Parties, Posters and Parenting

I have been busy ,What's new? As Mr 6 had a birthday party to attend Saturday morning and all three kids had a party to attend Saturday afternoon, then there was the annual Fathers Day shopping to do. Miss 9 wanted a day off from school last week and as she is not often ill and I am an advocate of days off/RDO/ flex time whatever in the workforce, I think the same applies to school sometimes, so she had a day off school and came with me and Mr 3 to the new Mattel Wholesale outlet at Smith St, Collingwood. Which is open to the public and not part of the Mattel Club to which I had access; if seems that is now defunct as are the great bargains I once got at the Mattel Club in Ardeer. I got presents for the three birthdays my kids were attending, yes, three...The PM party is a brother and sister whom are two years apart but only a few days between birth dates so they hold a joint multi guest party. We collected Miss 9's bracelet which had some more charms attatched (courtesty of Nana) and was adjusted ( Thank you, mummy), we drooled over the Teddy Bear shop where you can make your own bear, Miss 9 amd Mr 3 had Mickey D's for lunch and Miss 9 tried to remember which shirt Daddy had pointed out to her two weeks ago in a shop dedicated to charging you $30 to wear a shirt giving them free advertising for "Jeep"* Supamum shakes her head and will never understand how marketing ploys seem to work on men when it comes to cars and clothing***

On Thursday, I received a note via Mr 5's teacher from Miss 9's teacher ( secret parent/teacher postal service) She was to receive an award for her poster design for the school fete at the Friday assembly. 2IC agreed to leave work early to attend and it appears that Miss 9 won her year level ( 3/4) for the design competition the other year level award was for Prep/1 and the runner up was a Grade 5 and the winner a grade 6!!!! She recieved a certificate, a voucher for Red Rooster and some pencils...she had no idea she was getting an award. She was chuffed and I think her class teacher was too.

I have been busy with meetings about the fete also, I am on the plant stall and the co ordinator is fretting about how we cannot really do much until the last minute, especially in the way of any donations from local traders as they usually give us whatever is about at the time. I am not too stressed as I know alot of the church community come through for us every time. I am digging up the remainder of the ugly * ooops, trying to sell them are'nt I ?* lovely, fully matured, easily grown agapanthus and potting them for sale or give away what ever happens, the ugly things are going!

I met a very interesting lady at my friends kids party on Saturday afternoon, she is the MD of a group of ex teachers, aides, etc who are disillusioned, disheartened and just damn well pissed off at the DET criteria for funding special needs kids, the attitude some teachers and principals have for the funding model and how it is administered, the lack of attention given to the needs of autistic children and the severe lack of understanding and training given to teachers in regards to such children. She is my friends son's tutor and she is also helping my friend vet prospective schools for her daughter to transfer to. She is about advocacy and information, but primarily works as a tutor right now and is networking contacts for the other teachers in the group: speech pathologists, O/T, PSG support officers, etc. I am in the middle of swapping contacts and passing on info to her about things such as ECPs, and tax deductable gap payments. She is a person who my friend, AJ, told me was 'made from the same stuff" as me and after hearing her speak and her objectives... I think this is the realm for my copious pages of notes and web links to all things relevant to parents of special needs kids. They will be starting a web page and I think this is one of the places for my reams of info and cross referenced data.