Melrose and more

I'm feeling tired and a bit fragile after Melrose and the 9-hour journey home yesterday (punctuated by stops at Tebay services and then, unexpectedly, at Anni's where we had yummy fish and chips). I suspect today is going to be a very lazy day - in fact it already is, as it is 11.30am and the girls have done nothing but watch TV/DVDs while I loll about doing not much, and none of us is even dressed yet. Well, that's not completely true - Shannon is dressed, but only because she was transferred sleeping from the car to her bed last night so is still wearing yesterday's dress.

(Later)

Well, today's ended up being even lazier than I had thought - I got a bad stomach-ache around about lunchtime which has lasted all afternoon. In fact I had stomach-ache on the drive home yesterday - feared 'the bug' obviously, but by the time I got home it was much better. I suspect it is a version of my 'seized-up stomach' that I get every now and then when my stomach motility seems to completely cease and everything just sits there like a big stone inside me - though this time it is rather more painful than usual. This meant that I still haven't got the car emptied and have done nothing but lie around all afternoon trying to feel comfortable somehow while plying the kids with DVDs and TV. I called Bill and he came home early to help out.

Anyway, back to Melrose. Jade found it very difficult. I think it may have had a lot to do with not having stayed overnight with someone beforehand to bond strongly with at least one child before she got there. We had planned to stay with Anni but the quarantine period from Shannon's 'D' episodes on Friday morning put a stop to that. So we arrived on Sunday evening, had dinner, unpacked and then I put the girls to bed. Monday's plans changed suddenly when we went down to the kitchen at about 8am to get me a cup of tea and breakfast for Jade, and Shannon seemed to get something caught in her throat, coughed a bit, and then threw up all over the kitchen floor. It was difficult to know what it was - she had had these couple of episodes of 'd' on Friday, but the last one was lunchtime on Friday and so this was therefore about 68 hours later... and it did look more like she just choked a little on something which made her 'v' - but nevertheless we decided to quarantine ourselves in our room for 24 hours at least, to see what happened. She appeared to be in the best of health all day, so we went out shopping in Galashiels for a while for a change of scene. Nothing else untoward happened so by agreement with others we declared it probably to have been a false alarm and resumed normal activities on Tuesday. I do really and truly hope we didn't cause the outbreak of d and v that ended up spreading around - as a lifelong emetophobic I know how much I dread us catching stuff like that and I would never knowingly expose anyone else. We really had tried to take every precaution, and unless the quarantine period from the 'd' should have been longer than 48 hours I don't see what else we could have done. And maybe it wasn't us anyway.

But, back to Jade. I know she talked to Aprilia, and played with her a little in our room. Apart from that, I think she only played on her own or stayed with me and Shannon. She was much more reluctant to talk to anybody or join in with things than last year, and I was quite disappointed because she's made progress at home - speaking in front of visitors to the house - and I'd hoped we'd see her join in more with the others. But it is such a big leap to go from that to a whole hostel full of happy kids going round in groups and she just couldn't manage it this time. By the end of Wednesday, on top of all the anxiety about the illness going round, which probably made everything else seem a lot worse, I felt quite upset about how 'disabled' she really is. It's obviously not just selective mutism - it's not all about talking - it's major social anxiety as well. Last week we were busily filling in the forms to apply for Disability Living Allowance (on the advice of the psychiatrist) but I was feeling a bit guilty about it as, in her own home and with familiar routines and obviously being home-educated, we don't notice her problems as much as perhaps we otherwise would. But the time at Melrose really showed her up in extremely stark contrast to what other children her age do, and I really did end the time there feeling she really is disabled. It's so hard to see your child struggling in a major way with things that everyone else finds so straightforward. It's hard to see her not joining in, not playing, not talking and laughing with other kids. She couldn't even go to the toilets without me, and although she could spend a little time in the common room on her own, it wasn't long before she came to find me.

She watched the music session with interest, and asked me to go and fetch her recorder, but wouldn't join in (she just wanted to prove to everyone that she had one too, I think). But at the end she expressed interest in the cello played by Anna, and said she wanted one. I asked Anna if she would show it to Jade, and she was very happy to do so, but unfortunately the audience of other interested kids meant Jade would only hide behind me and refused to sit and have a go, even if she was sitting on my knee. On getting home she still says she wants a cello. I could hire one from the County Music service, but I see little point in doing so without her taking lessons, and it's going to take a lot of work to persuade her to even try to do so.

Shannon didn't show her best side either. At home, she's full of cuteness, laughter, giggles, funny faces and dancing. At Melrose, she seemed to mostly just scream with rage because Jade went in front of her, or opened the door first, or they wanted the same toy, or something else.

So what with the pain of watching Jade struggle so much, and the fact that it stresses me out having her almost glued to my side all the time, and Shannon's screaming and wailing, and the creeping vomit-fest, I opted to leave a day early. I'm very glad I did so, but apologies to those who stayed till the end and did all the cleaning. I think I was one of the last few there last year, though, doing a fair bit of it, so I won't cripple myself with guilt over it.

At the moment, I don't think I would go to Melrose again. Jade will have to be an awful lot better socially for it to be worth me braving the stomach-bug risk again, I think.

Monday and Tuesday

Brief notes only - made blogging notes yesterday to remind myself but haven't got enough time to pad them out too much.

Monday - Story of the World - beginning of India chapter/Indus River. Map. Tried to get Jade to attempt narration but not much effort.

Maths - adding and subtracting chocolate drops and Cuisenaire rods - 2 pages Miquon. Introduced the idea of multiplication and 3 x tables (already can do 2s).

Spanish DVD.

Making fairy kit / daisy chain kit

Tuesday - face painting first thing which led to lots of lovely giggles. Read some Sonlight Books - "Finding Out about Everyday Things" - under the sea/waves. Talked about mammals/plankton/food chains/fish/gills. Then read "Living long ago" - caves. Read all of "A Dolphin story". Did some measuring with feet/hands and Jade made the link to measuring horses in hands which is 4".

We also had a visit from the speech therapist but for some reason Jade got extremely stroppy/upset when she arrived - possibly because she commented on Jade's painted face? Don't know. She got very bad-tempered and unco-operative, hit Shannon, got put on the stairs for time-out and she stormed off upstairs. She then refused to have anything to do with anybody until the SLT was about to leave, then insisted on showing her the bit of dog-training she'd been doing, making Poppy sit and stay. When I tried to talk to her about it later and find out what had made her so stroppy, she just said, twice, "I don't know anything about it." Strange, as she usually looks forward to the SLT sessions. But we do get quite a lot of this stroppy/angry/upset behaviour and she absolutely refuses to discuss it at all.

Today: I was working all day although with a Dr appt this morning and yet another dental appt this afternoon I wasn't there much - will book it as a half-day off. It's easier to make appts for when the kids are being looked after by DH! While I was gone Jade has worked some way through a "Nutrition Mission" CD-Rom and they've looked at/talked about rocks and shells. By the time I got in they were in the middle of watching Snow White on the big screen.

I'm hoping that the dentist has been successful this third time of working on my tooth - I think we may have done the trick this time! Had more nice driving in the sunshine listening to JD, though, so not so bad!

Snore .......

I am so so so tired today - and therefore extremely grumpy and horrid to be with. For the second night running, Shannon was awake for a nightmarish length of time during the night. I have no idea why unless it's because I had one cup of coffee during the MORNING! I coped yesterday after one bad night's sleep because the girls were at playgroup/childminder all day as I had a conference to go to and speak at in Gloucester. A second bad night and being single-handed child carer are not going well together!

Still, I have managed to complete a mystery shopping assignment (phone call) and have been greatly cheered up by the arrival of "Autograph" by John Denver on CD. It's been an extremely rare album for years, although I did have a copy on tape. With no working tape player in the car I haven't listened to it for a couple of years, but just spotted that AT LAST it has been issued on CD and I am over the moon - def. about my favourite JD CD! (Although now I look closely I see it has a date of 2001 on it - ah well, better late than never!)

I think it's about time for a long DVD for the girls and a nap for me. ZZzzzzzz