They said I should write a book

It started with increased grunting on Thursday. I knew she wasn’t ok. I took her for a drive to see if the car would soothe her enough to feel happier. It didn’t. Instead, my stress and worry, helplessness and fatigue increased with each kilometer I drove.

What is wrong?

Why is she acting the very same way she acted before I took her to hospital the other time? But she’s been passing stool. What’s wrong?

For loving parents, you can only be as happy as your saddest child. That already puts me in a constant state of unhappiness given my children’s neurodivergence makes them miserable each day for different reasons. Add the inability to communicate and you have a mother who can never be truly happy. And that’s without the audible grunting from pain.

Then things regressed. My children, and by extension I, do not slept well anyway. But it’s now even worse. My girl has been up and loud by 4am. The father then leaves me to keep her somehow quiet so she doesn’t wake her siblings after telling me, “I have to go run.” And then he has the silence, no grunting, no worry, no crying and sadness during the day. No night time interruptions, not even sleeping late like I have to till I am sure every child is asleep and won’t come wake me.

This morning, erupted with bleary Sjögren’s disease eyes, teeth, AS pain and her sounding wide awake and loud. And by 5am, she was screaming. I suggested hospital. The father said nah, we should wait for me to book an appointment for her to see the pediatrician. Today is Saturday! I told him the paed isn’t available till end of April. (I needed to see him to put our PMDD girl on birth control so I’d contacted his rooms on Thursday.)

Then he asked if she doesn’t have a GP she sees. No…She has a paed! And I reminded him that a GP can’t see through her to see if her belly is empty. Yes she has been moving stool, but she’s acting exactly like she was when I took her to the hospital on the 6th. I know from normal info that one can be constipated even while going regularly. Add the Sjögren’s lady whose scan also showed way too much stored in her despite how often she does go seeing as our bowels don’t produce liquid to move things along, and you have a suspicion her belly isn’t ok despite the multiple poops throughout the day, two of them complete blow outs that required an immediate bath and change of clothes.

I ended up saying, over my poor child’s screams that had now woken Ammy and broken her heart, “If I was healthy, I would take her to the hospital. This isn’t right.”

They went to the hospital.

And yep, her stomach is PACKED. We have two medical type clean outs we must do, then adult colon meds for five days after. I pray it works. I pray it never happens again. With her diet, it’s very easy for this to happen. I really hate autism.

But hey, all is right in the world. I got the meds into her -150ml is not easy! And her father is happily restfully napping for an hour. Being strong and healthy and sleeping at 8pm and waking at 4am to go run must be so hard.

Meanwhile, I hope her grunts of pain disappear. And never return. I am barely holding on as it is. I feel like something in my head is going to snap. I keep telling God that I want to be thankful, but the suffering He is allowing in every single facet of my life is over shadowing a lot of the light. I am not content. I want my child to be able to tell me when her pain is starting so I can catch it sooner. I want to get a break and rest. I want my children to stop being challenging so they too can be happy.

I asked Ammy why she lied about her little brother. There was no reason. It’s like she seeks trouble for others. She wants me to reprimand an innocent sibling.

But then her response becomes so extreme that you have to remind yourself that you do have to discipline. You do have to ask why, and tell them it wasn’t kind nor right. But man, the reaction is also as intense as the many times a day behaviours.

I need a happy group of children.🥹

My poor girl is getting roasted big time by her younger siblings! I was in my bedroom with her and Micaiah and she started trying to do push ups. She was complaining that she at least used to do four before but now can’t do any at all.

Micaiah said something about her arms…

“Why do your arms look so big and fat? It’s like you’re that obese uncle with the very big front tummy!” I forgot to even ask which ‘uncle’ this is because my girl started laughing at herself so I just joined her as I tried to see if her arm really WAS that bad.

I have one answer to the previous post. She is still gaining weight. She’s gained a kg in a week and is now heavier than her 20 year old brother. I told her our first goal will be to stabilise her weight before we even look at loss.

Then, later, her sister was outside looking all cute reading a book (The way my parents used to hate it when they caught me reading was awful.) so I silently went out to see her.

This is her when her ADHD meds have worn off. I love it.

Micaiah and Amarissa came out and then this little one said to me, “Mommy…I’m really worried…Why does Amarissa eat so much? All the time she’s eating. And now she’s fat.”🫣 Thankfully, the girl herself thought it was funny because we’d been talking about her weight while her sister read outside. And we’d checked everyone’s BMI and laughed at the results.

First, we’d calculated her BMI, the pointer moves, so it moved all the way round to red and ‘obese.’ We did mine, and mine moved to the upper end of ‘healthy.’ Yes, I know the stats are not for people like us because our body composition naturally has more genetic fat than who it was used for, and the creator apparently even said he had never meant for the BMI measurement to be used on the general public anyway. But still, our silly Discovery med aid still uses it.

Then we did her little brother and it moved less than it had moved for her and I. And then, her big brother. Our autistic who never gets hungry and eats only when I remind him to but I have four small special needs children and pain so I don’t make him eat regularly as I forget he’s my other baby…

His needle moved like two millimetres to the upper end of ‘underweight.’ My girl thought it was hilarious that his barely moved, while hers made an almost 180 degree move to the other end of the scale. At least she thinks it’s funny😩.

But she was also roasted by the assessor and I. In her absence, of course. The DISCO day one assessment was apparently lightning fast. The psychologist said I was the fastest parent she’d ever had. I bet none of the others already had four already diagnosed children! And hadn’t BEEN talking about autism for the child for probably two to three years like my friend and I have been.

The questions were very different to other assessments they use. Interesting questions. Things that opened my eyes to autistic traits I didn’t know about. Like how her refusal to get dressed and also to tidy up is clearly PDA. Duh! Because she doesn’t always verbally refuse like her younger sister does who has it and it is severe, I just thought it was only ADHD responsible for it. And things like how badly she does her chores were asked about too! And the answer is, VERY badly. Yes, she definitely ‘needs supervision’ for all her chores because she will pick up two things, throw them under the bed and she’s done. But there will 39 other things still scattered all over the door or the table.

Another one was how she wasn’t safe outside at age three. Most kiddies can go out and just faff around and then come in. She was eating weeds and flowers until she turned NINE years old! She was disobeying us and catching bees and getting stung last year.

Another one is all her climbing! It was asked about! Oh yes, climbs on table and dances about on it very dangerously. Climbs trees and hangs upside down. Climbs wardrobe shelves, kitchen counters. Yeah, an 11 year old doing that is one of the traits of autism! I didn’t know that.

And one roast was her common sense. We laughed because as she herself had observed when she assessed Amarissa alone, “She has no common sense! We mean that in the nicest possible way. But no, she has none!”

This was the first time I didn’t feel sad when answering questions. Other tests focus on deficits. What’s missing, or stopped happening. I understand why there are always tissues available. But this was about actions and behaviours and thought processes that exist and point to autism and PDA.

And of course, her total lack of social skills. Not caring that she is out in public looking crazy with pantihose on her head, never realising her skirts are always tucked into her leggings at the waist. And too friendly with everyone. The type that will happily go off with a stranger. Add how she runs away and you have danger. I plan to buy an alarm for the gate so it warns us when she goes out, though her father doesn’t care. Instead he even told her, “You want to leave? Then take your stuff that you bought, and go.” Or he told me, “I will take her to Dunoon on one of the Saturday drives I take them on, and leave her there and tell her to walk home. Then she will see if she still wants to run away.”

For the West, Dunoon is a huge slum area with a LOT of crime. One of our old church families used to live there. He has been mugged twice there. Why would you even plan to dump a child anyway, let alone there?? Another case for why he must never have unsupervised visitation with the children.

But yes, we got through much, much more than she had ever gone through so she doesn’t think we will use all the sessions we’ve booked. My body is glad about that. But so far, the answers point to autism with PDA.

And the BMI scale is on the middle of obese and still moving. Oh boy! And I just realised I forgot to hide food last night. To be fair, she herself roasted herself. I sent her birth sister a recent photo and like birth mom two days before, she commented on the cheeks and called her her twin as she too is overweight and has chubby cheeks.

My girl asked why she’d written “twin” when her (sister’s) cheeks are smaller than hers.😅😅

My poor girl has gained so much weight that even before the recent five kg she’s gained in two months, the paed said we need to keep an eye on it and decide when we next see him…

This was her behind her little sister 11 months ago.

It’s not only about how her mean father told me she looks like a toad, but it’s because she looks pregnant in her two remaining dresses that her arms can fit into, and because those have empire bust lines that hurt her tummy as they are very tight.

She has been wearing two of my skirts..below the waist as the waist is too tight. I had bought teen size underwear but it hurt so I moved to adult size small undies after she took mine without my knowledge and it fit, and crop top bras in adult sizes too, but they too are hurting her and digging into her now. I bought them two weeks ago!! And you long time readers know that with her low registration sensory profile, it takes a lot for her to eventually feel pain. So now I’ve had to buy a bunch of adult size medium that don’t have seams, made with the most elastic material possible. She wore my too large for me medium exercise bra and was comfy.

Something is terribly wrong when your 11 year old is bigger than your menopausal, unable to do proper exercise, self. I feel sad for her. I wish I could control her appetite. But with the meds she’s on, the anti psychotics that also caused extreme weight gain for one of the twins (The other twin and Micaiah haven’t gained extreme weight from it) I am fighting an unfair battle. I’ve added a lot of exercise in our schedule for her for when I have time, but yesterday she had OT and today I have an assessment to attend. But also, her appetite…

I will tell her, as I walk out the kitchen carrying laundry, that she cannot have bread and peanut butter when she’s going to have supper in 15 minutes’ time, and when I come back to make said supper, she’s made the sandwich,, left the sticky knife on the counter and eaten it all. She will eat multiple bananas in the middle of the night and anything else she can find. She takes fresh fruit concentrate but instead if diluting 1 to 3, does it the other way round with three parts juice and one part water.

I truly don’t know when her weight will at least stabilise like our twin’s has. She’s been wearing age 8 or 9 clothes for many months now. It needs to stabilise. It’s expensive, buying clothes every few weeks. It’s unsustainable and she already doesn’t have enough outer garments as it is.

I never considered clothing when I thought of extreme weight gain till now. I never thought of underwear digging into the body and causing pain. How do I make this the plateau? In have no idea. Exercise isn’t enough. I provide low carb, low cal options but she wants the breads and calorie dense ones.

If you know anyone on antipsychotics who somehow fought against weight gain that had happened rapidly, share the secret!

The descent into further sickness has begun. First it was the increased pain, worsening stats for my walking. My walking steadiness is also decreasing.

With the number of steps I have to take perhaps I’m overdoing it, I thought. As you can see, the improvement I started feeling at the end of last year was as real as the decline I’m now feeling.

But now, I am also swollen. It has begun. I started feeling stiffness yesterday when I got up to walk. My joints are cracking more and louder when I move, even my hip! It’s a loud snap like something has been cracked apart. Amarissa even asked me, “Why does your body crack each time you move?” It’s scary. When I sit down, crack, crack, crack. When I shift my weight when standing, crack! I sometimes look at the person I’m talking to wondering if they heard it.

This cracking is chronic inflammation where the ligaments and tendons enter the bone that causes calcification at the joints. Ie new bone forming at the meeting point. As you move, sit etc, they react. It’s also due to fusing and friction . It’s basically, a daily reminder that the medicine you’re taking is truly only slowing the disease progression down. It’s definitely not a cure. And that, is always a horrifying reminder.

When I was diagnosed, I had to mourn that not only would I never be cured, but that each day that passed, was the best I could ever be. The following day, is going to be worse, might not feel it, but it is a steady downward fall. We can’t stop it. And my lungs attest to it just as my feeling it in my body and just as my health stats do.

And so, dear reader, imagine how I am suffering having to be physical caregiver from 6am until 10pm when the last child can finally sleep. I told my eldest son last night that this morning it will be his turn. Sometimes I drive our loud little lady at 6am so she doesn’t wake her siblings. Yesterday I got her to stay in a room far away and she allowed technology to keep her soft. And my breaking my back bouncing her on a ball. Unfortunately, most of our cameras aren’t keeping recordings and we don’t know why. Their father is wondering if we should subscribe to a cloud service. Which costs a lot (but not even as much as one night in his Tokyo hotel.)

And this what I hate. Every thing I do to be a present mother, hurts and worsens my condition. Today, I’m going to email the paed and ask him to also add my 11 year old to the education department’s waiting list for special schools. I found a private school that seemed to be different to the others that want autistic children with average or above average skills and emailed them. They do fit her with her learning disorders and inability to ever do academics in the near future but with only a (current) ADHD diagnosis. I start her DISCO autism assessment tomorrow. An hour at a time, I go answer questions about her. I will take my water and my eye drops. I keep forgetting and that’s for shorter appointments and struggle to see when driving home.🥹 But yes, physically, it is HARD raising my special angels. I have a post planned on the difference between homeschooling them vs non challenged children.

I don’t even have a father for them. My talkative twin was so excited to tell him T got rid of a splinter that was fully under her skin and hurting her and he didn’t say a word. I guess it’s better than when our eldest girl told him she got 94% for an assignment and he replied by sending her a work link that he’s now on the Board.🙄 He’s always out going to go do his marathon training super early and for hours. He doesn’t care that he’s a father first, before he’s a ‘use all our family money that he claims I am finishing’ to pay hundreds of American dollars to enter the races, and then tens of thousands of rands for the flights, food and accommodation.

My plan is to ask for an anti dissipation interdict. See, being married in community of property, legally, he had no legal right to have sent half a million to his cheating on wife one and wife two brother against my express wishes. And of course, no legal right spending any money of a significant amount without my express agreement. The ‘in community of property’ marital regime was “designed for the protection of housewives who give just as much to the family as the breadwinner does.” And so, I will have to use the law because he doesn’t acknowledge me nor the God whose whole law is also an ‘in community of EVERYTHING’ law.

I just don’t know how. I don’t even know how I will find the regional court to apply for divorce! I don’t even have strength to go to the shops anymore. Let alone go and find it somewhere in town, and then queue? I don’t even know how it works. Now court interdicted for anti dissipation orders?? No clue. If you do, please share. It’s a court order to stop him giving our money away to the randoms he’s been giving it to, and to stop wasting our money on his personal unnecessary activities which REDUCE his already very limited time being a father to his children and take a lot of our money away. You do it when you’re planning divorce.

And please pray that I find someone to help me do this. I wanted to search yesterday, I found out about it while searching in the morning, but then my girl -who has been awake and noisy since 5am today, but is playing in her room for now- got out her bedroom and the day was just too busy. I need time. And four special needs children, planning, cutting, researching and a weakening body do not allow for time to sit up searching and asking coherent questions. Don’t ask me who I will ask as I don’t have a lawyer yet.

The swelling that’s beginning, and stiffness are in my lower back and fingers. Winter is clearly going to be the usual poop show it has been since I was an innocent high school pupil. 🥹

Like I hate ‘non communicating’ (weird phrasing) autism, I hate AS too.

Well, I woke up from a dead sleep with my youngest handing me a freezing cold ice lolly so I could open it for her. I went to wake her father so he could take care of her. I’d not put drops or ointment in my eye for some hours and my eyes were painful and gritty so I put ointment in my eyes and got ready to lie back and let them work. Alas, he did not parent her. So, at six am, I took her very loud self to the car for a drive so she’d not wake her poor siblings up. Usually she wakes them by entering their bedroom, too.

When we got back, her biggest brother and her father, were standing talking together inside the house. She put her hand on the door handle to enter the house, saw them, and put her hand down and decided she wasn’t in the mood for them. Off we went to the yard instead.🤣I don’t blame her! I wasn’t in the mood either! I’d not been able to see clearly as the ointment blurs your vision for some time.

The rest of the morning was same as always but a bit worse. She didn’t sit at all. I was trying to edit their nature video while she kept coming in and out, wanting, wanting, wanting and her siblings also coming every now and then wanting, wanting, wanting.

I walked into the kitchen, and the pumpkins and sweet potato I’d cooked for her and myself? She was finishing it off as I entered, her father silently watching her. there went the only vegetable I could eat.

But that wasn’t all! I’d made myself a gluten free veggie sausage. I opened the fridge, ready to put in my hotdog roll.

I had the bun. But no sausage. Her big brother had seen her eat THAT one. And there went my protein source. Yeah, it wasn’t exactly a wonderful day.

BUT, I did acknowledge how grateful the neighbours must be that she’s well now. Her digestive system is working sluggishly, so I won’t ever take a break from the lacative medicine ever again, but man, it’s lovely seeing her mot in that excruciating pain she’d been in. I am thankful!

I also love that after my telling her to, she turned the bubble machine on! Getting her to follow a command is more miss than hit, in the hit and miss cycle! I also love it when she uses her unorthodox voice.

I’m also thankful for small mercies. Autism is hard. Very hard. My firk is very finicky about what she will and will not eat. I’ve figured out that ‘manners matter less than health.’ She doesn’t want dished out food or fruit. Especially not grapes. She will eat sliced apples, but not grapes in a bowl. So, I meet her where she is and put a container of grapes of the right amount in front of her. Forget table. Forget bowl. Just wash and place.

Can you see the pumpkin she dropped? Or the grape stems? Or are you focusing on how the plan worked and she ate all her grapes? How about an apple? I took apples out the cupboard and left them in the bag but on the kitchen counter. She took the bait and took an apple and ate it! We had a good day. Stolen protein, stolen vegetables, eaten fruit. Diet wise, today was a win. 🥰

My watch is telling the story I have been feeling. I’m getting worse and I’m sad, because I’d had a few good months last year. My steps age becoming more asymmetrical-not good. Limping more unbeknownst to me.

The six minute walk tells you how healthy your heart, lungs or musculoskeletal system are/is. Mine had a few good weeks and now I’m getting worse. Is it my lungs? My heart which is creeping back up? My body which has had worse pain?

My medical aid decided I’m a high risk patient. They put me on a programme to check my BP. They paid for this newfangled BP monitor that is linked via Bluetooth to the app which then takes my numbers. As you know and can read here, this wasn’t a perfect combination of numbers. I don’t know what they look at in the background to decide which of their clients needs to watch their BP, but I’m one. The father of my children is their client but he’s healthy so they didn’t put him on the programme. Hmph!

And that’s where I’ll end, folk. I hope all the children wake up late in the morning! I won’t hold my breath!

Health wise, today was a win because I was able to reach over 15 000 steps despite how bad I feel. It could be worse.

Amarissa is worrying. It’s like she’s regressing cognitively even though she is the wisest and most perceptive, most aware of all my children. Her oldest siblings have been quiet, only when I sat them down and asked if they really believe I’m a happy wife like my biggest girl had said, that they then erupted with all the issues they’ve noticed over the years. “Now that you mention it…” was the refrain when I’d ask things like, “How does your father talk to me?”

Amarissa is the opposite. She’s so aware of her father’s sins that she sadly even makes up sins that match what he already is guilty of. For example, he is not respectful of my team of helpers-cleaner and Jack of all trades. He doesn’t appreciate how the children bloom with our male driver/aide. He ignores them when they say they like him, or talk about him, or ask if they can call him. This Sunday he ordered me to tell the young man to stop leaving his exercise bike uncovered. I asked why he even thought it was the aide anyway…And of course, it wasn’t. It was our non speaker.

But Amarissa picks up on that and makes up stories that reflect that reality. Yesterday she lied and said Twin A showed their father a photo of herself and our aide, and the father didn’t comment. Except when I asked my girl, she hadn’t showed her father any photo at all.

Now you see why I double check everything she says. She and her brother are liars extraordinaire! But besides the lying, her intellect seems to be slower. Not stagnant, but slower. She takes long to understand simple sentences. You have to say them in an even simpler way. She is very immature. She will want to be on the tablet while her younger sister is perfectly fine watching traffic when in the car. She will constantly want excitement while her sister is content to play silently or read. She acts like a four year old with her “I want” all the time. And because she’s also got that sneaky thing going on that made us think of impulse disorder, she gets her sister to come do the actual asking, thinking I can’t tell, or won’t ask, whose idea it really was. I hate it. It’s a the point where I need her to be in a school as she disturbs our peace every single day, many times a day.

Today, she ran away. She finally got out. I caught her twice before, then Vi caught her yesterday and then today Vi noticed she’d left the room where she’d been sulking and found her four blocks away. When my girl saw she was behind her, she ran away but got tired. I’m glad she’s not fit. She had a destination in mind. A lady who likes them. Except she is a veteran member of the Neighbourhood Watch and knows where we live.😂 But still…There is something off with her. And it’s getting worse. Maybe it’s the stopping the other medicine that’s been causing too much weight gain, I don’t know.

On the other side of today’s coin, they had a lovely time at their first ever Homeschool Art Club session!!🥰🥰🥰They have an aunty who has been looking forward to it and she won’t be disappointed to read my feedback. They and a ball. I’d told her how when I’d looked at the social media, the homeschool club only seemed to have boys. And yep, they do indeed! The teacher said my two were like complete angels compared to some of the boys, and I can believe it! As I was paying, I could hear a boy who just wouldn’t stop talking! Teacher had to raise her voice for him to stop talking and listen.

The girls themselves had fun! The teacher commented to them during class that they help each other so nicely and get along so well, and one boy said that it’s very rare indeed. Instead, when he’s done with art “school”, he gets home and he and his sister start bickering almost immediately. That was so sweet. Homeschool children are just so precious even when super boisterous. The one was like my Twin A when her ADHD meds have worn off or when she hasn’t taken any yet. 😂

I’m just glad they can never be the most challenging unless the two boys don’t pitch up for a lesson.🤭

I explained to their brother who is NOT into art, that I’m sending them because their academic future is unclear. They need to see what physical skills or abilities they have that can be harnessed into a job of some sort one day. (And Twin A is going along for the ride as she’d be jealous if she didn’t join in.) My boy said the only Club he’d attend is one where they teach about different jobs.

So, that is that! I sent my children to their first out of home ‘lesson’ ever and it was awesome. Only five boys ie. Small class, a very passionate teacher, and a good impression. I’m sooo glad they’re so kind to each other and to others. When a boy pretended he was going to throw rolled up paper at Twin A, she told him laughing, “You’re so funny!” Awww.

Today, they began paper machè wolves! Twin A yelled enthusiastically, “That’s my favourite animal!” The teacher told her that her favourite is the fox. It was my big girl who said she was “nervoused” as we were going there. Yeah, I told you her communication is not typical! But once she got into the room, she was right at home and I didn’t have to stay!

The only unhappy one was their little sister who cried and wanted them back home asap. She even got into the car to go fetch them. But let’s shhh about that part. It was WONDERFUL.

Everywhere I turn, in my hope to be free of the adulterer, in an attempt to stem the flow of money he’s spending -like R2000 a NIGHT, on his Japanese holiday, I come to a dead end financially. Impossible costs. So now what?

I will thank God for two little things today. One, is perspective. I am unable to articulate how anxious and stressed I am as soon as it’s morning and how that lasts all day. From 4am, I know that any time, one or more of my children will come and begin the day. When do I then study!? I know that my intellectually disabled daughter will pull me when I’m meant to be teaching, I know she will want the impossible, I know the others will fight and argue and constantly come to me no matter how busy I keep them. And that knowing, the lack of rest…I can only relax after ten pm. THEN I know they are asleep. But I don’t know when they’ll wake up in the night and come.

But, my 11 year old enjoys the very one who is most challenging. From HER perspective, she is blessed to have my most stressful, physically demanding, most heartbreaking daughter as her sister.

I mean, she does make me laugh. Like when she ignores everything I’ve dished out but then eats the very same thing from the pot or big bowl it was served from; a serving spoon, like here where for the first and last time for now, she was actually eating soup! She didn’t have any again, but those three bites were worth something.

But I worry and fret. The people who make the sleep sacks have shut down and nobody else that I can find so far, makes to order for big children like her. She will not sleep without a sleep sack. And because she pees through, every morning is wash day for her pyjamas and sleep sack.

My daughter doesn’t worry about that. She just has a cute sister she loves. Simple.

Second little thing is Uber. We finished our first part of medical aid savings in February already. R54 000 gone! So we’ve been paying the monthly medical aid premiums but also paying cash for all medicine, not merely the OTC ones the children need. This is the stuff that makes me think I’ll never be able to live separately even if they discover he’s hiding even more than the monies given to the ho and spent on his holidays.

So, when my son forwarded me an email I had also received from the university , I was impressed. They have partnered with Uber to give the students at their university 4% discount on Uber fares and free UberEats delivery. Not that he needs the latter as he’s home anyway. But still, going to and from campus is now a bit cheaper when he needs Uber. Which is something a friend of mine has been stressing about with me, given there’s no public transport from the suburb the campus is in. And that is my second little thing that I will be thankful for.

ETA – And a funny one that happened after I posted. The one fruit my non speaker has often, is banana. She will even eat three in one sitting with the fourth being taken away before she can eat it.🤯I wanted to order Celebration doughnuts and snacks (To celebrate our talkative twin aged six finishing Kindergarten in six months and now entering USA Grade 1, and a belated one for our 11 years partially entering grade 2) and decided to check if we still had bananas. We only had these few that I took out the box. I went to the Pick n Pay app to order, and we had free bananas already in the cart! Now that is a big little thing worth noting!

Every cent counts, any good thing that makes my children happy is good.