Back to school

Peter starts his new school on Tuesday and whilst we're excited about the new opportunities and experiences he'll have, we both feel a bit sad that the holidays are over as we've had such a lovely time together.

Esmeralda took the whole school holiday off work, and 2.5 weeks of having two adults completely focussed on him have been fantastic for Peter. We did a count up recently - since he moved in with us 11 weeks ago he's gone from using about 10 single words to 200 words and phrases, and 50 of these have been during the Christmas holidays! His language and communication are really blossoming, it's amazing to see. He's confidently eating several crunchy foods now, and we're sure that this has helped his speech as his muscles are getting a better workout.

His behaviour is completely different now, you'd barely know he was the same child. He had a period of regression after a contact session recently, and it really served to remind us how far he's come.

Peter has met quite a few friends and members of our extended family over Christmas which has been really good for him to develop his social skills and coping strategies. He's walking for longer periods outside holding hands without needing to use the buggy (today was for almost an hour) and we're working on his awareness of danger and road safety. He even managed a family meal out in a restaurant on Boxing Day! We'd had it booked for months, and even though we pre-booked our food and phoned ahead of time to make the waiting staff aware, we thought he'd last about 10 minutes and we'd then take it in turns to walk around outside with him. He surprised us all by sitting beautifully in a dining chair playing on the iPad after he finished his food, and we stayed for the whole three course meal!

We couldn't be more proud of Peter and his progress, and are looking forward to the Easter holidays already!