Our baby is all grows up!

Emily, possibly in a school uniform.

Today marks the end of an era for Emily. The carefree toddler days where school is a distant memory and play, eating and sleeping are the order of the day.

Starting tomorrow, she starts to become a Dragonfly. Sure the first couple of days are light touches, but by the end of the week she'll be as full time as any other child her age (i.e. 3 hours a day).

I think Sue and I feel a pang hidden deep down that our baby is growing up so quick. Sure it's only toddler school, but give it a year or so and she'll be in Kinder Garden and then Grade One (or similar UK equivalents).

Still, come December we'll have three school-free years of baby number two to look forward to before s/he has to go to school so we shouldn't lament too much.

Dragonflies home visit

We had the home visit today from Dragonflies. It gave Em's key worker and the head Dragonfly a good chance to get to know Em, as well as let Sue and I know more information about the forthcoming year.

We were left with a couple of pamphlets to review, as well as a couple of forms that need filling out.

Em starts on 20th September for a 30 minute induction. The next day she'll do an hour. If all is well from that point, she'll do the full morning from the 22nd.

The one thing I was worried about was her toilet training status. Thankfully, with Dragonflies it's ok if Em still has no control. We just have to send along nappies, wipes and emergency clothing. I'd like to think that going to the loo with other children who are actually USING the loo might spur Em on to want to do similar, but in the back of my mind I just envision Em as a middle aged woman who NEVER learnt to go to the toilet. Probably a horrid flight of fancy, rather than a realistic scenario.

The Dragonfliers also asked about various likes and dislikes that Emily has - food, activities, noises, etc.

All in all, it was quite productive and not at all the horrible experience I kinda envisioned a few days ago.

Now, we just wait for Em's first day as a big girl at big girl school.

Blood curdling screaming

Still from the classic Next Generation
episode "Darmok"

Lately Emily has exhibited some odd behaviours. Last night on the way home from Helen's, we had to make a detour from our normal journey home to get some food at Sainsbury's for dinner. We took the normal route home, and then made a right turn where we'd normally go straight.

On turning right, Emily started sobbing and mumbling what I could only make out as gibberish and then... she stopped and let out a fog-horn style scream. 

What I get from this is she's trying to communicate through the gibberish and when I couldn't understand her, she got frustrated enough that she let out the scream. I tried to console her by saying, "it's good you're talking and communicating, but I can't understand you!" Obviously this worked like a lead balloon. 

I felt like Captain Picard in that famous Star Trek Next Generation episode "Darmok" where the universal translator failed and he was left to his wits to understand the Tamarian captain Dathon, who keeps muttering incomprehensible gibberish "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra".

Picard had to persevere and finally found a way to communicate; I just had a bellowing child who was only consoled by singing to her. I guess in a way, although I didn't understand what Emily was trying to communicate, I at least knew how to console / distract her... and no phasers were needed.

Dragonflies home visit

We have a home visit from Dragonflies this week, in preparation for Emily starting there later this month.

Neither Sue nor I are quite sure what to expect, but in the back of my mind I keep assuming it'll be a quasi "are you fit parents" meeting or a "should we take your child away" meeting. Obviously it's won't be, as they're not child services, but I imagine there might be a small amount of them looking around the house, jotting stuff down and tutting.

Talking about it jokingly today, someone mentioned we should try and cook some bread or similar to give the place a nice homely smell. That and get the potty out of the kitchen.

"Illness" and language delay

I THINK Emily's ill (maybe).

I don't know for sure as she can't communicate it to me. It's a bit like trying to diagnose a family pet - she's got a runny nose, screams when she eats and cries when she drinks, but she can't tell me if there's anything specifically wrong. She's not hot, per se, but she is warm and looks for cuddles when she's crying (which is quite often).

My 10 cent diagnosis is she has a sore throat. She can't tell me this, so I have to do my best Sherlock Holmes impression. Toast, which is rough, set her off when she had a bite. Apple juice, which isn't rough was OK. She did crack a mental when I proposed to dribble raisins on her cereal though... what the hell is that all about?

Again, she could either be ill with a sore throat (to go with the runny nose) or she could just be cranky and indignant.

Either way, it didn't stop her spilling a cup of apple juice on my parents' leather sofa. At least I could communicate to HER how annoyed I was at that.

Emily's communication

Emily's starting to make her intentions known, verbally which is good.

She's able to let us know she doesn't like something, which is better than nothing.

If we're reciting a song or a story to her and she's had enough, she'll start telling us "shh! shh! shh!". Likewise, she's started saying what sounds like "neesa" which we haven't fully understood yet, but believe it to be in the same vein - i.e. I don't like this and want it to stop.

Em's still communicating with more grunts than words, but telling us what she doesn't want is a step toward better communication.

Holy Crap!

We had quite a peaceful plane ride to Canada, which is nice. Em CAN be quite moody and unsettled sometimes when she flies.

There was ONE incident that was quite shocking. I took her to the loo to change her nappy, and there was only wee. I thought she'd like a baby wipe down the back to freshen up and as I did so, she opened the backdoor floodgates.

It was messy!

You can't really stop a child from pooping at the best of times, especially if they're standing on an air plane toilet seat while you're trying to change them. To say it went everywhere is not an exaggeration. I managed to clean everything up, but there were casualties. We had to spray her jeans with perfume to mask the smell and her sock was... well, she was standing in her bum chocolate, so her sock was DEFINITELY a casualty.

Apart from that stinker of an incident though, the flight went off without a hitch! We got our push chair just after we got off the plane and were able to wheel Em around while we waited FOR EVER for our bags, which is good because when we finally went through and met Nana, it was well past midnight UK time.

Travel to Dragonflies

Got a letter through the post this very morning from Sutton council saying they've accepted our claim and Emily will be provided transport to and from school.

This is terrific news and takes a burden off Sue's and my shoulders. However, we're not out of the woods yet. We need to ensure the eventual times work for Helen or we're going to still be in trouble as the paperwork provided clearly states they can't really change the times the child is picked up as the school run works pretty close to the bone.

Fingers crossed we get over this last remaining hurdle then.

Who's child is this?

Today I picked Emily up from Fennies and she was in high spirits. She was quite warm and I was told she had a bit of a temperature.

Gotta keep mum with this place or Emily gets banned for 48 hours at a time at the first hint of illness. I said I put it down to warm, clammy weather, not the stream of obviously infected green snot coming out her nose.

When it came time to leave, I mentally prepared myself for Emily to ignore everyone and leave the room... while everyone said goodbye... and I was left looking the lump.

Tonight, not only did Emily SAY goodbye, she walked up to each of the minders (are they minders? teachers? nursery workers?) and said buh-bye and waved her hands at them.

I just stood there gobsmacked, thinking who's child is this? Where's the one I dropped off this morning who wouldn't know a social convention if it crept up behind her introduced itself and asked for the time.

Every now and then I catch these glimpses of what I hope Dragonflies will be able to nurture out of our little Em.

There is hope once again for the future, a future I haven't said buh-bye to yet.

Emily's arse size (and other Eureka moments)

We were out shopping this afternoon in rainy Croydon and being the people who know Emily best, took ONE single extra nappy with us.

While waiting for our food to be served in the M&S hot food area, we discovered that Emily had let loose the bowels of hell. One scream-filled change later and we enjoyed our lunch, unabated.

As we were ready to go, Emily had that look on her face that Joey Tribbiani refers to as "fart acting" and we refer to as "poo making". It was with heavy heart that we realised Emily decided to top and tail her meal with a load.

Again, as mentioned, we brought with us ONE nappy. This was used pre-lunch.

Nappy-less, we decided to chance that the baby changing facilities, on the other side of the shopping centre, had a vending machine we could top up our depleted nappy supplies with.

They did.

However, Emily's arse had other ideas. By the time we got to the changing room, Emily's full nappy had emptied itself someone down the inside leg of her trousers. By the time we peeled her clothes off her she had an unholy "tan" down her legs, complete with peas and bits of carrots.

While I vended a needed nappy, Sue ran off and bought a new pair of trousers.

Later we ruminated on the hell we endured and surmised - in a Eureka moment - that while Emily fit the WEIGHT of a size 6 nappy (which is what she had graduated to) her arse area (hips, etc.) was probably not large enough to fill that size completely, thus with gaping holes all the lovely filling could flow down her leg.

This hypothesis was further proven as the vended nappy was a snug size 4 and when Emily backend let loose yet once again, the explosion was amply contained.

We trundled into Mothercare and bought a crate of nappies size 5, as we have now figured this Eureka moment could serve to alleviate further disruptive explosions and subsequent leg drippings.

The things we learn as parents...