Summer Update

Well we are starting to finally enjoy some summer weather here!

Days by the river and days down at the beach, buckets of water in the backyard and lazy dinners outside on the deck. The kids are going to bed later, life is pretty relaxed. Love this summer holiday break.



About a month ago I wrote to our local member of parliament to complain about the lack of therapy for Owen (therapy here is meant to be free - funded by the government), he was very sympathetic and guess what since complaining to him Owen has had speech therapy very week ! What a shame I have to jump up and down and make an ass of myself to get him some therapy on a regular basis! He is doing well with the Nuffield dyspraxia cards -slowly professing, making new sounds, even doing a M,mmm sound for mum now, I'll take it!

He has progressed so slowly with his talking it is a bit worrisome, I know he will talk but it is so painfully slow and I know he thinks so much more than he can say.

I still struggle with how much therapy is enough or if I am doing enough for him, with him. Well that's not true, what I mean is I could be doing so much more with him, I find some kind of balance but I know I could being so much more. Like he showed me the other day that he understands counting, we were sticking foam cats onto paper using paste when he touched one of the cats and said one, then touched another saying "ooo" then I touched the next cat and he said "eeee" . I was totally shocked, and felt so guilty as I have never done any counting with him before and I guess he has learnt this incidentally, from books or songs.

Mind you he still seems to have no concept of big and little or under and on things the speech therapist has been working over the past few weeks with him. I even detected some frustration in her voice last week when working on big and little! Maybe she thinks he does know it but doesn't show her? Dunno. But I felt myself prickle and I thought jeez I fought for this therapy and now I am not sure if I like it!

His potty training goes well, for weeks pooing in the toilet, and then out of the blue usually because he is distracted playing with a toy he will forget to tell us and go in his nappy. In the past week he has been telling us he needs to wee, but it is not consistent and frankly I don't really feel like training him to toilet for wee just yet, today I have put him in undies but only cause it's so hot and I certainly don't expect him to get it just yet, I think I will save myself the frustration for a few more months yet.

What else? Owen is running everywhere! He is like the fireball of the family, the rest of us are so relaxed but he bolts around everywhere! I think he is letting out all that frustration of not being able to walk all those months when he wanted to but couldn't get that body to do what he wanted it to do. He is growing steadily still, he is 90 cms tall and weighs about 14.5 kgs (a bit chunky but okay).

We have some concerns about Cy his older brother, and they wonder if his delayed motor skills could be cerebral palsy and if his encyclopedic knowledge of Thomas Tank and dinosaurs and lack of peer friendships is due to Aspergers. I feel quite guilty about it, nothing is confirmed yet.

We do some testing nest week ...i am quite anxious, but I want to understand him better and help him where we can to be more socially at ease, maybe even go to preschool this year, we tried last year but it was a disaster, just too stressful for me! Stay tuned.....