Bad blogger!!!

Oh dear it has been too long since I blogged!! The culprit is Face Book. Because so many of you are there I can catch up with you all and forget about my poor blog!

So what has been happening in Claire land recently. Honestly? Well not much actually. And to be honest that's been nice after the last few weeks of madness. Dad is getting better by the day. Jamie has bounced right back (and not sleeping much, so we know he's fine!!).

You will all (especially a couple of you, you know who you are) be please to know that I have decided to leave the Twilighting to FB and not bore you all with it on here. I heard that round of applause Annicles!!

I had an email from my agent the other day to say that she was very positive about selling DV, so fingers crossed. She seems to think we may start to hear something next month when the hols are over. I am living proof that it can be done, so all of you fellow writers out there don't despair and keep going.

And to go off on another random angle. I have decided to start trying to potty train Jamie again. We gave it a go last summer, but with no luck. If anyone out there has any hints for potty training a profoundly autistic child who is also non verbal, then please share.

A rather boring post. Sorry.

Well it was summer here for three days. Yes a whole three days! But normal service had been resumed and today has been wet. And not just rain, thick fog! In June.

I have to say that not a lot has changed. Dad had another overnight stay in Exeter hospital. They finally did the tests they were supposed to do two weeks ago. So now we wait. He's eating better now though.

We had Jamie's TAC meeting at school today. It went very well. They are very happy with him. In fact they love him to bits! And he's not the baby anymore, they have a little girl started who is younger than him. He wasn't there this afternoon because Wednesday is horse riding. He loves it apparently. They have taken some photos so I hope they'll let us have copies. It seems that he won't hold on though. He sits in the saddle and flaps with joy as someone holds him on! I can just see it. Bless him.

Ok I have the telly on and they are talking about stuffing slugs, cooking them and eating them!! I think I might have just lost the will to live.

Oh yes and I'm now on facebook. I know I have always said I wouldn't go there like I need something else to stop me doing everything else I should be doing!! As soon as I can work out how to link to my page I'll put it up.

My son has a haream!

It seems our five year old son is already pulling the ladies. I think there must be a flirt gene inherited from his father. Richard still has the ability to make grown women go all unnecessary. It's quite funny to watch actually. He's completely unaware he's doing it, most of the time. And so is Jamie.

At school most of the teachers and TA's are female. And in the morning they actually fight to get to him, to be the one to have him for the day! He has no idea, I don't think.

And then on Saturday after swimming we stayed on to have lunch with Richard. One of the owners of one of the cottages was there doing some laundry. She's never had children and fell for Jamie right away. By the time we went home they were on the floor together feeding her dog bits of biscuits. This was after we had met one of the couples staying in another cottage. They are a great old couple with a little Westie dog. Anyway she went all gooey over Jamie, who just stood there stimming, completely unaware of the fuss he was creating.

The trouble is that none of these adoring women are around at three in the morning when he decides it's time to get up. I was stupid enough to think that a couple of weeks of reasonable sleep patterns meant a break through. Oh No! Stupid, stupid mummy! In three days he has woken at 2.30am, 4.30am and 3.10am (this morning). I can cope with it, normally. Unless daddy decides to stick his nose in. Jamie finally went back to sleep this morning about 5ish. Richard went to the bathroom just before 6 and decided to look in on him. He was asleep on the floor with his face pressed against the wardrobe. Not the most comfortable position granted. But rather than let sleeping children lie Richard decided to move him back to bed! This was after he had slept through all the earlier fuss. And I knew he would go right back to sleep, leaving me to deal with Jamie when he woke back up. I could have slapped him! Luckily for him Jamie didn't wake. In fact I had to wake him to get him ready for school.

Why do men always think they know better?

He said Rabbits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night we were sitting watching the close of the news and the opening of the One Show. Jamie loves the intro music, and it marks bedtime.

The news finished and the ident thing came on while the announcer introduced the One Show. It was the ident with the forest and fairies. And there is a large rabbit, actually I think it's a hare. Anyway Jamie was watching when he turned to me and signed rabbit!!!! He has never done that before! He rarely signs spontaneously like that. He can sign to ask for some things, or if we deny him something until he signs. But this was just out of the blue. I was so excited. And so proud of him.

The only thing I can think is that they were doing something about the Easter bunny at school or something. We haven't go a pet rabbit or anything so it's not a sign I use that often with him. But he's remembered it, wherever he saw it.

Jamie where art thou??

As you know from a few blogs back we had a bit of trouble with some water coming into the wall in Jamie's room. So we pulled the bed away from the wall about a foot and put the bed rails up. He seemed to take no notice of this at all, we thought. Then, the other morning, he started knocking on the wall rather than the door as usual. When I went in I found him standing behind his bed by the wall, stuck. He'd got himself there but couldn't get back. So I heaved him over the rails back onto the bed. Fine, no harm done, he had only been there a few minuets.


Then on Monday the alarm went off and it was still all quiet. Usually he has me up long before the alarm at 7.30. So I went to wake him to get ready for school. I opened the door, walked in, no Jamie. Small amount of panic until reality kicked in. There is no way he can get out of his room as it's a door knob rather that a handle and he hasn't worked that one out yet. Anyway our room is right next door so he couldn't have gotten out without passing our open door. Anyway the door was still shut so he hadn't gone anywhere. But the fact remained the bed was empty and he was nowhere in sight. But I could hear him snoring.


Somehow he had got between the bed and the wall and had gone to sleep on the floor, with Pooh Bear as a pillow. He hadn't made any attempt to alert us that he was stuck. He is so accepting of everything that he didn't try to wake us. Most kids would have got upset and cried or something. But Jamie just curled himself up on the floor and went to sleep. I don't know if this is an autistic thing or just a Jamie thing. It worries me sometimes just hoe accepting he is. When he's ill or even when he broke his finger, he just seems to shrug and carry on.


Dad update. He's in hospital right now having his second lot of chemo. He seems ok, but is now starting to loose his hair. Keeping everything crossed.

Pay it Forward

Yesterday the postman bought be a jiffy bag from the lovely DJ Kirkby. This was my Pay it Forward girt from her. As you can see it was two great books and a copy of 'Shrek Rap'. The books are 'Ideas Above Their Stations' by various writers and 'Music of Maninjau' by David Green. They both look like good reads and I'm looking forward to them.

So now it's over to you. I expect you all know the Pat it Forward rules by now. The first three people to contact me on my comments page to say they want to receive a gift from me will be my Pay it Forward recipients. You won't owe me anything but you have to agree to Pay it Forward to three other bloggers when you get you gifts. So I'll wait to hear from you.

It seems I got the wrong end of the stick about autism and facial recognition. I can't remember where we got the idea that autistic people struggle to recognise faces. I know about the struggle to recognise expressions and emotins, I guess I assumed that meant faces in general. Saying that Jamie knows when we're smiling, and will smile back. And, when he was little, he would come up and touch my face when I was crying (bad post natal depression). But he either can't (or won't) acknowledge a cross or angry expression. Can this change? Can we 'teach' him to recognise emotion?

By the way Fiona I will post the synopsis for DV in the next day or two. I'd like the feedback.

Little Puppy Dog.

Ok I'm fed up with this cold now, I want it to go away please. I have turned into a snot factory ( you wanted to know that didn't you?).


Today Jamie had his appointment with the eye doc. He hates it because they put these drops in his eyes to dilate them so he can see right to the back. He needs to do this because of the hydrocephalus. They need to make sure there is no pressure. There wasn't. So far there hasn't been, but we need to be careful. As I said the pressure was up on the last lumber puncture, not by much, but we still need to keep an eye on things (so to speak). In fact he was better than he usually is. He wasn't happy about the drops and it did mean pining him down, but he stayed still enough for the drops to go in this time. And then, with the doc, he, more or less, did as he was asked. We were in and out in under half an hour!! Result. Now if they could just provide enough parking spaces for the size of the medical centre....But that's a grip for another time.


As you all know Jamie doesn't speak. He makes lots of different sounds, squeaks, growls etc. Recently he has started a new sound which is just like a whining puppy. It's very sweet. When he does it I've started calling him 'little puppy dog'. On the way to bed last night he was making the noise, but I hadn't said anything. Half way along the landing he stopped, turned to me and made the sign for dog. He wanted me to say 'puppy dog'!! When I did he carried on to bed!

And he can defiantly recognise faces. This was something we've been told autistic children can't do. But he knows who certain favorite TV presenters are and can find their picture in magazines. Fiona Bruce seems to be a favorite at the moment, Richard approves of this very much. And if he's got his computer on iplayer (it's my old lap top), and we have the TV on he will find the programme we're watching and play it on iplayer.


As for my last post. Ok, Ok I'll write it, I'll write it!!! Already this week we have had two men in a bright pink Suzuki Vitara soft top. And they were sharing a one double bed roomed cottage. Perhaps I'll give you a weekly new flash of all the stupid things they've done this week! Don't worry Frankie, I'm sure all yours will be lovely.

Holiday!!!!!!

We're off on holiday tomorrow!! A whole week without holiday cottage owners calling with stupid demands. We go to Alfriston a lot because we found out it is a mobile phone black hole. It's great because they can't get us! We went away once and were sitting having a coffee, relaxing with the peace and quiet, nice views and all that, when the mobile went. It was a cottage owner to inform us that she had taken a booking for that week and could we get the cottage ready please!! We had told them all that we were going away, but do they listen? Now we have a Wendy. Everyone should have a Wendy. She is our supervisor and takes charge when we go away, so if they decide they need someone to go down and turn the telly over for them (that has happened, no kidding), then there will be someone to do it. If, and when, we ever give this up I could write several books on the weird and wonderful things we come across, but I don't think anyone would ever believe me!

I don't mean to sound ungrateful. We have a business that is still going well, and at the moment that is a blessing. So far there are very few bookings for next season, so we might not have such a thriving business in twelve months!

Still it will all go away for seven whole days. No work and no hospital appointments.

I still have so much to learn about Jamie's new diagnosis of autism. It took long enough to get information on Sotos, now we have to start again with another condition. Still there are some lovely bloggers out there who are proving very helpful, thank you.

My word count is nearly at the magic fifty thousand! I'm hoping it will go up considerably this next week. Either that or I'll not get anything written at all! I'm determined to get the first draft finished by my birthday in Feb.
The sixty days the agent who has 'Mulberry Gin' has it to read runs out next week. Keep everything crossed that she says yes! She has to say yes, please let her say yes!

Autism confirmed

We had the call from one of Jamie's doctors the other day. He has so many different professionals involved with him, about 11 at last count. Anyway this was the local community paediatrician who had organised the autism assessment. The various bods who had been into school to meet Jamie all met up and decided that, yes, he is autistic as well. I have to say I'm still not 100% convinced. I have a first cousin with Ashburgers (spelling?) and when I look at the two of them together they are so different. For one thing Jamie does what everyone says autistics never do, shows affection. And he looks directly at you when you speak to him, and will come and give you a hug without any prompting. There are autistic traits there. He goes off in his own world, is very obsessive about certain things (although he's never bothered about any change in routine), flaps and 'sings' to himself. I don't know.

The trouble is that Sotos is still such an unknown syndrome. It is quite possible that the autism experts who came to see him have never experienced Sotos. If you read about Sotos it almost always says 'autistic like traits', but it is not part of the autistic spectrum. I would have been happier if a Sotos expert had looked at him and said that certain aspects of his behavior were not Sotos. It would be very easy for someone with no experience of Sotos to assume he must be autistic. The trouble is there are no Sotos experts out there, as far as we know. I just hope the autistic diagnosis doesn't overshadow the Sotos, which I still think is the dominant condition.

We had to cancel the lumber puncture because Jamie developed a really nasty ear infection. He's still on antibiotics three weeks later. His main paediatrician, who was going to do it, decided to cancel until it had cleared up. And as we're off on holiday on Sat I guess it won't happen this side of Christmas now. Still at least it will be done in Barnstaple rather than Bristol.

Just to make the week even more fun thee of the new fish died. The two Rams and one of the Gurami's (not Guppies as I said before) got white spot. They must have come from the shop with it because they had only been in the tank two days. Still a lot of funny blue stuff in the water and a water change seems to have done the trick, the others are all fine. And amazingly the five cats haven't taken the blindest bit of notice of them. I was expecting them to line up with napkins and cutlery!

On a positive note, the sun's out!!!