Long Time No See

Really clever title huh?

Some might be wondering what is new with us, and some might not even care, and I wouldn't blame them with the infrequent updates.  It's been five months, and I'd love to be able to say those five months have been soooo busy that I just haven't had time to update but I'd be lying so I won't say that. The last five months have been a very big struggle, for a whole host of reasons, and just been trying to process everything.  Some things have gotten better, some have stayed the same, and some I am still as lost and confused now as I was then.  Some of the highlights:

• David started a new job
• Illness
• School Holidays
• School Productions
• Boys birthdays

The highlight of this week is a trial of a new FM system for James hearing aids. It's the latest technology in that the frequency is coded specifically to his hearing aids, which is supposed to limit or prevent interference or 'cross talk' from any other system that might be in the school.  He got it on Tuesday and used it for the first time yesterday.  This comes with mixed feelings, because no matter the need, costs are a consideration. This system is not funded which means if we keep it we have to come up with the money ourselves. For us, though it would be a struggle, we can 'afford it'; having said that, some parents might not be able to and it makes me sad (and angry) to know that kids who need this sort of technology have to do without it because even though it helps them, their family just can't afford it.  I won't give you an exact cost, but it is a four figure number.  So I spoke to James when picked him up from school and he said the new system, whose name is Roger, was "good".  I meant to go and speak to his teacher too, but forgot so tracked her down this morning to see what she thought.  She had nothing but positive things to say, and though most of me was going "yay, that's awesome", the 'selfish' part of me was going "oh no, that's now money we are going to have to come up with so he can keep it".  She did wonder if some of it might be first day novelty factor, but the 'proof' for me was the problems James had going to sleep last night.  When he's had a hard day in the past, he tends to have issues falling asleep and/or staying asleep.  He was still wide awake last night when David and I went to bed at about 9:30; which says to me that his brain has had a major workout. He was also pretty grumpy, more grumpy than usual, which is another indicator.  Of course the flip side of that, is that this disorder requires him getting good quality sleep. 

The School Productions were the other 'big' thing that happened in the last month or so.  It was challenging, in that they were put on in the last two weeks of term when all the kids were tired...but it was a triumph and so proud of both boys.  Then they've both had their birthdays, but that's another post.

Grief

I reckon there's all types of grief in this world; grief at the end of a relationship, grief when someone dies, and just plain old grief at thinking life was one way, only to discover it wasn't.

I didn't really know what title to give to this post...but grief pretty much sums up my feelings about the situation we have found ourselves in.  Anyone who knows us knows that we have been having 'issues' with our eldest boy for quite a while now.  Initially we thought it was down to the bullying he suffered in his first few years at primary school and we hoped that moving him to a new school would see a fresh start for everyone. It was, for the most part, and for a while things looked awesome and the James we used to know started to come out of his shell again.  We had a few teething problems at the new school, but felt this was to be expected.  Got to talking to a parent in our youngest's class and we were talking about James and some of the stuff we've been dealing with when she asked if we'd had his hearing checked.  Now it's always been obvious to us, or so I thought, that he can hear so I looked her a bit oddly and said "yes, no issues there", and then she mentioned something called Auditory Processing Disorder and I thought "what?"  So she explained a bit about what it was and it was like a little light bulb going off in my head.  I went home and did a Google (not always a wise thing to do) and realised that what little I could find described a lot of what we were seeing/experiencing.  Now the ridiculous thing about APD, or maybe not, is that it can't be picked up on your bog standard hearing screening; all those look at is whether the child can hear or not, not whether they can actually process what they hear.

I did a ring round and got a couple of quotes and nearly keeled over at how much it was going to cost to get the tests done.  However, we want them to be successful and if there are things that might stand in the way of that, IMO there's no point burying your head in the sand trying to pretend that everything is alright when it is more than obvious that it isn't.  So about a month ago he finally got an appointment with an Audiologist; the initial consult was to get a bit of background and adminsiter the first part of the test. Because these tests are so labour intensive they are done in two parts; he did an awesome job in participating and to be honest we weren't expecting them to show anything wrong so when the final report came in the mail I was shocked by what it said.  So many things finally made sense, but in one fell swoop the 'perfect' child we'd known for nearly 10 years had been replaced by a child who essentially can't hear.  Not replaced in the truest sense, but everything we knew to be true was ripped out from under us.  In the report there were some positives, but there were also some pretty horrible negatives.  I won't bore everyone with the details, but essentially we now know WHY he gets annoyed by the slightest bit of noise when he's trying to work on something, why he (probably) doesn't like group sports/activities so much and would rather be alone, and possibly most importantly why trying to get him to talk to anyone can be like trying to get blood from a stone.

The good news is that there are things that we can do to improve his quality of life; some he might not mind doing, though one thing in particular that might be required that we know he's definitely not keen on doing.  This disorder is 'silent', silent in that even when someone has it, it can rarely be diagnosed before age seven when trying to mitigate for the fact that they are having trouble processing sound gets harder and harder to hide.  However, the symptoms also look like so many other disorders such as ADD/ADHD, Autism, and Dyslexia that it can be missed. Those disorders can, and do, sometimes run alongside APD, but it can also be a standalone condition.

So lots of crying has been done, but there's lots of anger there too.  Anger that it's been missed for so long, anger that the MOE won't fund the necessary tools for kids with APD to reach their potential in the classroom and anger that the child I gave birth to has been lost; he hasn't really of course because he IS still that child I gave birth to, it's the THOUGHT of who he used to be, if that makes sense to anyone but me.  Having said that, P!nk pretty much sums it up for me, cause through it all he's still perfect to us.  Besides, who wants to be perfect anyway?

So here we are, flopping around a bit lost at the moment, but we'll get there.  Since no one seems to know exactly what causes APD, we're probably going to have to get Alex looked at too at some stage, which is a daunting prospect I have to say.  So there we have it...an explanation for some of the stuff we've been struggling with for so long, and hopefully we can all get the help we need.  We know it's going to be a struggle, but now we know WHAT we're dealing with, it should hopefully be a bit easier.

2013 NZ Census

After spending the last 12 or so months searching for my ancestors, when the opportunity arose several months ago to apply to be a Census Collector for the Census I jumped at the chance.





 It filled a couple of criteria for me in that it

• Got me back in to work, part-time, and with semi flexible hours
• I thought it would be interesting
• I knew how informative and vital census records can be in tracking down people
• It meant that I could get some 'regular' exercise

If only I knew what I was signing up for!  Just kidding, I got thrown a curve ball or two, but for the most part it was a pretty awesome experience.  I'm not sure I'd do it again, but it probably wouldn't be an outright "No" either.   I can't really go into a lot of detail because of the confidentiality involved, but it was an interesting six weeks of work. Most people I encountered were helpful, friendly and willing to participate. I had a few who grumbled about what we needed a Census for, but once they had done that, accepted their papers.  I came a cross people I knew, though not nearly as many as I was expecting initially.  The weather couldn't have been more awesome for it...though it wasn't that great for the region as a whole, since due to a lack of rain, we are now in the middle of a water shortage!  I climbed more steps than I could count, more times that I would have wished.

I hope I have made a difference, and that 100 years from now someone might be able to find an ancestor because of what work I have done.  We did our forms online, but it was suggested to me, that because we had our paper forms and they would only end up in our recycling bin anyway, that we should fill them out instead.  So I did, and now the boys, or any other of our descendants, don't have to wait 100 years to find out what is in them.

Coming out of the Closet

Shocked?

So I am not coming out in THAT way...I am putting my hand up to being a Michael Bolton fan. Why the big secret some might ask.  Well growing up, liking this guy was the height of uncool...probably still is actually. Now that am I am older, wiser, and tbh couldn't give a flying fig what people think I thought it was long past time I put it out there.  I will admit that I have been a crap fan in the last 15ish years; hiding away to watch You Tube videos and only putting CDs on in the car when I was alone, and hadn't really heard any of the more recent material until recently.  What prompted this somewhat public declaration? 

I was surfing You Tube, as you do, when I came across this video and I was lost..again.  Now I will put a warning on said video because it does have some explicit content, so if you're going to watch it make sure you don't have anyone with impressionable ears in the vicinity.  I have to say, IMO, Bolton makes a very convincing Jack Sparrow.  Plus, I have been reminiscing about my childhood on You Tube recently (can anyone say Voltron, Thundercats, or Dungeons and Dragons) and it reminds me of some great times, and some not great times too.  Seeing Bolton was something my dad and I used to do together, actually it was one of the few concerts we'd go to as an entire family.

So there you go..one of my 'dirty little secrets'.

Happy New Year

So I figured since we are well into the new year, and we now have bandwidth again, that I should probably do a blog of some sort.  I've been meaning to do it for weeks, but with school holidays and not having any idea what to say, I just haven't gotten around to it.

The school holidays have been a very hit and miss affair as we haven't done nearly as much stuff as I envisaged and it's been too easy to fall into the trap of just 'vegging out'.  Nothing wrong with vegging out of course, but I reckon doing it for most of the holidays would bore most people to tears.  The last couple of weeks have been full of stuff to do though.  There was the annual Capital E Scavenger Hunt in town which James had a friend tagging along for, and earlier this week we went up to Hastings and Splash Planet for the day.  I had my doubts about such a trip in one day, not least of which because it was 4 hours each way but the boys were great and it was a fabulous day out..even if a very long one. 

I've been trying to do some more digging into my family tree, and came across some new, and slightly unexpected information.  Turns out that my Great Grandfather, on my mother's side, spent a month in jail for assault.  Having seen a copy of the actual record, most of the people in there with him were done for drunk and disorderly..and to be stereotypical I suppose I shouldn't be surprised seeing as it is Ireland after all. Sadly, any other attempts to discover new info, has hit a brick wall.  So I am going to go and ask for help at one of the local LDS centres, in the hopes that they have some actual records I can trawl through.  I must say that tracing the English branch of my family has been relatively easy in comparison to tracing my Irish and American branches.  Hopefully I will get the job I interviewed for this week, and then I can get an Ancestry membership and stay up till all hours getting frustrated at not finding stuff instead of trying to grab 15 minutes at the library every so often.

So here we are, in the last week of school holidays.  James and Alex are both hanging with friends this week, we'll probably hit Te Papa on Thursday and we'll have to find other ways to fill our days that don't involve sitting in front of screens all day.  Thankfully, we're supposed to have glorious weather so that should make that agenda all the easier to accomplish.

Eight more sleeps......

until Christmas that is, and we are so not ready.  This of course won't be helped by a sick child, which means not being at school, which creates challenges of its own. There's presents for the grown ups still to buy, presents to be wrapped, and baking to be done.  There's eggnog to make, and be drunk, and a Christmas shop to do so we don't run out of food..and not enough hours in the day it seems, or money in the bank for that matter.

I also have a case of the "Bah Humbug's"; I've looked at the Christmas TV guide, and though we've been here for six Christmases now, I am still dismayed and shocked, to find a definite lack of Christmas movies.  No Home Alone, It's a Wonderful Life, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, etc.  I know that those type of movies cater to the Northern Hemisphere Christmas, but I might 'get in the mood' a bit more if I wasn't faced with 20 action movies that have already aired more times that I can count, at other times of the year.  I know it's summer here, but I still can't wrap my head round this Christmas at summer thing..and maybe I never will?

Thankfully, we are having another quiet year at home, so don't have to worry about travelling anywhere and the inevitable grumpy children from spending too much time in the car...we're saving that joy until Easter.

So what do other people have planned for Christmas?  Going away, visiting family, staying home, or some weird combination?  Traditional Kiwi Christmas fare or something else?

Santa

So our boys have never been that into the jolly red giant.....in fact, for the most part, they could take him or leave him.  There's no wanting to go sit on Santa's knee or have their picture taken with him; which is fine by us as those things cost a small fortune for what they are!  Anyway....it's that time of year again and this year we actually remembered to check when the santa parade was; we missed it last year because we weren't expecting it to be happening in mid NOVEMBER, and by the time we were wondering about it, we found out it had been and gone.

So this year, being well prepared, I actually checked for the date at the beginning of November... imagine my surprise to learn that it was actually going to be held IN December, even 'better', it wasn't even the first weekend in December...go figure.  I now of course realise, that the reason for this, was the worldwide premiere of a certain film.

Our only conflict this year, the parade happened to fall on the same day as David's works Christmas party for the kids.  Like last year, it was being held at the zoo...but that's where the similarities to last years party ended.  To be fair, he was employed by a different company then.  The boys had a good time though, David and I were underwhelmed, and I would have liked a bit more time to actually SEE some animals instead of getting dragged from exhibit to exhibit every 60 seconds.  So after spending the morning at the zoo, we need to decide what we are going to do now.  We knew the parade was on, but if I am honest I wasn't really keen to drag two, crabby, overtired children to a crowded place after they'd been awake since about 5am.  We took a vote..I lost.

In the end, that was a good decision because the boys really enjoyed it.  There was the usual floats; Snoopy, Batucada, Scottish band and even some Chinese Dragons.  There were acrobats, people on stilts, and even angels hanging off the back of trucks.  We were lucky in our chosen spot as well; The boys got to sit right on the kerb, even though we only arrived about 10 minutes before the parade was due to start.  It took a while to find a park, and then we had to detour to Kaffe Eis for ice cream.

We've been home about 90 minutes...and in that time we've cleaned out the fish tank and I've started dinner, oh and I've written this post...speaking of which, dinner is now ready so I suppose we should go and eat it.  It's been a long day, but all in all a good one.