Nursery parents evening

I know from my older children that often you sit in the teachers room during parents evening wondering if they've confused you with another childs parents as the kid they're talking about sounds nothing like the one you live with, but Freya's parents evening left me speechless, which doesn't happen often!
Don't get me wrong it was really pleasing and reassuring to hear how well she's settled in but at one point I had to ask, "so she doesn't scream at the top of her voice or throw stuff or try to attack you when you try to change her bum?"
I expect the poor girl was sat there thinking "do you want her to do that?" but I came away thinking am I just a crap parent? If she can get her to sit down to eat and play nicely why can't I?
For my own sanity I've come to the conclusion that if I just had Freya and was at home all day with her then maybe I could. She has one to one the whole time she's there so she doesn't get chance to wander off and occupy herself, any possible tensions are quickly defused by distracting her, she loves painting and it's probably only second to food for a good bribe away from being naughty.
She gets to do all the stuff there she can't do at home, she has someone's undivided attention, she doesn't get told off for pouring her juice into a jug and back again, if she wipes paint everywhere it's just cleared up and it's called creative. (I have an art degree myself but I've never been big on mess!)
So instead of wishing I had more time, patience, less commitments etc I've decided to just be glad she has her nursery where she can enjoy just making mess and hope the good habits she picks up will eventually come home with the mound of paintings :)

first eye contact with baby Lucas!!

I know it's out of focus but had to share, this is the first time since he's been born that she's deliberately looked him in the eye to talk to him :)

Until now she has flat out refused to look at him despite the many smiles he's given her. She always asks where he is and apparently she draws pictures of him at nursery but for nearly 6 months she's avoided this moment. And what did she talk to him about after all this time?? To ask where's the curry sauce Lucas??!!
Very happy mummy and Lucas :)

ducks on the river

We decided to go for a walk along the river the other day, we looked up walks around the village and decided this was manageable and provided some ducks to keep freya entertained along the way.
It started well it was warm and sunny and freya was walking along quite nicely

She stopped to feed the ducks......

And then it all went a bit pear shaped!

now maybe in her head we had fed the ducks so we were done but I had said we were going for a walk not going to feed ducks. I'm fairly bad for over analysing anyway but I do it all the time with her now in a desperate attempt to figure out what she's thinking, mainly to avoid the melt downs that ensue when she gets confused.
I'm not convinced she knows what a walk is we don't often go for walks and when we do its to the shop or to feed the ducks.
we always try to coax her along by saying let's go and see more so maybe she was running of to find more ducks??
anyway she decided she didn't want to wait for us and proceeded to run off up the river path. Now besides the obvious danger of her falling in I had no idea what was up ahead so had to run after her leaving my disabled partner to struggle with the buggy on a very uneven path that he was having enough trouble walking on himself!
When I caught up with her she was already half way across a bridge and about to fly down the other side, I'm now in major panic in case she falls down the steps of the bridge, off the side of the bridge, or maybe there's a road the other side. She often doesn't respond to her name but I'm still yelling freya freya like a mad woman, I can see a man approaching the other side looking at me like good grief woman chill out, and I was thinking hey you don't know my child trust me I'm not over reacting!
I'd quite forgotten that my partner can't do stairs let alone get the buggy up them across the bridge and down the other side, the man asked him if he needed help which just made me look even worse! Bless him my partner never said a word!
at this point I felt a little more relaxed as the path was set back from the water and freya was happily blowing the heads off dandelions.
The whole time I'm trying to look at the route on my phone so we don't get lost and it had by now got really hot, I'm no good in the heat.
we took what we thought were the right turns although of course freya preferred the other paths, and eventually came out onto a road. Both ways looked the same and we then had ten mins of chasing her about while we tried to get the maps on the phone to work. She was jumping into the road and pulling at us to hurry up, she just doesn't seem to get that cars will squash you no matter how I try to explain it :/
we finally get the route up and my fatal mistake at this point was to point out a park we could take her to on the way...
I've always hated taking my kids to the park, it's boring, they refuse to leave no matter how long you give them and it just involves lots of running between equipment making sure they don't kill themselves! My experience hasn't been helped by my older kids one of whom refused to sit on her bum to come down the slide and dislocated her shoulder after falling off the side and another who actually broke her arm falling off some ridiculous thing which seemed to have no purpose other than to hurt your kids!
freya enjoyed the swinging non the less

She was now eating the remaining roll intended for the ducks despite the fact it was solid!
As predicted leaving took ages and despite being just five mins from home she decided she didn't want to walk anymore!

I was now extremely fed up, I was burning, my partner realised the walk had taken us back home yet we had parked in town so he now had to walk back to get the car, and freya refused to walk unless that involved running into the road!
so I'm now trying to steer a buggy wrestle a toddler who seems intent on getting herself run over and cross a busy road. In the end I plonked her on top of the buggy with promises of an ice cream when we got in if she sat still and held on!
somehow we arrived home safely and freya sat happily eating her ice cream in the garden as I collapsed on the swing chair wondering why on earth I ever even attempt to leave the house with her!!

difficult days

I have to admit I'm having days where I feel too stressed to write a blog.
I also feel like I shouldn't write about when she's naughty as I feel like I'm being mean but then isn't that more helpful to others to know there are some days when I feel like I'm caught in a tornado and I would give anything to just shut myself away. I feel I should be grateful she's not got a serious disability and I am but I'm beginning to notice how many people think she doesn't look autistic or they say well she's not really really bad is she or my child's worse etc
I only knew one autistic child when my older girls were smaller and he didn't look any different than any other child either. My partners brother and sister are both autistic and more severely than freya and they don't look autistic either.
I find myself thinking what the hell does an autistic person look like anyway??? The only thing I notice is something in her eyes it's like a vacant expression.
I know I'm new to all this but I've always known there is a huge range on the autistic spectrum and no two people are the same.
Yes there are key things they look for but they don't ask do them all and they don't have to do everything on the list to be autistic.
One of my biggest annoyances is when people say oh she does eye contact she can't be autistic! I want to yell yes the specialist noticed that too but she still said she's autistic!
The fact is freya doesn't always give eye contact but as a rule she does with people she knows. What is weird looking back now is when she was small and I'd take her out in the buggy and people would talk to her she would always look at the floor and by about one she started covering her eyes when spoken to. I used to think it was funny then I thought maybe she's just unsociable!
About a month ago she had a change from being terrified of people to being a little over friendly, she has begun talking to almost anyone, well ladies anyway she's still scared of men for some reason, she even climbed on a lady that came to the house and tried to lie on her knee?! I've noticed she takes her things to them and tries talking about them but it's still done in a very nervous fashion, she looks like someone desperate to please a bully so they won't hurt them.
I've also noticed she gets very distressed about people who are out of place, for example we saw one of her teachers from nursery who she really took to from the first session in Morrison's and freya looked horrified she wouldn't look at the lady and kept pulling me to get away. She did the same with her sisters boyfriend who she leaps all over at home when we saw him outside school, she nervously shoved a painting she had made at him without looking at him.

ice creams

I was aware of freya's food issues long before I knew she was autistic, she had been a compulsive eater from the time she could express a wish for food and grabit off our plates. Over the last few years her food preferences have changed and have become more fussy. For a long time now she's insisted on dip with everything, at first I used to think oh well my older kids used to want ketchup with most meals, but the difference is with freya if it doesn't have dip she won't eat it! More often that not these days she eats the dip with her hands and leaves the rest.
table manners just don't exist and despite telling her at every meal since she was weaned to sit down and use her cutlery she chooses to stand and use her hands.
we were at Ikea recently when she emptied her water onto the table and began lapping it up like a dog :/ this aroused many disapproving stares from other mothers, only one little old man seemed to see the funny side of it!
The last few days have seen a return to emptying her food onto the floor and eating it from there. She's like a magician, she can open the big pantry door, she can shake the gate off to get in the kitchen although her big sisters often helpfully leave it open for her!
we have been fairly lucky in the past that when she's got obsessed with one food it's generally been fruit but the food of the moment is ice creams, she asks for one about once an hour and eats about five a day now.
When my eldest four were little I would have told them no and they would have had to eat what they were given but it's very obvious that freya doesn't understand we may be about to have tea or you shouldn't still be hungry or wait till I've finished the dishes etc

Here she is helping herself after someone kindly left the freezer lock off for her!!

spitters and shitters?!

It's a bad habit of mine to constantly quote from films but this instantly came to mind yesterday! Con air is one of my favourite films and for those who haven't seen it or haven't watched it as many times as I have there is a scene where the convicts led by John malkovich have hijacked the plane and they have gagged and bagged the crew to hide the fact to the authorities. A policeman says to malkovich ' rough crew?' and he replies 'yeah I had to gag and bag them, spitters and shitters!'
ok it's a little crude but that's what the last few days in our house have been like. Obviously baby Lucas can't really help the dribbling and stinky nappies but freya has decided it's fun to spit and no amount of telling off or distraction will stop her doing it. She already dribbles a lot of the time which is pretty gross and given her delight at smearing gross things you have to get to her quickly when she's done a pooh before her hands go down there!
I'm not sure how to tackle this yet but between the two of them I'm getting a little fed up with the constant mess at both ends! :(