Colouring Pages!

Now Bee is growing up I love to do crafty things with her and one of our easiest and most frequent is colouring. When Bee was tiny our first forays into wielding a crayon involved a pad I'd gone out and bought 'specially at Mothercare, I'd been so excited at getting Bee started. Sadly for me she really didn't seem interested, crayons were clearly for chewing on, not drawing.

As she grew it became easier to encourage her to scribble with the crayon rather than eat it, although her attention-span was very short. The paper just wasn't holding her interest and, thinking back, it's not surprising. To give her something to focus on I went out and bought some colouring books with large, simple pictures and it became useful for me to focus Bee's attention on individual parts of the picture: "let's colour the dolly's shoes" etc.

Bee has a very short attention span across the board, not just with colouring so I was pleased when the colouring books seemed to improve matters a little. Still, it wasn't enough. I could maybe get 2 or 3 minutes of really focused attention off Bee before she was emptying the crayon box and wandering away from the table, looking for something else to play with. It's important to me that Bee starts to master simple skills like holding a crayon correctly and control techniques. They are things that will become neccessary as she gets older and we don't want her attention problems to prevent her from achieving. 

One day last week inspiration struck. At home we have a digital photo frame that flashes up with a new picture every 5 seconds or so and Bee loves to sit and watch the pictures change, telling me who's on each picture. One morning, while sitting together and watchingt he frame it occured to me that the pictures Bee likes best are of people she knows. She could look at pictures of herself and the people close to her for ages and not get as easily distracted as with other things.

So I got myself on Photoshop and here is the result:

 

I made 5 different ones in total, all with Bee and various combinations of her loved ones. They were easy to photocopy from there to keep her with a constant supply. So far she loves them and we've had great fun colouring Mama's nose in blue and Daddy's nose in green, Grandma's ears in red and Bee's mouth in purple! So far these personal colouring sheets have held Bee's attention for the longest and so far I've got a good ten minutes of colouring out of her before she starts to lose focus, a record!

If anyone would like to know how these are made:

• Open your picture in Photoshop
• Choose 'filter' from the menus at the top
• From there go into 'sketch' and choose 'photocopy'
• This should open a new box where you can change a few levels about to get it looking how you want.
• Save as a JPG and print!

This doesn't work well with all pictures, some are too busy for them to colour out with large white spaces and can be very black so you might need to try a few different ones.

I've noticed since using these that Bee's accuracy seems to be getting better. To the untrained eye it may look like she's just randomly placing scribbles across the page but if you ask her to colour a specific part of the picture you'll find the scribbles are centered on that part. I'm really thrilled with that, it's one small step of progress along the road towards pen-control. These personalised colouring pages have really worked for us so far and I'm going to keep printing different ones so Bee has a constant stream of pictures to keep her interest.

Glorious Gloop!

 

This afternoon Bee and I have been further broadening her sensory horizons and playing in gloop! We haven't tried gloop before but I saw it on the shelf at Toys'r'Us and thought "why not?" It's designed to put in the bath but I thought that may be just a little too much sensory overload for Bee and bring on a meltdown so we started small, although still with a bath...

To start with I gave Bee some of her plastic drumsticks and we did mixing, slowly building her confidence by allowing her to interact with the gloop without touching it. She got braver as the activity progressed, handling things that had gloop on them. She enjoyed digging out gloop with her spade and filling a little bucket, then pouring it all back in and laughing as it went splat back in the baby bath!

After leaving Bee to lead the play for a while I took the tools away from her and tried hiding her little Makka Pakka and Iggle Piggle in the mixture, hoping she would be brave enough to put her hand in to retrieve them. She tried, touching the surafce with her finger but couldn't quite work up the courage to place her whole hand in. She asked me for the tools back, wanting to dig out the toys but I re-focused her back on the bath and showed her how to poke at them with her fingers. It took repeated encouragement but she eventually uncovered enough to feel confident picking them out, Makka Pakka first then Iggle Piggle.

As the session wore on Bee became more confident in touching the gloop although still had some small moments when it touched the palms of her hands, which brought on some frantic hand-washing motions until she felt it had gone. Afterwards I took her upstairs for a bath to wash off all the gloop and we had just as much fun doing splashing and washing her doll!

 

Overall we had lots and lots of fun and the gloop went much more sucessfully than I'd anticipated. We explored texture and smell (mmm cotton candy!) and, in Bee's case, taste too! I'm going to continue with the gloop in a bowl for a few more sessions and then *maybe* try a shallow bath. We'll see how it goes.

 

 

Growing Shoots!

We've had so much torrential rain recently that I've been very worried all the seeds Bee and I planted would be drowned and not grow at all. So I was thrilled just over a week ago to see little green shoots poking out of the compost! Bee got very excited about them and keeps telling me "pea hide mama, pea hide", meaning "there's peas outside!" Bee is very, very partial to peas!

The flourishing planter

Our other plants are also doing well, the tomato and carrots seeds are shooting up and soon I'm going to have to re-pot everything as the herd needs thinning! I could have avoided that if I'd been a little more experienced in growing veg but no matter, it gives Bee another sensory opportunity to get handling the compost and digging.

Carrots and tomatos

A few days ago I'd nipped to B&Q for a few bits I needed and had a quick gander at the outdoors section while I was there. To my amazement they were selling off veggies that had wilted a bit for between 5p to 50p! How could I pass that up??

So I left armed with what I'd originally gone for plus some onion and chilli plants for Bee to plant. Sadly since then it's done nothing but rain on our free days so they're still sitting in their little plastic tubs in the garden but I'm looking forward to getting out there again with Bee.

Feeding Progress

We had a meeting with Bee's speech therapist and dietician this week, which I was really looking forward to as I feel like we're stalled with the feeding progress, or lack thereof. Bee will eat almost anything, from chocolate to raw carrot, the only thing she shies from is the more 'messy' food like rice pudding and yoghurt. We know this stems from her tactile defensiveness so don't push her too much with it. While we're thrilled with Bee's varied taste, our main concern is that she just picks at food and doesn't eat any substantial amount of it. This has created a little bit of a impasse with eating, in that we can get her to eat almost anything but not enough to sustain her, so we're still very dependant on the mic-key button. Of course the obvious answer is that Bee isn't hungry. She's fed 200mls of milk down her tube every 3 hours, that's a lot for such a little tummy, it's no wonder she only picks at the solid food we offer her. To be honest I'm not entirely sure Bee even knows what hunger feels like.

I relayed our concerns to Bee's therapists and they agreed it sounded like Bee wasn't hungry. The speech therapist said that what we needed to do was create hunger in Bee which sounded like a good idea to me! So she suggested a plan which I'm hoping is going to be the turning point for Bee's eating habits:

Currently Bee has five 200ml feeds a day between the time she gets up and the time she goes to bed. During that time I also offer her breakfast, dinner and tea with snacks inbetween. The new plan will involve a change of milk from her regular Nutrini to a high-energy version. This change will help accomodate a cut from five 200ml feeds a day to just three. Two of those will take place once she is asleep in bed, with the third being mid-morning. On the solid side of things we will continue to offer Bee regular meal and snack times.

So the new routine will be as follows:

• On waking Bee will be offered breakfast. She'll be allowed 30 minutes at the table with the food and then it'll be taken away.
• Mid-morning Bee will have a 200ml milk feed and be offered a snack which she is free to move around with.
• Dinnertime Bee will be offered a meal at the table and again given 30 minutes with it.
• Mid-afternoon will be time for snack, which Bee will be free to move around with.
• Tea will be at the table again for 30 minutes.
• After Bee is asleep at bedtime she will be given two 200ml feeds of milk.

Aside from the lesser quantity of milk, the new routine is more structured. I think this will help Bee start to understand food as a sustenence than a toy or a game, which I think she does at the minute. I'm really happy with this new plan, Bee's speech therapist is always brilliant and has never steered us wrong yet. I really hope this is going to be the start of weaning Bee off the mic-key button.

Playtime at the Park

This week we had a lovely warm-but-not-hot, rain-free afternoon and so we took Bee off to the park! We've not been in a little while as the weather's been pants and we've had lots of activities to do at home.

Bee had lots of fun toddling from structure to structure, never stopping on one thing long. She's a real flitter is my girl, she reminds me of her nickname-sake: a bumblebee.

One thing this afternoon outing highlighted was Bee's increasing tolerance of grass. When we arrived she hadn't wanted to walk across the field to reach the park as the grass was slightly long and she could feel it touching her ankles and lower legs. She was insistent that I or her Grandma held her hand for reassurance. But despite her concern and obvious discomfort she made it across with no tears or tantrums.

The park is mainly rubberised surface and grass, with paths leading from structure to structure. We tried to encourage Bee to take the shortcuts across the grass to the next play thing rather than the longer path routes but she was only comfortable doing that whilst holding someone's hand. However, as the afternoon wore on she seemed to become more accoustumed with the feeling of the grass and braver with it. By the end of the afternoon Bee was tackling the grass herself without any need of encouragement or reassurance.

That's my girl!

Poorly Bee

I've got a very poorly Bee today, she's had a lot of sickness and pretty much just wants to cry. Towards the afternoon I was able to settle her with some CBeebies and her beloved Mr Tumble. Hopefully she'll pick up after a good night's sleep.

Garden Music

Recently I've been trying to encourage Bee to be more confident outside the house with different activities, hoping that they'll build her tolerance of different surfaces and textures. We've dug in the compost, planted flowers and seeds and played with the garden hose. Next on the agenda was an activity to incorporate Bee's love of music with encouraging her outside: a tin can musical instrument! 

I'd been saving tin cans with the aim of string them together to create a sort-of wind chime/xylophone instrument that Bee could hit using her drum sticks or just bash with her hands so they clinked together. 

Of course before stringing it up in the garden our first job was to paint them!

I let Bee loose with various bright paints and some paintbrushes and she really enjoyed making marks on the tins and 'mixing' the paint in the bowls. I had to encourage her to paint the sides, she only wanted to do the tops. I found she was more willing to paint the sides when I placed the tin on a bottle of paint.

The following day, once the tins had dried I used a nail and a hammer to punch a hole in the top of each one before spraying them with a clear acrylic to make them weather-proof. Once they were again dry I threaded twine through the holes, strung them all together and hung them across one of our fence panels.

Bee has had great fun making 'music' with her new tin can instrument and I'm hoping to make a few more garden musical items to add as summer wears on. If this rain ever goes away!

The Last Seeds

This morning Bee and I went out to water her planter. We've had lots of rain over the past two days but it's important to keep building Bee's confidence with the outdoors and the new textures she's been exposed to. I wrapped her in her raincoat, filled her little pink watering can and we headed outside. Bee loves water so it was very easy for her to get enthusiastic about it.

 

She quickly emptied the first lot, mostly over one plant, and asked for more. I was happy to let her carry on as long as she wanted to. It was raining a little and Bee is usually a little worried about rain so while she was concentrating on watering her little garden she wasn't thinking about the raindrops falling on her head.

 After numerous refills I had to end the fun, I was worried the poor plants were going to drown! I'm not convinced any of them are going to grow but I've got my fingers crossed, I would really enjoy helping Bee pick her first vegtables.

This afternoon we finally got round to planting the last of the seeds for indoor sowing. We had some tomato and sunflower seeds ready to go in pots with some pre-packaged compost. This came in dried pellets which needed soaking in water before we could use it. Bee had lots of fun dropping them in the jug of water I'd prepared and made a fine mess!

 

I gave her a pot at a time to fill with compost, she focuses much better doing just one at a time. I began filling the first one by using my hands to put small amounts of compost in, showing Bee how to do it. She started to tenatively used her thumb and forefinger to pick at small bits of compost and drop it into the pot. I've noticed that Bee is becoming more comfortable touching new textures as long as it's with her fingers, she's much more sensitive about the palm of her hand.

 

After filling a couple of pots using our hands I could feel Bee starting to overload a little on the texture front. She was becoming more reluctant to touch the compost and less willing to join in. I helped her wash her hands and we moved on to using a teaspoon instead, her little trowel was too big for this exercise! After picking up the spoon Bee was much happier to continue and we filled the rest of the pots with compost before moving on to the seeds. For this I placed the seeds for each pot in Bee's hand and let her tip them in, an activity she very much enjoyed. After each pot she'd ask "mo mama".

When it was all finished I placed the pots on a tray and filled Bee's watering can for her to water them. Overall we managed to get compost and water everywhere but had lots and lots of fun! I'm hoping our seeds sprout so we can have another outdoor planting session in the garden!

Delamere Delight

We took Bee to Delamere Forest this week, our region's largest area of woodland. We wanted to take advantage of a lovely sunny afternoon and continue Bee's sensory adventure in the outdoors.

Bee still enjoys the very simple play of filling and emptying containers so I brought along her bucket, hoping this would push her to touch and pick up items that she wouldn't without a solid motive to do so. We'd been preparing her all morning, talking about going to the forest in the car, how we could collect lots of things to put in her bucket, count the trees etc etc. Our experience with Bee is that sheadapts much better to things if she's had a lot of preperation.

When we arrived we stuck to the 'all-abilities' path, designed for people with mobility issues or using prams. It's flat and smoother than the natural forest floor, packed down with gravel and stones. Yet even this easier path was too much for Bee at first, when I asked if she wanted to get out of the pram and walk she replied "no, pram".

So I changed tactics. Instead of asking if she wanted to walk, when she was clearly very concerned about the surface of the path, I focused on the bucket. "Bethany look at all the lovely things for your bucket! Would you like to get out and collect things for your bucket?" This time the answer was yes. Win! 

 

I placed her on the floor and walked a little ahead, encouraging her to follow me, pointing things out as I went for her to come and look at. But nothing. She stood rooted to the spot I'd placed her, not brave enough to move her feet. The slightly uneven and loose surface was really bothering her. I kept trying with the encouragement until she started saying "mama, hand" and reaching out to me. At which point I relented.

A flower Mama!

We walked holding hands and as we went I tried to encourage Bee to notice the things on the floor as we passed; pinecones, flowers, sticks... Bee has a habit of not looking down as she walks and will quite happily walk straight off a curb and fall flat on her face.

Our first gather was a pinecone. I crouched down next to Bee and picked it up, holding it out for her to see and touch if she wanted. To my surprise she took it from me and put it straight in her bucket. Clever girl!

 

 So we moved on, still holding hands. We gathered flowers, stones, bits of grass, sticks and more pinecones.

Bee began to let go of my hand a little bit when she saw something she wanted to toddle off to. She always came quickly back reaching for me but these little independent jaunts got longer and more frequent. As the afternoon wore on we could see Bee growing visibly more confident with walking on the uneven surface and willing to take more risks, like attempting a small slope by herself and crouching down to pick something up.

 

We found a lovely bench where we stopped for a sandwich, it was hot and we were all ready for a sit down. Bee had some of an egg mayonnaise sandwish and even now I'm still amazed by how well she's doing with eating solid food. We always expected to deal with tantrums and fussiness when it came to eating. All the literature we'd read on tube-fed children said we should be prepared for a child that didn't want to eat. But Bee couldn't be more opposite. She may only eat tiny amounts at the moment but my girl will put away almost anything you put in front of her! With the exception of banana and 'sloppy' food (yoghurt etc) as she doesn't like the texture, she'll eat almost anything. Certainly anything we eat.

 

After "num nums" we moved on, still collecting, until we found the dedicated den-building section! This is a great part of Delamere that filling with piles and piles of logs, poles, sticks... anything you can use to make natural dens. There were a still a handful built up, left behind by others and Bee very much enjoyed sitting in one and filling her bucket with the contents of the forest floor. Of course the den was a little like a playhouse, and Bee loves her playhouse! 

The overall aim of our afternoon had been to enjoy the sunshine and try to increase Bee's exposure to outdoor textures, which we managed with great success. She was much more compliant that I'd expected (again me underestimating her!) and she'd experienced all kinds of textures. The only thing that really bothered her was the dandelions. I tried blowing a couple for her and trying to encourage her to do the same but she just wasn't keen.

I've been visiting Delamere with my own parents since I was a child and it felt like a lovely continuation to take Bee. She's a bit little yet to tackle the forest paths, the slope down to the lake or den-building but after the success of our first visit I'm looking forward to those days already!

Planting the Planter

Over the last few days I've managed to get Bee's planter finished by layering it with a waterproof material to stop the wood from rotting, I got to use an electric staple gun and it was lots of fun! I was really pleased with the final results. I've been collecting small flowers and sprouting veg, along with a couple of seed packets and this morning we've spent some time in the garden planting them all!

As I've mentioned in previous posts, Bee is very reluctant with texture or anything outside of her comfort zone. The idea of the planter was to challenge some of Bee's phobias and we'd been building up to it over a few days. We talked about doing some digging in the garden and planting flowers, spent some time getting used to the planter and (Bee's favourite) shopping for plants and a little garden tool set! I hoped that spending some time preparing Bee would make that final step of actually getting out there and digging in real soil much easier.

So this morning, armed with the tools and all our plants & seeds we headed into the garden to fill up the planter!
 

Bee was a little apprehensive at first, we've never done gardening and soil is a new texture. It helped that she was very excited about her new tools and was able to join in with the digging initially without actually having to touch the soil, it was a nice compromise.

We started with the plants rather than the seeds, something large and easy to manipulate for Bee. We had some kind of flowery plant, a grass (good for sensory touching), a strawberry plant plus some tomato and pepper plants. Bee loved digging the holes although I struggled to ger her to focus on one hole long enough to dig it deep enough, she liked to just use her trowel all over the place!

Once the plants were in we moved on to seeds. I chose pea and carrot seeds as those are something Bee enjoys eating so it was easier to get her engaged with something she liked. We talked about how the seeds would grow into plants and produce carrots and peas for her to eat. I don't think she entirely took in what I was saying but she was very excited about the pea seeds and dropping them in the hole.

As the exercise wore on I started to notice that Bee was so engrossed in the digging that she'd got compost on her hands. I encouraged her to use her fingers a little more in the digging, which she did, albeit a little reluctantly. Mainly she was happy just to use her trowel, although she did become a little more confident in knowingly touching the soil.

And so: ta-da!

The big empty space is full of pea seeds so hopefully we'll get at least a few pods out of it for Bee to experience growing and eating her own vegtables.

Overall the experience went much better than I'd anticipated. I think maybe I underestimate Bee sometimes. She's always handled most things with aplomb and her occassional sensory meltdowns mean that sometimes I assume she won't like or tolerate something before actually giving her the chance to show me whether she does or doesn't like it. One thing this little exercise has taught me is that my girl is brave and constantly surprises me with how wonderful she is.

Nursery Meltdown

Bee loves nursery. Loves it. Every single session when I drop her off she toddles straight in. No clinging to me or crying. I even have to remind her to say good bye sometimes.

Bee's nursery is split into four rooms: the sensory room, the carpeted 'play' room, the 'messy' room where all the arts & crafts are done and the outdoor/indoor room, which is essentially part of the garden with a roof and roller doors that can be lifted up. Our usual entrance is into the carperted 'play' room. We have the same routine each time: coat off and on Bee's peg, find her picture on the board and place it on the 'I'm Here Today' board, kiss for mama and off she goes!

When I dopped her off for today's session her teacher was waiting at the door to the 'messy' room. "We're using this entrance today as we're going to the park" - oooo wonderful! Bee loves the park! We walked through into the room and I crouched down to give her a kiss bye bye. The minute I bent down I could tell by her face something was wrong. Her little mouth was starting to turn down at the corners and she had that look in her eye. She put her arms around my neck and clung like she hasn't since she first started nursery, and I could feel her starting to cry.

It was the routine. The routine had changed. We come through the wrong door, into the wrong room. There was no peg for her coat in this room or board with her picture on it. Her teacher came over and I explained the problem, we decided the best way to deal with it was to take Bee out and back in through the route she was accustomed to. She readily released my neck and held my hand as I asked if she'd like to go and find her picture on the board. The tears stopped almost immediately and she willingly accompained me out of the room and down the corridor to the door of the usual room. We had no coat to hang on the peg (the weather is scorching at the moment) but we had her nursery bag to place in the box and her picture to find on the board. With those tasks two accomplished Bee happily walked into the usual room and didn't look back.

We're starting to notice these little autistic-type moments more and more and they can have an impact on our day-to-day life. We're still struggling between accomodating them and encouraging her to be more flexible. Today I felt it was better to accomodate and ensure she had a good session at nursery, than force the different entrance on her when it was only a one-off.

Building for Bee

This is the first summer that Bee will be mobile and although it's been a miserable May so far I'm hoping the warmer weather is not far off, I can't wait to play in the garden with her. She's still very wary of touching things outdoors, especially grass and soil. We don't have flowerbeds in our garden, just patio, decking and grass. I wanted to give Bee some space of her own in the garden where we could dig, plant flowers, grow some simple vegetables and work on her sensory issues. I'd thought about pulling up a small section of turf so she could have the soil underneath but it occurred to me that she's afraid of grass. No point giving her a patch to dig in if she has to sit on the grass to do it!

The answer was something that Bee could stand at rather than have to sit on the floor to use but store-bought planters are expensive and unnecessarily decorative for a toddler to dig in. So what was the answer?

Build one of course!

My building skills are rudimentary at best and I've certainly never used a circular saw! So it was with a little trepidation that I embarked on my first ever building project. Thankfully, although I built the entire planter myself, I had some expect guidance in the shape of a family member so I managed not to severe any limbs.

The planter is designed to be the right height for Bee to dig in without needing to stoop or stand on her tiptoes. It's large and square so she can dig all the way around. The made from old, reused wood which I'm planning on painting in black so she can chalk on it. Sadly the rain has reappeared so we've not been able to try it out yet.

Ta-da!

Let's Go Fly a Kite... Up To The Highest Heights...

...except that I'm rubbish at kite-flying and my efforts can only be described as fair-to-middling heights. Of course I did have a pretty hefty toddler balanced on one hip, severely limiting my ability to run and catch the wind!

A while back Foz bought Bee a Mickey Mouse kite on impulse and we've not yet had the chance to use it. So today we took advantage of the first rain-free, windy day in ages to spend some quality time out of the house and give it a whirl. It took a bit of trial and error to get it going, I've not flown a kite for years, but it was soon aloft and Bee very much enjoyed pointing at the Mickey Mouse in the sky. It took a little persuasion but I finally managed to pass the handle over to Bee while I kept my hand on the string, her first kite-flying experience!

Once bored of the kite we moved on to the park, which Bee loves! Her favourite is the swings although she is very fond of just flitting from one thing to the next. The only piece of equipment we still can't get Bee to try is the slide, she's very feared of them. 

Behavioural Bits

I've mentioned in previous posts that Bee has started to hit the 'terrible twos', she's become defiant and willful and a little sneaky. We're aware that Bee struggles to not only process information she is given but remember it once told. We'd been looking into a suitable punishment and reward system to tackle the naughty toddler stage and the only thing really jumping out at us was the 'naughty step/spot' system. The idea being that when the time comes to punish a child for bad behaviour they have to sit on a designated step/spot for one minute per year of their life. In Bee's case, 3 years = 3 minutes. Our major concern about this is Bee's inability to retain information or a set task for longer than a minute or so. She needs lots of prompting to remember what she's supposed to be doing and can easily forget after a very short time when her attention wanders. If Bee can't remember why she's on the naughty spot then what is it acheiving?

Another challenge we're facing is Bee's autistic-like tendancies.She's started to have little meltdowns when her routine is changed or there's a sensory issue she doesn't like (texture/sound/etc). Of course we know Bee isn't wholly responsible for her actions during these moments, to a certain extent she can't help herself, but we need some strategies to help minimise and cope with them.

With this in mind I contacted our local SN nurse who recommended the behavioural clinic at our local CDC and, after a short time on the waiting list, we had our appointment today.

It turned out to be a very productive appointment and we were very pleased with some of the advice that came out of it. We're going to introduce a naughty spot (or little mini rug) for those toddler moments when Bee is just being a toddler, with a kitchen timer to give her a audio/visual prompt. We're going to start on 30 seconds of sitting still, a challenge for Bee, then slowly work up to the 3 minutes in 30 second increments. For the autistic-like meltdowns we're mainly to ignore them and walk away (unless she's in a dangerous position) until she calms enough to come after us. Then we're to brightly move her attention on to something else. We've also discussed using visual prompts such a cue cards to help her understand the activities we're doing that day to try and avoid meltdown situations.

It's going to be a challenge but I hope with some of the adjustments we discussed in the appointment ours and Bee's life will be a little easier and more peaceful.

Manic Monday

Who knew an envelope could provide so much fun!

Our New Addition

We have a new member of the family!

A few weeks ago a neighbour knocked on our door during the afternoon asking if we'd lost a kitten. Of course we hadn't but I lurve cats....
Foz however, hates cats. He's totally a dog person and Bee, well, Bee is just afraid of every animal you can think ok, from cows to fish to fluffy bunny rabbits. 

So I told the neighbour that if she had no luck finding the owner (and if she couldn't keep hold of the kitten) that we'd have her for a few days, until a rescue centre would take her or the owners turned up.

Later that evening there was a knock on the door, it was the neighbour with the kitten. She was a beautiful little thing, black with white markings and ever so skinny. I could feel every knobble of her spine. That evening all the kitten wanted was to be cuddled, she followed me everywhere, miowing and rubbing at my ankles. When not following me round she was curled up on my knee sleeping. A very sweet, affectionate kitten and I was smitten.

However, I'd made a deal with Foz: he would let me keep hold of her for a few days while I looked for the owner or a rescue centre. So the following day I starting ringing round. The first two centres both said that they were full and had long waiting lists of cats needing a space (depressing in itself) but they could add me to the list and ring when a space became available. Thanks but no thanks. I gave them all the details about her & my phone number in case any owner rang up looking for her and moved on to rescue centre 3. It turns out that the number belonged to an individual that provided a small rescue service, not a center. The lady was lovely and we talked for quite a time. She couldn't help me immediately as her limited resources were full and she was off on her jollies but she promised she would ring me on her return. During this morning of phonecall-making Foz must have been doing some deliberating as once I'd put down the phone for the 3rd time he asked "do you want to keep the cat?". Well duh! Of course I wanted to keep the cat but not at the expense of his happiness. He told me that on the proviso that I fed her, cleaned the litter tray and generally did the 'care' side of it then I could keep her, if no owners showed up.

 

I was thrilled! I'd been desperate for a cat since losing Kitty in January 2010 but couldn't get Foz to agree to having another.

That afternoon we went into town for the essentials: cat food, litter tray, flea and worm stuff etc etc. It was thrilling to be out shopping for my new kitten, I was so excited but at the same time dreading that phone call telling me an owner had turned up. With that in mind I'd decided to wait a week or so before giving her a name, just in case, while in the meantime just referring to her as 'kitty' or 'the kitten'.

A week went by and nobody phoned or knocked on the door and so (from my Grandma's suggestion) we gave the kitten her new name:

~ Minnie! ~

Of course! What else could we have called her when we have a toddler obsessed with Minnie Mouse! To make the difference between mouse and cat clear we've been calling the kitten Minnie Cat, although Bee is currently calling her "mi mo". I think this is because Bee doesn't think of 'Minnie Mouse' as two words, just one that describes that character. Hopefully as her understanding and communication skills increase this will clear up for her.

Minnie Cat has now been with us for about three weeks and has settled in beautifully. She's a very affectionate cat, although she has stopped following us around miaowing at our ankles! Now she's content to sleep on our knee if we're sat down and just on the sofa if not. She's still only a baby and has her manic moments where she charges round the house, leaping on the furniture and attacking anything that moves but the thing that I've found the most endearing is her absolute conviction that she's a dog. Never in my life have I seen a cat roll over on to her back for a tummy tickle. Or growl when someone knocks on the front door.

I've missed having a cat and I love having Minnie sleep peacefully on my knee of an evening, or playing the mighty hunter when I dangle her cat toy. Bee is still a little wary of her. She's quite happy to come over and look at Minnie, and will say "hello" to her. She's even graduated to using the doll's hand to stroke her. Baby steps! We're hoping Minnie will continue to settle with us and will actually help Bee overcome some of her confidence issues in relation to animals, and if not: she's still cute and fluffy!

The Start of the Statement

This week we had our initial appointment with the educational psychologist to start the statementing process for Bee. It was something we'd been looking forward to and dreading in equal measures.

Our appointment was scheduled for the afternoon, after the educational psych. had spent some time with Bee in the morning. Thankfully Foz was off work so we were able to attend together. It can feel a little overwhelming sometimes attending these kind of things on my own while Foz is at work so I'm always grateful when we can do it together.

For those unfamiliar a statement of special educational needs to a document setting out what your child's needs are and what assistance the council/school is legally bound to provide to ensure that your child reaches their full learning potential. We are very lucky that Bee will be statemented automatically, many parents have to fight to get that for their child.

The ed. psych was lovely, very friendly and eager to reassure us that she's on our side and wants to help us get everything that Bee needs. She began by asking us all kinds of questions like how we felt Bee was doing, what areas we felt she needed assistance in, where she was excelling, what things she liked to do, what she didn't like to do etc. Our answer was, of course, that she is flying. Since starting nursery she seems to have improved in every area. She's more confident, communicates more, mobility is better, the list goes on. I found myself having to forcibly stop myself from going on and on about how fantastic she's doing and how proud we are.

Then it came time for the ed. psych's turn. She asked if we minded her giving us some observations she'd made about Bee during her time with her that morning. She was quick to reassure us that her observations were made during a 'snapshot' of Bee's time, there'd be things that Bee would or wouldn't do during the session that she may or may not do at home so we were to take everything with a pinch of salt. 

She began by telling us what a sweet, pleasant, bright and curious little girl Bee is and that we should be very proud of her (which we are!) Looking back it feels a little like that was the sweetener before the bad news.

Next came the observations:

• Bee interacted brilliantly with adults, was able to engage them and knew how to make her feelings/desires clear through language, sign or gesture. But Bee did not engage other children in play. She would play next to other children, but not directly with them. Occasionally she would become interested in something another child was doing and would approach to have a look, but would not make an attempt to join in.
• Bee would sit during group time and listen/respond if an adult was talking to her directly. Once the adult had moved on to talk to another child, or to the group as a whole Bee's attention wandered and she didn't appear to process the information that was being given.
• Once given a task to perform, in this instance filling a bucket with water from the water pump and using that to fill the water play table, Bee could begin to carry it out but struggled to complete. She seemed to forget what she was supposed to be doing and needed a lot of repeated prompts to carry out the whole activity.
• Although very confident walking on smooth flat surfaces Bee was observed to need assistance with mobility during use of the water pump, which stands at the top of a slight incline. She managed well by herself towards the pump but on the walk down the incline she asked to hold the hand of a staff member for support.

From there the ed. psych was able to make some initial recommendations for the statement:

• Bee has severe needs with communication. She has a handful of Makaton signs and some language but the words are unformed and difficult to understand.
• Bee has severe needs with mobility. Although she is able to walk unaided on flat, smooth surfaces Bee struggles with any uneven surface or inclines. She doesn't watch where she steps and will step off edges without realising. She needs an adult with her for supervision at all times.
• Bee has severe needs with learning. When engaging with one adult in a direct conversation Bee will listen and process information she is given. When that conversation encompasses more children Bee struggles to engage in the same way and can't seem to process information she receives. This will have a massive impact on her in classroom learning.

This report for us was pretty devastating. We'd been so proud of Bee and so pleased with the progress that she'd made we'd gone into that meeting a little naively, thinking that the educational psychologist would be equally impressed and tell us that Bee is perfect and would do fantastic in a mainstream school. To hear the words "severe needs" repeatedly was a bit of a shock to the system. Bee is our first child and I think we forget sometimes that although she is doing really well for what we'd always been told to expect, she's not doing so well in comparison to other children her age.

In September Bee is due to go up to 15 hours a week at nursery from 6 hours. We'd been considering our options for that: whether to keep her entirely at the special needs nursery, split the time between a special needs and a mainstream or move her over to a mainstream nursery entirely. We'd been leaning towards splitting the 15 hours between her current special needs nursery and a mainstream, the idea being that she'd get the 1-on-1 she needs at the SN nursery and the 'school' experience at the mainstream. We had been hoping that Bee would have achieved enough to attend mainstream school in September 2013, even if she needed extra assistance to do so.
Since this meeting though we'd reassessed our thoughts on the matter. It would seem that a SN nursery is best for Bee at the moment and we will probably make the decision to keep her there for the full 15 hours in September. We want Bee to achieve her full potential and if that means a special needs nursery and eventually a special needs school then that's fine with us. The last thing we want is for her to struggle and be branded a 'failure' in any mainstream setting.

For more information on Statements: http://bit.ly/aeh4YB

Hue & Splash Bath

At the moment we're working on Bee's colours with her, starting with the four that are the most common in her toybox: red, yellow, blue and green. It's been difficult, I mean, how do you explain what colour is?? So I've been trying to think of new ways to reinforce colour for Bee and try to make it a little easier for her. 

One of Bee's favourite activities is to play in the bath (or any kind of water really) and so, armed with a selection of red toys and red-coloured shaving foam, we tried our very first Hue & Splash Bath!

 It was lots of fun and Bee really enjoyed painting everything in sight with the shaving foam! We used building blocks and toy cotton reels to make prints on the tiles, painted both Bee and her doll, used the spade to scoop water, played 'peepo' with the shopping basket and generally made a great, big mess!

This activity actually turned out to be really good for Bee's sensory issues. The foam was very messy and a texture Bee would normally shy away from but in the bath she was quite willing to use it as a paint. It helped that she was able to immerse her hands in the water to wash them if the sensation of the foam got a little overwhelming. 

The activity took a little trial and error: red food colouring just turned the bath a really muddy brown and did not mix at all with the shaving foam, much less turn it red. I decided to try some water-based kids paint with the foam and it worked really well, needing only a small drizzle to make sure it was red and not pink. I decided not to use any colour in the bath, by the end the water had graduated from pink to red anyway thanks to the foam!

I had been a little worried that the red would stain either the bath or the tiles but thankfully it washed straight off. The grouting might be a tiny bit pink in places but a small price to pay for so much fun! Up next: green!

Materials used:

• Normal bathtime items: towel etc.
• Coloured toys of your choice.
• Shaving foam (not shaving gel)
• Water-based washable paint
• A container for your shaving foam
• Something to mix the foam and paint

Happy Easter!

A big 'HAPPY EASTER' to everyone!

This year has been the first year Bee has been allowed to have easter eggs and we were very excited to buy her one. We decided on something small as we knew (with it being the first time) everyone would buy her some chocolate and we didn't want her to be overwhelmed. We went with a small Minnie & Mickey egg and some little Lindt bunnies, just big enough to have in a single sitting!

Of course spoiltsport Mama said no chocolate for breakfast but Daddy insisted as it's Easter! 

We had a lovely afternoon, spent with Foz's parents and overall a quiet weekend warm at home as the weather turned out to be cold, wet and miserable, boooo! Bee very much enjoyed her chocolate and has plenty to last her for weeks to come!

The March of Progress

Back in October 2011, about a month after starting nursery, Bee was assessed and set goals for her Individual Education Plan. Her nursery has spent some time getting to know her and then set out some targets they felt were achieveable and specific to her development needs. The nursery asked me in for a meeting to explain and confirm these goals, to make sure I was happy with the direction they were taking with her and ask for any input. They had chosen three main goals and aimed to review them in March 2012.

• Turn-taking and socialisation - To become involved in turn-taking activities with an adult e.g. simple games, building a tower, filling a bucket with sand.

• Using two-word links - For Bethany to demonstrate a range of two-word links e.g. 'baby sleeping', 'boy running'.

• Fine motor skills - Bethany to gain confidence in relation to her fine motor skills and the use of a pincer grip and finger isolation.

Just recently I was asked back into nursery for a review on Bee's progress which I was a little nervous about as, although we see a lot of improvement with Bee at home we know that she doesn't neccessarily display it at nursery, especially when it comes to her use of language.

Wonderfully Bee's teacher (K) couldn't have been anymore positive about the strides Bee has taken and how well she's adapting to life at nursery. K talked at length about what a happy, sociable, curious, interactive and sweet little girl Bee is and what a pleasure she is to teach. She went on to talk about the goals that had been set and how well Bee had achieved them:

Turn-taking and socialisation: Bethany is now much more settled at nursery and has established good relationships with familiar staff members. She is able to engage in simple turn-taking activities with an adult and responds well to prompts given to her, e.g. 'Bethany's turn'. She also responds well to being praised for her success.

Using two-word links: Bethany is keen to use spoken language and her confidence has grown significantly during recent months. She is using many more two-word links and will listen, and sometimes repeat, the phrases she hears adults using. Staff are pleased with Bethany's openness to spending time with them and engaging in sociable interactions.

Fine motor skills: Bethany has been happier to become involved in a variety of activities which encourage the use of a pincer-grip and require her to develop fine-motor skills. Staff are pleased with the progress she is making and feel that her accuracy and confidence are improving. She will continue to benefit from involvement in such experiences.

Overall it was a wonderful report and we're thrilled that Bee has settled into nursery so well and is achieving so much. After some discussion with K we've set some new goals, which will be reviewed in June 2012:

• Turn-taking and socialisation: To become involved in turn-taking with another child. 
• Increased use of spoken language: To continue in her use of spoken language to express her needs, engage in play experiences and comment on the world around her, e.g. using 2/3+ word links. 
• Involvement in creative/'messy' play experiences: For Bethany to become involved in a wide variety of sensory mark-making and exploratory experiences.

I'm especially happy with the last one. Already since starting nursery we've noticed an improvement in Bee's tolerance of different textures (like the sand in Southport) and knowing that the nursery are working on it specifically can only help even more.

I'm so proud of my girl for all the achievements she's made and how she continues to defy all those doctors and medical professionals that said she wouldn't.