A hole in the house

Lucy 30/11/2002 - 13/5/2011

Our dear, sweet Lucy Louise.

We first met you when you were a week old. Your Mummy (Chloe) selected you from the litter. You were her baby.

Three weeks later, Chloe was helping hand rear you because your Mum got milk fever and couldn't look after you.

Chloe fed you from a bottle. Helped you pee and poo. Cuddled you, loved you...

until you could finally come home to us to live with us always.

You were such a smart little cookie.

You knew whole sentences, not just single words like stay, sit.

You were wary of strangers, but you loved us with a passion.

And you loved Chloe the most.

The look in your eyes would just say, "This is MY Chloe....and I just LOVE her."

You loved balls.

You loved the beach.

No matter what the weather, you would swim out and retrieve a stick and beg for the chance to do it again.

You barked when the doorbell sounded,

you would respond when we said, "Whose here?"

You'd dance with me,

you'd bow your head in prayer for all the homeless doggies,

you'd boss Maya and the cats

and you'd pee standing on your two front legs.

(what was with that????)

Last Friday we took you to the vets because you hadn't been eating properly for a while.

You'd lost weight.

We didn't know you were so sick.

We didn't know we wouldn't be taking you home.

Lucy.............

our sweet Lucy..............

We miss you more than we can say.

There's an open wound in our hearts.

There's an empty spot in the house where you used to reside.

Maya wanders about the house, wondering where you are....

Looking up with hope whenever we pull up in the car and runs into the carport hoping you're there.

She whined a sad whine when I took her for a walk to the park, and looked confused when I let her off the lead. She didn't know what to do. She always ran after you.

Now she runs alone.

Thank you for the wonderful years you shared with us.

We will love you always, and will be forever grateful that we were your family.

Moving on.

I got a real surprise on Saturday afternoon. A friend I hadn't seen for 30 years arrived at another mutual friends place just to surprise me. It was wonderful to see her and we hugged and talked like we never were able to in High School. Back then it seemed that teenagers weren't really as affectionate to each other as they are these days. Now I see High Schoolers hug each other whenever they meet for the day, whenever they say goodbye, whenever they're happy about something......or even just because. I'm all for public displays of affection. God knows how much I needed it way back when. Maybe if I had've given and received (especially received) more hugs back in those days I wouldn't have ended up pregnant at 19 - the result of my desperate need to be hugged, wanted, validated and loved.

So here's a timely word of advice from Life At Another Level....parents, hug your kids.....especially you Dads out there who have teenage daughters. They need to know you think they're beautiful and special. They need to be hugged, or else they're going to seek it from someone else and wind up in all sorts of mess.

Trust me. I know.

Anyway, this headed off in a direction I never intended it to! Rein it back in!

I've been wrestling with my anxiety levels for about a month now. I know that most of it has to do with wall-to-wall birthdays and celebrations, too much of the wrong foods that stress my post-eating-disorder brain, marriage issues, too many situations where I have had to deal with people and organising venues and food for people. Stupid me booked a Tupperware Party on Saturday. The party will be on May 18 at my place. The thought of it makes me super-anxious.

Anyway...this friend from 30 years ago also came down this way for an informal high school reunion. A number of us meet at one of the local pubs every couple of months and have a meal, some drinks and some highly inappropriate conversation.

If it hadn't been for this friend, I wouldn't have gone. I was only there at the pub because she was there. I wanted to catch up with her some more. Our time was limited and we hadn't seen each other for 30 years. However, I didn't really have the greatest time. When we all first started to get together it was fun and exciting, the stories were funny and new. I started off really happy to be connected to this bunch, as I wasn't really included in with their group in High School and thought that with maturity and the passage of time we were finally relating on a different level - separate to the High School social strata. In High School I felt like I was invisible. Not popular but not hated....just ignored. It's a lonely place to be. Now I am feeling the same way.

But then again, I am having trouble with anxiety. I don't know what to say to these people now that we have done all the, "What have you done since 1984?" and "Can you remember Mr So-and-So?" or "What about when ****** happened?" I was never part of their parties in High School, or their social groups, or their hook-ups. I was invisible.....and now I feel invisible again. They're not a group I can turn to now that my marriage is in the toilet. It seems that members of the group are now getting into relationships with each other but, as with High School this will not happen to me....for reasons I have not mentioned in this blog.

Once again I am on the edges; a listener and watcher. As a listener and watcher you hear things and see things that make you realise that things haven't moved on much from High School. They'll all still bitch and gossip about each other - the two separate groups that happened on Saturday night was very telling and I watched and heard a lot of snippy things happen from both groups. I didn't like it. It made me anxious and sad.

I don't think I'll go to the next get-together. I don't want to put myself back in that lonely place again. I'll stay in touch with my friend J.A.L, because I genuinely want to stay connected and be a friend.  I'll stay in touch with MH because I really think she needs a friend too. I didn't really know until now how much she struggles.

But, for my own sanity, I think I'll finally let the High School years stay where they belong.

Communication

One of my colleagues here at work is Deaf. She has told me that she is possibly one of the worst lip-readers ever. I am possibly the worst at Auslan.

I feel really bad about this. I am so eager to learn how to communicate with Stef, so I've asked her to teach me sentences. So far I know, "My name is Leisa. I work at Arts Access. I am the receptionist."

I'm not going to go too far with that.

Stef and I communicate with finger spelling, mime and note writing. We also communiate by email. I guess it's the best we can do for now.

The hardest thing is that Stef is unknown to me. She seems like such a lovely person, but our communication difficulties prevent us from really knowing each other properly. Sometimes there's an Auslan Interpreter in the office so we can communicate through the interpreter, but when I am talking Stef has to watch the interpreter which means that we miss out on eye contact.

Eye contact. This is something my 20 year old son has a problem with as well. He has communication difficulties also. He has Aspergers Syndrome.

We have only just been given this diagnosis. Receiving it was partly relief, partly a kick to the solar plexus. Relief because for years and years, since my son was about eight years old I was trying to tell any specialist who would listen that, "There's something about him. He's not just shy. There's something more. He is just as quiet and "shy" around us as his family as he is around strangers." A kick to the solar plexus because this is something that is, to my mind, serious. It's on the Autism Spectrum. It's another disability for him to negotiate on top of his already existing one.

No one would listen. I would just get, "He's shy. He's just like other teenage boys, all grunt no talk. He'll grow out of it. He's just like his father was at this age."

Never underestimate the instinct of a mother. I knew something wasn't right. I knew he wasn't just shy.

It's a long story how we finally came to have him diagnosed, but I will tell you that it came from the most unlikely of places.

We are now learning a new path. Things are still the same as always, but at least now we have a little more understanding; and the knowledge that he's not going to "grow out of it". This is just him and we have to learn new ways to communicate in ways that he will understand. I am reading as much as I can about "being an Aspie". I bought John Elder Robison's books, "Look Me In The Eye" and "Be Different" in the hope of getting the perspective of an older Aspie and being able to help my son.

Part of me is still a little angry that no one listened to me all those years ago, but I am grateful that we are here now and learning a new path. One of my life mottos is that it's never too late. I don't believe it's too late for my son. John Elder Robison was 40 when he was diagnosed. My son was 19.

I am looking forward to learning a couple of new ways to communicate - one so I can get to know Stef and the other so I can get to know my own son.

Spoiled

I'm truly a momentum person. I'm better if I get going right from the starting blocks and just keep running until the race ends at the end of the day, or the week or whatever.

I've been thoroughly spoiled this week. Easter has meant that I only have to work one day a week this week, and that's tomorrow.

Do you think I want to go to work tomorrow? Not on your sweet Nelly! It will start at 5am. I will be at my workplace at 9am and won't be back home again until 6:45pm. Not happy Jan! (that's an Aussie saying with a commercial to go along with it. Have a look on YouTube and search for Not Happy Jan and you will probably see what I'm harping on about.)

Oh man! This stupid laptop has decided to chuck a hissy fit and keep jumping the cursor around into the middle of already written sentences and I keep having to fix it so I'm just giving up right at this point in time.

The fact that I have also had two glasses of wine may also be another reason why I am a little less tolerant of the quirks of this laptop.

Exploration and Adventure.

There's a little voice in the office today. Ruthie has brought in two-and-a-half year old Maya because her babysitter couldn't make it. Maya burst though the door full of chatter. "Look! I've got a flower in my hair!" She has done the rounds of the office, chatting and galloping like only a two-and-a-half year old can. She is excited. She can't wait until ten o'clock because she will hear the, "Bong! Bong! Bong!" of the clock in the Town Hall next door. She is quiet at the moment. I think she's watching Charlie and Lola.

I miss having little ones that age. I love the full-blown excitement for life they have; the wide-eyed looking at the world. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we never lost that ability to see the world as a place filled with new things to explore and adventure around every corner? My five year old neice Taylah still has it. She bursts into the room, expecting to find friends. She explores and plays and chats with so much gusto that she actually sweats. You see her take a moment to rest and her hair is damp and sticking to her face. All her energy is taken up with playing.

That's something for me to contemplate today. Maybe I am spending all my energy on things that don't need it. I'd like to think that I can become exhausted from throwing myself into life with full gusto, seeing adventure around every corner - even if the adventure is something others may seem as trivial. Adventure and exploration can be found everywhere in something as simple as a fallen leaf or a pretty shell on the beach.

We all had it once. Maybe that sense of adventure just got crowded out with the mundane and the trivial.

Nothing but Knitting

Hmmm...this is going to take longer than I first thought. I have the knitting bug and I am practicing a LOT. I'm just finshing up an adorable little baby cardigan.

Trouble is, in my entire 40-something years I have only ever finished ONE item on my own....and that was over 25 years ago. I am only just getting back into the hang of things, working out how to mattress sew hems so they sit flat, pick up stitches along an edge to create a ribbed section. This first item I'm finishing is DEFINITELY a practice run. It's most certainly not a sellable item. This depresses me a little. I'm a perfectionist at heart and I want to get it right the first time round. However, I do appreciate the process of learning from my mistakes and know that once I get into the hang of things I'll be whipping up things of better standard.

I'm pretty excited about it.

I've been trawling Etsy, looking for patterns that are quick, cute and easy and also come with the permission of the designer to sell my finished work. Eventually I want to be able to create my own patterns.

I like this enthusiasm I feel. It feels like I'm onto something. I know I'm not going to become rich because of it but the thought of making things that make other people happy really does something for me.

Random dotty dots

Shocking blogger I am!

So, you all get dotty updates today.

• My eldest daughter and I went to see Hairspray on Saturday afternoon at The Princess Theatre. Brilliant!
• I am wanting to start up a home based business - knitting and crocheting (although I have to reacquaint myself with how to crochet) baby hats and jackets and booties. All sorts of novelty things - like cute and kooky hats with ears etc. It's a real cottage industry - or so I've noticed on Facebook. I think I can have a real crack at it and make it work. Cos you know what? I'm tired of working for The Man. I want to do something that melts my butter!
• I am so organised at home at the moment it's not funny. It's giving me a real sense of calm and contentment and I'm full of confidence.
• Parent Teacher Interviews tonight. Should I be worried?
• My big girl is doing great guns at College. She is well liked and well accepted by all and sundry. I have never seen her look so happy or so confident. Although I miss her, I am glad she has moved out and found her feet. Fly little birdy, fly!
• I need to go and see a movie and have a glass of wine.

That is all.