Followers

Friday 13 April 2012

Head banging

Today has been simply amazing. It's the last day of the Easter Holidays and as I was working Chloe spent the morning with Seth. Chloe is a support worker at Seth's school and she babysits for Seth. She doesn't work directly with Seth at school so he didn't really know her before she started babysitting and a lot of the time she comes in the evening and only gets to say 'goodnight'. However, Chloe told me this morning Seth now recognises her and responds to her at school. That makes me very happy.

Seth was in great spirits today and spent a lot of it laughing. He was happy in his stander, he was happy in his chair. The only time he got upset was late afternoon when he fell asleep on my lap. 20 minutes later he woke with a start and shrieked. It probably took me another 20 minutes to calm him down. This usually happens when he falls asleep on my lap and I keep him there for a cuddle. I don't know why waking up there freaks him out so much.

It all changed at bath time. Seth was still happy splashing his legs in the water when out of the blue he starts slamming his head down onto the base of the bath (he lies flat in shallow water). Then starts to properly sob which is no wonder because that would have hurt. Obviously I immediately scooped him up and dried and dressed him as quickly as I could. Then offered him a drink which he guzzled down. So presumably that's why he head banged?!! Good grief!!!

Friday 6 April 2012

The holidays

Well Seth and I have survived the first week of Easter holidays.  Monday was good; Seth and I enjoyed our day together. Craig phoned a couple of times to make sure I was still sane and was pleasantly surprised to find that I still was. Tuesday was a different story! We had friends over in the morning which was fab; a very noisy, full living room of children and Seth seemed to enjoy the hubbub. After lunch, however, he didn't want to do anything. He moaned and cried his way through the afternoon. I tried to put him down for a nap but that did not go down well at all! So by the time Craig got home from work I was climbing the walls. As Seth is growing up, whilst he's still a child he's obviously no longer a baby and I can see glimpses of the young man he's going to become. That would normally make a parent feel proud but it just terrifies me that he still cries when he wants something and hasn't begun to communicate in other ways yet. I'm trying different techniques; signing,  reference objects, buttons that when depressed 'speak' prerecorded words, so I'm not relying on him learning to talk. & now, after advice from another 'special needs' mum I'm simply holding out my hand and asking Seth to touch it if he wants something I've offered. This last one seemed to be working but the minute he gets tired or stressed it all goes out of the window, the one time when I truly don't understand what it is he wants. I know I'm probably expecting too much and I shouldn't push too hard but then I get that glimpse again and I'm terrified again.

Wednesday was not the best of days either. Craig and I attended the funeral for Sean who had been a class mate of Seth's and, before that, Seth and Sean had worked hard together in Conductive Education classes when we attended School for Parents (School for Parents was music, swimming and Conductive Ed. classes for parents and their special needs pre-school kids). The service was packed full of people from school and nursery as well as family and friends. I would have liked to have gone onto the gathering afterwards as there was a memory book which people were invited to add to but we didn't feel emotionally resilient enough to go. It did end up being quite a nice day with Craig and I spending a rare afternoon in the pub just talking and enjoying each others company, despite the sadness that overlaid it.

Today has been awesome. Seth enjoyed having both of us around and I felt like we really connected with him and enjoyed his company as he enjoyed ours. Its days like this that make me feel so positive about Seth's development but also so frustrated when we don't connect at all, which feels like a lot. I've realised that I pretty much eat all the time when I'm home so it's a good job I'm back at work next week and Craig is covering the 2nd week of the holiday. And before that hopefully we'll continue to have a positive, long weekend together, the three of us.