Catching Up

Wow, it's been a while since I last blogged! 8 months! It's been a busy time with lots of crazy family-goings-on, Warrington Wolves winning *another* Challenge Cup and a break-in, not to mention our little Bee turning 4 years old! It's strange how all of a sudden she seems so grown up, like it's happened all at once. Now we have a proper little girl with a personality and sense of humor, who likes to tell us "now" when she wants something and has started choosing her clothes for the day; a right little madam!

We've seen many changes in Bee in the last 8 months, across the board. Her development is progressing well and we think a huge part of that is increasing from two afternoons at nursery per week to five mornings. 

Her learning and cognition has improved vastly and we think her understanding educationally has really come along. Although she's not quite at an age-appropriate level (her speech therapist approximates 3 & 1/2) we know she understands a lot of colours and the numbers 1-10, a big achievement.

Speech-wise Bee now has a vocabulary of over 90 words and is gaining more by the week. Many of her words are just syllable sounds and can sound the same but she understands and attempts them. She recently said 'guitar', which her daddy was especially thrilled about!
We saw the cleft palate team at Alder Hey again in December but unfortunately she still hasn't got enough clear speech to make a decision on her submucosal cleft repair. It's not something we'd even consider unless the surgeon could guarantee us that it would benefit Bee.

 Since Bee became mobile and left her walker behind there's been no stopping her. Although she still tires fairly easily, she chooses to walk in most situations. She can even navigate curbs with a little support! She's a little unsteady on gravel or uneven surfaces but her strength improves every day.

We had concerns recently about Bee's feet turning out when she walks and the way she dragged her left foot when she became tired. We know hypotonia is still an issue for Bee so I booked another appointment with the physio to see if it's anything we should be concerned about. Now, five weeks later Bee has a lovely pink pair of Piedro orthopaedic boots which we're slowly noticing is having a beneficial effect, she's much sturdier and we've not noticed any dragging of her feet.

Bee still likes her routines and can be upset if things are different than what she's used to but she seems to be needing rigid structure much less than she did at a younger age. I've always felt that Bee used structure and familiar things to feel secure when she's lacking in confidence. As she grows so does her confidence and she seems to not need the refuge of routine as much.
Similar can be said of her fear of texture. No more does she panic when on grass and we've even witnessed her playing in a sandbox! Major progress! We feel nursery have been a massive part of this change in Bee, her confidence has soared since being there.
The biggest example of this was before Christmas at a local garden center. We'd gone for a meal & a browse and I noticed they had a table set up for facepainting. Now, we've tried this before. It was an absolute no-no. Not only does it involve someone touching Bee's face, it's them touching her with something cold and wet. She freaked. So consequently I didn't have high hopes for this time. But I asked her anyway and surprisingly she insisted she wanted something done. The girl doing it was very nice, she tried asking Bee what she would like but of course Bee just kept trying to show her her doll. I thought it was best to start small so I gave Bee a choice between a flower or a bumblebee on her cheek. She chose a "bebe" - bumblebee.

Aaaannnnnd..... voila! 


She did it! Bee actually sat still and allowed a complete stranger to not only touch her face, but touch her with something cold and wet! I was so proud! Of course I had to keep stopping her from poking at it or trying to take the brush off the girl, as you can see in the picture her hand is sneaking towards one of the paints! But overall it was hugely successful and she spent a fair amount of time afterwards admiring her new "bebe" in the mirror!


Just recently Bee had another video fluroscopy. We had one towards the end of 2012 but unfortunately Bee would not cooperate and drink the white liquid so we came away frustrated. She's understood for a long time what 'drinking' is now and we've been offering her water, which she readily accepts. We're desperate for a positive video fluro result as it will be the beginning of trying to wean her off the mic-key button. And so recently we finally received our appointment through for another. Of course we get to the appointment and Bee refuses to sit in the chair, not a good start. She initially refused the drink this time too but I managed to persuade her to take a small sip. When she realised it wasn't water she immediately spat a majority of it back out but the speech therapist was able to see that some did go down her throat and.... she didn't aspirate it!! Wonderful news! Of course this was tempered somewhat by the fact that some aspirators can only aspirate 1 in every few swallows so the team were not able to give us full permission to start her on liquids but they are happy for us to continue with water. When we and Bee feel ready to move forward onto other liquids, juice for example, we'll have to go back for another video fluro and get a comprehensive positive result. But I'll worry about that in the future, for now my girl is drinking water and it's amazing.

Bee turned four years old in September 2012. Four. I still find it hard to believe that I have a four year old. She was spoilt for her birthday and got two lovely days out. The first we spent at Eureka, the national children's museum in Halifax. It's a wonderful place with absolutely tons to do and Bee had a blast even though much of it was beyond her. She's not ready for leaning about how science works and what our blood vessels do just yet but the 'mini town' section was well worth the entrance money! There's a bank, shop, post office, garage and a house. One of Bee's favourite games is pretend play so she had a ball playing 'shops' and posting letters. We would definitely go back there!

Eureka!

Our second day out took place on Bee's actual birthday, we went to Blackpool Sealife Center and then down the front to see Blackpool Lights. the Sealife didn't turn out to be the best choice, Bee was not impressed by the fish and spent most of the time wanting to leave. We got an equally indifferent reaction to the lights, I think by the time we started (when night fell) she was too tired to really be bothered. She did enjoy the flashing light stick we bought her off the front though! I think her favourite part of the day was the meal we went for between the Sealife and the lights. She got to eat chips (her favourite!) with ice cream and a share of daddy's chocolate brownie for dessert! Winner! 

 Over the last few months one of Bee's favourite things to do is bake with her daddy on his days off. She's getting very good at mixing and I've been treated to some very yummy fairy cakes, biscuits and cookies recently!





Our biggest change is that Bee will be starting school in September. School. I can't believe it. It's been a long and confusing process and we still haven't chosen our final school. There are 6 to choose from: 2 special needs schools and 4 mainstream schools with developmental units, which is the fancy way of saying special needs class. We started this process knowing that Bee wouldn't be in a mainstream class but we've kept our minds open as to the other possibilities. We've now had a handful of meetings with the Educational Psychologist and copies of reports from a few of Bee's therapists, we have a good idea of what will be going in her statement: that Bee has complex learning needs and significant developmental delay. She will need a lot of support in an educational environment and ongoing intervention from her therapists. But we know that Bee is a happy and very sociable child, she thrives on attention from others and benefits greatly from interaction with her peers. Her nursery have said she loves being in the 'garden (mainstream) room' and plays brilliantly with the children in there who are a little ahead of Bee developmentally and can model behaviour for her and help support her play.

Of the 6 schools we ruled out two immediately, one for being a faith school and we're not a family of faith, the other as we believe it provides for children with more significant physical and learning needs than Bee. That left us with 4 to choose from; one special needs school and three primaries with development units (or 'designated provision'). We've been encouraged by everyone to view, view, view the schools and find the one we're happiest with so that's what we've done.

We started with the special needs school, which has an outstanding Ofstead report and is located close to Bee's Nana & Grandad's house. The school is great and one of the biggest positives for us is that it caters for children aged 5-19, which means if Bee was to attend there she wouldn't have to move again until she was ready to end her education. This is a big plus for us as Bee really struggles with settling at new places and we're already very stressed about what September will bring. They use Makaton and the PECS system and the teacher/pupil ratio is great. I really couldn't pinpoint any fault with them at all.
But it just didn't feel right.

Over the following few weeks we visited the 3 primary schools with designated provision. one of our main concerns about this choice for Bee is that she would struggle to cope. We loved all three of the primary schools we visited but all the children seemed so much more advanced than Bee. Still, that was something that could be counted as a plus as well as a minus. Bee really benefits from watching and interacting with others, especially children who are ahead of her developmentally.

We came away from the viewings no closer to a decision and decided to go back and look at them all again, but take Bee with us this time. In part this was because we hoped seeing Bee in the environments would help us get that feeling about 'the right one' that everyone said we would get. In was also in part because we wanted staff at these schools (especially the mainstream primaries) to meet Bee and reassure us that they could support her needs and help her thrive. 

The special needs school was first and Bee spent some time with the reception class while we toured the playground/outside space with the headteacher. She had a blast and didn't want to leave but we were not keen on the classroom facilities and felt that the structure of the session we saw was a little too like a nursery. Of course we only saw a snapshot of the day but we came away unhappy.

Next was the primaries. Foz's favourite was first. It's hard to judge this school on it's facilities as it's in the process of being knocked down and rebuilt before September, so will have brand-new everything. Although I suppose that counts as a plus but it doesn't help us imagine Bee attending! We both really liked the teacher at this school, she talked very passionately about her pupils and her job. Plus instead of spending the entire time talking about the school (which others did) she asked us tons of questions about Bee and told us how she (and the school) could support her needs and make the setting suitable for her.
Bee spent about an hour with the class in this school. The minute we walked into the classroom she was gone. She did us a beautiful painting while we spoke to the teacher (which is currently adorning our fridge) and had a ball with all the toys.

The second primary we visited again had been my favourite on our first viewing, I liked the facilities and the staff and with all the schools being so similar in lots of ways it had come to down to minute things like whether or not we liked the teacher. On this visit Bee spent about an hour with the class, while we stood in the background and watched. She sat at the table with them and had some cake and water (they were having some kind of celebration - we timed that well!) and, although she didn't say anything and just watched she didn't look lost or left out. Many of the children went out of their way to try and include her, asking her questions and offering her cake or more water and she didn't seem she or withdrawn. She looked tiny in comparison but not out of place. After cake she followed the other children outside for a 10 minute playtime. She even, I saw it with my own eyes, played throw-and-catch with another little girl! It was a struggle not to cry!

After that second visit Foz and I decided that our final selection was between one of those two. We've decided on a primary with designated provision (rather than a special needs school) as we feel that Bee will really benefit from being among others who she can model behaviour and learning on. She thrives on interaction with others, especially children who can help support her play by leading. Basically, we want to give her the chance to cope in slightly tougher environment. Plus we have the reassurance of knowing she'll have 6-monthly progress reviews and if she's not coping as well as we hope she'll be able to move to the special needs school.

Now all we need to do is decide between our final two!

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.