Author: Mark

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Journal

Aspergers Diagnosis

In March, Beccy was formally diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome a form of High Functioning Autism which, to paraphrase Wikipedia results in a lack of nonverbal communication skills, limited empathy with their peers, and sometimes a tendency towards being physically clumsy.

During the diagnosis process, we learnt a lot about Asperger’s, and I have now put myself in the category of Self Diagnosed Asperger’s.

What does it mean? Mainly that I know now, why I do some of the things that I do, why big family (or other) gatherings can be overwhelming (massive over stimulation, particularly auditory), why parenting Beccy can often lead to a meltdown in both of us (you cant win an argument with an Aspi, so 2 of them arguing is a recipe for disaster).

I’m sure there will be more to come.

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People

Beccy’s Blog

Beccy now has her own blog: rebeccaanne41.wordpress.com

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Journal

Beccy’s Limonade Stand

In the rain, in the middle of nowhere, Lilydale VIC, Beccy has a lime cordial stand out the front of our house and made $17.25 in about 1.5 hours.

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Journal

Oops

Bern was involved in an altercation yesterday which saw her car totally written off when it ran into the back of 3 other cars (nose to tail). Everyone is fine, but Bern is fairly bruised and sore. By the time I arrived the kids and already been whisked off to School and Kinder by other families we knew who were passing by and stopped. Thanks so much to everyone for your care &amp:: concern..

Some Photos:
Bern’s Car
The Other Car
with the number plate
and again

Jase has some more, including some of the inside, I think, but he’s away for the weekend and has lent me his car:
Jase's

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Journal

Happy birthday – google style

Lizzie said today that we should check what the picture was today on google, because it’s daddy’s birthday and they have special pictures on special days. It was really cute, and it turns out she was right,  it was the 25th anniversary of the Bucky ball, a particular Molecule named after Richard Buckminster Fuller

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Links

How to Open a bottle of wine without a corkscrew

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Journal

Clearer, Sharper and 25% Geekier

It kind of had to happen, I guess. I now have glasses!

There wasn’t anything majorly wrong, I have an astigmatism which I think means that my cornea is more like a football than a disc, and now things that I never really noticed were blurry, are actually really sharp.

Another thing the optometrist said is that I might have less trouble differentiating between what is almost a square and a true square, which might explain why I sometimes have trouble working out if a screen resolution is the correct aspect ratio for a particular screen.

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Journal

sometimes you need to read the whole story

I received this alert in my inbox last week:

if you were just reading the headlines, you could easily be a little worried. Here’s the slightly extended version…

The truth is I get these fairly often, and by the looks of it Leading Senior Constable Snell is doing a great job protecting the fine people of Bendigo.

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Journal

Brush-cutting Incident

Being a long weekend, we decided it would be a good time to tackle a bit of the gardening, so we imposed on my brother-in-law to borrow his brush cutter to speed up the problem, especially up around the “pool” area.

We had the required lesson when I borrowed it about how to use it, and safety and maintenance. I made a deal and said I’d make sure I could still count to ten when I finished. It turned out when I finished I could still count to 10, but could also count to 4 using just my wasp stings!

I must have disturbed a nest up near the pool gate, and I could hear them buzzing around me as I started to run. I flipped the face shield off near the rumpus room doors, jumped down the three stairs at once, frightening the life out of Bern at her computer. I realised the brush-cutter was still running at this point so I turned it off before dumping it on the desk.

Bern realised something was up, but I could hear a swarm buzzing around me so I remember slamming my hand on the door to say no, don’t come out. I fear I may have paniced, but I guess I’ve been heavily influenced by seeing movies like The Swarm as an impressionable little kid.

* We are going to get rid of the pool, it is a 30year old vinyl pool, and last year we used it for about 4 days in total

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Journal

Child-proof containers

We bought some children’s vitamins recently, just to help the girls along a bit, keep them healthier and hopefully ward away some winter colds and flus. Beccy was up early this morning and she got her vitamin and Lizzie’s out and they both took them. When Bern told me this I was a bit confused. I went and looked at the container, and sure enough, it has a child-proof lid.
I asked Beccy how she openend it and she said “I read the instructions on the lid, While Pushing Down Turn” and she showed me that while it took a while she was in fact able to get the bottle open. The scary thing is that I doubt she would have worked it out if it wasn’t written there.