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... because if you lie on the floor and pretend the ceiling is the floor, everything looks so much cleaner and tidier.

Except for the chocolate milk stain near the dining table (too much vigorous shaking resulting in a minor explosion) and the shoe print on Andrew's ceiling (put there by Alex when it was his room) and the numerous daddy-long-legs spiders that have taken up residence in every available corner and the fact that the now-ceiling has oodles of stuff on it making it very uncomfortable to lie on and that seems to be defying gravity to create an obstcle course of mammoth proportions and ... let's just leave it there shall we?

I have enough to do today as it is!

I'm back ...

... working at the canteen, for the next two weeks anyway!

The canteen manager called me on Wednesday and asked me to work Thursday to which I said yes, of course. Any extra money is good money! While I was at work on Thursday, she then asked me if I would be able to work Friday as well. Once again, I said yes with all the speed of the Road Runner .. beep beep! .. and thought to myself how great it would be if I could work at least one day a week for the next two weeks, as we could really use the money at the moment, but at the same time resigning myself to that not happening.

You can probably guess where this is going by now, but for those who aren't with the program (hurry up people!) today I was asked to work three days a week for the last two weeks of term, which just happen to be the next two weeks. So as of next week, I'll be working Monday, Thursday and Friday while I continue my search for a 'real' job (one that involves more than 18 hours a week and hopefully heaps of extra money!)

Speaking of searching for jobs, I have just found the perfect one for me so please cross all applicable body parts and send good vibes my way. Cheers!!

Brain teaser time

See if you can figure out what these words have in common:

1. Banana
2. Dresser
3. Grammar
4. Potato
5. Revive
6. Uneven
7. Assess

Are you peeking or have you already given up? Give it another try.

Look at each word carefully.

You'll kick yourself when you discover the answer!

Scroll Down ...





Answer:

In all of the words listed, if you take the first letter off, place it at the end of the word and then spell the word backwards, it will be the same word.

And today's mascot is ...

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The good, the bad and the just plain annoying

The good:

We are in the process of cleaning up around the house to try to make it more saleable so that we can pursue my dream of building a house that will be miles too big when the kids leave home but won't ever be big enough 'til then.

After checking out the laundry side of the house, with my eyes open for a change, I realised just how many triffids weeds there were and decided to put Alex to work helping me clear them out. Whilst he approached this task with all the enthusiasm of someone going into surgery to remove their brain via their rectum without anesthetic, we have managed to achieve a lot. We have filled the trailer to overflowing and apparently now I need to take it to the tip and empty it by myself, because he has 'other things' to do. Hopefully one of them is to study for the exams he has to sit as soon as he gets back to school ...

Anyway, what started out as a punishment, in conjunction with the suspension, has turned into some good one-on-one time together, where we are discussing anything and everything (when I can get my brain to keep up with his!)


The bad:

The usual worry about whether I'm doing enough to help Alex, the endless list of things to do and trying to find a job.

The just plain annoying:

Our fence was damaged in a storm (for those Perthites .. THE storm) back in March and the neighbours and I have been trying to get someone to fix it pretty much since then.

We had a few guys come out and give quotes, who surprisingly enough were on time and which weren't inflated past the stratosphere, but when it came time for them to come out and do the actual job, they all seemed to vanish quicker than chocolate during PMS time.

"I'll call you when I can fit you in."

"Next Wednesday .. definitely."

"Sorry. Can't make it then. Have to make it Tuesday .. week after never."

"What do you mean this is an insurance job? I don't want to wait for my money."

So in which part of "I need a quote for my INSURANCE company to be able to replace my damaged fence" did he hear "Sure. I have a spare three-and-a-half thousand dollars just sitting around for you to have up front"? Because I'm positive that I said the words 'insurance claim' at least four times during our conversation and specifically asked if he was OK with dealing with the insurance company at least twice. (Can you tell I've been burned before?)

Yet he still managed to misunderstand and rang me the night before he was due to start, to tell me that cash was preferable for the full payment, due as soon as the job was completed. When I said that I didn't have access to that much cash, he said to ring him when I had it all together and then he would be out to do the job.

At that point (Wednesday evening), I gave up on him and rang someone else who was only too happy to take an insurance job and who could fit me in Friday. I then spoke to the neighbour to let him know what was going on, only to find out that all four guys had rung him on Wednesday wanting to do the job on Friday. Never rains but it pours!

So ultimately the whinge is what is so hard about doing the job for the agreed price, under the agreed conditions on the agreed date? Apparently all of it!

One step forward ...

... and five steps back again!

Alex has been suspended from school .. again .. for having an altercation with another student. He is four years older than the other child, along with a few other factors that I would rather keep to myself, so the school has taken a rather dim view of things and suspended him for five days. We are very lucky that he wasn't just expelled this time, especially given his past history.

I totally understand the school's view on this and am in total agreement with the punishment, but I am struggling with what to do about his continuing impulse control issues. I have tried to seek a referral to a different doctor, to see whether changing medications or dosages would help but they are all so busy, we'll be waiting a while for an appointment, even with private health insurance.

When I went to pick him up from the school, I was able to have a 'chat' with him before the deputy principal came in. I didn't yell, threaten dire consequences or rant and rave. I simply sat down and told him how disappointed I was to receive another call from the school when he had been doing so well. I told him how using the excuse of "I have a bad temper" just wouldn't cut it in the real world after school and doesn't even cut it now.

It was about this point that I began to cry as I talked him through my fears of having a phone call or a visit from the police to say that they had him in custody for seriously hurting or killing someone. Or that he himself had been injured or killed as a result of an argument probably started over something small. And that I wasn't sure what to do to help him as I can't be there to watch over him every second of every day 'just in case'.

Please don't get me wrong .. I'm not trying to paint him as the innocent victim in all of this (not by any stretch of the imagination!) and am extremely grateful to the school for taking mitigating factors into consideration. I'm just at my wit's end and am totally out of ideas of what to do to help. I'm so tired of this constant fight with the world because most of the time it feels like I'm fighting him and not allowing him to just 'be'. I feel like I'm constantly having to defend his right to even be here.

I know that we all have to conform to a certain degree to survive in society and I'm scared that he won't be able to do it. I'm scared that he will always be like this and will be bounced from one bad situation to another and not have the skills to get himself out. I'm scared that he will end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time, because he can be so easily led down the wrong path without even realising it.

I'm terrified that I'm failing him; that I'm not doing enough to help him get the right skills to deal with these sorts of situations. That I should have pushed harder and earlier for help. That I should have done this or that differently. That I should just let him figure these things out on his own (but given the severity of this incident, that isn't really an option.) That it's all too hard and I want to just scream "Stop the world! I want to get off!!"

And then I look around me and see how I don't have it anywhere near as bad as some others. And I think I should be grateful that he is healthy, (overly) verbal, mainstream schooled, intelligent, capable, wonderful, loving, helpful and all the other good things that make him who he is .. and I am grateful. He is who he is, I love him and I will continue to fight for him.

I'm just so scared that I'm not enough and I won't be able to help him.

I'm just so tired of this battle.