The Farm

Following on from the 'make the most of our last days' trip to Eureka! last week, this week we visit the local pick-your-own farm for some veggies. I knew from the website that they still had some peas left and as the weather was so beautiful I decided to take Bee down to pick some. I was a little uncertain as to how successful it would be as Bee really doesn't like many textures and outdoorsy things.

I'd spent the morning explaining to Bee that we would be picking vegetables to eat while we were at farm, in preparation for the difficulty she may have with it. When we got there she was raring to go, we collection our plastic tray from a staff member and made our way out to the vegetable fields.  

Although there were lots of vegetables to choose from I knew I'd have the best chance of getting co-operation out of Bee if it was something she really liked, so it was straight to the peas. All they had left were sugar snap peas and mange tout, which was good enough for us. 

Bee was happy enough to walk down the narrow, uneven aisles between the pea plants although she was a little concerned by the greenery brushing against her bare legs and insisted on holding my hand. Something silly Mama didn't think about. Sadly, as we're quite late in the season, many of the 'easy pick' peapods were gone and we had to dig around towards the base of each plant to find anything. This was totally beyond Bee from a sensory standpoint and so I did my best to find pods then manoeuver the stem towards her for plucking. This worked quite a few times and we were even lucky enough to find a few missed ones towards the top that Bee could manage by herself.

After a little while the amount of stressful texture around her all got too much and all she wanted was to be carried. Which is lovely, except when you're stuck in the middle of a field, with 2 heavy bags, a carton of peas and a very heavy toddler in the unrelenting sun. I managed by carrying Bee for a short distance towards the end of the aisle, plonking her down in a space while I looked for more peas then carrying her a little further and so on. She was happy to stand and wait while I looked, so long as she didn't have to move through the plants. She quite enjoyed standing and munching on peapods!

 

When we had a tub full of sugar snap peas I carried Bee back to the pram at the end of the aisle, where she sat eating peas and drinking water, ready for some quiet time after the stress of the greenery. On the walk back to the farm shop to pay for our haul we passed the broadbean section, I grabbed some of those and a raw corn on the cob from the maize field, which Bee loved eating! 

By the time we'd purchased our veg (with a few extra fresh corn on the cobs from the farm shop) Bee was refreshed and ready for the park. Sadly it's not very good, consisting of just a tall, ladder-accessed bridge and slide. Not at all suitable for Bee. After lots of asking "why" she couldn't play on the park she contented herself with sadly watching from the sidelines and chewing on her doll. My heart ached for her.

Sad girl

I managed to persuade her away from the park with the suggestion of playing with her ball on the field. Eventually she agreed and we went hand in hand back to the car to find her ball.

We took a picnic blanket and her big Minnie Mouse ball and had lots of fun playing catch and chase on the field. The park became a distant memory, all disappointment forgotten. Soon it was time to collect Daddy from work, well timed as my girl was beginning to flag. She was quite happy to continue her veggie picnic in the car though!

Eureka!

As school gets ever closer I've been trying to fill mine and Bee's last days together with lots of fun. This week we went back to Eureka! in Halifax.

We last went for Bee's birthday in September 2012 & she loved it then. We haven't been back since but this week my mum and I finally made the trip over the Pennines to Yorkshire.

As before, Bee's favourite part was the mini-high street and the place she went to first. We played shops for ages, taking turns being the 'shopper' and the 'shop lady'.

It was incredibly busy this time as it's the school holidays. Last year was relatively quiet, being within term time. Yet the improvements in her language, mobility and confidence meant that she wasn't fazed by the masses of children around her or by all the noise. Although she wouldn't join in with the others she confidently moved around them and wasn't afraid to play near them without myself or my mum being next to her.

After the shop it was a visit to the post office and the house. Bee loves 'pretend play' and the Eureka! high street is the perfect play & learning opportunity for her. We put stamps on parcels and chose who to send them to, we made food in the house kitchen and played in the water table in the house bathroom. Back down the stairs and Bee had a ball playing 'knock knock' at the house front door...

There is lots of other things to do at Eureka! but much of it is too old for Bee, she likes running around the exhibits though and we spent some time doing that before we heard an announcement over the tannoy system for a puppet show taking place in the marquee outside. Brilliant! After the fun Bee had at the last puppet show we would definitely going to attend this one!

We head outside to the marquee and took our seats along the edge near to the front. There were mats set out on the floor in front of the stage for the children to sit on and I was pleased that Bee went and sat amongst them, not worried about being away from us. Her attention lasted for the first few minutes before she was up and wandering back to us looking for her 'baba', which I gave her and encouraged her to sit back down. She did and managed another few minutes of attention before she was back on her feet, wandering between us and the edge of the stage. Bee has no concept of appropriate behaviour in different situations and was quite happy to chatter to us at normal volume during the show. We got a couple of odd looks from parents but nothing I'm not used to. After the start of the show the the performer sat down on the edge of the stage with a giant box and distributed a puppet to each child, including Bee. I was concerned as it became clear that each child would have a turn on the stage making a story with their puppet. They were asked to think of a name, a job and a thing their puppet likes to do or eat. That level of pretend is way beyond Bee at the moment, she can't even say her own name and all her dolls are called 'baba' or 'doll'. Still, i was determined that (if she wanted to) she would join in like the other children. Why shouldn't she have a turn?

While the other children got up and participated I sat Bee on my knee and quietly explained to her what was going on and asked her if she'd like a turn. She seemed keen and so towards the end she was called up with another little girl. 

 I accompanied her as she needed support to climb on to the stage and to follow the instructions of the performer. I crouched down behind him as Bee took her place and tried to help guide her through. The performer made up a silly story based on the responses the little girl made and just made up Bee's part when she couldn't answer the questions he posed her. She didn't really understand what was happening and just held the puppet flopped over the curtain so the story became about the puppet fainting. It all only lasted 2 minutes or so but there was a nice moment at the end when the performer asked Bee's puppet to say 'thank you' to the little girl's puppet for helping her, to which Bee signed 'thank you' and got a clap. She was happy with that and I thanked the performer for his support and we re-took our places. What a proud Mama I was!

After the puppet show Bee wanted to go back to the shop so we headed inside and let her spend some more time there before it was time to find somewhere nice to have tea.

One of the things we did spend some time doing before we left was watching a video presentation at the start of the 'All About Me' section. It was presented by an automated robot with a video screen in it's tummy and Bee loved it. we must have watched that 2 minute video 50 times, over and over again while other families came and went. It didn't matter though, we were there for Bee to enjoy herself and if watching that robot made her happy then so be it.

My mum also spent some time outside with Bee while I went to take all the bags and the pram to the car. Eureka! have a fabulous outdoor zone with a giant sandpit (called the beach) and lots of toys and play equipment. My mum and Bee had a great time chasing the hula hoop she'd just been bought from the shop...

Bottom right is Bee's robot

After such a long day Bee was getting tired and we all were getting hungry so we got in the car, ready to head to a lovely canal-side restaurant that Foz and I had ate at last time we took Bee to Eureka!

We were all more than ready for a slap-up meal and Bee even had some leftover energy for a play on the park afterwards!

I took so many pictures during our day out yet one has emerged as my clear favourite. This is Bee 'hiding' during our game of hide and seek...

I feel she hasn't really got the idea yet...

School Visits

Since receiving confirmation that Bee will attend Bewsey Lodge Primary School in September she's been invited for three hour-long sessions to help her get to know her new classroom and teachers. I'd been a little worried about how Bee would cope without us in her new class but I needn't have been. 

Each time she's been excited on arrival and recognised her new teacher, Mrs J. She's left us at reception without a backwards glance and despite us waiting around for the full hour each time, not once has she needed us before her session had finished.

I'm thrilled that she likes her new teachers so much and seems very comfortable both with them and in the new classroom. My only concern is that currently an hour session is like a fun playtime for her. When September rolls around she'll be going from 9am-3pm. A huge leap.

 On the way home after the first of her 3 sessions (one a week) we visited the local park as the weather was beautiful.

Holiday Book

We've booked our first family holiday for September of this year and I'm so very excited about it! It's Bee's gift for her 5th birthday and we're off to Peppa Pig World in Hampshire! It's in the New Forest, right down near the south coast and we're staying at Hoburne Bashley Holiday Park. 

We're only planning one day at Peppa Pig World (unless Bee really loves it) and have 4 other days to fill with fun and adventure. We're thinking maybe a car ferry over to the Isle of Wight or a visit to Beaulieu Motor Museum in honour of Bee's obsession with buses and trains, exploring the New Forest, maybe an animal park or farm, the seaside... there's going to be lots to do.

Since booking I've been worrying about how Bee would cope with the holiday. How do you explain to a 4-year-old with learning difficulties that you're staying away from home for a few days in a big box on legs? Or that for a few days she'll have to cope with a complete change to her normal routines? Bee always copes best with change when she's had some preparation so I decided to tell her about the holiday early. Of course the unforeseen problem with this has been balancing preparing Bee with her complete lack of understanding about things happening in the future. She's very excited about Peppa Pig World and asks me most mornings if we're going. Thankfully when I say "not today" the worst I get is a few whys? before she moves on!

To help with the preparation I thought some pictures would help so I emailed Hoburne Bashley and asked for a brochure that we could sit and look through together. Unfortunately when it arrived there were not many 'useable' pictures, just lots of information. I cut out the few I could use and got searching on Google images for generic pictures I could use to complement the few I had.

There was a lot of information I wanted to include about our holiday so there were two pages about where we would be staying, a page for Peppa Pig World, a couple of pages for activities we might do and a page for out trip on the way home.

Bee has loved sitting and sharing the book and I've found it a really helpful tool for talking about our holiday together.

Garden Fun

 

During our recent sunny spell we spent a lovely afternoon in the garden with Bee's grandma...

We got out Bee's water table, play tents, slide, ball and lots of toys. She had a great time!

Eating dinner in her tent!

Squirting!

Sunshine on the Farm

A couple of weeks ago we had a few days of beautiful weather, luckily over the bank holiday weekend. Sadly since the weather has turned cold, rainy and very windy but it's not anything we're not used to! Foz unfortunately had to work on bank holiday Monday but with the weather being so gorgeous I didn't want to miss an opportunity to get some sun so Bee and I headed for a local pick-your-own farm. We'd been once before, back in October, for a little pumpkin-picking at Halloween. Bee hadn't been keen then but months have passed and her confidence has soared so I thought it worth the chance.

Sadly there wasn't much in the way of pick-you-own, it's only early May and the weather has played havoc with crops and plants alike so it was rhubarb or nowt. We went with nowt. I love a good rhubarb crumble but not when I have to make it from fresh rhubarb, plus I don't think the sour taste would agree with Bee!

We made do with a lovely slice of cake in the cafe, along with a cup of tea for me and water for Bee. It was the perfect sustenance for an hour of flower and veg browsing and play time in the meadow!

We went with the play time first, Bee was very excited that we'd brought her Peppa Pig ball along and had a mountain of energy to burn!

We had loads of fun playing throwing and catching, running and chasing, picking flowers and exploring. Bee did really well with the texture of the grass, it was coarse and prickly, unlike the softer grass she's used to. Thankfully her Piedro boots are ankle-high and with her socks above that the grass didn't bother her too much while walking. However she did refuse to sit down, despite my encouragement and would only go as far as bending down to pick up her ball.

Cheeky!

 We played in the meadow for an hour or so before Bee started stumbling over her own feet and the uneven ground, her co-ordination dropping with her energy levels. I decided it was time to head for the vegetables and plants on sale.
 
It's that time, I've been cleaning out the garden pots from last year and we were on the hunt for more veggies for Bee to grow. Once we entered the greenhouse however, I gave up all hope of keeping Bee's attention. She'd spotted the ride-on tractors dotted around, headed straight for the nearest one and climbed aboard.
We took our time looking around, I pointed out flower colours and we tried smelling some of them. Bee's got the hang on sniffing recently and likes to smell things and say "mmmm it nie".
After lots of deliberation we chose a cucumber plant and some pea plants, both of which I know Bee likes to eat and she very much enjoyed picking and eating the peas we grew last year.


We took our plants to the till, where Bee very helpfully gave the lady at the till the pennies and carried our bag to the car. It was starting to get late in the afternoon and I knew we'd need to head into town to collect Foz from work soon but Bee really wanted more time playing on the field with her ball.

Bee's getting much better at throwing, she's releasing the ball from her hands now instead of just passing it to you. She's even started throwing it up in the air and it getting a good height. Plus, we had even more progress on the field that afternoon.... Bee letting the grass touch her bare legs! Winning!

We had a lovely afternoon in the glorious sunshine and by the time we were ready to leave Bee was exhausted. She's done so much physically that her little legs just couldn't carry her anymore. Well done Bee!

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.

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!

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!

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!

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.