End of holiday

For the past two weeks, I've been on holiday in Canada without the girls. Sue took both Holly and Em to Australia on Aug 8. They arrived back today and I'm going to be back UK-ways tomorrow.

The original plan was for Sue and the girls to go to Oz for three weeks, a trip I couldn't afford time or money-wise. While they were swanning around the Southern Hemisphere, it was suggested I make the best of the time and come to Canada for a couple of weeks, which I have done.

I've Skyped the girls almost daily and it looks like they're having a good time. Holly, in particular, seems to be more alert and erect, which is good, as her back muscles were part of the area that needed work. I've been watching and rewatching the videos I have on my phone and Youtube of the girls.

It's given me a sort of insight into what it would be like if all I had to remember the girls was these videos and photos. A reality with Holly that was almost too real. I'm really glad this particular situation has a happy ending.

Em starts big school in a couple of weeks. She'll be a fulltimer at Rainbow Opportunity Base at Green Wrythe Primary School.

Between now and then, we have one more big transition for the girls - moving house. I got the keys on the 14th, while they were in Oz, and have moved some stuff over so far. It's going to be quite a busy few days when I get back moving the rest. It will then be an even busier few weeks after that adjusting Emily's routine.

Between coming back from holiday, moving and starting a new school, it's probably more than she will be able to handle. I'm hoping in this case, I'm proved wrong.

Wrong use of words

Emily is not the most verbally communicative child there is. She has a lot of words, but a lot of them are in the context of songs or books.

We are making strides with her and there are a number of things she says in the proper context. Unfortunately, there's still quite a lot of "what the hell?" phrases she uses completely out of context.

"Call me good? I'm the scariest creature
in this wood"

At the moment, if she wants to be picked up, she doesn't say "up" or anything remotely similar to that. She stands in front of you, arms up and says "call me good". This is obviously in reference to the Gruffalo, when it's dangling the mouse about to eat it, as it'll "taste good on a slice of bread". I guess she equates me picking her up with a monster about to eat a harmless creature.

Cheers.

The other word she's using quite a lot out of context happens when she's upset. If things aren't going her way, she'll look really upset and yell in a high pitched tone "home time". Before you ask, this generally occurs at home, so no need to race her back home. The only thing Sue and I can think of is they used the term "home time" at Dragonflies, but I imagine it was never under duress.

These are all added to her frenzied use of "yeah baby" when she's got the upsets on as well.

I'm sure there will be a further list of words she uses that we'll need a translation guide for. In the meantime, we're just trying to keep our language simple and stick to very basic words for everything. Basically, taking the fun out of the English language.

Who said Autism wasn't awesome?

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Holly's first tooth

Holly's been dribbling like a maniac for the last few weeks, which is generally a sign for a number of things, including teething.

This morning, Sue yelled through to me quite excited that she could feel a tooth coming through. This would explain the dribbling. We bought a box of "toothy powders" a couple of weeks ago as we assumed the dribbling was caused by this, but now we know! Queue the screaming pain as the teeth start poking through. 

With Emily losing teeth and Holly's coming through, it's quite an oral time in the John household!

A bit of an audio breakthrough

Emily, being the sensory beast she is, doesn't like anything near her head. Sunglasses, ear muffs, ear protectors, headphones, the list goes on.

For the sake of her's and Sue's sanity on the plane ride to Oz, I've made it my mission to get Emily used to wearing headphones, so she can partake in Singapore Airlines' onboard entertainment system. Otherwise, it's going to be 24 hours of bored Emily, which NOBODY wants.

This week, we finally made a breakthrough.Emily was in that dozy tired state she gets in to when she's tired. Usually at this point, she's more amenable to new things than she is when she's all hepped up and ready to bounce.

I put Dora the Explorer on Netflix on the laptop, but had the headphones plugged in. Emily was quite excited at seeing Dora, but confused at not hearing it. When I put the headphones on her and she got the whole sensory experience, she didn't want to fight the headphones any more.

This is a BIG win for us, even though she still wants to run out of the room - with headphones still on - when the map bit of Dora comes on. I need to persist at this and introduce different shows, and probably different devices so Emily doesn't just associate the headphones with Dora on the laptop.

This does show great promise for a less hellish trip for Sue and the girls to Oz though.

A touch of the malaise

Sometimes, having done all the reflection on Emily and her "condition", I find myself reflecting on myself and some of my actions - and wondering if I don't show some of the same signs as well. I guess it's natural, and in Early Birds we've all been talking about how the things we discuss seem to reflect on us, the parents.

Case in point, as I write this on the eve of my 40th birthday, I'm in Las Vegas on a work trip. Conventional wisdom states I should be having fun!, fun!, fun! and making the most of my time here. What do I actually want to do? Crawl up in a ball and wait until the flight home.

I went for a walk today in the searing 42C heat, up and down the strip, popping into shops and casinos along the way and all I could feel was the utter sadness and desperation of the people gambling away money they could ill afford to lose... that and an amazing thirst.

I guess a place like this isn't for everyone. Being here has helped me realise that. There's also no definition of fun that suits everyone. You don't have to get legless by the pool or lose your shirt on blackjack to tick the "having fun" box.

Happy in a nappy? Not Emily.

For someone who's not potty trained yet, Emily sure doesn't like her nappy.

Now that the warmer weather is here, she seems to take every opportunity to take off her socks (which is fine) and evidently her nappy. This is usually not cause for concern, as we catch her before anything untoward occurs or she's out in the garden where we don't care if anything untoward occurs.

Today, however, she decided halfway through a poo that enough was enough and she needed her cheeks to be kissed by mother nature. I only discovered things when I smelt the sewage like cologne that accompanied Emily's turd stained feet, legs and hands... and very quickly our lovely dining room chair.

A quick trip to the prison hose down room (the shower) and all was resolved, Emily-wise. The dining area still stinks like someone with gastric flu came to visit for dinner, however.

Not to be outdone, I've just had to glue Emily's nappy back on her, as I chanced a glance out the window and saw her happily bouncing bottomless on the trampoline.

If only she equated hatred of the nappy with potty training, there'd be no issue. It's just when he decides the whole world is her potty that it's a problem. A very crappy problem.

School induction today

Sue and I had an induction workshop today at Emily's new school for September.

It's called Rainbows and is attached to Green Wrythe Primary School, up near St. Helier's Hospital.

We had a quick look around the classroom she'll be in. As the school's theme is colours of the rainbow, the reception class is "red" - this year as there's two classes, one will be Fox and the other will be Squirrel.

We also talked about various other aspects, filled in an admission slip and got a quick look at the school uniform's jumper, which is (no surprises) green.

Both Sue and I felt that this new school was a good extension of what she's had at Dragonflies to date - low distractions, small classrooms (she's actually going to a 6-pupil class from an 8-pupil one) and a decent ratio of 2 students per adult.

We still have to sort out the transport as well as finalising Emily's statement of need, but those are minor issues.

Looks like come 12 September, we're going to have either a "Red Fox" or a "Red Squirrel" in our midst.

Emily loves a goal

I was watching the Euro 2012 final this evening, as I think every man in the UK was.

Gunning for Spain, I couldn't contain myself when they scored their first goal.

Emily was in the bath, with Sue washing her at the time. When the goal happened, and I cheered and whooped and the TV sound was cheering and whooping as well, Emily lept up in the bath, cheering and whooping, and tried to jump out of the tub to come celebrate. It took everything Sue had to constraint the little celebrant.

Once she was out of the tub and dry, she feverishly watched the rest of the match with me, jumping up and down and hollering "hurray!" every time someone scored or ALMOST scored a goal. Thankfully Spain scored three more, so there was ample chances for actual celebrations.

Just wondering how this would translate to Emily going to an actual event. I imagine the sound in a live stadium would do her head in. Also, with football notoriously low scoring, I don't think this would be the best sport to get her whooping a hollering. I think we'll leave it to televised sports at the moment.

Holly is looking brighter

Over the last couple of weeks we've noticed a definite, positive change on Holly.

She's much brighter, more alert, smiles more and follows you around the room. It's all the things we could have hoped for, for a child verging on six months old (tomorrow).

She still has her spasms, especially in her leg (for which I've nicknamed her "Mississippi Leg Hound" purely for the crazy leg movements, not for the rest of the Christmas Vacation reference).

She's rolling on to her stomach unaided, which is good. Usually this is followed by a little "help me" cry as she lies there unable to turn back over. Today, however, she was able to roll on to her stomach and then back on to her back, unaided.

We've also introduced new flavours and textures into her diet, to promote the next stage of eating. She's eating more paste-consistency food (thanks to our food processor) and Sue's cooked up some baby recipes with chicken in them, so Holly's getting her first taste of meat!

Emily's still ignoring Holly, but every now and then we notice her spying Holly out the corner of her eye. I think as Holly grows up and becomes a bit more predictable and less of a random crying machine, Emily will warm to her. She's only been around Holly for about six months now, which isn't all that long in the grand scheme of things (obviously it's a lifetime for Holly).

Emily's dental hell

This past weekend has been an utter trial.

Emily has an ulcer in her mouth, exasperated by the fact that she keeps touching it. This wouldn't be so bad if she washed her hands or didn't stick her hands down her nappy. God alone knows the level of infection her ulcer has.

She was sent home from school late last week as she'd made herself throw up. We realised quite quickly, this was because she had rammed her whole fist in her mouth, in a sensory attempt to sort out the ulcer problem.

Over the weekend, however, the problem really came to a head. You just can't tell a child like Emily NOT to eat on one side of her mouth. She was fine for a couple of random mouthfuls of random food, but then it would hit the ulcer and all hell would break loose. It was quite problematic, because Emily would then view the remainder of the food on the plate as the item which caused her immense pain.

We tried everything - from wet sloppy stuff like soup, to things like raisins and the like. It turned out that just about ANYTHING that went into her mouth caused her pain.

Thankfully when she came home today from school, as we furtively gave her something to eat, she gobbled it up completely and utterly. She's now making up for lost time and her dental-issue enforced fasting of the last few days.