mother writes at night

 For several years, we have been struggling at our house. I haven't really let on because I just couldn't explain it. Something wasn't right, but no explanation fit.  My beautiful boy was not thriving. Physically he was not putting on weight or growing, and his mental health was deteriorating. We ended up with an ASD3 diagnosis at the age of 8 despite no early childhood concerns. His psychologist at the time suggested it might help the school have more compassion for the inexplicable and unpredictable behavioural challenges he started to have in his second year of school.  And I had my own reasons for pursuing this, too - NDIS funding, to pay for the sessions I wanted to have with the only clinic I could find that would look at DNA, microbiome, and other things to try to address root causes. I was on a mission for that root cause.  But we worked with these practitioners for literally years, and despite following the indications based on his microbiome and his DNA and...

 The kids had a strep infection in March, which I did not realize at the time was strep and therefore did not treat, and it broke their sleep. We are now in the middle of May and R(7) who used to sleep through the night is still waking up nightly needing an adult, and A(9) has levels of anxiety I had not realized were possible given how high his anxiety already had been. So I have been hyper focused on getting all the supplements and probiotics into him, and it is a big job.  Meanwhile I learned that the likely reason I am so tired and bloated and grumpy is that my leptin is high. So that is another job. On top of my 3 days a week actual job where I have to actually work. I am exhausted. Today I had hypnotherapy, which I did not find as impactful as other times, and then on my way home I picked up some groceries and stopped at a Salvos to see if they have a bedside lamp for me (nope) and then Cetnaj to see if they sell a red incandescent bulb (nope). Then I came home. I had sw...

Being a parent often means contributing unwieldy amounts of waste to the landfill. The children love spending their pocket money on all manner of cheap plastic crap, and shops like Kmart and Big W are rife with cheap plastic junk that ends up broken and in the bin months. I think there are two problems here - one is the quality of the stuff, the other is the affordability. Their love child is higher quantities of junkier stuff than you might accumulate if it was pricier and better quality. Every Nerf gun comes with dozens of foam bullets that end up floating around the house, sometimes someone might absentmindedly fidget with one and break off the tip and then voila, you have a piece of trash. Parents don't have endless pockets of time or space to accumulate bits and pieces of toys that need to be glued back together.  I introduced a new rule recently that I am no longer allowing the purchase of items that contain or are made up of things that will end up in the landfill by th...

We are nearing the end of 3 weeks of school holidays during which the children have undertaken a screen detox. I specify the children because I did not do the screen detox, although I should have. Instead I got sucked into Twitter and instagram trying to find some sense in the political landscape amid the upcoming election. What am I trying to make sense of? I'm not entirely sure.  I have very strong negative feelings about Donald Trump and Elon Musk.   I know, love, and respect people who voted for him. I also know people who have unfriended people they've known for a long time over facebook posts they've shared seeming to support Trump.  Locally, I am supporting an independent candidate running against Peter Dutton. Her name is Ellie Smith and I have a corflute sign with her face on it perched at the end of my driveway. I have never met her, but I have friends who consider her a close friend, and from what I know about her she is living by her values of sustainabil...

My son said to me at bedtime "Imagine making a car that runs on cute." A car that runs on cute? "You put a cute thing in the tank and it works. It doesn't matter if it is a picture of an adorable kitten or a dog that fits in a purse or a plushie thing. If it's cute, then it will work." He also helped me with my crossword at bedtime (I was very impressed) before asking me, isn't your phone supposed to be in a box?* *during a work trip to Canberra last week, I had dinner with an old friend and the topic of screen overuse came up. He told me his sister has a system where they put their phones in a box when they get home and then they are only used as telephones. If it rings, you answer it. Beyond that, if you want to check an email, you use the computer. Today I decided to give it a go in solidarity with my 9yo and boy can I feel the withdrawal he is going through. Oof.

What a depressing scene is the platform formerly known as Twitter. I went on there to try to become involved in politics again, maybe get a sense for where things are and where they are going and I wished I had that t-shirt of Homer Simpson backing into the bushes. There was a video of Elon Musk talking about immigration. He is cringe. Things here are going. On the weekend we went to see The Minecraft Movie and that was a delight. I love Jack Black. There was a strange phenomenon where prepubescent boys sitting behind us in the audience cheered and shouted whenever certain things happened - a portal opened, the crafting table appeared. I think maybe it is a Tiktok trend. The next day I enjoyed two French films at the final weekend of the French Film Festival, Le Fil and N'avoue Jamais. Le Fil was phenomenal. I was on the edge of my seat, until I just read a scathing review of it and now I feel like it was lacklustre and predictable and a bit exploitative. I am but a humble mum and ...