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.

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.