gallery and the fab architecture throughout the town which has been preserved by the sensible recycling of the buildings.
Aspie geek kid had a ball, learning how to use the DSLR, putting his map reading skills and time keeping skills into good use, not to mention him explaining to me how Beaufort came to be founded from his research.
He was totally enthralled to actually eyeball the blacksmith forge, albeit slightly altered, and the large number of original buildings that have survived the wreckers ball/developers.
Then yesterday we toddled off on a heritage walk in Eltham with the Eltham Historical Society; was a lovely time.
We saw Alan Marshall's old home, some great mudbrick houses (one which was designed by Alastair Knox, the Periwinkle House, that now has heritage protection) an old gold reef mining attempt, some fabulous views from the top of mountainous hills we didn't know we were climbing and a few sprinkles of rain that kept us out of mischief.
And a lovely, relaxing day today, spent baking GFDF goodies!

Homeschooling

So many parents of ASD kids are choosing to homeschool these days it's becoming more mainstream than mainstream school itself!
I suppose what we do at home here at the moment could be considered 'unschooling' (explanation HERE) as we see which way Aspie teen is headed, behaviour-wise, for the day.
Some days constant history or science programmes on the tv are enough, particularly when he's having an off day.
Other days he can romp through books completing 2 pages of exercises on each subject.
Our homeschooling excursions each week are a highlight for a visual learner as he can make connections between what he reads/learns about and then sees it for himself.
I've been slowly introducing little extras on each excursion - navigating via GPS then reading a map, working through the list of op shops, even wearing a watch and being the time keeper for the train home.

Ballarat homeschooling excursion

We hit Ballarat while it was bucketing down with rain. Actually the rain barely let up while we were there and it chased us back to Melbourne.
But, hey, the more the merrier to break the drought.
Aspie teen totally loved the In Your Face exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ballarat; political cartoons from 1760-2010, some of them far more risque than what our cartoonists get away with today (very chuckle-inducing, though).

The art gallery is the oldest regional art gallery in Australia and oozes history, it certainly appealed to Aspie teen. He seems more comfortable in an older, historic setting rather than post-modern minimalistic (which he says feels cold to him). We could have spent hours and hours there but we were on a tight time-frame so we will be returning to the art gallery at a future date to continue our love affair with its goodies.

Aspie teen's map reading skills are getting quite a work out on these trips; we picked up a travel booklet which included a map of the CBD of Ballarat and he was able to navigate us correctly to each op shop address I'd written (the fact the list was out of date and the op shops no longer at each address is beside the point, he got us there in one try lol).
We were given directions from a kind lady in one op shop we happened to stumble across and we had a great walk around the streets, eyeballing some fabulous architecture, history and beautiful buildings (with the full trimmings) still mostly intact as they were originally built over 150 years ago.

In all it was a highly successful homeschooling excursion like the last; these weekly trips are proving to be good for him in so many ways, not to mention getting him ready to travel out of Melbourne during school hols to avoid the crowds. He's able to navigate us around strange cities without using the GPS (and without a meltdown), his ability to look for street addresses and work out which side of the street or how far down the street the building may be is becoming better and he's enjoying himself, which is the most important thing in all of this.
So long as he's having fun the learning comes naturally in those circumstances and it stays with him as it's associated with a pleasant time.
We were unable to get to Kirrit Barreet, the Aboriginal cultural centre, but Aspie teen wasn't upset as he's keen to learn about his fathers people, the Dja Dja Wurrung, who are from the Bendigo area and part of the Kulin Nation.
Maybe when we go back again soon we'll get to have a visit there.

We'll always have tomorrow...if you believe Scarlett and Annie and The Beatles

And so tomorrow we're off to Ballarat at the crack of Dawn.
People will start to gossip at the amount of times I've seen Dawn's crack of late.
Yes, yes, I'm a crude poppet at times.
But fortunately Dawn doesn't mind.
Dragging the carcass of Aspie teen out of bed will be such fun (that was sarcasm if you missed it).
His Lordship has requested a visit to the art gallery in Ballarat and he was rather happy to hear that there was an Aboriginal gallery/culture centre, too.
And 17 op shops.
Count them.
S-e-v-e-n-t-e-e-n of the buggers.
Yes, I'm packing the mega-large backpack with extra storage and His Nibs will be carrying a backpack of his own.
So I won't need to order that shipping container he was eyeballing.
I hope.

Kyneton Museum, the regionals rock

Climbed aboard the country train with Aspie teen this morning and Kyneton (Central Victoria) was graced with our ever-so-slightly chilled presence on this brisk Winter's day.
Aspie teen loves the museums and galleries but I'm easing him into visiting regional ones ahead of the school hols so we don't have to miss out on his favourite obsessions that will otherwise, in Melbourne at least, be packed to the rafters with People!
And Kids!
Mostly Screaming Kids!
Which doesn't do wonders for his Aspergerian anxiety but school hols are only small interruptions and we're hitting the regionals, baby.
The Kyneton Museum is a gem, a loved-up local gem and one that you should seek out if you get the chance.

Situated in the former Bank of NSW (original 1860s building), they have exhibitions downstairs with the bank manager's residence upstairs fully furnished in the period of the day, with movement-activated recordings of what would have been usual conversations.
The stables, laundry, kitchen and 2-pot (a double bunger) outhouse are intact as is the original squatter's cottage, Theaden Homestead, again furnished in period style with recorded conversations of daily life.
Fabulous set up, run by friendly people and something I'd highly recommend to anyone.

We wandered up and down the streets and side-streets of Kyneton, admiring the Neo-Gothic churches, the beautiful architecture of many buildings inspired by the heady gold rush days right through to the Art Deco years and the many uses one can find for bluestone.
The town is a grand place to visit; we actually ran out of time (only 6 hours!) to complete our self-guided tour and so shall be returning at a later date to visit the cemetery, Botanic Gardens, the Farmer's Market (every 2nd Saturday in St Paul's Park) and the many little side streets that beckoned to our curiosity .
But for next week Aspie teen has chosen we shall visit Ballarat.