Yes, he's pretty good at typing and I agree long term that's more important, but he'll need to handwrite for school. I am a sceptic when it comes to retained reflexes - having worked for years in the field of special needs, it brings back memories of a lot of scam courses for families which were pricy but never did much (Doman and Delacato in the 90s, then braingym, then there was another one - they show up, take money, and then crash a few years later). . Retained primitive reflexes: are they real? | Skills for Action Occam's Donkey: Mind Myth 9: Primitive reflexes, a new old fad (occamsdonkey.blogspot.com)

Thanks, good idea. No idea. But really his handwriting story is the same as mine. I used to get hassled all the time too. Low tone, I think, which makes it hard to persist with anything muscle related. Both of us terrible with anything sport related. Interesting, I do think a lot of it is developmental. He's down the bottom of the graph for a lot of stuff - short stature, teeth way delayed, overall growth is slower. Very similar to a lot of people in my family - small and uncoordinated, but very clever with words and language. It makes it hard for me to really push him, because I identify with him so much! I do wonder if a bit of peer pressure once he actually goes to school might make a difference. Regarding OTs, I did enquire with one, but really she couldn't offer anything unique and she admitted it. There may be a brilliant one out there but they've all got year-long waiting lists, and I'm not really interested in paying hundreds of dollars to be given generic advice about letter formation and pencil grip.

Ideas please. I have used handwriting textbooks but it isn't generalising to ordinary writing. He's in year 6, going to high school next year (Jan in Australia) and his handwriting looks babyish. I have very low standards, but legible and not babyish is important.

Well, that is the whole problem with school. The kids don't want to be there, and don't get any choice in the matter. They don't get to choose their subjects till (in Australia) year 9. They don't get to follow their interests or to have their interests valued - at the moment in NSW primary schools they're returning to direct instruction and have thrown out any type of show & tell or similar. They may as well be a cog in the system.

Deep sympathy for you. We call it 'the alarm bird'. We had one for a while too, fortunately not now. They're so mournful and persistent. The other bird like that is the Wonga-Wonga pigeon. I love them, but whenever they're apart, it sounds like the world's ending for them.

Lately we have noticed a bush turkey rummaging around under the trees. They can dig really big holes so fortunately it only pops around occasionally. On a regular basis we see cockatoos (yellow-tailed black cockies, also white cockatoos), rosellas, king parrots, sometimes rainbow lorikeets and occasionally gang-gangs. We see kookaburras, magpies and currawongs regularly. Swamp hens and ducks pop up from the dam. For little birds, we have blue wrens and fire finches, honeyeaters of various types, willie wagtails and fantails. That is very cool. One time I was walking down the paddock and saw a whole lot of passionfruit - I looked up and the tree was full of white cockatoos who were taking turns to fly into the neighbours place, steal a passionfruit and fly back to my house to eat it, as though they were protected once across the border fence! We are in the mountains, far from the sea - for some reason I had imagined you were out west somewhere.

I came here to post this story! It was very good.

Thought this was interesting: https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/more-resilient-than-we-thought-during-lockdown I was just reading about 3 researchers who used the lockdown to explore biodiversity in their own backyard. https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-02-10/biodiversity-hotspot-lockdown-housemates-brisbane-species/103210874 It made me think about how important it is to have interests and abilities before something like this happens.

We've had so many natural disasters since 2019. Fire, flood, landslide, covid of course, storms. I still say the best prepping is to connect with your neighbours and to be embedded in your community. You can offer one another different things rather than needing to be on top of everything.

It may feel unthinkable, but have you considered moving closer to the city? If I remember rightly you had a daughter in Melbourne? You might find more possibilities for respite for the twins, as well as medical care for yourself and your husband as he ages. (I say this but can't imagine leaving the rural area I live in, either. However we have a hospital 45mins away and the major hospital is 1.5hrs).

Still walking daily. Have had one day since the beginning of the year where I didn't make 10000 steps due to having to drive people all day. But so far so good. We'll see how it goes once it gets colder (although it was 12 degrees celsius/ 53 fahrenheit this week which is crazy for this time of year - usually Feb is the hottest). Trying to do stretches daily as I have hip pain, but I need to work out how to integrate into my day. I do an hour's drive (big kid to school) then work/homeschooling then hour's drive to pick up kid. Super tired this week but hopefully will get used to it.

Saw a friend today who got covid before Christmas and has been really ill. 50 something I guess? He has definitely lost a lot of weight and just looked grey. He said a week ago something changed and he's starting to feel better. Lost a lot of muscle mass and has had major lung issues but is focusing on building back strength now.

I read a book for book club that was a just ok (the story of a girl who is a refugee and moves to Australia) - I gave it back to the person who lent it to me and now I can't remember what it was called. But I wouldn't recommend - a sad and important story but she should've just written it as a biography rather than pretending it was a novel. I just finished a reread of Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. This is a favourite book of mine, full of poetry and fantasy, but set in a university so also about university life in USA in the 70s. Basically about the pleasures of academic thought, I guess.

Liking these posts. In Australia (or maybe just our state? I should check) you have to pass an exam in Year 9 which covers basic maths and english. If you don't pass in year 9, you can take it in year 10 and so on. You have to pass this test in order to get your high school certificate. Here is an example: NAPLAN 2012-2016 test papers (acara.edu.au) It is not difficult. In most states you can drop maths in year 11-12 (I did!) but you can also do a basic course. I very much like the NZ statistics course though - how practical! In Australia, they start banging away at statistics and probability from Kindergarten which I think is overkill. A proper stats course would be so useful.

I'm so sorry that the local hospital no longer has doctors and you have to travel so far for healthcare. It isn't right. However, you do need to get help. Call the ambulance and explain the situation. It's a Sunday night so if they get you in tonight, you'll at least have proper doctors showing up on Monday morning.

My 13 yr old was doing 'kids these days' complaints about how hard she had it as a kid vs kids these days. I can't 100% remember what it was, probably that she didn't have an ipad as a preschooler or something.

Yes, the social stuff is really hard. My daughter is in school this year at 13 because of that. My son will be going next year (first year of high school in Australia). Having said that, when I chat to parents whose kids are in school, a lot of them haven't found their people either. But I do think that daily practise of social stuff - whether at school or other activities - is kind of important, at any age.

Just read this: ‘If Instagram didn’t exist, it wouldn’t have happened’: a mother’s search for her trafficked daughter | Meta | The Guardian It's like something out of a horror movie. The daughter's school had teenage boys scouting vulnerable girls for trafficking. Both a teenage boy and his mother were imprisoned after this case, which is just the tip of the iceberg.

I had that last year - and I ignored it and it went away. I googled it and I think I fell exactly on the age group that they said it happens, basically middle aged women. If there were any other symptoms I would've done something but to be honest I was busy and I forgot about it until this post!

In Australia school lunches are never provided, you have to send them. It's always been a real pain, but with a picky eater it's even worse. For years my son went to school with a plain bread roll and a mandarin, and if they got eaten that was pretty exciting.

We don't have a dining room. Our main door opens onto the living room/kitchen. We've stuck a dining table half under the kitchen counter as it's the only place that will fit - it fits 4 with the 4th a bit squashed against the wall (smallest kid gets that spot!). Our plates are in a kitchen cupboard. I grew up with a dining room which had a sideboard with the china plates and lace tablecloths, and the piano and the telephone. We only ate there on Christmas day! The main table was next to the kitchen. I don't mind having a small house now as an adult, as there's less to clean. If we entertain, we use our verandah and people help themselves from the table on there. I've never hosted a formal dinner party and doubt I ever will!

Yes! I had a client where the problem was their child with Down syndrome climbing and playing inside their family car. Solution was to always lock the car. And yes, it sounds obvious but I think we often jump to 'how can I change the child' rather than 'how can I change the environment'. OP, all I can think of is this - what's the next educational environment? In other words, is school coming up in the next year? Because if so, they need to be thinking hard about transition and placement and so on. If this government preschool situation isn't working, what will be the plan when school doesn't work?

I feel like I might have read it before, but I'd forgotten how funny it was. My boy loved the bishop's bellow about sprinkles.

I've started using a Fitbit to track steps and calories. It has been an eye opener seeing how much exercise I need to do in order to cover calories (with a deficit as I need to lose weight). On work days it's not too bad, a morning walk plus normal work is enough, but on the weekend I really have to put in quite a few local walks each day to cover eating. I am using a delivery service for food where they provide the food so you know the calories, plus it's healthier, lots of salads. It's been great not having to shop, plan, cook, think about food. My husband does not like it, but he can (and does) supplement with chips, biscuits etc. Luckily I am not tempted by his particular junk food, my temptation is ice cream which he's not into.

I read Emily Wildes' Map of the Otherland, which is by Heather Fawcett and is a sequel to a book I read last year. I should've re-read the first one as I was a bit confused at first. I didn't like it as much as the first but it was ok - fantasy/romance. Skimmed through Atomic Habits by James Clear, it's basically operant conditioning and nothing new, but if you didn't know about applied behaviour analysis it might be useful.