Frame!!

It's been 6 weeks since my last post. Where does the time go? Every day is so full to bursting & yet a month goes by in a flash, it's hard to understand.
Life has been as mad as ever.
Winter magic in katoomba, a good day (photos to come).
Brody up for 10 days from Mario's, he's spending all his time with his dad these days. no school, he's officially de-schooling. The more pressure he's put under the less he function at an even basic survival level, so it's no pressure for now. He goes fishing & does some cooking, Dr Who & more Dr who. When he's gone it's hard. When he's here it's even harder. trying to maintain my faith in him, that all will be OK. I am now sure he has Asperger's Syndrome. Which takes me to Finn...
Finn has been consistent with his difficult behaviour. I continue to read & learn. He has all the classic signs of Asperger's. We are still waiting for an assessment at Katoomba Hospital. Living with Finn is HARD. Every step of every day is hard, there's very little that ever goes smoothly. Some days I just want to walk out. I thought as Ivy & he grew older it would get easier but that is not the case right now. She is catching up to him with her intellect, being incredibly smart. he is also smart, but struggling in so many areas. She can count better, he can hardly count to 10, the 5 seems to go missing in his head most of the time. She is recognising numbers, he doesn't get it. She is getting good at puzzles, I can't get him to understand about the straight edges on puzzle pieces & where they need to go. I also can't get him to look at the puzzle piece to see what's on it. So this afternoon when we say together to do puzzles it was all I could manage to stay calm as Ivy screamed at Finn for doing it wrong, Finn screamed at me to help him & I tried hard to not scream at them both for screaming. There's a lot of screaming that goes on in our household at the moment. Being very noise sensitive I hate it. It does my head in.
I was talking to the occupational therapist who is part of the assessment team at the hospital recently & she said that AS kids can be much harder than the kids with classic autism. I can't compare thank goodness. He has enough intelligence to drive us nuts. This morning he needed a violin out of cardboard. No matter that he has a real one. And when he decided he wants something he wants it now. You can do the wait , soon, later, in 10 minutes things dozens of times a day but his behavior doesn't change. Punishment of any sort doesn't change his behavior. Finn doesn't want things, he needs them. It's really that simple. He needed that cardboard violin so badly this morning. He had to wait half an hour for it but it was 30 minutes of hell for everyone.
I could go on & on about Finn but I won't. That's enough I think! We love him so much & will work hard to make his life a good one, right now though I feel like I'm failing that so often. We just don't have the skills to make it work, or the time, or the money.
Chelsea is busy! School mainly, social life as every 17 year old should have, spending lots of time with Daniel, her boyfriend who is here often. She helps me out a fair bit, not as much as she could but I can't bring myself to turn into a slave driver so I can have my house faster, she'll hardly get to live in it, this crazy lifestyle we're living is for us, not for her. it was meant to be but it's taken too long. That makes me very sad.
An ebay suspension, I don't even want to go into it, too hard. Setting up an Oztion store. No sales there yet, hopefully it'll start happening soon. It's cost us heaps of lost sales, lost income, things are pretty tough, as they have been for months now but getting worse I think. I just have to work more & work harder. I have been a bit slack, demoralised by everything & have spent more time watching TV in the last month then I have for a long time. I just need a break I guess.
I'm so sick of ebay. I've lost a couple of things that I sold lately & missed a few faults so have to refund money that has already been spent on bills & I get so annoyed at myself.
But the main reason for this blog is our house! It's the one thing in our lives that is going really well! Kim has just been powering alone, the weather has been pretty good, not too much rain & we're having a mild winter. The main frame of internal & external walls is pretty much done! the ceiling joists are also done. Kim has now started work on the hanging beams & hopes to be pitching the roof by next week.
We'll get there eventually, & when we do we'll look back on these times & shudder. It has changed my perspective on what hard is. I never knew before.
I will add photos soon.