2 Months In

Two months ago we arrived in Australia for this adventure.  So, how are things going?

Monkey is settled in to school and Scouts and is enjoying himself immensely.  He misses his grandparents tremendously and remains devastated that Grandma had to postpone her February trip until June.  He has a regular group of guys that he plays with at recess time and loves to help me with volunteering at breakfast club at his school in the mornings.

Obviously you would put coleslaw on a hotdog

Big C (who can't be called "doodle" here as it is the name for male genitals) is adapting well to all of the transitions here. He remains resistant to water consumption but has not shown signs of dehydration again.  He is in a class for kids with autism at his school and will be starting to transition on a limited basis to a mainstream classroom next week.  We have taken him off one of his two medications and are monitoring to see how it goes.

Dave is following the advice that he was repeatedly given to not try to change the entire school system over here but rather to learn from what he sees here.  His days are long and he is learning a lot.  The soccer season will be starting up soon.  Being so rural, it will be a challenge to participate regularly as the games are quite spread out geographically.  To add to that, the local men play on Saturday mornings, and we are often not here on the weekends.

We are in to a more normal groove at this point, dare I say, a routine even.  I volunteer 2 to 3 mornings a week at the children's school serving breakfast to the children who want it.  The boys have stopped complaining about the fact that they need to wear school uniforms.  Big C is adapting as well as can be expected to the nomadic weekends that we've had.

I am not what one might call a domestic goddess...but I've put dinner (not supper) on the table every night, and we often have clean clothes.  I've paid the bills here and at home, completed and submitted our 2014 taxes, killed some spiders, booked our travel and gotten the kids to and from school daily.  I still don't grocery shop.  That is just not a skill that I possess.

I will admit that I have been terrified of our couches since I arrived here.  Not without good reason I might add.  I read this while we were still in Canada and just about had to call a "code brown".  I arrived most unwilling to sit on our sofas.  Today I finally sat down had a quick nap on the sofa out on the back veranda. It is quite possible that I first removed all of the cushions and kicked it really, REALLY hard a few times.  But I did it, and that's what matters.

We've all made some friends here, which has been fabulous.  We've been to three churches so far, but with so much time spent away from town, it is pretty hard to really connect at any one of them.  Monkey is running on his own, not with school, I am running with various groups and competing in the Spartan races. 

 We've discovered that melatonin, that Big C needs to sleep, is $45 for a one month supply here, requires a prescription (which needs a visit to the doctor which costs $77)  and not covered by our insurance.  At home I can get 100 tablets for around $10.  That goes on the list of "things that I wish I had known before leaving Canada".

 We did get almost fully reimbursed for the replacement medication that we bought when we lost a bag on our way out of Canada.  I have one last letter to mail out and we will get the rest of it back.  We never did find the bag.  We are still out: Dave's nightguard, my orthotics, a few hundred dollars worth of Dave's clothes and shoes.  It was a crappy thing to have happen, but we are pretty much over it now.

We heard back from the Ontario Autism funding folks that decided that we don't qualify for funding while we are over here.  I can't wrap my head around that as OHIP and CRA both seem to feel that we are Ontario residents.

 I can't imagine texting and driving over here.  There is still WAY TOO MUCH going on when I am behind that wheel.  We are both pretty comfortable with the indicator and windshield wipers in general.  Yesterday I was driving with a woman who is legally blind and she was telling me what I was doing wrong (something about indicating and roundaboouts...) so I would think that it is safe to say that I have not totally nailed it yet.

 

All in all, we are having the time of our lives.  While I understand that the Australian Immigration folks would like for me to leave as originally agreed upon...I have yet to even casually glance in the direction of booking return flights.