Spanish holiday preparation for Emily

We're heading off to Spain next week for Amanda and Dave's wedding and Emily is going to be a flower girl.

There's so much about that sentence that fills me with dread.

Thankfully, through various workshops and meetings, we've discovered (and had reinforced) that the prepared parent of an ASD child can (hopefully) circumvent most meltdowns and problems by being prepared.

To this end, Sue bought Emily a book about a flower girl a couple of weeks ago that we've been reading. How much she can equate some badly drawn artwork to a task she's never performed is yet to be seen.

To enable to trip to be less stressful for Em, Sue's also put together a small book outlining what we're doing, where we're going and - crucially for ASD kids - that we're coming back home again.

The goal is to read this book like we would a Dr Seuss or Hairy McLairy book, and hopefully the repetition and the familiar photos will make the actual event of the flight to Spain, the wedding (and flower girling) and the trip home almost stress-free.

One thing we have been remiss about is to get Emily in the habit of wearing headphones. This won't be much of an issue going to Spain as EasyJet won't have any in-flight entertainment. It will be quite imperative to have this sorted on the flight to Oz for the girls in August, as Em will need to be entertained by the TV screen.

Fingers crossed the Spanish holiday goes off without a hitch.

They're back from Oz!

Went to the airport this monr and picked Em and Sue up.

They're both present and accounted for and doing well. The fear I had of the flights back from Oz being a complete nightmare were, for the most part, unfounded. Which is good.

Emily on the plane = pain

She's been on a plane many times before, but our journey to Vancouver has been - hands down - the worst flight we've had with Emily so far. She was agitated, tired, hungry and ever so slightly dehydrated.

Ten long hours of Sue and I losing our patience repeatedly with her did not make for a fun trip over.

I really, really, really, am not looking forward to our forthcoming trips to Toronto or back to the UK.

UPDATE: Em slept the whole trip back from Toronto. I think we'll have to fly during the night from now on.

Baby ruins all the fun

Sue wants to fly to Australia in September for a wedding. No problem there, she's always flying to Australia for various reasons. This time, however, she wants to take the baby. Only trouble is, the baby isn't a baby yet, it's still a foetus. By September, of course, it will have been a baby for months.

Try buying a plane ticket (or at least pay the taxes) for a person who legally doesn't exist yet. When you can't tick the "name" or "date of birth" box for the travel agent, they tend to come back with a "not enough information" response.

Now that the baby is 8 days late, we're hoping it'll arrive soon, with the task of getting cheaper airfare added to the list of reasons why.

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Now playing: Bloc Party - Kreuzberg
via FoxyTunes

A missive from Malaysia

We made it through the 12 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur!

When we went to see Crowded House on Sunday, the discomfort Sue was feeling having to stand and sit, etc. worried me a bit. I guess the seats on a plane are more comfy than a folding chair at a gig. The trade off is you're at a gig for about 2 hours, as opposed to 12 hours on the flight.

Sue also wore her special flight socks, and so far there's been no ill side effects from the flight (read "DVT").

We've decided that this bit of the trip - the KL before the Oz bit - is going to be laid back and we'll see what happens. Sue's discovered that outside the "go to work, go home" she actually gets quite tired quite quickly, and she can't walk loads.

We ended up taking a cab back from the Suria KLCC (the main shopping centre under the Petronas Towers). The walk would have been about 5-8 mins, but because of traffic, the cab took about 20 mins. Rightly so, Sue was done for the day and wouldn't have made the walk. Just ironic how bad the traffic was.

We're here for another day, as we leave tomorrow night for Oz. Not sure what tomorrow will bring, but Sue's mentioned Merdeka Square and maybe China Town, so hopefully there's not too much walking and it's not stifling with the humidity.