Hmmm... something may have started!

we usually end up using most stuff before it comes off the clothes airer.. well, face cloths etc.. cos they are right there, why go to the next room to get them? paris's stuff gets put in the hot water cupboard lately.. so it's warm when she gets dressed int he mornings. and mike does the rest of the folding, and the cooking too right now. oh, I love him so much.

Maria, if you're talking about the Child Disability Allowance, you are definitely entitled. It's $74 a fortnight and it doesn't depend on income at all, anyone with a sick or disabled child can get it, I get for Maya for her allergies, and also for Mona as she is legally deaf.

I found my cleaner thru an agency that a friend recomended. They came while I was out at Playcentre this morning, and it was soooo nice to come home to a clean house! I am so stressed atm that I have broken out in hives, so that is one less thing for me to stress about

Make sure you do angelnz, we get ours for Micheal as he's legally blind and we only found out about the allowance by accident. It's sad that they don't give everyone what they are entitled to when they are entiitled to it. So make sure you push for it. Depending on what's wrong with your child you may qualify for respite care as well. We get 30 days a year paid for by the ministry of health, where we can send Micheal to anyone even family members and they get paid $75 for a minimun of 8 hours. It was an absolute godsend when we had abby.   Micheal usually goes to my mum's for the weekend and gets paid $150-00. Maya I'm assuming with Mona you should be entitled to it if your not already getting it. If you guys want anymore info let me know.

You should still be entitled with Mona, Emma, despite her age. My brother has just turned 12 and my parents get respite care for him... he attends a normal school during the day so they get a break then too... but every other weekend he goes for "care" and then the whole family gets some proper time apart (and together - when he's in care, my 14yo sister gets to spend some quality time with my parents). My brother has aspergers, so can be pretty full on sometimes.

Mona has similar behavioural problems - she has all the signs of ADHD but they are not caused by ADHD but actually by her frustration at not being able to hear. She has a special FM system where she wears headphones and her teacher wears a microphone so that she can hear better at school, and she has just this year started at a new, smaller school and seems to be coping better there.
Her problem is fixable tho - she has to have the perforations in her ear drums patched (myringoplasty) then she should regain around 80% of her hearing, but will still have a mild impairment.

Nope, she has had 2 myringoplasty already, one on each side, but they failed (ie. the patch came off) so she now has to have them repeated. She had her last surgery 2 weeks before Maya was born, so that's over 2 years ago. Now we are just sitting on the waiting list for surgery
Thats one of the reasons I added Maya to my health insurance when she was born, so that if she has any problems they're all covered so we won't have to wait on the public list, but they won't cover Mona because it's a preexisting condition.

We have been so lucky with public hospital. Apart from a year wait for his eye squint operation. Micheal got in straight away for his hernia op and only had to wait for a month for his nose operation. He's been to nearly every childrens department in the hospital and we've been very lucky to get in to see the various speacilist quickly. Hopefully you don't have to wait to much longer. It must be really annoying knowing something can be done and then having to wait so long.

yep it is. We were turned down for orrs funding for Micheal's schooling. So I wrote to everybody and anybody complaining, and bombarded the ministry of education, with medical records etc and we eventually got it. If we don't fight for our kids who else is going to. Good luck with your appointment!

That's great news. It'll be good to get it over and done with. Can't be to pleasant for a child.

is it horrible Emma? They led me to beleive it was a pretty straight forward easy thing.