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!

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.

Bookworms

Anyone who knows me will know I have a deep and abiding love of books and reading. It's something my parents instilled in me as a child and even now there's not much I'd rather be doing than reading a good book with a cup of tea. Rock and roll.

I want Bee to enjoy books as I have, to get the same pleasure from them and have her world opened by a love of reading. She owns a lot of books but for the last few months I've been taking Bee to the big library in Warrington town center. It's something I used to do as a child and always loved spending time there, reading and choosing books to take home. She's been very much enjoying it although I think is still getting her head around the concept.

Me: "So are these the books you want to take home?"

Bee: "Me pay"

Me: "No honey, we don't need to pay, we can borrow them for free"

Bee: "Why?"

Me: "Because the library will let us take the books home to read for free but then we have to bring them back for someone else to borrow"

Bee: "Why?"....

This is a conversation we've had more than once at the library so far. I suppose for a child who's so used to shopping, visiting a library can seem an awful lot like a bookshop and understanding the differences can be a little challenging. She loves the whole experience though.

My only challenge during our visits is keeping Bee calm in the pram while I browse for myself. She has a habit of shouting "out Mama! Me out!" over and over until I release her. Of course then there's lots of running around and squealing loudly in excitement, to which I follow trying to shush her and explain about our "quiet voices" (yeah right!) 

This week we came home with (amongst others) a Peppa Pig christmas book and an In the Night Garden christmas book. It doesn't matter to Bee, if she sees Peppa or Makka Pakka she's sold! We brought another handful home too as well as all of the ones Mama chose!

New Play!

We've had some lovely new play experiences last week, starting with a visit to Warrington's new Play & Sensory Center. It's a purpose-built soft play center for disabled children and adults, which opened in the summer of 2012 after a lot of hard work by disability organisations in the town. We haven't visited before so when we got a letter from Bee's nursery a few weeks ago with a permission slip for a trip I was very excited! Happily the visit fell on a Wednesday so Foz was able to come with us. He misses so much with having to work so when the opportunity arises for him to be included I'm really pleased.

Last Wednesday morning was similar to lots of others recently: bitterly cold, strong wind and snow flurries. We'd booked on to the coach for the trip as Bee loved the recent journey to Underwater Street and doesn't get to travel on buses very often, it's almost an adventure in itself! She was very excited about this trip in particular as K, Bee's favourite teacher, was accompanying us. She'd been frantically using her hand sign for K all morning, wanting reassurances that she would be there.

After meeting at nursery we boarded the coach for the 10-minute journey to the play center. Bee loves to look at the window and is especially watchful for buses, even though all we mainly see are cars, houses and trees! Weirdly enough (considering where we live) there is a boat in a driveway on our journey to nursery from home, Bee always loves pointing that out. Thankfully by the time we arrived at our destination the snow had stopped and the sun was doing it's best to come out. No matter to us though, we were off inside for lots of climbing, sliding, jumping and fun!

Warrington Play and Sensory Center was wonderful! Bee has always loved soft play but has needed a lot of support moving around as she's not big enough to climb the structures herself and doesn't have the strength due to her hypotonia. I also find that Bee is best suited to the 'under 3's' section as she very gentle, can't yet run or jump yet we still get dirty looks from other parents are Bee is clearly over 3 years old. Yet she can't manage the big frame, both in terms of her ability and because the older children running and being rough is too much for her. We stopped attending soft play as it became too stressful. Warrington Play & Sensory Center is built around easy access and everything is at a height she can climb unaided. It's perfect for Bee, everything she needs, heights she can manage and no judgement from the other parents for using equipment that might be too 'young' for her. Even so Bee still wants an adult with her at all times and isn't yet moving off to play on her own or with other children. Generally she's happy to have myself or her dad by her side but for this trip only 'K' would do. Bee has a habit of forming strong attachments to certain adults and will stick like glue to that adult whenever she's around that. So far that's always been family members, namely my mum, Foz's mum and my Auntie Jane. 'K' has been the first person outside of family that Bee's become this attached too. 'K' was brilliant and happy to spend much of her time with Bee, even though I felt bad that it meant taking her away from sharing her attention with the other children. Still, they all had parents/carers there as well as the rest of the nursery staff so I suppose I shouldn't feel too bad.

The session was over far too quickly and, even though she was extremely tired, Bee did not want to leave. We had to deal with a small tantrum, which dissipated as soon as she realised we'd be getting back on the bus. We really enjoyed the new soft play center and would definitely chose there again over any other soft play locally. The small things, like Bee being able to climb unaided, make such a difference to the overall experience. It enables her to become more confident in her own abilities and not rely on us so much for support.

That afternoon we took a trip to the Trafford Center for a bit of a mooch around and a nice meal together. Bee loves to shop, it's one of her favourite pastimes and sometimes I worry I'm creating a monster. When she's a teenager and demanding the latest designer handbag or shoes I'm sure I'll look back at this time and curse myself. Still, just to see her charging up and down the aisles, helping fill the trolley and interacting with the checkout staff is worth it.

The Trafford Center doesn't really have much that interests us, it's full of fancy shops like Selfridges or brand name clothes shops. The main thing we visit for is Disney. No matter what interests come and go Bee still has a deep and abiding love for Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and especially Minnie.   

Before Bee's birthday last year we'd tried to buy a Minnie car mat (with matching Minnie and Daisy cars) from the Disney shop but sadly they'd sold out and we haven't seen them since. We tried other stores and online, nothing. So I was thrilled when we went in last week and found *just one* on the shelf. It wasn't the Minnie one but the Mickey but Bee loved it just as much. It turns out it was a return and the only one so we snatched it up, there was no way I was missing it a second time! 

Bee was very pleased with her new toy!....

We spent some time sat by one of the large fountains, having a drink and gave Bee some pennies to throw in. She didn't throw so much as gently push them in, she can be a funny thing. This particular fountain shoots a giant jet of water towards the ceiling every few minutes, which Bee loved....from a distance! Every time it happened she would back away from the fountain, scrunching her face up as if the water was coming at her, still with a big smile though!

 After the soft play in the morning, a lot of walking round The Trafford Center in the afternoon along with a meal Bee was exhausted. She began making that steady moan noise that we know means she's ready to give up. She had some cuddles with her daddy while we finished our food then we headed home. It was straight to bed for an early night!

Bee has recently discovered Baby Jake (from CBeebies) and has fallen in love, which we think is an extension of her love for dolls/babies generally. So a few weeks ago during a mooch round Toys'r'Us we bought Bee a Baby Jake board game. We haven't yet started on board games with Bee, they've seemed a little developmentally advanced, not to mention our struggles with Bee's attention span. However this Baby Jake game stated the target age at 3-5 years and the pictures on the box showed a game which looked reasonably easy for her to master and short enough not to become boring.

So one recent afternoon I got it out of the packaging and set it up. Bee was extremely excited and it took a few minutes to calm her before trying to explain how to play. The basic premise is to roll the dice and move your counter to the finish line in order to 'launch' Baby Jake's rocket. Getting Bee to roll the dice was the easy part, trying to explain that she could only roll once each turn was slightly more difficult. Then we couldn't stop her constantly trying to press the button that launched the rocket or picking up the counters to chew on them. Turn-taking is a skill Bee is still acquiring and I think it's going to take a little more practice before we really master the art of board games! 

Underwater Street

Having a drink on the coach

We went on a nursery trip to Underwater Street in Liverpool today, a play and activity center.

Bee has been showing a lot of interest in buses recently and when she sees one asks "boo rye mama?" - bus ride mama? We've not had the opportunity recently so she was very excited today to be going on a coach. We had to meet at nursery first to be organised into groups and have the required safety talks but soon enough it was time to leave. Bee's nursery had about 90 children on this trip so it was a little like organised chaos with lots going on plenty of noise. I was a little worried about how Bee would cope but she did champion.

After a half hour coach journey we arrived in Liverpool and Bee was very ready to get off the bus, she hadn't enjoyed admiring the beautiful Liverpool architecture as I had! Underwater Street is right on Liverpool Docks, in the building next to the famous Liver Building, in the lower level.

Bee was very happy to see lots of boats floating in the docks and it's occurred to me that a trip around the docks on something like The Yellow Duckmarine might be a good idea, or maybe even the famous Mersey Ferry!

On arrival we congregated for another quick safety talk and then the children were all turned loose to play. It was like setting off a bomb, kids fair exploded out of the meeting and scattered far and wide across the center. Bee was so beside herself with excitement that she couldn't decide what to do first. I knew there was a pretend shop so I led her in that direction.

Bee loves to shop, she had a ball. She even, without prompting, interacted with the little girl manning the till and they packed Bee's shopping together!

As much as she loves shopping Bee couldn't maintain her focus on the one activity for long, there was just too much to do! Next it was on to the small ball pool with the diggers, then the water play, the sand pit, the dressing up.... it was crazy but so much fun!

We stopped in the middle of the trip for a bite to eat and a breather. Recently Bee has been enjoying raw carrot and it's lovely to see her munching away on something that, not so long ago, it would have been unimaginable for her to eat.
 

In the dressing up room Bee chose a lovely sparkly dress then proudly wore it round the center for the rest of the session. I was a little worried about whether she'd make a fuss about taking it off but she was a star.

She had great fun in the water play, pouring water from container to container and then into a water wheel, she spent by far the most time here.  

Water play

It's me!

One of my favourite moments was watching Bee discover herself on the TV in the 'newsroom'. She would see the back of herself on the TV then turn to find the camera, before realising that if she did that she couldn't see herself! It was very funny and very cute!

Painting a passenger window

In Underwater Street there's also a Mini, a full-sized Mini car. It's in it's own section and it's for painting on. Clearly the staff don't clean the painting from it that years of children have done and so it's a wonderful, multi-coloured, car-shaped blob that kids can paint all over. It almost blends into it's surroundings there so much paint everywhere! Bee loved it!

By the time the session was over Bee was more than ready to go home. She's been ill recently and so much activity had really tired her out. It was harder to get her interested in the view out of the windows on the way home, she mostly made her tired, moaning noise and chewed on her Peppa Pig toy. By the time we reached Warrington and then made it home poor little Bee was falling asleep. I put her to bed early, just after 5:30pm and she was out like a light.

We had a wonderful day and Bee coped much better than I thought she would with all the children, activity and noise. She joined in with painting, making, building and climbing. She constantly surprises me with what she's capable of.