Nappy is dry on arrival

As per Rainbow's request, Emily spent most of the school day without a nappy.

My original fear of her bowels having their own way on the ride to/from school was for naught, as the "nappy-less" experiment was to begin once she arrived at school, not on leaving home.

From what we've seen, things worked well today. Rainbow asked us to check if she was dry (or more exactly, if her nappy was dry) when she got home. Which it was.

Here's hoping this is the start of the end regarding potty training. It's been a real pain in the arse.

Holly is "Chatty Patty"

Holly. Things are going well.

Over the last few days, Holly's really started coming into her own and developing her own voice.

Neither Sue nor I have a yardstick to measure her development against, with Emily's autism viewed in hindsight, but I'm not sure if things DO happen overnight.

Sue and I have been trying to get Holly to mimic us, doing the "buh, buh, buh" sound and shape with our mouths, but recently, Holly's started "talking" to us. She's also developed additional cries. She's previously really only had the "I'm awake feed me"cry. This has now been augmented by a sort of "I'm here, play with me" cry that's not as intense.

It's very interesting seeing the development of Holly and even the experts are saying they're seeing quite an advance in her behaviours, etc.

On the flipside, she still has more movement than she needs and there's still concern over this. Over the past months, Sue and I have learned to take any silver lining as a silver lining though. I'm just happy something good is happening.

Nappyless for Emily? Finally?

Nappies. Good riddance finally?

Emily came home from school today and Sue informed me that her teach would like her to start going in pants only.

My first thought was "what does she have against skirts?" Then I realised, she meant no nappy, just underpants. My second thought was, "what if she fouls up the taxi on the way to / from school?"

This COULD be a big step for Em and one I'm not sure she's ready for. We've been potty training for her for what seems like an eternity and she has been getting better lately. However, she still has the occasional nappy that's incredibly heavy, so we're not capturing everything.

If school think now is the time, Sue and I are more than happy to work on their plan.

Em's first day of school

She's done it before and she'll do it again, but today Emily started school.

This isn't nursery or whatever Dragonflies was, this is "reception". In my day we called it Kindergarten. A full day of teacher supervised play, basically.

Em looked very smart in her Green Wrythe Primary school uniform as Sue and I both took her to the school gates. Em being a little girl was a bit freaked out that we were handing her over to some strange woman in a building she'd never seen, but given how easily distracted she is, I don't imagine the freak out lasted long.

Em's doing half days this week to get her adjusted to life as a Red Squirrel at the Rainbows Opportunity Base and it'll be full days from Monday on.