Silence is underrated

Peanut goes through ups and downs like the rest of us. 

He has massive burst of improvements and then he stops still, stagnant or sometimes even goes backwards with some things. This time it started last week after he learnt to ride his bike. His scripting went up massively jargon came at me from every angle and bizarre kooky and strange noises came out of his mouth like Id never heard before. The teeth grinding escalated. There is never silence and for a child who can't communicate he sure never shuts up!.. does it drive me mad?  YEP you bet, Does it get on my nerves? YES. Do I want to  put tape over his mouth and just bask in the silence? yes I do *hangs head in shame* but I don't. What I do do is get frustrated I yell at him to please be quite and he apologizes and then I feel even worse he can't help it  he is not doing it to annoy me he is doing it cause his brain can't stop him or he has no idea its as annoying as it is.  He always goes like this for a few months before another burst but I never get used to it I always feel like we have taken a huge leap backwards.  But I have to remember where we were last year and its all positive and his social skills are coming on slowly. Today he  went and cuddled a stranger and was super affectionate to MURHface (friend since year 4) 


In other breaking news Peanuts got LICE !!! hair lice.. so  mummy took action and peanut now has a shaved head and tea tree oil covering his scalp.. I will win this war !!!  I may have had to shave peanut gorgeous thick hair but it will come back but I swear you may never come back BE GONE LICE BE GONE !!!  on a plus note he must have got very close to a kid at school to get it !!  whoop whoop maybe it was social contact.  And he still looks mega cute !! 

Ball & Bikes

So this post is in two parts

One is the Therapy focus ball we went to.

We won tickets to the therapy focus ball and it was amazing  we dressed up and got drunk ( on free booze) and Danced ohh how we danced  Funny funny dancing I am so Glad backpacker and I are still so young at heart. We made the best kind of fools out of ourselves, chicken dance, Running man, Tango.

   

We didn’t know anyone to start with but I met some amazing people. It was needed so much laughing and fun.

So a big Thank you again Therapy focus and to Nynie and Grandaddy whom paid for a night in a motel for us so we could sleep in and enjoy the ball not worrying or fighting over whom would drive home after all the access to free booze. 

Two  is Bikes bike bikes bikes for those of you that know me the fact peanut can’t peddle has been a massive massive problem.

It sounds silly but Peanut stands out and I adore him being himself I really do but anything I can do at a parent to help there less things for kids to pick on and more things he can join in on the better and I guess riding a bike was one of them, I also knew that once he got the knack of it he would love it. 

So on this journey we tries trikes, bikes, bikes, more trikes and some more bikes. I would yell PEDDLE PEDDLE PEDDLE to him (so much so that Peanut would scream it to any other kid when they were on a bike!) I tried bribes and tried special altercations to the peddles to holds his feet in.

Then we got some balance bikes and the boys loved them and went bmxing and were so good that I forgot about peddling for a while.

 On Saturday Peanuts bike shattered. So after an a angry email to the manufacturer I headed to the local bike shop to talk to the man in charge and see what the deal was. 

Do we

a.     buy another blanace bike

b.     buy a cheap bike and hope he gets the hang of it or

c.      buy a decent light weight bike and take the peddles off to make it a balance bike until he is ready.

Well the guy was super informative and told me its sounds like he is not far off and suggested some great bikes all over $200 which since we have to buy 2 is WAY too much. 

So yesterday we headed out bike shopping we stopped at all the specialist bike shops and founds loads of light weight bikes none of which Peanut would get on and all of which shrimples wanted to take home and none of which we could afford.

We got to big W (department store) and saw a small pirate bike reduced to $30 last one left so I pull it out shove the peddles on it and Shrimples wants on! Shrimples starts peddling away (he only just learnt yes I know we are a family of late peddlers but that’s okay) He announces it was Peanuts turn and Peanut hops on and cycles PEDDLES around the shop like a pro steering properly.

 So yep we take it even though its too small on the mid set that they can share it and it might build  Peanuts strength and confidence to ride a bigger bike so now we just had to look around for a bigger bike cheap and hope he could ride it after a few more shops we found a spider man bike with a transformer seat  (not sure what happened there)  We were all over shopping and Peanut was crying and wanted the bike, we thought it was too heavy so I said if you cycle to the front you can have the bike ( he could ride both a black and blue plain bikes that were in teh store). The store attendant hears so asked Peanut if he wants a push to which Peanut screamed NO GO AWAY LET GO! She was freaked, I was laughing  I explained he has autism and it was the end of 4 hours of bike hunting at this point.  In the end Peanut couldn’t ride it the tires were flat we tried to convince him to pick the black or blue bike he could ride but he loved it and wanted it and I was knackered so I  went against my better judgement and convinced them to let me take the demo(two already put together bikes was a bit of a score saved us either 2 hours  putting them together fighting and listening to a screaming Peanut and Shrimples telling us to hurry up and trying to help or $35 to get someone else to make them for us). 

We got it home after a quick stop for take away and pumping the tires up at the servo (petrol station for those of you overseas).  Peanut was so excited to see the spider man bike at home " my bike ... my spiderman bike" got on it and could not ride it so then they fought over riding the tiny pirate bike. OH great what have I done! I give up going inside to sit on the couch for the first time it what seemed like for ever, Then about an hour later Shrimples comes running in telling me Peanut is not letting him ride on the spider man bike I thought he was confused so went to check and sure enough there is peanut riding around on a bike that his feet can’t touch the ground. So now they are fighting over the Big spider man bike as Shrimples wants to be like Peanut even though he couldn't possibly ride it with his short legs!  And this is why we normally have 2 of everything exactly the same !!!