Raising little Westies, and life as parent of a special needs son
Sydney Swans, AFL Premiers for 2012
Sport is a great metaphor for life, just as war is. My wife already discussed life through the lense of war, so I’ll think about sports on the day of the Grand Final for the Australian Football League.
What did the Swans and their opposition the Hawks teach us this year during the Grand Final?
Well done to the Swans. Keep chipping away, you might share some success like they just did.
The end of a long day, with the Sydney Swans having won their way into the AFL grand final for 2012.
I’m stoked. I’m also tired. I’ve also come home to a place I haven’t been back to for two weeks, on the last day of the school term. I’m sure my weekend will be extremely busy; even though it won’t be the trip to my wifes’ parents’ house which I had been expecting.
So. Even though it’s already late. I’m having an early night.
We’re in September and in Australia that means Finals Season for the dominant codes of football. Especially the important one, the Australian Football League (AFL)!
While I’ve been having a pretty busy year, I have been tangentially following the game as the season progressed. Sydney Swans are still “my team” and the more time I spend in Canberra hearing about “the Giants” rather than “Greater Western Sydney Giants” the less likely it becomes that my overall allegiance will change at all.
As first seasons go, GWS didn’t do too badly.
As football seasons go, Sydney Swans should be quite pleased with themselves. They set goals, and identified plans on how to achieve them. They tracked progress, and celebrated success without taking their eyes off the idea of continuing to improve week on week. All concepts that we should all take, “from the football field, to life”.
I wish the Swans the best of luck and that all their planning and preparation pays off this week as they take on the Magpies at Homebush.
Here we are in September, in Australia that means only one thing…
well, depending on your state that one thing will be one of a few different things!
It is the finals season for the major codes of AFL and NRL. “My” team, adopted relatively late in life, is the Sydney Swans who had a pretty strong season till quite late, which means they were eligible for the finals season but have failed to qualify for a home game.
Away games are hard. Away finals, even harder.
Good luck Swans.
This weekend, also marks the presentation day for my kids junior AFL football team – the St Clair Crows. Hopefully, it will be a great day for all involved – kids and parents.
St Clair Crows under 10’s of 2012 following final game of the season
Here we are in August and the mighty St Clair Crows under 10s have one round left. Since commencing our involvement with the Junior AFL, this has been our most arms-length season to date.
About this time last year, I was all but announced as a coach for 2012, when it beck clear that something unusual was going in at work. So it turned out that this year, whole Bec took on the task of getting kids to training mid week, I pretty much took on game-day and to no small extent, laundering of the guernseys (although that has been shared with Bec or the kids to some extent).
Football this year has been a massive undertaking. And that is without getting along to any pro games at all in the inaugural season of the GWS.
But it has been hugely worth it.
The kids football team has been a social link to the community I take myself away from, yet my wife and kids live in day in, day out. I have started to form a few fantastic friendships there, with the ring-in watergirl being at the top of the list.
They have managed to throw us Westies in a spin a few times, with their confused rosters, and giving me jobs to do when I should be spending every single moment watching and interacting with my little BTB Fan. But it’s been great and I’ll probably miss it.
About three weeks after I catch up on my sleep in weekends!
Magpie and Old Man Westie cooking lunch
Hitting the road in Gran and Grandpa’s Winnebago
BTB Fan. Places to go, bikes to ride, snags to eat
BTB Fan makes an important step with packing away
and their proud – but tired – mum
Growing puppies
Guitar Hero Addict aka Magpie tears down the track, having a crack before the footy starts
Well earned family feast
Finishing the puzzle… 100th post
Image thanks to Techpedia
Crack the champaign, I’ve hit the Hundred Club of blogging.
Back a long time ago, ImaWestie posted his first comment on Sacha Molitorisz’ blog Whose Your Daddy at the Sydney Morning Herald. In those comments I record my earliest concern:
¶ on a totally seperate note, my wife and I are at a point where we would be delighted to hear our youngest swearing, if only he would talk.
At what age should we be how worried about our son pretty much being non-vocal?
SM, if anyone sensibly wants to contact me on this please pass along my details to them.
Posted by: ImaWestie on April 26, 2008 9:36 PM
So as early as April of 2008 – four years ago, just before his third birthday – I was already concerned about my son’s development.
I think my fully bogan alter-ego appeared as I had already had about enough of being concerned about who I was, where I worked, and who my kids are, when I was looking to talk about a range of topics online.
Since that first appearance, I’ve sprouted up on News Limiteds comments section, the Whirlpool technology forum, on a range of games websites, and continued to appear on the Sydney Morning Herald website from time to time.
I also wandered along to the Autism United ning.com community, where I learned so much, and was inspired to record my thoughts, experience and emotions onto blog format. Some of what I wanted to write didn’t fit in amost such a well defined community, so here I came to WordPress.
That puzzle there remains extremely relevant. Tonight, with our dinner, my wife and I celebrated as we used bribery to tempt our youngest son with yoghurt, to get him to eat one (!) pea and one tiny carrot stick. Absolutely smothered in red, tangy, sugery, terrible…. tomato sauce.
But it was a win.
Four and a quarter years down the track, Westie and Mrs Westy are continuing our adventure, hoping we continue to challenge all three of our children, learn more than just what we have to, and expand not just our own horizons but the horizons of our children, too.
Hope to hear more from all of you who like to drop in and “like” my posts without leaving more to let me know what you think. If you have something to add to my writing, to what I know about Autism, being a father or husband, a coach to a junior AFL team, a cyclist or an IT Professional. I’d love to hear it. Because while I might be at my 100th post, that puzzle is far from complete.
Today, things fell into place a bit.
My wife is still unwell, and she had weight watchers this morning (I hear the result was a good one). To make the weekend a bit different, our kids football game has been scheduled for Sunday instead of Saturday, so I had been wondering what would be happening this weekend. But then my parents – who live several hundred kilometers away – told me the other night that they would be in Sydney this weekend.
No matter what I did though, they wouldn’t give me enough detail to actually make any plans.
Winnebago Ceduna – image care of Motocorv.com.au
Then last night while I was driving home my mum rang me and asked what we could all do if they were in Sydney today.
They are driving a brand new Winnebago, which they picked up two weeks ago in Melbourne. So arranging a place to meet them isn’t as straightforward as it could be. Especially given their fantastic knowledge of Sydney and Sydney roads.
Well, after having driven past it too many times, I’d been thinking about dropping into the Western Sydney Parklands – specifically, the Plough and Harrows section (given that the parklands go from Liverpool to Castle Hill).
Turns out, it was a great idea.
Old Man Westie shows Magpie how to burn pig flesh
The parkland, features some fantastic free electric barbeques, well defined roads which are accessible but not too close to the barbeque and eating areas, great cycleways and walking tracks. These tracks seem to have quite a few drinking fountains, which include bubblers at the top, taps a bit lower, and all the runnoff ends up flowing through a dog water trough at the bottom – which is on a hinge, so if you have your dog with you, you can easily tip out the water that might not be fresh, and replace it.
After meeting my parents there, we had a barbeque , and later my kids had a play while I chatted a bit more with my parents. My kids had an absolute ball on the flying fox, while the boys and I also made good use of some of those bike tracks. Eventually, we headed home. We’re currently planning for my parents to catch my eldest two kids playing Australian Rules football for the St Clair Crows tomorrow, at the home ground in St Clair.
Westies rollin’ through the parkland
The afternoon was a not-quite-flurry of activity, with my current travelling to work in Canberra there is not a lot of down time in Westy Central.
Then dinner, with my wife “throwing together” a lazy three seperate meals in one night – which around here is “almost normal”, one weightwatchers friendly meal, three mainstream meals, and one spectrummy friendly meal most easily described as “colourless food in isolated piles” such as boiled rice, grilled chicken, and plain pasta seperately on a plate.
A pretty big day, all told, really.
Especially it turns out, for an eight-year-old boy, who happens to have Autism.
One little part of the day that is supposed to just work like clockwork is bedtime.
No matter what happens in the day, you can rely on what happens at night.
Bathtime, dinner time, “yoghurt time?”, brush your teeth, go to bed. Repeat this more frequently the more tired and frustrated you feel, it will do wonders for the emotions of anyone around you (or not).
Somewhere between “brush your teeth” and “go to bed”, there is supposed to be a “horsey ride“.
Except tonight, the shitstorm got real, and I outright ordered all three children to bed. They were ready, they were just all orbitting some other planet.
So today, instead of having a wonderful end to the day with Magpie reading to his brother Bob the Builder Fan, we finished with a meltdown by the youngest Westie, alone in his bed, cying about the horsey ride he never got to give his brother.
We now have this under control, and he seems to be settled in to go peacefully to sleep. We are blessed there, really.
In a homage to Wordless Wednesday, I’ve decided to take to a Silent Sunday theme for a couple of weeks, because Sundays typically are far from my day-of-rest.
Here’s the week that was, according to ImaWestie on Instagram (er, Webstagram).
If “y” is good, then “yy” must be doubly good
When the Maccas version is good enough, you know it’s an addiction
Mmmm. Timtams.
With puppies like these around, what choice did I have?
Scarey photo of my own good self. My eyes are distinctly different shades of brown.
Bob The Builder Fan attempts to mix with the other kids at football
The fallout of a football game
Oh My God.
So, it’s the weekend. Should be happy, right?
Happy to not be at work. But, life has it’s way of all the little details piling up when we could most do with some sort of break – this weekend being yet another example. It hasn’t taken much, just that it’s the kids first week back at school. I’m thinking that’s what has pushed Bec over the brink to coming down with some sort of lurgy and being crook as a dog.
Add to that our nine dogs, and three kids, and football…. and weight watchers… and a hubby (me) who is drive-in drive-out from work… well it’s probably incredible that she functions as well as she does.
Somewhere between last night, and right now, motivation has evaporated somewhat. I know there are things I’d love to discuss, butthey have left the premises for right now. So I’ll leave you with this final input from my youngest Westie.
ImaWestie 