Tsunami warnings

dear Helene,

Today when we were leaving Wellington to go to Waiheke on the airplane, there was a tsunami warning. Janet's daughter was texting her to put the cats in a bag and drive out of town. But she didn't do that. She drove us to the airport instead. The Tsunami didn't come to Wellington and so we flew to Auckland. It didn't come there either.

Then we rented a car and got on the boat and came to Waiheke for my holidays. It is very nice here even though it is raining. There is a new floor in the bathroom because the old floor fell down. It had soaked up too much water each year.

I hope you are well.

lots of love

Rose Helene

School holidays

dear U. Simon,

It is school holidays here at my place. Today I went downtown and had sushi. There were 8 pieces with salmon and avocado. I squirted soy sauce over them from a little bottle. Mummy stole the ginger.

Then we went to Gloria Jeans and had coffee. An afternoon nap at home and some music with XinXin and then Carolyn, it was out to Bill and Janets for dinner with Lamb crusted ribs and champagne. Quite a nice day actually.

lots of love

Rose Helene XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx

Carli's cut

dear Jamie,

Look at my lovely haircut. It is so cool. Carli cut it. She cuts mummy's hair and she cut my aunty Jenny's hair and now she has cut my hair.

I got to have my hair washed and conditioned in the big basin. I had to lean backwards and be held up as I was a little small. Then she cut it and I was given a spray bottle to keep wetting my face throughout.

Then she used the hairdryer but I had to stop squirting the water at that stage.

It was so much fun.

lots of love

Rosie XXXXXXX

School Report

dear Kelly,

It is the end of term. There was a meeting to review how I am doing. Here is the report

" Rosie has made signficant progress in her ability to concentrate on tasks, follow instructions, understand language and with her co-ordination.
Rosie has learned to sign 'please' appropriately however she tends to use this sign to request all deisred objects and has reduced her use of the 'more' and 'me' signs (well- why bother if just one sign well do? ).

We are now encouraging her to use two signs together, for example 'more please'. Rosie is now beginning to put two words together e.g. 'bubbles please'. She continues to sign 'toilet appropriately. She is developing consonant and vowel structures and can consistantly say 'ta' for guitar. Rosie is starting to imitate more which should help her develop her communication skills.

She continues to be able to activate her communication aid but requires assistance to use it in a functional way. Rosie continues to use Picture Exhange Communication System (PECS) and is working on discriminating between the pictures (level III).

Rosie has improved a lot in her spatial awareness and her co-ordination skills. She is very capable when climbing up and down a variety of different height steps. Rosie has recently started to learn how to jump on the trampoline and is becoming more confident with this skill. Rosie has plenty of time on the bike and is able to pedal 10 metres independently. Her next step is to gain an awareness of steering and control.

We continue to work on Rosie's toileting programme. She often has success on the toilet and particularly enjoys using toilets out in the community Rosie is able to pull up her underwear independently (Hey you, mummy, typing this, how embarrassing is this..).

Rosie can concentrate on tasks for longer periods of time which has had a postiive influence on her learning. Although her politeness and ability to wait have improved this continues to be an area that she needs to develop. "

lots of love

Rosie XXXXXXXXXXXxxx

Wellington Hospital

dear Grandma and Grandad,

The hospital has tiles on the walls. They are all of cool nursery rhymes- so I got lots of pictures taken

when I was there the other day.

love

Rosie XXXXXXXXXXX

Happy Future Birthday Yasmine

dear Yasmine,

It is your birthday in two days. I saw it on the facebook. That is a good way to let us know. You will have to come round and see Vespa and me.

This is a photo of my eye and inside it you can see the person taking the photo, which is mummy.

Heaps has been happening. Daddy has been gone for 2.5 months and now he is in Uganda and yesterday he saw the beginning of the nile and he went in a traditional boat. He also saw lots of birds.

lots of love and a big happy birthday,

Rosie XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

dear Jodie, police woman,

Thankyou for taking me to school in your police car. I didn't realise how bad I felt after all that blood was taken from me. It was 8 test tubes full in two hours.

And I just felt sleepy. That is why I lay down on the back of Vespa when mummy was driving. So it was good you saw me sleeping and thought I would like the trip in the car better.

They really liked seeing you in my class room as well. And that is good if you can now send some 'hunky' policemen in a marked car for us all to play with.

love

Rose Helene

Morning at the Hospital

dear Jenny,

It was very nice you came to see me. This morning I went to the hospital when I woke up. See the bandage on my arm. The nurse took blood out of my arm 8 times and now it is having tests for hormones. It took 2 hours and I was very tired afterwards.

I had to stay in the trolley. This is me at the Fuel cafe buying my breakfast.

love

Rosie XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx

Very very late belated birthday to Grandad

dear Grandad,

I am not always good at remembering birthdays. In fact there is a lot I don't remember but that might be also why I am so happy.

Aunty Jenny is going home tomorrow. Tonight we went to the Mediterranean Warehouse. It sells italian food and we had pizza there. It was yummy but it doesn't have the crisp base that we have at home where we make it with their dough but on a pizza stone in the oven.

love

Rose Helene

Vespa and I

dear Glenda

That is so cool you have your motorbike license. When Vespa comes to Waiheke in Summer we can all have fun together. Yesterday was fine and we rode down to Island bay and back.

I am safely attached with a belt to the driver and I can lean over and peer out around her to see the traffic and the road. Don't want to not be able to see all that is going on.

Vespa and I dropped in on Bill and Janet and said hello to his parents and had a ginger kiss. Caitlin was there and she got to sit with me on Vespa for a while.

love

Rosie po XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxx

p.s. this is me and matt in helmets

Vespa came- I like her

Hi,

Last night after music, Vespa arrived. She is bright red and can stand by herself. I wore my new helmet and sat on her. I was very happy.

Then mummy and me went for a short ride. I was too excited. In future we are both going to wear interlinking belts. Tonight it is raining and so we can't ride anywhere. I hope it is fine tomorrow.

lots of love

Rosiepo XXXXXXXXXXxx

Waiting for Vespa

dear Johnny,

Did I say Happy Birthday for Monday? And then on Tuesday it was Christians birthday. He came roung to my place to pick up Aunty Jenny and go out for a Mexican meal. He collects coins and so we found lots and lots of coins and notes from different countries that were in the drawer. The were notes from Malawi, Botswana, Malta, Slovenia, Albania, Nepal, Malaysia, Samoa, and many more

Am I going to see you on Waiheke? I hope so,

lots of love

Rosie XXXXXXXXX

p.s. this is me and matt on the swing seat.

Slideshow

dear Grandma and Grandad,

Well the slideshow tool bar took a bit of organising. You have to make your picasa web album and then you have to make it public. This is just photos from the end 2008. They are quite small.

Aunty Jenny arrived last night and I was a little late to pick her up so she had gone to get her suitcase from the baggage claim. Also I couldn't find gate 20 which is the gate she came in and so I did lots of walking around the airport.

This is not a photo of my new vespa. This is proper motorbike at the motorbike shop

love

Rosie XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxx

Happy Birthday Johnny

dear Uncle Johnny,

today was very exciting after school. I went to this shop with all these motorbikes and ordered a red vespa. It will come very soon. And I also bought a helmet. I sat around on various machines, having so much fun.

Then later we went to the airport to collect Aunty Jenny and I fell asleep in her arms tonight watching TV.

lots of love

Rosiepo XXXXXXXXXXXXxx

Trouble at home

Dear Daddy,


Mummy is going crazy this morning looking after me. I mean surely it is okay if I help myself to breakfast when she is having a cup of tea. And it was only leftovers- pizza from last night. And I took it into the lounge and used the couch as a plate. It was very yummy.

But then she came in all mad at me. So I did the ironing to make up and she didn't even look happy at that.

Then I was trying to get into a drawer in the french dresser and accidently pulled the cloth and all the photos came down and one broke and she was like- just telling me really loudly - to 'sit down Rosie'. It is not as if I am deaf and I didn't do it on purpose.

Then I decided to help with cleaning and I got the ajax bottle and I pulled the lever but it all went in my eye and it hurt. So she washed my eyes out- not very gently. And one eye is a bit red.

Then I thought that I shoudl have a go on the camera. I mean shouldn't families share their things? And she came back in the room and just was real mad and put me in my bedroom and closed the door. Such a grump.

Anyway XinXin came up to get her breakfast and offered to play music with me for an hour.

It is a lovely day today with lots of sunshine. Mummy and me squashed some lavender flowers into a bottle of oil and are making lavender oil which you can light a candle under and make the bathroom smell nice.

Later when Briony comes we are going to the gardens to see if there are tulips out there like there is at home. We are going to take my new trolley . It fits in the rental car, even though the rental car is very small. We have to have the rental car because the transmission has gone again in the green car.

Yesterday we moved the swing because I am getting a trampoline, like you said I was to get. Even though it is the smallest one, it will be very big- ten feet around and it has a netting cage and I can play inside it. I am very excited. You can play with me.

Yesterday also, Matt took me to football and there was a big field next to the game and he and his flatmates pulled me around very fast. It was heaps of fun.

Uncle Johnny is now on skype at school and I am going to talk to him this week. And Aunty Jenny is coming tomorrow on the plane.


Rosie XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Do Frogs Turn into Princes?

Once upon a time there was a very beautiful princess. She spread joy and happiness where-ever she went. Her name was Rosie. However even though she had everything she needed given to her by her devoted subjects, she felt that there was something missing in her life.
She had heard the story that for some princesses, their princes were disguised as frogs. All you needed to do was to kiss them and the disguise would fall away and in the place of the frog would be a handsome prince.
She practiced her kissing on dogs. It was a very wet experience and the dogs didn’t turn into anything.
Then one day Rosie was walking through a garden and there was a frozen frog with water coming out of its mouth. In fact there were four frozen frogs. She just knew that one of them would be her prince.

She ran quickly up to the first frog and kissed it hard, drinking the water as she did so. Nothing happened.











Then she ran to the next frog and kissed it with all total attention. But still nothing happened.












Then she ran to the third frog and used every ounce of positive thinking that she could bring to bear.











Then tradegy struck. The big people that were with her, dragged her away and the fourth frog- now the one that she absolutely knew was her prince was left unkissed and frozen still.





This is a true story.

Postie plus

dear Aunty Jenny,

I am very happy you are coming to stay next week. When does your plane arrive? Are you going to come and visit me at school? On the 11th we are doing a production of the Yellow Submarine and so you can come and see it.

lots of love

Rose Helene XXXXXXXXXXXX