In hospital

Sue called the hospital this morning at 7am to find out when to come in for her induction. Happily she was told 8 o'clock. We took it they meant am and not pm.  Two hours later and our journey has begun. Sue is munching on breakfast and we're just waiting to be seen by someone.

Emily's choice of verbalising discomfort

When Em gets upset, and this happens quite a bit now she's getting her own personality, she tends to start her yelling, crying, etc. and segue into snippets of her favourite nursery rhymes. You can see the tears streaming down her face, listen to the screaming cries and just make out "... all day long." (from Wheels on the Bus).

It's quite discomforting as it reminds of those films where people are being tortured and to take their mind off the hideous act at hand they sing their favourite songs and the like.

Before you call child services on us, we are NOT torturing her and she did not learn this behaviour from such films.

My big hope for 2012 is this whole episode will be replaced with her actually being able to tell us what's wrong, unless she is and "all day long" is actually code for "I'm constipated and my stomach hurts."

Potty training fail

We're making SOME headway with Emily as far as potty training is concerned. Some does NOT equal a lot. We put her on the potty and the toilet and she doesn't have a meltdown. She also doesn't produce all that much.

Having said that, the other night Sue had Em on the potty and turned her head for a minute to grab a new nappy. Before you knew it, all the "love" Em wanted to share was working it's way out from her new location, leaning up against a cream leather chair in the living room. 

Sue, thinking quick, dove under Emily with fully cupped hands and received Emily's chocolate gift open palmed. Looking for a plastic bag, and being fully preggers, Sue ended up chundering her recently finished meal into the sink. 

Seems both John women were eager to get rid of that night. 

Since then, we've pretty much been eagle eyed on Emily when she's on the potty, ensuring that what needs to come out on the potty doesn't come out anywhere else. 

It's a long, horribly messy and quite crappy job, but some day it'll be over... won't it?

Is Emily's condition my fault?

Every week there seems to be new research published on Austism, ASD and it's affiliates like Aspergers.

The latest, published in a copy of the Metro a week or so ago, postulates that parents in technology (check) and/or science (not check) could be passing on the gene that causes autism.

Hey cool. With another one on the way next month, that's really the kind of research I want to be reading!

The positive element from the article was the list of famous historical figures who had autism to some degree - including Albert Einsten, Andy Warhol and Charles Darwin. They all eeked about a place for themselves in history, so there is hope.

Emily and adult music

Tonight, Sue was catching up on her Glee on Sky+ (as one does when coming back from a weekend away).

The show's sponsor, who is imminently forgettable, uses Queen's "We Will Rock You" as the song during the ad.

Sue watched the ad once and then proceeded to fast forward through the actual ads. During the quiet minute or so, Emily proceeded to sing, in her little 3.5 year old voice "we will, we will rock you" a couple of times.

Sue and I were utterly dumbfounded, as we've never listened to this song with any intention of teaching it to Emily and are not really sure how many times - if any - Emily has actually listened to it with us.

We're wondering if Helen (or Dragonflies) is planning a children's version of the Queen/Ben Elton musical or what the actual reason behind Emily's new love of the Queen sports anthem actually is.

Now that I know she's getting into "adult" music, the race is on to teach her the first Duran Duran album.

Parent Teacher Meeting

Another milestone for Sue and I tonight. We had our first parent teacher evening.

You hear about them, you see them in sitcoms, but you never really know what to expect.

We went through the initial feedback regarding Emily and how she's settled in during the first half of the first term as well as the outcomes of initial Individual Education Plan (IEP) goals that have been set. Of the four goals, Em's excelling in 3 and needs help in the fourth.

Sue and I have some strategies we can try at home, including helping Em play more. We need to get more inset puzzles and give Em a more structured "play time", perhaps after dinner.

There was really two ways the meeting could have gone - a) your child is a no-hoper or b) things are looking good.

Thankfully, Emily's showing signs of improvement. There's no magic bullet getting her sorted out overnight, and we realise it'll be a long, hard slog but any encouraging news is ... encouraged.

First school meeting

Had our first school meeting this morning.

Wasn't really sure what to expect, as I can imagine loads of parents actually work and can't really afford to take off 9.30 - 11.30, even if it to discuss their child's future.

As it was, I was only the second dad there, and there were about 8 mums, including our Susan.

The meeting was quite informative, as we discussed what do with regards to applying for school's next year.

The school impressed upon us that, as parents of Dragonflies, we're in a unique position as we have to apply for a mainstream position, but our child will also be assessed through the year to see if they qualify for an SEN, basically a legally binding document outlining the requirement for special educational needs.

The groundwork for the SEN is going to take place during the second half of the first term during action called the Statutory Assessment Process (SAP), where a number of professionals - doctors, therapists, etc. - assess our children and then write this report which recommends either further special needs education or moving into mainstream school.

We need to do the mainstream app online, and choose the best school closest to us. This application has to be completed by mid January. The SAP will continue well into next year and we might find our child has a mainstream place before the SEN decision. We were told to accept the mainstream place as an SEN may not be forthcoming at all.

A lot to take in, but we eventually moved to the Children's Centre, had tea and biscuits and a more informal get to know you, which was nice.

Don't be (nappy) rash

The last couple of days Emily's been battling the red raw nappy area.

It's been unpleasant for her, as well as Sue and I as we've been woken up through the night with Emily screaming in pain. I guess it doesn't help that she had the runs at some point over the last few days as well. That kind of effluence rubbing against any part of your skin is going to irritate after a while.

This brings us to the topic of nappies. We've almost run out of them today (there's about a day's worth left) and I was THIS close to going to Tesco this morning to restock, until I realised that Costco have their nappy deal on. That plus picking Emily up from Helen's equals after "school" excursion! Sorted.

However, during the day we had our supply of nappies arrive from the NHS. As Emily is now over 3, she qualifies for continence assistance. We have supplies to last until January now.

Quite fortuitous that my trip to Tesco was called off.

Back to the rash issue. Dragonflies have said they'd help with Emily's condition by changing her more often. Now we have our "stash" we can easily supply them a load at once, instead of the single nappy in the book bag which has been my solution to date.

Any type of "down under" rash is unpleasant, but when you can't air your area out, I can only imagine the moist pain farm Emily's been walking around with.

New words

Whether it's new school, or Emily's finally getting around to talking, she's actually coming up with new words. Some are helpful in her day to day and actually enable her to communicate - while others are just baffling.

Her books are on a higher shelf than she can reach and for a while now, she'd grab the hand of any available adult and drag them over to help her select a book. This weekend, however, she looked at me and said "Come. Help." and dragged me off to the shelf. I felt this was a real step forward in her ability to verbally communicate.

She's been saying "help" quite a bit lately, but it's not always in the best context. Out for lunch yesterday, Sue had to take Em to the loo. While in there, Emily started yelling "help. help." obviously to get Sue to help wipe her bum or her nose, or whatever. Thankfully, however, child services weren't alerted.

Emily's also been saying the phrase "A dog. A cat. A MOUSE!" quite a bit lately, and Sue and I are quite baffled as to the origin of this. It's not in a book and its not in a TV show or DVD that she watches. If it's her way of communicating, we're also stumped ... unless she wants some new pets and offering us her wish list.

She's still saying the catch-all "bread" for all manner of food, but she seems to understand in the morning that bread/breakfast/cereal means at least a trip down the stairs is in order.

We're getting there at a glacial pace, but at least the journey continues forward.

Disrupted sleep

First point - Emily never has a sleep during the day. She hasn't for a long time. If she does, she's ill.

Right, now that's out of the way, we went shopping yesterday and when we came back we were all in the living room - myself putting together purchases and Sue and Em lounging on the settee. Next thing you know, Em's fast asleep - it's 6pm.

My first thought is she's ill, she's not well, she's tired - i.e. she needs to sleep. Previously when she's gone to bed hella early she's slept all the way through because she's ill, she's not well, she's tired, etc.

At this point, we had two obvious choices - treat it as a nap, wake her around 8 for dinner and see where we go from there OR treat it like she's out of sorts and needs to sleep and wake her normal time tomorrow.

We went for plan B. Big mistake.

Around midnight we could hear chatter from her room and immediately knew that plan B was the wrong plan. SOMETIMES, she'll wake, chatter to herself and go back to sleep.

Knowing full well she hadn't eaten since around 3pm, I figured her chatter / fall asleep would work better if her stomach wasn't grumbling. I went downstairs and made her a sandwich which I took in to her. Even though she'd been asleep for 6 hours and had woken, she wasn't all that active - still laying quite docile in her bed and only really turning when I entered the room.

I gave her the sandwich and a drink, fully expecting at this point that both her and I would be in a state of restful slumber by 1am.

Ha.

Come 5.30am when Sue got up to go the loo, I have it on good authority the party was still a rocking. Like a lightweight college student I was fully passed out next to party girl #1 who wouldn't take sleep for an answer.

This all changed at 7am when it was time to get up to go to school / work. Emily was fast asleep, having had probably about an hour's sleep in this spell. Needless to say, all attempts at getting her ready were met with crying and what I imagine to be a childlike sense of "what the hell? I just got to sleep." Needless to say, we couldn't send her off in this state - and all parties (council transport, Dragonflies and Helen) had to be notified this possibly ill girl was going to stay at home... and sleep?

If this episode has taught us anything, it's that even if Emily is ill we need to err on the side of caution and wake her, ensuring that she doesn't work herself into a new time zone by accident with her new body clock. Jet lag's horrible when you're travelling, let along when you're not.