Pouring, it's Pouring

I would like very much for it to stop pouring. And I don't mean the weather outside. In fact we could do with some rain, the garden needs it.

I've been editing again, on tiny teeny weeny deadlines. I'd hoped very much to get the book sent back to Momentum before the school holidays descended on me.  It was all arranged and I'd been working my bum off and I was going to get there. And then I went on Amazon....

You see Secret Intentions and Running Scared have been selling really well lately.  Much to my eternal startlement (I mean they've been out there for 5 or so years now, so I'm not expecting royalty statements saying I've sold 76 copies in a month!). So I hopped on Amazon to see if there'd been some sort of advertising or something (there hadn't been), and there was a review... one of those one liner crushing ones that no matter how much you try to ignore it, it keeps niggling you.

It led to anxiety attack, a re-read of Drive Me To Distraction, sent me four days over my deadline and working well into the school holidays.

Le Sigh.

So day before yesterday I sent the edits back.

Phew. Breathing space. Time to interact with my children and not just ignore them as they reenact various Lord of the Flies type scenes with the neighbours kids.

And then yesterday morning, at 8am the phone rang.

It was Miss 6s psych.

Miss 6 has a therapist at school with her three days a week.  Paid for by us. No help from the school. No help from the government - the little school funding we can get hold of ($800) was DENIED because the department decided Miss 6 does NOT have Aspergers. Yep. Still WTF-ing that one.  Apparently the diagnoses of paediatricians, independent child psychologists, school based psychologists and counsellors don't count for much these days.  But anyway I digress...

Miss 6s psych had rung to tell us that our therapist had quit.

My day came to a shuddering halt.  It was a disaster. A disaster of epic proportions. For school and most of all for Miss 6. She's not learning. She's barely interacting in class without her therapist there. She can't handle change at all. She can't read. She's got a serious visual processing disorder that means we're currently exploring ways to somehow get her to be able to recognise letters on a page.  Her bewildered frustration leads to melt down after melt down, she needs someone at school with her or the place is just day care.

The effect of this news led to a domino effect involving pretty much everyone who had dealings with Miss 6.  And by afternoon I was sat in my chair watching QI on iView and contemplating the tattered remains of a system we thought was working, but turns out noone had told us was just smoke and mirrors.

Now my husband has the gift of the gab.  He is also very very good at managing people. I am neither of these things, though as the Mother it is usually down to me to manage those who manage Miss 6. But last night I handed it over to him. He works 12hrs a day resolving conflict. And he's damn good at it.

Two hours later, and some of the smoothest talking I have ever heard, and it seems, hopefully, we might have a solution that means Miss 6 will get through to the end of the year with the support she so desperately needs.  But the damage has been done and we've realised that the current situation is unsustainable.  We have huge decisions and changes before us, and I think probably a lot of bumps in the road ahead.

It never just rains does it? It pours.

And that review that so got to me... yeah it said I was long winded.

What the hell??