My Easter Hat ideas

When my daughter was in kindergarten I made her a very simple hat, which was just a band with and made a two strips cross over the top like a hot cross bun and decorated it with stickers.  As the Easter hat parade is always on a Wednesday which is a day that I am never able to get off or sneak out to for lunch, I have never been there for her parade.  Her aunt went and told me her hat was the worst hat there.  How MORTIFYING.

When I saw pictures of hats, I saw lots of people had used premade materials to use hats, like those party top hats you can buy at the $2 shop, or straw hats.  Which is fine, but I think it's a bit boring.  I wanted to make a hat from scratch, using what I had at home.

So last year, when my daughter was in Year 1, I decided to step it up a little bit and made the same style of hat, but this time I put ears on it and a cotton tail on the back.  Now it looked like a kid made hat, and I let her decorate it.

All the things were easily found around the house, and I was quite pleased with using some of those useless twist ties for something - whiskers was a great idea!  She loved the hat a lot and wore it for a few days after the parade, which made me happy. Her contribution to the hat was colouring the pink on the ears and sticking on the whiskers and tail.

This year I have TWO kids needing Easter hats, and I thought I would make something a little bit more fancy!

I looked on the internet for hats that I could make using things around the home and one brilliant idea I saw was using paper plates!

From Alpha Mom

One parent had made a spiral out of her hat and I thought I would try that for my son, and my daughter asked if she could take a basket for her easter eggs to school.  I thought, I have a BETTER idea.  How about I make your hat a basket!

So for my son's hat I started with a paper plate and a spiral cut into it.

Then I cut strips of paper and stuck them all over the hat, in colours that my son selected. I used one pipe cleaner to stabilise the spiral a little bit by poking a hole at the start of the spiral (hat brim) and then fixing the other end of the pipe cleaner to the top of the spiral.  My son also said he wanted an egg, so I made the top of the hat look like a fried egg.

Just to make it a look a bit more easter-like I stuck some chicks and some hand coloured paper easter eggs (done by the kids) on more pipe cleaners.  So, this was the easy not too flimsy hat that I made for my son.  If he breaks or loses it, I won't be too upset (as long as he gets to wear it for the parade).

I was very proud of my daughter's hat!  I also started off with a paper plate, and I cut a hole in it then cut little tabs to give the cylindrical top of the hat something to adhere to.

The top was just an A3 paper (2 pieces were needed) rolled into a cylinder and stuck on top.  I used a piece of sticky tape for each tab to adhere it into the cylinder and it held very nicely.

To make the top part of the hat, I measured 15cm from the top of the cylinder and cut 1.5cm strips all the way around.  I taped the opposing ends together, with one left upright to be a handle and the rest were pushed down to make the inside of the basket.

I cut some coloured strips of paper and asked my daughter to arrange it in the colour pattern she would like around the hat.

I put double sided sticky tape around the base of the hat and then applied the pattern around the hat. Then I used some spare ribbon to tie around top 2/3 of the hat and curled the edges down and tucked them into the ribbon.

I was very pleased with the finished "mummy steps" of that hat! I ended up using some sticky tape to make sure the loops didn't slide.  Not very professional looking but for a kids hat, it's ok!

I left the rest for my daughter to decorate.  She stuck some foam stars on it and also some shiny teddy confetti around the edges of the hat and she was very pleased with the result!  So the finishing touches will be some straw or shredded green paper to line the basket and then put a small fluffy pompom chick in the basket with some easter eggs.

My son's first day at school

Over the past year, my son has had such intensive speech and occupational therapy, and social classes, that he has improved a lot.  He became friendlier and communicative at school, and his comprehension and expression has been so much better that his therapists said he is ready for school. His OT said that he didn't need to come back and see her, and the psychologist who runs his social class said that he has the skills for kindergarten so he doesn't need to come back to the class.  I was thrilled and we have been telling him how exciting it is to go to "big school" that he seemed to be looking forward to it.

On the first day of school we had a small hiccup.  He refused to wear his school uniform!  He had a tantrum and ran away screaming and we didn't understand why until he yelled that it's his sister's clothes.  After we reassured him that everyone wears the same clothes, he put it on, albeit very unsettled, pulling at his clothes and buttons for a bit, and then when I tried to cheer him up by saying he can have his very own brand new socks, never worn, he shook his head vehemently and pointed to his sister's socks and said he wanted to wear his sister's socks.

Going to school was not a drama.  He stuck close to me whilst his sister went to line up when the bell went off.  Then I took him with all the other kindergarten students to the library for sorting.  Vision of Harry Potter floated into my head when I heard that.

He sat there quietly but I don't think he was listening - and when his name was called he took his badge and brought it to me to put on his clothes and then when the children with the same coloured badges were taken out, he went quietly and happily.  He followed instructions and sat quietly on the floor and when I waved goodbye he waved goodbye, but looked very serious. Overall, school wasn't a stress for him and he seemed to like it well enough.

I had a laugh because on Wednesday when hubby went to pick him up from school his teacher asked if she could have a word.  Uh oh.  It turned out that she wanted to tell us that our son ate all of his lunch at recess and had nothing to eat for lunch!  I felt guilty - she must think what horrible parents, starving their child!!!

But, I'm happy my son has gone to school and settled in.  I know it's just the first week and any learning difficulties will be detected later on - but perhaps I should give him more credit.  He might understand more than what I think he does.  And having the influence of other learning little minds around him, and a school structure, will be good for him.  If there is anything he thrives on, it's routines.  Two years ago, I dreaded what the day would be like when he went to school, wondering if he would even be able to go, but the day has arrived, and he flew through it easily.

But this is only the beginning.

Lisa Nilsson Quilling art

Hubby saw this art on the internet and I absolutely fell in love with it. I want one!  These are cross sections of human anatomy, so basically like CT scan cuts!

I have never seen quilling look so AMAZING!  You can check out her site here.

Cardmaking - Simple Washi Tape card

Here is a simple card I made with Washi tape (that I got from Costco) and Sizzix Alpha Bubbles die (cut with my Sizzix Big shot) with textured white cardstock and plain black cardstock for the letters background. Letters are such a useful thing to do with leftover scraps of coloured paper!  My daughter helped me make it because it was for her teacher. This is a nice quick easy card - easy 10 minutes and we're done!

I got a Cricut Personal Cutter!

I admit, I already have a craft cutter - a Silhouette - but it's annoying to have to draw the stuff on my computer before I cut it.  Besides, Cricut has all these cute little cartridges and I bought one - Create a Critter - which had such cute animals I thought there were heaps of cards and projects I could make!

So when I got a second hand (and a bit broken) one on Ebay, I couldn't wait to make a few things, and here were the first ones I made:

There are heaps of ideas on Pinterest too, and I'm going to stick a few here so I don't forget and maybe try my hand at them sometime soon!

Autism and developmental delay in our genetic makeup

Ever since my son was diagnosed with Autism and Developmental delay you can't help but wonder if it was something I did that was bad, and if the rumours about thing such as vaccinations were true.  Maybe there's something wrong with my genetic makeup, or my husband's.  Maybe

I saw the paediatrician and she recommended we do some blood tests which I was rather ambivalent about. I wasn't particularly thrilled about taking him for blood tests but I did them eventually with the help of EMLA that I pinched from work, and he was brilliant and didn't even flinch when they took his blood, much to my relief.  The usual blood workup for autism was done which included a whole bunch of metabolic tests, endocrine tests (including thyroid function) and general bloods as well as some genetic stuff.

Yesterday my paediatrician called to discuss the results, and she told me that there were some abnormalities in his chromosome microarray, which is a test looking at his DNA to see if there were any deletions or duplications.  And they found that he had a "heterozygous duplication within chromosome band 15q13.3 which involves only one gene CHRNA7".

The report stated that a large study had found that this particular duplication is associated with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) though my son doesn't have that, but another study said that duplications in the 15q11-13 segments were associated with autism, especially if the duplications were on the maternal side of the chromosome.

Even more concerning to me is when I read all things like this:

The recurrent 15q13.3 microdeletion/microduplication has been reported to cause mental impairment, autism spectrum disorder, facial dysmorphism, seizures and epilepsy...Some of the common clinical features of the BP4a - BP5 ~500 kb deletion were speech delay, developmental delay, ADHD, aggressive behavior, ADHD, and hearing loss. None of the three deletion cases were reported to have either seizures or epilepsy. Phenotypic features of individuals with the ~500 kb duplication include growth delay, midface hypoplasia, speech delay, mild autism and one case exhibiting seizures. Further studies are needed to determine whether CHRNA7 duplications are more likely polymorphic variants with little clinical significance or possibly causative with incomplete penetrance and/or variable expressivity. These results suggest that the deletion/duplication of the CHRNA7 gene by itself may not be sufficient by itself to cause seizures and epilepsy, and may instead be a susceptibility gene related to speech delay, ADHD, autism and aggressive behavior.

There's even a pamphlet on that particular gene duplication!

Looking at that, what does that really mean?  I know that genetic things have incomplete penetrance, so people having this gene don't necessarily get autism, but it makes me wonder for the future - is my son going to pass autism down to his children? If I had known I had a defective gene would that affect my decision to have children even though the chance of anything happening is small?

I find it remarkable that genes are like computer programs or files. The files can copy incorrectly, have errors, have recurring segments or deletions - and in a computer program or file it may have no impact at all, or it may have a massive impact.  I feel lucky that the impact on my son seems small - looking around at other children who have duplications in those regions, they could have ended up with major developmental abnormalities, retardation and poor physical development.

So what does it mean in the present moment?

It means I need to go speak to a geneticist to figure out if I need to do any further tests on my son, or even myself and my husband to see if this thing has any relevance. If either he or I have the same duplication then perhaps it's just an incidental finding that isn't associated with anything as neither of us have autism or developmental delay (that I know of!).  But obviously there is no treatment (nor would I seek one) because my son is going along just fine at the moment.  Makes me wonder in the future when he's grown up and his partner wants to have children, what would they think of this? Though if my son grows up and has no impairments or disability then it would probably not mean anything and he could go on living a normal productive life.  Which is all a mother could hope and dream for!

Game of Thrones Exhibition in Sydney July 1-5

Reblogged from The Daily Frostwolf

The opening day of the Game of Thrones Exhibit (Tuesday 1 July) held at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Sydney, reported queues as long as 6 hours. They were not joking. I had resigned myself to not seeing the exhibition because I was planning to go to visit my parents with my children during the school holidays.  But on Thursday night one of my friends called me and asked me if I was going to see it, as he had taken the day off on Friday to go and see it and wanted me to come with him.  He said he would be there at 8am (exhibition opens at 10am) and I spoke to my parents and said naively "I should be able to get in at 10, be done by 11 and then we can drive to your house."  They told me to go enjoy myself. Well.... So I hopped on the train and got into the city at about 815am, and I could see from the train station the huge queues in front of the MCA already.  He was a minute or two ahead of me and was heading to the line so I went to meet him.  It was already REALLY long and getting longer.  Lucky we got into the main line.

Snaking queue in front of the lawn of the Museum of Contemporary Art - not unlike herding sheep

See the bike next to the orange barrier?  That's the queue to GET into the queue! 2nd queue along harbourline

All my good intentions about bringing a book to read had gone out the window in my dash to get out this morning (not to mention, terribly antisocial for poor Shab), and I couldn't find my Brookstone charger so I couldn't charge my phone or camera whilst sitting around, which meant I couldn't do much web browsing or game playing on my phone either.  But my friend and I just chatted away for hours as we progressed through the huge line. I think it's the longest time I'd spent talking to my mate, and luckily we had heaps to talk about - or at least I did.  It was fun talking WoW, work, cartoons, comics and Game of Thrones stuff. And there were a few cosplay people outside entertaining the crowds!

We got to the "3 hour wait" sign at 1:40pm, the "2 hour wait" sign at 2:20pm, and the "1 hour wait" marker at 3pm and the "30 minute wait" mark at 3:15pm.  We finally got INTO the exhibit at 3:55pm. There were 2 mini queues (they were nothing compared to outside's line) for pics on the Iron Throne, and also for the Oculus Rift 4D experience on The Wall.

The replica Iron Throne.  Looks good in pics, but up close it's VERY plastic!

The virtual reality experience of ascending the Wall with wind blowing on your head and being shot by flaming arrows!  I have to admit, I was skeptical about trying it but it turned out to be rather cool. That 4D Oculus Rift headset was pretty realistic and you could look to the sides and up and see stuff.  When I was shot with the flame arrow in the chest, I was automatically trying to put it out!

All the costumes were amazing.  So much detail and work went into them!

Costumes for Sansa Stark, Prince Oberon, Marjery Tyrell, King Joffrey Baratheon and Cersei Lannister

Tyrion Lannister's outfit next to Sansa's dress

Brienne and Jaime (after he lost his hand)

Arya Stark and The Hound (and her wooden training sword used with Syrio)

Ygritte's furs and John Snow's leathers

Two of Daenerys Targaryan's outfits

Melisandre and Stannis Baratheon

The props were all quite memorable too!  It was cool seeing some of the things that you remember from the show.

Eww pretty realistic looking prop of Jaime's severed hand

Obsidian blades, Ice picks

Verdict: Awesome exhibition, especially considering it was free!  But worth an 8 hour wait?  I don't think so! Saturday is the last day (5 July) and I hate to think what kind of crowds it will generate then.  I wonder if they had booked tickets and the exhibition had cost something (man, they could have RAKED in the cash with this one), the crowds may have been a lot less. All up it was a good experience (though hours of my life I will never get back) but at least I had a fun time with Shab.