See, I told you housework makes me ill!

I don't know what came over me this morning, really, except that I read a blog last night about spring cleaning, and decided there are some really disgusting corners of this house that I ought to have a go at. So I took everything off the top of the kitchen cupboards at the left hand side of the sink, hoovered up the cobwebs and dead woodlice, wiped down the walls and ceiling, washed the sticky dust off everything that was going to go back up there and threw a whole load of stuff out.

And then got a really horrid headache that has lasted the rest of the day. So that's enough of that then!

Yesterday (Friday) morning we did some fun stuff. Following the suggestions for language development in Sonlight, I did some "Simon Says" games with the girls, including variations on a theme like "Silly Simon". Shannon just copied whatever Jade did! Then we did a geography game where each of us said the name of a place (country, town, city or whatever) and the next person had to think of the name of a place beginning with the last letter of the previous name. Jade needed a bit of help with this so she brought down the "Counties of the United Kingdom" map from her bedroom and cribbed the names of a few places. Then I read out a bit of stuff from "Living Long Ago" on food and eating. They both did a couple of jigsaw puzzles.

My Dad came over in the afternoon, and I was pretty shocked that for quite a while Jade would not talk to him or in front of him. He used to come every week and babysit, and she has always been very comfortable and chatty with him, but he 'retired' from that last year and since then we've mostly seen him with his wife to whom Jade will not talk. I had become slightly worried that she might stop talking to my Dad, but didn't think she actually had done, but that's why I had suggested to him that he ought to try and come over on his own reasonably often. So I was rather gutted that she would only whisper in my ear in front of him for a while. Later in the visit, though, I had to go upstairs and after I came down my Dad gestured (when she wasn't looking) that she had talked to him while I was gone.

Still, the childminder has now had a briefing session from the speech therapist about becoming Jade's keyworker, and starting the 'sliding-in' sessions so that hopefully before long she will become someone that Jade can talk to, and then she (childminder) will introduce other people into the 'talking circle' too.

Maybe if your child has to suffer from something then it's better that it's selective mutism rather than a physical illness, but it still has me worried sick about her sometimes. I foresee a life of anxiety, depression and social isolation ahead of her if we can't get this straightened out pretty soon.