After the show, she was very, very quiet. Miranda was trying to talk to her about the show, and Zoë got quite cross and told Miranda, "Don't ask me questions!" I took this to mean that Zoë was overwhelmed and couldn't process the language (it's hard enough for her to talk when she's calm and relaxed; when she's overwhelmed, it's that much worse!).

We stopped at McDonald's afterward to get a little treat. Zoë and I went to use the toilet and the first thing she did was go in the stall, shut the door, and vomit. Poor kid. She was quite pale and said she didn't want to go to school today.

Today, she's extremely irritable, but she's eating and seems to be recovering.

Unfortunately, she has a history of getting anxious to the point of making herself sick. The first time she was going to go to a sleepover at her school, she got sick at dinner and had to come home. A few months later, she got sick on Christmas Day. This time, at least, she got sick AFTER the show...

"Now! We must destroy The Island of Mister Gorilla!"

Mr Gorilla is one of her toys; he is a rather large stuffed gorilla, as you may have guessed. Why he should have his island destroyed, I don't know. When I asked, Zoë got rather embarrassed and went in her room and shut the door so I couldn't hear any more dialog or narration.

I expect she'll be perfectly back to normal by the end of the week.

At the doctor, she got some ointment in her eye and an eye patch. (He believes it's just a scratch on the surface of the eye.) Zoë was disappointed that the eye patch wasn't black and didn't "have a string on it". She wanted a pirate patch!

So when we went to the pharmacy later, I picked up an inexpensive black eye patch for her to wear on top of the bandaged/taped one. This seems to please her, and she keeps looking at her reflection at every opportunity. Right now, she's lying down in a darkened room. I think the light is bothering her, and she's finding it difficult to keep her good eye open while the other one is, by necessity, shut.

Tonight we need to change the dressing and then tomorrow morning we're to drop around the doctor's office to have the eye checked again, to make sure it's healing and not infected or anything serious (he's not expecting any drama).

The only good thing about this is that Zoë has a good story to tell! Pecked in the eye by a chook!

They saw some ice sculptures and went to the Gold Museum (Ballarat is famous for its gold rush history), and the next day, they went to Kryal Castle.

In fact, Zoë enjoyed herself so much that she asked, "Why are we only staying one night?" So next time, apparently, Nanna and Grandpop will take her away for two nights and see how she does with that.

This is the second time this year that Zoë has gone away on a holiday. A few weeks back, we all (grandparents and our family) went to the Mornington Peninsula for a few days and stayed in a holiday house. Zoë was fine with that, too, and adapted very well to the situation.

I don't know when we (or she) will go away again. We were thinking of doing something over the longer summer holidays, but nothing's planned yet.

Me: What? There's no such thing as "My Big Fat Greasy Wedding".

Zoë: Yes, there is. It's a DVD!

Me: No. We have "My Big Fat GREEK Wedding".

Zoë: No, GREASY!

Me: Show me.

Zoë goes off and returns with the DVD case.

Me: Look. Greek. G-R-E-E-K. Not greasy. It's "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", and it's rated G.

Zoë skips off with the DVD, and a few minutes later I hear the Greek music that begins the film... (I don't know if she'll enjoy the film or not, but it's one of my favourites!)

* Lately both kids have been utterly fascinated with the whole idea of ratings for films and television shows. They're always asking what things are rated. We're having a hard time making them understanding that the rating is only for the content, and not for whether or not kids will like it. This is probably why Zoë decided to watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding, though she lost interest pretty quickly. I've told her that just because it's G-rated doesn't mean it's for kids...

We were cleaning up my office, which has a lot of boxes in it that haven't been unpacked from when we moved. Andrew found a container of powder. He called Zoë and asked her to put it in the bathroom. As she took it, I said to her, "Don't open it!" and then I added, "And don't spill it!" (Miranda pointed out that if you didn't open it you wouldn't spill it, which is quite true, of course, but with Zoë it's best to be explicit.)

Sometime later one of us went to the bathroom and.... powder EVERYWHERE. It was obvious that she had opened the powder and just stood there and sprinkled it all over the bathroom. Everywhere. Did I mention it was everywhere? Well, it was.

Today after lunch I sent her to her room for arguing with me (I honestly don't even remember what she was arguing about), and my frustration with her misbehaviour was bubbling over. Eventually, once she worked out that I really meant it and she really had to stay in her room, she did, but not without a lot of sobbing and shrieking and her accusation that I'm "an evil mama". Eventually she did calm down, and finally, when I told her she could use the toilet, she admitted to me that she really had put the powder on the floor "on purpose" and she apologised. I mentioned all the other things she's been doing (though I did accept the apology).

She then confessed to me that she has "a naughty brain". I know exactly what she means. It's when you know you're not supposed to do something, but your naughty brain tells you to do it, and you do. I had it a lot as a kid.

Later, when she was on about her fourth toilet break, I said we were going to have to take her to the doctor (because she's in the toilet awfully frequently and I suspect she may have a UTI).

Zoë, however, asked, "To fix my brain?"

I had to chuckle at that. We had a long talk about Naughty Brain Syndrome and that doctors can't really fix it. We're all responsible for our own brains, and the way to deal with it is to have Good Brain tell Naughty Brain NO when Naughty Brain suggests that you do something you know you shouldn't do. I told her it takes practice, but she can learn to do that and then Naughty Brain won't get her in trouble.

I'm actually quite relieved to hear about her naughty brain. I didn't think she knew about things like brains, but obviously she does, and she understands that she's got impulses that are hard to resist. I can wholly identify with that, and I think I can help her to deal with it. It really is mostly just a matter of practice, and of choosing to listen to Good Brain and not Naughty Brain.

I'm very impressed with her today, and I'm really pleased that we could have this breakthrough, even if it did come at the cost of an entire container of powder all over the bathroom. I did mention all over, right?

However, we haven't had much luck convincing her to try something new when we go out to eat. She always falls back on the chicken nuggets, despite there being other options on the children's menu.

Except that the time before last when we went out, she ordered a kid's chicken schnitzel. Mind you, it's still chicken, and it's still breaded, but it's not nuggets. And today... she ordered kid's pizza, with ham, cheese, and pineapple. My jaw nearly hit the table.

Miranda will eat most things, with a small selection of things she just doesn't like very much (just as anyone has those things they just don't care for), so she's always been easy to feed. But for Zoë to order not only something different but pizza with pineapple(!!!) on it is quite something, and definitely progress.

I've always commented on how deeply parents appreciate it when a special needs child accomplishes something, no matter how simple. With a neurotypical child, you celebrate their milestones and accomplishments, of course, but when your autistic child starts doing something new, especially something they (or you) have struggled with, it's just that much sweeter.

Therefore, she felt compelled to write a letter to Santa, to inform the real Santa that she wanted a Fish Bank (which is a sort of a cross between a piggy bank and a tamagotchi). Mind you, for about six weeks prior to Christmas, she was telling anyone who was nearby that she wanted a Fish Bank, so there's no way Santa couldn't have known this, but she was concerned, so she wrote a letter and insisted on putting it in the post box herself.

She did, indeed, get the Fish Bank, along with a number of other interesting things and not-so-interesting things like underwear and socks and a new toothbrush. She was impressed with the firefly earrings that Santa put in her stocking, though, and wore them on Christmas Day to go to Nanna's house, where Santa had also been, since Santa is clever and knew we'd be going over there (and Miranda told him in an email).

Unfortunately, Zoë was unwell all of Christmas Day. She had been terribly, terribly excited and she didn't sleep well, was asleep late and woke early, and I think it all just caught up with her. She had a quite noticible fever and she was, in her own words, "just very tired". She didn't eat much all day, only had half a hard boiled egg and a half a roll for dinner, and went to lie down in a darkened room off and on all day. She came out from time to time to look at her presents or to sit with her dad or a grandparent or me, but then she'd feel tired again and go lie down.

Happily, the illness was just transitory (probably brought on by exhaustion and stress and excitement), and so on Boxing Day (26 December, also known as the Feast of Stephen, the day upon which Good King Wenseslas looked out), we went on our usual Boxing Day trip.

These trips are rambling ones. We get a general location and point the car that way and then just go, and stop and see things along the way if we come across anything interesting. This year, we went to Sale, which is about a three hour trip if you go straight there, but we stopped for a picnic lunch in Moe and then to see the gorgeous Centennial Rose Garden in Morwell, and we had a look at the big power plant there (we didn't do a tour, though). We had a look at a number of the sites around Sale and then headed to Ninety Mile Beach.

It was too cold to swim in the Tasman Sea, despite it being the middle of summer. The Tasman has Antarctic currents, and you can really tell! We did, however, play in the surf a little bit, getting our feet and legs wet and experiencing the quite strong undertoe at Paradise Beach. Being a protected marine park, you can't take anything away from the beach, and consequently the beach is amazingly full of things that have washed up, including sponges, corals, all manner of beautiful shells, big clusters of seaweed, and various other interesting things (such as the crab leg shell we found). It was interesting to try to explain to Zoë why she couldn't keep the shells she found, but eventually we made her understand that she wasn't allowed to.

Unlike Miranda, Zoë stayed awake for the entire ride home, despite having a pillow and shared blanket in the back seat. Miranda went to sleep shortly after it got dark, but Zoë stayed away the entire time, despite there being nothing to see and our encouraging her to put her head on the pillow and doze. It was about half past midnight when we got home, and the first thing Zoë did was rush to her Christmas goodies box and start to open a craft project! We'd been out all day long, driving all over and visiting places and going to beaches, it was very late, and she decided to do crafts in the middle of the night! (No, we did not allow her to do the craft. She had to brush her teeth and go to bed, full stop.)

She's keeping busy with craft projects and new DVD movies all weekend, and helping a bit with the gardening when I go out to do it. She's even being fairly nice to her sister.

I wonder how long this will last. It's normally not too long into school holidays that both kids start to get really restless...

I asked her what she wanted to eat and she said, "I haven't had breakfast," so I offered her an egg. She said that she wanted an egg "in a cup". I scrambled an egg and cooked it in a microwave egg cup. When she saw it she said, "No, not like that. I wanted it in a cup!" I said, "Well, isn't this a cup?" Eventually I worked out that she meant an egg cup. She wanted a soft boiled egg. I apologised and she thought it was pretty funny that I got it wrong and she had a good laugh. She still ate the scrambled egg and had some fresh apple juice (which she asked for specifically).

She's lying down again now. I think it's safe to assume that she'll be well enough to go to the dentist tomorrow, which is a relief.

I don't believe this was entirely due to being overly excited, but I think the excitement may have added to the severity of it. She's never been the kind of kid who gets sick with excitement, and I've certainly never seen excitement cause a fever. I'm guessing it was just a mild virus with incredibly inopportune timing.

As soon as she got home, she wanted to go to bed. Andrew set her up with a bucket (for sudden vomiting) and she was so exhausted she didn't even put on her pyjamas. She just took off her clothes and crawled into bed and wouldn't be roused.

Just after ten I checked on her and got her pyjamas on her. She looks very slightly better having had a few hours of sleep, but she's still got a raging fever, and the problem with that is if I give her medicine to take the fever down, she thinks she's well and starts running around and getting into things instead of resting no matter how much I try to explain it to her. Therefore, when she's sick I really just have to let it run its course without benefit of pain relief or fever reduction. I hate seeing her in obvious discomfort and pain, poor kid.

And I feel really badly for her that she has to miss out on the fun of a sleepover. I expect they'll have another one next year, but it's not the same. She's missed this one, and it's just terribly unfortunate.

She's got a dentist appointment on Saturday. We're hoping and praying she'll be well enough to go to that, because it takes weeks to get an appointment around this time of the year, and this one is with her favourite dentist, who also happens to be everyone else's favourite dentist and is therefore booked for months in advance sometimes...

I made my displeasure clear and sent her to the bathroom to wash her hands and face. All the way down the hall she was howling (obviously, she'd swallowed the incriminating sausage by that point), "It was Miranda! Miranda did it! It was Miranda!"

She stayed in the bathroom for a while, all the time screaming or howling and insisting that "Miranda did it! It was Miranda!" She acted like if she just screamed it enough times, it would somehow convince me. Eventually, she calmed down and I heard, "I'm sorry Mom.* I won't ever do it again."

I still had to send her back to properly wash her face, as she missed a fair bit of it. Then I had to send her to blow her nose. And then I let her go back and watch television, which is her usual afternoon habit and which had been interrupted by my heartless refusal to believe that her sister had taken a bite out of the sausage and requiring Zoë to wash her hands and face.

I hope that soon she realises how absurd her lies are. Honestly, they're downright embarrassing at times! If you insist on lying to me, at least make it slightly believable...

*Zoë calls me "Mom" rather than "Mum". This may be a shortening of "Mama", or it may be that she's just picked up that American accent from the many, many American movies she owns. She does have a rather noticible American accent in many of the things she says. I don't know if that's from me, from the movies, from the language DVDs we got for her years ago, or just some combination of things.

This week there's a sleepover at Zoë's school. It's for the girls in the "Girls' Friendship Group", which is actually group speech therapy, but it's all girls about the same age. There are six little girls and there will be two adults (the speech therapist and the music therapist, both of whom are women), and the group will be going out to eat at a buffet style restaurant, then doing some craft activities, music, having a late snack, showering, and going to sleep in the gym on the mats in sleeping bags, and then getting dressed and having breakfast and going to school again the next day. Zoë is tremendously excited about it, and I don't blame her. It sounds pretty fun!

Zoë's taken to telling lies, and they're not even believable ones. You can actually see her doing something (stomping her feet down the hallway, for example) and say, "Stop stomping," and she'll say, "I'm not stomping! Miranda is!" (everything is Miranda's fault, Miranda's problem, Miranda's responsibility, etc.). The lies that Zoë tells are just absurd sometimes. You can see her with, say, chocolate all over her face and when you say something like, "Hey, you got into the chocolate!" she'll just point blank deny it, in spite of all the extremely obvious evidence. Point out the evidence and she still just denies it. I've told her how ridiculous her lies are, and how I can clearly see exactly what happened, but it doesn't matter, she just sticks to her story.

So if you ever hear that rumour that Autistic kids can't lie, don't believe it. They certainly can lie, and they can do it with every intention of deceiving the listener. Some Autistic kids may even be able to lie convincingly. Mine certainly can't. (I think this is because she has a hard time getting perspective outside of herself, which is necessary to see how others perceive you and your situation. She can't do that, so she figures if she just says it's a certain way, then it is....)

Zoë's speech is getting better all the time. Unfortunately, she tends to speak in a very high pitched voice, almost like a falsetto. It can be extremely tiresome, to say the least. I hate to complain about it, because we worked for years to get her to speak at all and now we're complaining that she won't be quiet or won't lower her voice! We call her Little Miss Chatterbox a lot of the time now, a title she seems to enjoy.

And I'll leave you with a bit of Zoë humour. She and her dad went out to the grocery store and she took Clifford (the Big Red Dog as per the storybooks, only this Clifford isn't particularly big) with her. We have a rule that toys must stay in the car, as things tend to get lost in shops. When they arrived, Zoë wanted to take Clifford in with her (we have this argument most times, by the way; she always thinks the rule will change for some reason). Her dad told her no, and then added, "Dogs aren't allowed in the shops." Zoë, quick as you please, responded, "I could dress him up like a guide dog!" Dad got a good laugh out of that and even called Nanna to share the joke, but, alas, Clifford had to wait in the car, anyway...