We went to see another play today - How Giraffe Got His Long Neck. Big Munchkin liked it. She generally likes theatre plays. I went with her this time. Normally my DH does it, but I've been rying to arrange for other kids she knows to come with us. So, I will be going with her (and her friends, and their parents) more often. I don't mind. It is also good for my DH to spend more time with Little Munchkin. He really enjoys personal attention.

Little Munchkin's have settled in the nursery well. Last time he did not cry at all, not even a little. Big Munchkin seem to have settled as well. I think I am ready to tell her previous school that I am taking her out permanently.

Little Munchkin's speech therapist visited his nursery to give a bit of training to the stuff on how learning and communication techniques. Here is a bit from her preliminary report:

XXX was very settled there and generalising his skills and speech and language with the staff there-especially CXXXX who he was with him when I visited.

He recognised me and came and sat with us at times asking 'sit down'. He painted a picture at the easel very calmly and independently, having indicated that he wanted to put the apron on and do some painting. He also played alongside another child with the cars on the floor - he has established his favourites! He also asked for his apple juice. As ever he was happy to say bye bye to me too when I was leaving.

Little Munchkin had a good day at the nursery. He cried for less than two minutes and was fine after that. He saw a speech therapist yesterday. She did an assessment and thinks that he is approximately at 2 year age in his understanding and communication. It is a progress but he is still behind.

Big Munchkin is enjoying her new school. Still, she is missing her friends from her old school. I am trying to arrange some play dates for her. I was hoping that she can make a new best friend in a new school, but that did not happen. Academically, the new school is definitely better. As of now, she will be staying there.

From Little Munchkin's Assessment Report from Speech Therapist:

XXXX was able to follow single word commands for a range of everyday objects, pointing to the object and picking it up and putting it in the box.

Understanding of action words was more difficult to demonstrate; he looked at a small picture of ‘driving a car, washing, drinking , eating’, showing recognition by his eye gaze, but he was reluctant to point or pick the picture up. XXXX was able to copy the action wave bye, and making a teddy jump. His mother reports that she feels he understands a range of action words reliably. He possibly needs more opportunities to generalise his learning and understanding of these action words to confidently show his understanding.

He was unable to follow directions to show 2 word level understanding, yet he is showing emerging skills and was heard to say ‘two shoes’ ’I(want)to (have)slide’ approaching his mother and saying this to her face, ‘I (want )to (have)apple juice’.

He understands and names colours, numbers up to 100, and some letters of the alphabet by name. He understands wet, but not yet the verbal concepts ‘big’ and ‘little’.

XXXX communicates a range of communicative intents-to protest, to request actions/objects, to get attention, to express his feelings, to imitate, to label, to answer, to say goodbye (he finds greetings difficult) using a combination of single words, jargon, pointing and gestures, getting an object to show.

XXXX’s learning, attending and responding is best in a quiet, calm setting with minimal distractions and with time for XXXX to process and respond to the interactions with an adult.

XXXX is able to attend with an adult, with shifting his attention from the task to the adult, for a selected structured activity for 5-10 minutes, e.g.sharing a favourite book with his mother with XXXX filling in the pauses, ball run turn taking activity with me and his mother, post box with naming flash cards, answering what’s this question, joining in with action songs.

He can complete a range of activities in a structured play session, where the activity is frequently changing. He can be easily distracted from something that he would like to do, to follow the adult’s agenda, waiting for his activity at a later time e.g. he was wanting to play on the slide outside and requested this ,but did not persist when other activities were suggested to him. He is responding to first-then,the beginnings of simple reasoning.

Summary of review assessment.

XX is now understanding and responding to adult direction within his daily routines and for short, selected, structured activities. He responded well to formal assessment today.

XX continues to show a delay in his play skills, (with some emergent pretend play alongside an adult), in his understanding of spoken language, and in his expressive and spoken language. He continues to show certain rigidity in his style of play and interactions preferring the familiar Pepper Pig and Thomas the Tank engine characters, and still being very keen on the colour yellow! He is able to turn take in some floor play activites; although his mother reports that she feels his turn taking has recently reduced.

He has significantly progressed to following adult direction, and answering what’s this, and where’s the... questions.

He does enjoy approaching his mother to snuggle up and sit on her lap, and is approaching her to ask directly for something he really wants. His looking for communication at people’s faces is best when he understands, and his eye contact has extended with his increased understanding of language, and increased social confidence.

Whilst he will point to pictures when asked what’s that? He will not point to parts of the body, even though he knows the vocabulary and can use the words appropriately in the song ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes’, where he will say the words when the adult pauses and points, and anticipates the routine. He shows that he is a visual learner with a good visual memory.

His development is now around a 2 year level in understanding, expressive skills and play skills. He shows a typical pattern of development with his speech sound development, omitting sounds c/k at the beginning of words, reducing clusters of consonants, and shortening longer multi-syllabic words, such that his spoken language is unclear to unfamiliar people. He copies gestures and words from adults. He continues to show a reduced motivation in his social communication, and in his desire to approach others to share communication, in association with this developmental delay.

This Church, where Little Munchkin's nursery is, is bad for me. At the end of August I had a window broken and a diaper bag, that I forgot on the car seat, stolen. Today I punctured a tire there. I ended up sitting there for nearly an hour before a guy from the repair shop arrived and changed it. I only get two hours of personal time as it is and I had to spend half of it on that. At least Little Munchkin is getting better at the nursery. He only spent five minutes crying today and played nicely the rest of the time.

His speech is progressing well. He is trying to say 'I want' now. He actually says 'to' instead of 'want'. He also swallows some of the first sounds, particularly 'c' such as 'cat' is 'at' and 'car' is 'ar'. So today we went for a little party and he kept saying 'I to ake' - translation - 'I want cake'.

Last few weeks have been very busy. Big Munchkin started a new school. It's been OK. Academically it is definitely well ahead of the state school. Big Munchkin seem to be happy. She likes that they have swimming, ball games, gym, drama, art and other activities. There is a lot of home work. It's been a struggle to get her to do it every day. The class is small - only 14 kids; 6 of them are girls. Big Munchkin did not seem to make any instant friends there. At least not any close friends. She still says that she misses her best friend from her old school.

Another painful moment is that I just can't bring myself to drive there to pick her up. I am really bad at parking and there are lots of cars and people in that area. There are lots of schools there with similar pick up times. So, I walk to school. It is 25 minutes each way, meaning, that I do approximately an hour or more of walking up and down the hill every afternoon. My knee hurts like hell. I might go back to the doctor to see if there is something can be done. For those who don't know yet - I have degenerative arthritis. I was told that I really need to lose weight, which is easier said than done.

Little Munchkin started his nursery. It's been better than I feared and worse than I hoped. He starts crying at soon as I tell him that we are going to the nursery, which is sort of good, because it means that he understands what I am saying. He is still crying when I leave, but when I come back to check in ten minutes he is fine. I have been able to leave him for nearly the full time (for about two hours out of two and a half) for the past two of his nursery days. He is doing three mornings a week.

My other half is working like crazy. He is very busy. Considering the current state of financial system, it is not the time to complain. It is time to be very happy that he still has a job.

Last weekend we finally made it to the Drusillas Adventure Park. It's been our third attempt to do so. First time my DH missed the turn and we ended up in Hastings. The second time we made it to the gate to discover a huge line up, rain, and that we did not bring our umbrellas. We ended up going to Eastbourne and to the Michelham Priory & Gardens nearby.

This time we did make it to the Park. The weather was great and we finally used our expiring 'days out vouchers'. I exchanged our Tesco (grocery shopping) points from a store card on days out vouchers. So, this trip cost us nothing instead of 50 pounds it would cost for a family of 4. We had a great time. It is the most age appropriate attraction we have been so far. The Zoo was lovely, Lemur Land did have lots of lemurs, Adventure zone was huge and age appropriate, and kids loved riding on Thomas.