February catch up!

This being back riding and working is taking up all of my time and I am barely getting a chance to update my blog.  Having a life again is great fun but altogether exhausting at the same time.

Anyhow, riding is coming along nicely and Arion is being a wee star.  We has gone from taking an entire half hour riding lesson to get on the bit and looking dressage diva like, to taking 15 mins to look snazzy.  My riding instructor is delighted and will be videoing a lesson for me next week so that I can see how wonderfully poncy my horse looks in dressage mode.  We have also taken our firt tentative leaps into jumping with a mixed bag of results.  I have so little strength in my back and arms at the moment that I couldnt lift my own arse off the floor.  Seriously, weak does not even cover it.  So when Arion goes into jumping mode, he gets stronger, and while he is not the strongest of horses he may as well be the equine equivalent of the Worlds Strongest Man for all the use my muscles are at the moment.  So trying to keep him from running off around the course with me is proving both difficult and hilariously funny for anyone watching.  Last week for example, my arms went bluegh and we ended up heading off in a random direction with Arion deciding to jump the nearest set of poles, backwards.  Bless him. he knew he was supposed to jump something, at least he tried.  At the moment we are jumping poles on the ground as though they were jumps, and that’s quite high enough for me at the moment.  We can go up a notch in March….2010 maybe.

Dylan has been doing great.  Since the inception of several rules that I have had to instill into my family, mainly the issue of dealing with discipline for him, this last week or so has been very positive for him.  Raising your voice to my son will achieve nothing other than frustrating and upsetting him however, sitting him down and having a conversation with him and pointing out how he could have done/dealt with something better does seem to be working.    We are finding more time for one on one stuff with him too, although I am making sure that our daughter also gets more one on one time too.  I don’t want her to feel as though he is more important than her just because of his aspergers.  She has also proven herself to be a very grown up little girl through all of this and has demonstrated an understanding beyond her 9 years of what her brother is going through.  Don’t get me wrong they still argue like cat and dog, but she adores her brother and even when he has one his “I hate my sister” moments, she will just shrug and say “yeah I know you love me really” and 5 mins later they will be laughing at one of his ridiculous jokes.

Today, Dylan and I went to watch the show jumping at the yard and he made some sponge cakes to take with him for my friends. It was his idea and he made them completely on his own, with me watching his every move from the kitchen table whilst pretending to read the morning paper and enjoy a coffee.  It was very difficult to resist the temptation to help him or do something for him -  but he managed fine and his cakes may have been wonky and a little crunchy round the edges, and some of them may have resembled biscuits instead of cakes, but the look of pride on his face as he took the first batch out of the oven and set the tray on the counter was absolutely priceless.  They didnt last long at the yard and other than him being cold because he refused to take his jacket with him, we had a lovely morning until the car decided not to start and we needed a jump start to get home.

So now I need to spend money on my car – probably an alternator or a starter motor which will set me back at least £100.  And the damn thing is due its MOT end of March, like it couldn’t have just waited a few weeks to break down.  I so want this car to last me a while till I can save up for a decent one which will take to next year probably.  I want to stick a a tow bar on it and buy myself a horse trailer – but sshhh don’t tell my mum, she thinks I am saving up for something else.