It's been a busy week, I worked 3 days this week, 2 at the shop and 1 at the craft fair, it was really fun getting out into a different environment and getting to see all the other crafty stuff, but I'm so glad I left my purse behind! There was lots of buy-able things. Infact the only money I had I had to borrow from Lissy.. lol.. thank you for looking after me Lissy! I stayed over at Lissy's as she lives 5 minutes from the shop and Di was able to pick me up on the way in to the fair.

It was great being at the fair, I was able to catch up with some people I hadn't seen for a while, the only downside is now I have the flu. Taking it easy today and going to the park this afternoon and an early dinner with Michaels dad before he goes back to Sydney Monday.

take care

So much has been happening these last few weeks with Alec. We still do speech every week and 2 weeks ago we had an assessment done by an occupational therapist. That turned up weakness we knew about and gave him a rating of 'at risk' being that these things are going to be an impediment to his development. Also we now start at the early Intervention centre (we are calling it "the centre") of the Autism association on May 1st.

We had our assessment on Thursday and Friday I went to a parent information seminar, and even though I loathe those things I am so glad I went, I actually just loathe going anywhere alone. I took away tons of information and picked up some visual aides called PECS (Picture Exchange Communication Symbols) which means you use picture representation to replace a step in a task like washing your hands and for more general use you can use it like a timetable so kids know what is going to happen. They have found it works really well with verbal kids and in the 2 days we have been using them Alec refers to his boards all the time and is even starting to understand the turn taking one.

Once we start it wont be easy, we have to drive 45km to get to the centre twice a week and we will really feel that in out petrol consumption and our time management abilities. My only concern is Mondays when we are at the PCYC doing OT because it is during Riley's nap time, thankfully Tuesday is covered with him being at mums.

This week is a busy one, I am working two days in the shop and one at the craft fair at the show grounds I'm hoping to put half of what I earn away for my Sydney trip in August.

So life is going to change again, I'm a little happier now we have him in an EI program and Riley seems to have settled into the two days he spends with mum and dad, that helps so much, I just wish I had a laptop so I could do some work while Alec does his centre sessions, I have a web design job to do and I can see myself up until midnight on a regular basis just to keep up with it, but that's life for you..

Here is my beautiful boy playing at Kings Park on Good Friday

I opened my mail today and look I'm on the cover! ok so it is only the cover of the preview guide to the quilt and craft fair and it is only my time capsule not a layout but it is still a cover!

When they asked me to do it it seemed so far away but now it is only 4 weeks away, I am still trying to work out what to say during my studio sessions.

that what I was missing in my life was sleep!

I have struggled to make it to 10pm every night this weekend and I have stayed in bed until atleast 7am every morning and I feel so much better for it. While the house isn't spotlessly clean I did manage the bathrooms, toilets, kept the kitchen tidy and ironed 11 shirts. On top of this I have manages to do 9 layouts and 6 pages for my 'favourite photos' album. I got this idea from Nic Wright, the simplicity and beauty of it stayed with me and I am doing 8.5x11 albums as Mothers Day gifts for my mum and Penny and one for myself.

We have had a great weekend, Firday we started off at Kings Park, Alec just loved it and towards the end he picked up the little camera we bought along and started taking photos, it was so great to see things from his perspective, I am doind a layout of some of his photos now, this is one he took looking down the firmans pole at the playground


And this is my nice simple style for multiple pages and multiple photos, Alec's 4th Birthday!

I'm off to do some more scrapping before we end our weekend with a BBQ with the neighbours up at the lake.

have I told you how much I love working in a scrapbooking store??? We had two big orders come in on Tuesday and Wednesday so I got to rearrange everything for our Heidi Swapp stock, and I got to bring lots home to make sample pages.. AND a big order I put in for myself arrived, so not only did I get all this... I also have the Hampton and New Garden Crate Paper ranges to play with this weekend and I transfered 60 layouts to my gorgeous We R memory keepers album, this was like Christmas.

I promised myself before I started anything new I would do Alec's birthday pages and I am just finishing the 5th page! Then I am moving onto my altered puzzle pieces, we are doing one for the shop and Kris chose Art as the topic, I'm trying to find some new techniques to try as I have 5 to do..

oh well off to finish up these pages before bed, have a wonderful safe Easter everyone and make sure you get some scrappy time in

I love my camera! oops better clarify something... I love my dad's canon rebel that I have 99.9% of the time, which now more or less makes it mine I think.. He bought it about a year ago with much promting from Michael and I, I mean we wanted the right camera after all.

I've been starting to teach myself more about the manual settings and the other night when we went to check on the boys, they both looked so cute we grabbed the tripod and took some photos. These were taken in raw format with the shutter open for 30 seconds, the different coloured light was made by Michael shinning a small torch in different places. Now when I opened them they were almost completely black with a few spots of red but by playing with the light settings in raw format you can get this


I was very impressed!

Megan posted a photo site she uses to get her photos done and I saw they did 30cm width photos 30x10 for $3.99!!!!!!! so as soon as I can decide what I want printed I am going to try them out, they are called bigphoto.com.au. I still do all my own printing for scrapping and I'm just loving the Illford pearl paper, the photos from the Rebel just look amazing on it!

The sheer unpredictability of autism can be exhausting, overwhelming and sometimes just truly amazing and wonderful. Alec has had a bad week so we all have a bad week, our ability to be able to meet Alec's needs before he even knows what they are have been sorely tested, autism for Alec is about rules, the rules he has to get through the day, this goes all the way to where we park when we go shopping, which entrance, which lift. Everything has a ritual, we know them all well and the consequence of not doing them but occasionally he throws us a curve ball. The other day I needed petrol and before I have even stopped he is shrieking, once I get him calmed down he tells me I am at the wrong bowser.. So I move but he is so traumatised he is sucking his thumb and worrying eeyore with his head bowed and his eyes closed, Alec has gone for a little while.

Then Wednesday night out of the blue he is running around asking Michael to take photos of him, i swear I am not able to get a photo of his face for weeks at a time but here he was running squealing and posing, we played chasey, peek a boo.. Where's Alec? and anything we could think of and just kept taking pictures.

I am off to work today, I have to take a detour first and drop Alec's special drink off to him at day care, he didn't drink it and Michael let him put it in the fridge without telling me, not a biggy you would think but it would have been all he had as sustenance today, special drink is sanatarium up and go, his main food source, I am sitting here crying because my kid didn't get a drink i am so pissed off and so weary and so mad this has happened to my baby.

I don't break down much but I was looking at him today walk off and he has last years pants on and they are falling down and he is so pale and drawn I can't possibly pump another supplement into him with out poisoning the poor baby, I just want to scream. I am going to look such a fright at work today, I just want to know why this happened to him, why him why autism, bastard of a thing that it is

OK.. this better be as sick as I get for the next year because this sucks! We had people over Saturday and at 2pm I said to michael I just don't think I can do this! so he sent me to bed until everyone arrived at 4pm, Sunday we dragged our bums around and tried to do house work but he was almost as grey as I was and then this morning I wake up with a migraine. Alec and Riley were angels, I told them that they had to wait for mummy to get up before they got out of bed, I didn't see them for 2 1/2 hours! unfortunately i still feel like crap.

I have a pretty full week again, occupational therapy assessment tomorrow for Alec, work Wednesday, speech Thursday, which is also Michael's 36th birthday and Friday night Becca our neighbour is going to baby sit while we go to dinner and a movie and Saturday night it is a scrapping sleepover at Jodi's!!

I'm off to break up a squabble and have a cup of tea, I have subsisted on 7 baby chocolate eggs and a bowl of peas and corn and a glass of kole beer (WA thing,you don't know what you are missing, mum used to send cans to QLD for me.. whole other story there)