and the award for Proudest Parents goes to...

I was only joking about the next post being spring 2010, but things got away from me and here we are (and there piglet is, as long as the string doesn't break).

The lovely thing about minding someone else's kid is you get moments to yourself to do extravagant things like check your email, hang the washing out, answer the phone, bring the washing back in again due to unforeseen showers, and catch up on your blog. Thanks Millie, I owe you big time. Poor Millie is slightly bored by being The Handsome Prince once again while Eleanor hogs the Snow White costume, but is a good sport and happy to help out with the required Kiss. She's also understudy for The Wicked Witch / Evil Stepmother and has to feed Ellie an apple - finally part of the 5 a day which has been somewhat lacking. I'm working on getting Cinderella's pumpkin onto the dinner table, and have plans for Pinocchio's carrot nose (work with me). Daniel will apparently be the Seven Whores when he gets home from school (desperately stifling a snigger at that one).

Daniel's diet has made huge improvements in his behaviour, and we're about to rev it up with a leap into the world of caesin-free / specific carbohydrate diet and about a million new supplements. He's really improved on the diet/enzymes so far, but we've got far to go.

Yesterday Dan came running in from swimming clutching a badge for swimming 5 metres. I nearly cried. His swimming teacher apparently actually did! Not sure whether I'm more impressed that he sat on the side without an adult to nail him there, listened, and waited his turn, or that he then swam across the deep pool on his own. As he can't swim in a straight line it was more like 6 metres to be fair.

I got a call last night from his swimming teacher, apologising as she had secretly never believed he'd be able to get his 5 metre badge. Not only that, but instead of it being his last lesson as we thought, she has moved heaven and earth to get him into a class for next term.

Quick update since the last post: Daniel got a place at a fantastic autism-specific unit in a school 4 miles away, and is doing really well. They have a sensory light room, allotments, cherry trees to look at out the window and huge playing fields (bear in mind this is London folks) and really warm friendly teachers. It also ensures at least half a dozen birthday party invites for him during the year as opposed to the single pity invite we might have got in a mainstream class. (We had 45 children at Dan's 4th birthday party. Guess how many return invites he's had?) They also don't mind our cavalier attitude to education in that we've only been sending him 4 days a week and have no intention of upping it to 5 until he's actually 5 years old. I'm constantly amused by the English Education System's loose definition of 'Rising 5' to mean 4 and a quarter. The move back home is on hold for now, and we'll just see what happens over the next few years.

Term is nearly over, and thankfully I've convinced Pete to let us go to Centreparcs this Easter. We have a long tradition of surfing over Easter, and as 2 adults in a youth hostel or dodgy caravan it's not too bad as long as you get the whisky/shoredump ratio just right. But a few years of sitting in a so-called sun tent on an English beach waiting for the hailstones to stop so you can make a break for the car is enough. We'll surf abroad until the kids are old enough to judge their own risk of hypothermia.

We're also booked to fly home for late May-June, and can't wait to catch up with everyone.

Right - time to go - Dan has arrived home, gently refused the girls offer of a role in the Snow White extravaganza and is now trying to see how many barbie dolls you can fit in a toy oven - I'm sensing we are moments away from the traditional sibling fistfight, so a round of sugar-based snacks should be just the thing to kick it all off completely. Heigh ho!

Update on Mr M-J

To ease the mind of the many concerned people who have written in today asking as to the wellbeing of Mister M-J: he's just peachy, thanks. He's also covered in little sticker marks where the did lots of interesting things with the ECG, and they got him well hyped up with an xray and complicated blood tests. Seems it may have been heartburn after all. Hmmmmm. I had to make do with bloody Gaviscon in both third trimesters.

On the other hand, I've lost my voice. Completely. Fortunately my BF's Kirsten and Caroline who came round today both sign, so was well understood without having to rasp things out repeatedly. So do both my kids - they got things like "do you want choc toast or baked potato & beans", "would you like another biscuit", "please do a wee on the potty and I'll give you a sticker" but completely failed to comprehend "it's sleep time now", "go and sit on the naughty step until you're ready to say sorry" and "come here right now". Suddenly signing became a foreign language with mummy just vaguely waving her hands about in the air for no apparent reason.

The sweetest thing was Ellie translating for non-signer Daddy: "Daddy, mummy wants you to come here now please" (no response) "Daddy! Mummy wants you to come now!"(no response) "Peeeeete!!! Mummy wants you now! Danny's got poo everywhere!" (immediate response). Bless.

Right. Off to bed - 2 classes to teach tomorrow morning. Should be interesting :)

Snow, poo and ECGs

You can tell I'm unbelievably busy right now, by the way I've managed to find lots of things to do while avoiding my official TO DO list. I have a list of 15 Very Important Tasks which Must Be Done in the next few days. They range from filling in the 40 page application for special needs assistance for Daniel's primary schooling, to creating a database for Aunt Emma, to writing a press release about the charity event we held yesterday.

Bugger it all. Why not start a blog instead. I've been meaning to do this for about 6 years or so - seems like a good time.

I got about 10 minutes into this tonight when Pete came sauntering in declaring he was having a heart attack and then refusing to let me call 999. Now that he's been safely shipped off to the local hospital for an emergency ECG I can roll up my sleeves and finish this thing. (My money is on heartburn.) I sound callous - but I did at least send him off with a box of sandwiches for his dinner and some cake. And money for a cab home.

Right. Where to start? I could fill you all in on the past decade spent here in Blighty, or just bang on about my day. My day involved teaching a couple of baby signing classes while losing my voice (the heart attack thing is clearly a ploy to out-do me on the sicky stakes). I dropped the kids off at nursery and preschool and both the little buggers refused me a kiss goodbye or even a backwards glance. At first Dan seemed sad to leave me until I worked out that the tears were over the fact that Lightening McQueen was stuck under the carseat. It's his 'thing' at the moment - we took 3 of them to NZ with us on the plane in January in case of loss: we arrived with 4. Some small child is now one car short due to my pilfering son.

At least I was able to teach my classes today. The theme was Weather, which is ironic in that the week we were supposed to cover that topic Bromley was over a foot deep in snow and no-one could get out of their house to come to class. We made a rocking good snow-person and turned the car into Lighting McQueen to Dan's delight.

Before I had children I was not going to have a telly in the house, not let them have sugar, and read to them lots. I read to them lots. They spent the evening arguing over the merits of Cars vs Peter Pan, and which child was most closely aligned with the main characters. I think it was settled that Dan was Lightening McQueen, Ellie was Peter Pan, and mummy was rubbish for not providing tea and cakes.

They've both been gluten and dairy free for 3 weeks now, and I'm ready to quit. Dan has the typical autistic gut which can't handle anything without a complete meltdown, and Ellie might be coeliac, but we've been waiting for the test results forever so I've jumped the gun and limited her diet. If tonight's poo was anything to go by, things are improving. It was all over both potties (bless her she'd really tried), down both legs and all over the floor before she called out "Mum! I think I've poo'd my knickers!". Nice.

As for the past decade: those of you who last knew me as Ms Sarah McKenzie will note the -Jones tacked onto the end. Dave and I split up way back in 2001'ish and I married my English boss in 2004. He's done the very un-English thing and become McKenzie-Jones too - his idea bless him. Ellie could say "Eleanor Rose Kenzie-Jones" by the age of 16 months, Daniel struggles with "Danny-Boy" on a good day. He did however do a wee on the potty over the weekend once he saw that the reward was a monster-sized box of Thomas Duplo trains. You just gotta find the motivator! Not sure where I go from there tho.....should have started smaller perhaps.

Right-oh. 'Spect I'll post here again sometime in Spring 2010, by which time we will hopefully have found a nice local NZ school for Danny and moved back home. Any ideas, let me know!