To Greenbelt! I love it - this will be my 20th year in attendance and it just sorts me out in all sorts of ways. And there will be the Off the Path'ers, the Raine Drops and the Deep Enders so it's going to be fab!
And it's my birthday tomorrow! I've bought a lovely big sticky chocolate cake to take with us, plus a bottle of Baileys and a couple of bottles of wine to share tomorrow evening - fab!!
But before we go tomorrow morning, we have an appointment at the local outpatients dept here in town for us and Jade to see someone from Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services about her selective mutism. She doesn't know yet as I'm pretty sure she won't want to go and I want to limit the amount of protest we all have to undergo. Not sure if that's the right decision but it's where we've ended up, anyway.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
So much to write, so little time
I've been meaning to blog for a few days now but time just escapes me. Here are a few highlights:
Shannon has been spending quite a bit of time putting the organs back into the anatomical man, and doing fairly well!
Her language is coming on every day, with more and more full sentences and new phrases. I love it! This morning I told her she was going to see Mandy (the childminder) later on and she said, "I'm a bit sad." "Why, because you're going to see Mandy?" I said, surprised because she absolutely loves going to the childminder. "Yes," she said. "And I'm a bit excited!" I thought that was a lovely summary of her mixture of feelings!
I did a poster together with Jade earlier this week, of all the things we could think of that are good/lovely about her or that she is good at. She really enjoyed doing it, contributed a lot, enjoyed decorating it prettily and has it hung up in her bedroom. Something at least has helped - last night she got out of bed and came downstairs again while I was on the phone, and while hanging around waiting for me she wrote a note "Jade is nise." I've been trying to remember to thank and praise her every time I catch her doing something positive/helpful/kind.
I've also had a breakthrough with getting help for her selective mutism. An acquaintance I bumped into last weekend who is a speech therapist in Sheffield told me that in her area, parents can refer their own children for speech therapy, and she suggested I enquire whether we can here. I did, and we can! So I did! She is now on the waiting list for the local speech and language therapist who hopes to see us by the end of September, and what's more, she has obviously treated SM before as she talked knowledgeably about it! Result!!! So many people get referred to people who haven't got a clue, so I'm really encouraged. The referral to Mental Health services remains in place as the SLT said she can often work together with the MH team with good results.
Persuaded DH to come swimming with us all last weekend, because Jade is at the stage where she needs a bit of one-to-one support and she'll soon be swimming without armbands. We had a fantastic session and she is so close to being able to swim. She just needs the confidence to know she can do it, TBH. And Shannon made her own breakthrough in letting go of a parent for the first time, and hanging on to the edge of the pool and walking round on tiptoe on her own, the first time she's touched the bottom!
Had a real disappointment this week also. Money is extremely tight in this household, and holidays are pretty scarce (our entire holiday budget is £30 per month) and are pretty much always just a week away in our ancient and tatty caravan, that's if we manage to afford anything on top of MuddlePuddle camps! Going abroad is a sweet but extremely rare luxury. A few weeks ago I managed to grab some Ryanair tickets to Venice in early October for all 4 of us. Even 1p flight offers are too much for us after you've added in taxes etc, but in this offer the airline were even paying all the taxes! All we had to pay was £10 each for baggage handling. I didn't tell DH about it because I didn't even know if we would be able to find anywhere cheap enough to stay, so thought I'd sit tight until I'd searched and seen if I could come up with anything. I was innocently telling my Dad this tale on Monday, and like the true treasure he is, he went home, checked with his wife and then phoned me to say they'd give us £200 towards accommodation! I was really thrilled. I could actually truly begin to imagine us having a lovely week's holiday in Venice! DH came home that evening and happened to be telling me about how his boss had to have some surgery, and told me the dates and I nearly had a heart attack because it overlapped with the dates I had booked away. Just to backtrack a little, DH works in a university (in computer services) and as far as I was concerned, he had been told that he couldn't have holiday in September because that's when the students arrive and they all have to be allocated computer access and got set up on the network and so on. Anyway I thought I'd better tell DH about the holiday booking, which I did, and he said he would check because he wasn't allowed holiday from mid-September to mid-October!!!! Turns out there is no way he can take holiday for when our flights are booked. Expletive, expletive, expletive! I am so disappointed!
To try and have a bit of spontaneous fun, I have decided to take Jade to London tomorrow. My Dad will have Shannon for the day. First Great Western are doing half-price train tickets this week on our bit of line due to it being closed for about 4 weeks after the floods. We'll be arriving mid-morning, hopping straight onto a tour bus, hope to go to the National Portrait Gallery and then Covent Garden market in the afternoon where there is free entertainment connected with Kids Week. I have been dithering about it all week, again because of the cost, but I got two work expenses cheques yesterday so suddenly feel like I can afford it!
I'm sure there was loads more educational stuff, but it's disappeared from memory. Must try harder!
Shannon has been spending quite a bit of time putting the organs back into the anatomical man, and doing fairly well!
Her language is coming on every day, with more and more full sentences and new phrases. I love it! This morning I told her she was going to see Mandy (the childminder) later on and she said, "I'm a bit sad." "Why, because you're going to see Mandy?" I said, surprised because she absolutely loves going to the childminder. "Yes," she said. "And I'm a bit excited!" I thought that was a lovely summary of her mixture of feelings!
I did a poster together with Jade earlier this week, of all the things we could think of that are good/lovely about her or that she is good at. She really enjoyed doing it, contributed a lot, enjoyed decorating it prettily and has it hung up in her bedroom. Something at least has helped - last night she got out of bed and came downstairs again while I was on the phone, and while hanging around waiting for me she wrote a note "Jade is nise." I've been trying to remember to thank and praise her every time I catch her doing something positive/helpful/kind.
I've also had a breakthrough with getting help for her selective mutism. An acquaintance I bumped into last weekend who is a speech therapist in Sheffield told me that in her area, parents can refer their own children for speech therapy, and she suggested I enquire whether we can here. I did, and we can! So I did! She is now on the waiting list for the local speech and language therapist who hopes to see us by the end of September, and what's more, she has obviously treated SM before as she talked knowledgeably about it! Result!!! So many people get referred to people who haven't got a clue, so I'm really encouraged. The referral to Mental Health services remains in place as the SLT said she can often work together with the MH team with good results.
Persuaded DH to come swimming with us all last weekend, because Jade is at the stage where she needs a bit of one-to-one support and she'll soon be swimming without armbands. We had a fantastic session and she is so close to being able to swim. She just needs the confidence to know she can do it, TBH. And Shannon made her own breakthrough in letting go of a parent for the first time, and hanging on to the edge of the pool and walking round on tiptoe on her own, the first time she's touched the bottom!
Had a real disappointment this week also. Money is extremely tight in this household, and holidays are pretty scarce (our entire holiday budget is £30 per month) and are pretty much always just a week away in our ancient and tatty caravan, that's if we manage to afford anything on top of MuddlePuddle camps! Going abroad is a sweet but extremely rare luxury. A few weeks ago I managed to grab some Ryanair tickets to Venice in early October for all 4 of us. Even 1p flight offers are too much for us after you've added in taxes etc, but in this offer the airline were even paying all the taxes! All we had to pay was £10 each for baggage handling. I didn't tell DH about it because I didn't even know if we would be able to find anywhere cheap enough to stay, so thought I'd sit tight until I'd searched and seen if I could come up with anything. I was innocently telling my Dad this tale on Monday, and like the true treasure he is, he went home, checked with his wife and then phoned me to say they'd give us £200 towards accommodation! I was really thrilled. I could actually truly begin to imagine us having a lovely week's holiday in Venice! DH came home that evening and happened to be telling me about how his boss had to have some surgery, and told me the dates and I nearly had a heart attack because it overlapped with the dates I had booked away. Just to backtrack a little, DH works in a university (in computer services) and as far as I was concerned, he had been told that he couldn't have holiday in September because that's when the students arrive and they all have to be allocated computer access and got set up on the network and so on. Anyway I thought I'd better tell DH about the holiday booking, which I did, and he said he would check because he wasn't allowed holiday from mid-September to mid-October!!!! Turns out there is no way he can take holiday for when our flights are booked. Expletive, expletive, expletive! I am so disappointed!
To try and have a bit of spontaneous fun, I have decided to take Jade to London tomorrow. My Dad will have Shannon for the day. First Great Western are doing half-price train tickets this week on our bit of line due to it being closed for about 4 weeks after the floods. We'll be arriving mid-morning, hopping straight onto a tour bus, hope to go to the National Portrait Gallery and then Covent Garden market in the afternoon where there is free entertainment connected with Kids Week. I have been dithering about it all week, again because of the cost, but I got two work expenses cheques yesterday so suddenly feel like I can afford it!
I'm sure there was loads more educational stuff, but it's disappeared from memory. Must try harder!
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Sunny, but with dark clouds appearing
We've had a lovely day, but it's been overshadowed for me by Jade's comment this morning while I was brushing her hair. We were both facing the mirror and I was eulogising about how beautiful her hair was, and showing her. She said "I don't like my hair. And I don't like myself." Now as a one-off comment maybe it shouldn't be taken to heart, but put together with lots of her other behaviour and comments, I think she means it. It nearly broke my heart. Have been desperately wracking my brains all day long to try and think how to convince her that she is fab! And of course riddled with mother-guilt that it's all my fault!
However there was not much time to hang around and wrestle with the matter there and then as I had arranged to meet a friend up at the park. She has a little boy the same age as Shannon, and a newborn boy too. And we ended up being there all morning in the sunshine, which was lovely. I got a long and lovely baby-cuddle, and then both my girls insisted on having several turns holding the baby too and both adored the experience! Shannon would quite like for us to have one, I think ("my turn to have it", she kept insisting!), and so would Jade but only if it stayed small and didn't grow up to be a nuisance! Anyway there's no chance of that having to be put to the test!
So we walked home eating ice-creams, had lunch in front of the telly, and then they played while I attempted to tidy/organise some of the toys a little better. After that I enticed them outside with a big bowl of water and some paintbrushes to 'paint' the patio while I attacked the kitchen. Then they both came into the kitchen to 'help' while I started making pastry for quiche. Jade did help with weighing, mixing and rolling, and then I gave her a spare bit of pastry to play with while I did the rest of the dinner. Meanwhile Shannon played in the sink and splashed loads of water everywhere. After a while they swapped over, so a very pleasant hour or so was spent in the kitchen, for a change!
While the quiche was cooking we got out the "Alpha Animals" game which I bought on Sunday from the charity shop for £1.99, which in its simplest form necessitated thinking of animals beginning with each letter of the alphabet. Then we ate dinner while watching the second half of the DVD we started yesterday - "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" about the missionary to China, Gladys Aylward, about whom we'd read in our Sonlight stuff a few months ago. I didn't think Jade was paying that much attention, but at the end she said, "That was brilliant"! I was surprised but pleased!
A quick tidy-up, a quick bath, and a very long session of bedtime story ("My Magical Pony" and she was desperate to find out what happened so I just kept reading") and I'm just about to go up and check that Jade's asleep. Shannon conked out pretty quicky after the bath.
However there was not much time to hang around and wrestle with the matter there and then as I had arranged to meet a friend up at the park. She has a little boy the same age as Shannon, and a newborn boy too. And we ended up being there all morning in the sunshine, which was lovely. I got a long and lovely baby-cuddle, and then both my girls insisted on having several turns holding the baby too and both adored the experience! Shannon would quite like for us to have one, I think ("my turn to have it", she kept insisting!), and so would Jade but only if it stayed small and didn't grow up to be a nuisance! Anyway there's no chance of that having to be put to the test!
So we walked home eating ice-creams, had lunch in front of the telly, and then they played while I attempted to tidy/organise some of the toys a little better. After that I enticed them outside with a big bowl of water and some paintbrushes to 'paint' the patio while I attacked the kitchen. Then they both came into the kitchen to 'help' while I started making pastry for quiche. Jade did help with weighing, mixing and rolling, and then I gave her a spare bit of pastry to play with while I did the rest of the dinner. Meanwhile Shannon played in the sink and splashed loads of water everywhere. After a while they swapped over, so a very pleasant hour or so was spent in the kitchen, for a change!
While the quiche was cooking we got out the "Alpha Animals" game which I bought on Sunday from the charity shop for £1.99, which in its simplest form necessitated thinking of animals beginning with each letter of the alphabet. Then we ate dinner while watching the second half of the DVD we started yesterday - "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" about the missionary to China, Gladys Aylward, about whom we'd read in our Sonlight stuff a few months ago. I didn't think Jade was paying that much attention, but at the end she said, "That was brilliant"! I was surprised but pleased!
A quick tidy-up, a quick bath, and a very long session of bedtime story ("My Magical Pony" and she was desperate to find out what happened so I just kept reading") and I'm just about to go up and check that Jade's asleep. Shannon conked out pretty quicky after the bath.
Monday, August 06, 2007
More pics
Having downloaded the pics from my camera to get the one in the post below, I thought I'd throw in a few others too!
First..... THE FLOOD!
OK, so it's not all that clear, but you might be able to see that the trampoline is standing in a lake!
Next, another of Jade's pics which I thought was very expressive, when she was feeling sad:
Talking of Jade being expressive, I bet you've never seen her like this:
Yes, she is noisy, funny, animated and bossy when playing with L from next door! I do wish she could show her character to everybody else instead of feeling she wants to hide.
On the other hand, I don't suppose this little character will surprise anybody:
First..... THE FLOOD!
OK, so it's not all that clear, but you might be able to see that the trampoline is standing in a lake!
Next, another of Jade's pics which I thought was very expressive, when she was feeling sad:
Talking of Jade being expressive, I bet you've never seen her like this:
Yes, she is noisy, funny, animated and bossy when playing with L from next door! I do wish she could show her character to everybody else instead of feeling she wants to hide.
On the other hand, I don't suppose this little character will surprise anybody:
I hadn't realised it was so long since I blogged properly.
The slump has mostly gone - don't know why it came; don't know why it went away, LOL! Of course that doesn't stop me being overtired and grumpy rather too frequently, but at least it's not an overall malaise. In fact I treated myself to a very rare afternoon off yesterday on mental health grounds. I was feeling overwhelmed by the constant interruptions and demands of 2 (or 3 when L the neighbour is visiting, which is most of the time) small girls, and in particular, Jade's clinginess when we go out. We went to a local fete on Saturday afternoon, and to church on Sunday morning, and in public places like that where she feels shy and anxious she is all over me all the time. Her hands are up my top, pulling on my skirt, stretching my sleeves, hanging on to me, wanting to be picked up and carried, leaning on me, and it drives me bonkers!! And all that on top of a couple of really bad nights of sleep due to Shannon's shenanigans! I just had to get away where I could finish a thought that I began, and was not being touched and clung to all the time. So I left the girls at home with DH and went to Stratford. I spent a bit of time shopping, where I could browse uninterrupted (bliss) and a bit of time sitting on the grass by the river, where there were hordes of people so I enjoyed a bit of people-watching, a bit of peace and quiet and a bit of reading my book that I'd taken. Utter bliss! Treated myself to some jewellery from Monsoon at 70% off so that was an utter bargain, and a jewellery box which was supposed to be my Mum's birthday present to me a year ago but I never found one I liked till now! Found a couple of bargains in a charity shop too - a Per Una t-shirt, an animal board game and a new bag for carting all my stuff round.
We seem to have given up on overt education for the summer. Not by design, but by omission. A couple of times Jade has asked to do some 'learning' stuff, but time just slides away and it doesn't happen. She's having a fab time mostly playing outside with L the neighbour, spending loads of time on the trampoline and enjoying the good weather, at last, so that's no bad thing. She's done a lovely picture this morning - a labelled collage. She's stuck various things down and then labelled them without asking spellings and they're pretty good! There's "cotten wooll", "string", "paper", "flap", "cicele" (circle) and then "drew by Tamsin"!!! She asked me if I thought it was excellent, but before answering I asked her if she thought it was excellent, and she said yes, and I said that's what really matters. I did say I thought it was excellent as well, though.
(edited to add the pic)
I've been doing a fair bit of reading to her, mainly lightweight stories like Secret Unicorn, Magic Kitten, Magic Pony, Rainbow Fairies which she can of course read on her own but she likes me to read to her and I quite like it too so we're both relatively happy with that! After everybody else recommending the Magic Tree House books I have just won 14 off Ebay from the USA, costing $14 or about £7 which is fab, but apparently the cheapest postage now is $28!!! I suppose £21 for 14 books is still not too bad but I didn't want to pay that much so fortunately my brother who lives in Kansas is due to come over in September so I'm getting them delivered to him for $3 and he can bring them over!!
And now we're off swimming, so that's all for now.
The slump has mostly gone - don't know why it came; don't know why it went away, LOL! Of course that doesn't stop me being overtired and grumpy rather too frequently, but at least it's not an overall malaise. In fact I treated myself to a very rare afternoon off yesterday on mental health grounds. I was feeling overwhelmed by the constant interruptions and demands of 2 (or 3 when L the neighbour is visiting, which is most of the time) small girls, and in particular, Jade's clinginess when we go out. We went to a local fete on Saturday afternoon, and to church on Sunday morning, and in public places like that where she feels shy and anxious she is all over me all the time. Her hands are up my top, pulling on my skirt, stretching my sleeves, hanging on to me, wanting to be picked up and carried, leaning on me, and it drives me bonkers!! And all that on top of a couple of really bad nights of sleep due to Shannon's shenanigans! I just had to get away where I could finish a thought that I began, and was not being touched and clung to all the time. So I left the girls at home with DH and went to Stratford. I spent a bit of time shopping, where I could browse uninterrupted (bliss) and a bit of time sitting on the grass by the river, where there were hordes of people so I enjoyed a bit of people-watching, a bit of peace and quiet and a bit of reading my book that I'd taken. Utter bliss! Treated myself to some jewellery from Monsoon at 70% off so that was an utter bargain, and a jewellery box which was supposed to be my Mum's birthday present to me a year ago but I never found one I liked till now! Found a couple of bargains in a charity shop too - a Per Una t-shirt, an animal board game and a new bag for carting all my stuff round.
We seem to have given up on overt education for the summer. Not by design, but by omission. A couple of times Jade has asked to do some 'learning' stuff, but time just slides away and it doesn't happen. She's having a fab time mostly playing outside with L the neighbour, spending loads of time on the trampoline and enjoying the good weather, at last, so that's no bad thing. She's done a lovely picture this morning - a labelled collage. She's stuck various things down and then labelled them without asking spellings and they're pretty good! There's "cotten wooll", "string", "paper", "flap", "cicele" (circle) and then "drew by Tamsin"!!! She asked me if I thought it was excellent, but before answering I asked her if she thought it was excellent, and she said yes, and I said that's what really matters. I did say I thought it was excellent as well, though.
(edited to add the pic)
I've been doing a fair bit of reading to her, mainly lightweight stories like Secret Unicorn, Magic Kitten, Magic Pony, Rainbow Fairies which she can of course read on her own but she likes me to read to her and I quite like it too so we're both relatively happy with that! After everybody else recommending the Magic Tree House books I have just won 14 off Ebay from the USA, costing $14 or about £7 which is fab, but apparently the cheapest postage now is $28!!! I suppose £21 for 14 books is still not too bad but I didn't want to pay that much so fortunately my brother who lives in Kansas is due to come over in September so I'm getting them delivered to him for $3 and he can bring them over!!
And now we're off swimming, so that's all for now.
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