A family update

Peter has had a great Summer and has just gone back to school into year 2. He has put up with a lot of change as one of us has been at the hospital with Russell most of the time, and has thrived with all the challenges that have come his way. He's getting stronger and fitter all the time - he now regularly runs 1km at our local running club, his confidence has increased: this Summer he's tried rock climbing for the first time and has climbed right to the top of the biggest climbing frame at any of our local playgrounds. He's taught himself to read, he's constantly experimenting and enquiring, his speech has improved, he loves imaginative play and he's developing a real sense of humour. He has a keen interest in butterflies so we've been providing him with resources, he can now identify 6 or 7 different species and will spend half an hour at a time sitting in the garden watching all the butterflies visit our buddleja. He's such a little character!

Russell has also started thriving since he became part of our family. When we first met him he was seven months old but like a newborn in terms of his development, except for his utter disinterest in whether anyone was with him or not. He's now 9 months old and about 3-4 months developmentally, but his whole demeanour is different - he's interested in us, wants our attention and is starting to demand it which is great. We've completed our training in his care and do everything for him whilst we're at the hospital. We're hoping to be able to take him on outings soon (accompanied by his ventilator and all his equipment!) and work up to day leave, overnight leave, and then hopefully he can be discharged home by November. We have a lot to prepare at home before he comes, and it will completely change our lives (again!), but we're looking forward to it. He's definitely worth it.

We were really pleased to receive an email from Belle's adoptive family recently, telling us how well she's doing, with some photos from their busy Summer. It's so lovely to see how happy they are and hear about their new life as a family of four, it sounds like Belle is keeping them on their toes and is making loads of progress!

We have more change on the way as we've decided to move house to give Russell a downstairs bedroom, Peter more space to play, and our dogs Lady and Nana a bigger garden to run around in! We're in the process of packing boxes, and since we're moving over county lines we're visiting new schools for Peter too. Our local authority accepts foster carers from neighbouring counties so we don't need to change fostering agencies thankfully.

It's a busy time but we're sure everything will settle down by Christmas... perhaps it will then be time for us to go back on the lists for a third placement!

Peter's new friend Nana

Esmeralda and I are booked onto a course run by Dogs for the Disabled this year, where we can learn how to train a family pet to become an autism assistance dog for Peter. The dog we already had, Lady, unfortunately is completely unsuitable - we love her very much but she's too easily excited to be the calm presence we need from an assistance dog. We've been looking in various rescues and shelters for the right dog on and off for about a year, and a couple of weeks ago we found her. She's a one year old labrador husky cross, amazing with children, very bright, still very much a big puppy but surprisingly unflappable (which is important because in our house there's certainly a lot of happy flapping!)

I'm going to call her Nana for the blog, (it would be wonderful if she learned how to make the children's beds like her namesake on Peter Pan!) we're sure she'll do well with her training, she's already an integral part of the family.

After a bit of a rocky start, she and Lady became best friends. They whine when they're separated and they play beautifully together.

Peter's reaction to Nana came as a bit of a shock to us. It took him months to even acknowledge Lady when he moved in, it was like she wasn't even there and he hasn't ever spoken to her directly. He hasn't been interested in animals whatsoever - zoos and farm parks are the worst places ever in Peter's opinion, unless they have a good playground! Imagine our surprise when after less than an hour in the house we heard hysterical laughter coming from the bathroom where Peter was eating his pudding in the bath and found Nana with her paws up on the side of the tub being fed spoonfuls of yoghurt by a giggling Peter saying "one for Peter, one for Nana"! (Not something we would normally encourage but it was so lovely we turned a blind eye.) That night, and every night since, she fell asleep at the end of his bed during his bedtime story, much to his delight. The first thing he says every morning is a cheerful "Good morning Nana!" and he's keenly interested in watching Nana's routine and the commands she's learning. We're sure this is the start of a lifelong friendship.

Animals

Over the months that Peter has been with us we've found quite a lot of people get very excited once they realise that we have a dog, and tell us lots of wonderful stories of how they've known/read about/seen on TV that children with autism have their worlds "unlocked" by a special relationship with an animal, usually a dog. They then wait expectantly for us to tell them all about how this is magically happening in our home. We were guilty of this ourselves whilst we were waiting for Peter to move in - imagining teaching Peter about empathy, hygiene, eating and toileting whilst he helped us to care for Lady and anticipate her needs. We thought he'd probably attach to her before he attached to us, and pictured the two of them snuggled up together.

Well suffice to say Peter does not have this magical relationship with Lady and it was definitely not love at first sight (on Peter's side at least) - he really couldn't care less whether we had a dog or not!

This has improved a little over time. To start off with, Peter completely ignored Lady and refused to acknowledge her at all, whilst she desperately tried every trick in the book to make friends with him. After a few weeks he touched her on the side without looking at her, and a month or so later he would throw her ball if she put it directly in his way. These days he'll occasionally stroke her tail or briefly pat her tummy, has said her name a few times and has shown that he realises she's a dog by pointing to her lead and saying "woof woof"! He will occasionally allow her to sniff his neck which makes him smile, but usually he just pushes her out of the way if she gets too close. Thankfully she's very robust and doesn't mind!

We've taken her to school a few times when we go to pick Peter up, and whilst his teachers and the other parents and children love her, Peter just gives her a disdainful glance, although he does seem to enjoy watching her walk alongside his buggy on the way home.

Peter does like animals - he can name most farm and zoo animals and knows the sounds they make, he's fascinated by the squirrels in the park, and he loves watching fish, butterflies and birds. Maybe Peter and Lady's friendship will develop as time goes on and they'll become firm friends, but for now poor old Lady is getting the cold shoulder!

An end and a new beginning

Jack-Jack has now moved to his new home, and although it hadn't been planned this way, we ended up meeting the little boy we hope will be our next placement the same day. Peter is four years old and has a high level of additional needs, but we're confident that we would be able to help him blossom and reach his potential. He's lovely, sociable and talented, and at the moment is functioning at around the level of a very young toddler, with all the frustrations and tantrums that go along with that. It's not definite that he'll move in with us yet as all the social workers are still involved in negotiations around the arrangements for school, contact and support services if the move was to go ahead. Fingers crossed, we have his room ready for him.

When Jack-Jack left, we started to get the house ready for the next child. With Peter in mind, we packed up all the baby toys, got out bits and pieces for older children like jigsaws and imaginative toys and reorganised the living room. We cleared out the larger spare room upstairs (it had been Andy's room but had turned into a bit of a dumping ground over the Summer,) made up the bed and put out a few books and ornaments to make it look welcoming. We took down the blackout blind from Jack-Jack's window, aired the room and moved the furniture. Overnight the house felt strange and empty, but it really helped that when we woke up, Jack-Jack's room wasn't just how he left it and there weren't loads of reminders around.

We've coped surprisingly well - we held it together throughout introductions and the final handover, and had a big cry whilst sorting through the old baby toys once it was all over. I'm sure we'll have many more over the next few days and weeks, but it's lovely to have someone new to focus on. Lady has actually been the most affected in the household in many ways as we couldn't explain anything to her - she was extremely unsettled over the last few days of introductions, and has been moping since Jack-Jack left. It feels very odd having so much freedom again (we took Lady for a walk after 6pm today which was absolutely unheard of whilst Jack-Jack was here as we were all about the bedtime routine), but we're trying to enjoy it and rest as much as we can before we embark on the next great adventure.

Forward motion

When Lady was the only dependent in the household, it was not unheard of for her to get a bit spoiled. We would spend time researching special toys, bought lots of natural dog treats and occasionally the fancy 100% meat dog food, and even sometimes cooked her rice and chicken if she looked off colour. As a comparison, for dinner tonight (which was late as we got waylaid with Jack-Jack's tea) she had leftover strawberry baby cereal (pink mush), leftover baby penne with ham (orange mush) and half a pot of petit filou, topped with plain dog biscuits and a dash of salmon oil for a glossy coat. I didn't hear any complaints, but I do wonder what she thinks sometimes!

Something had definitely unsettled Jack-Jack yesterday. Whether it was the long trip out to contact, the fact that Esmeralda has been on night shifts this week, surfacing trauma from moving away from his mum, teething or coming down with something, or the beginning of a developmental leap (or a mixture of all of these), he really had trouble sleeping last night. He wouldn't be put down to sleep in his cot at nap time in the afternoon as he just wanted to be held, and this continued on into the evening. After going up to resettle him several times after he'd gone to bed, I ended up rocking him to sleep in his buggy downstairs so that I could finish the bits and pieces I needed to do, and even once I'd gone up to bed myself and settled him in his cot we had a rather rocky night.

Today has been much better. Esmeralda stayed up until mid-afternoon, and we went on a trip out into town for brunch which was lovely. I'm really glad she was home (and awake), because this evening we had an exciting moment! We were watching Jack-Jack playing with his toys on the floor in the living room before his bath. He was getting up on his knees every so often and rocking as he does, when he suddenly shuffled one knee very slightly forwards! Esmeralda and I got super excited, and both got down on the floor with him, crawling around to show him what to do (Lady was looking at us like we were insane and it probably did look a bit odd if you were a fly on the wall!) We noticed that he was focussed on a space rocket plaster I had on my finger, so I tried crawling slowly backwards in front of him, giving him lots of praise and encouragement, and after stretching and reaching (at which point I felt rather mean), he moved forwards! Ok, it was more of a commando crawl than one on all fours, but it was forward motion none the less and continued across the room! We're so proud of him! This feeling may pass once he's racing around getting into mischief...

In any other job this would be called torture

So... I was just dropping off for a well-earned nap this afternoon, when someone screamed in my ear from two feet away, and then shouted at me in frustration at jet engine volumes until I'd jumped up and completed 15 renditions of twinkle twinkle little star in a row whilst jigging on the spot, before they finally closed their eyes and started snoring with the satisfaction of a job well done and allowed me to lay down again feeling slightly shell shocked.

It's a good job he's so cute!

One thing that we really weren't expecting is that our 2.5 year old puppy Lady seems to have really grown up and matured over the last 3 days. Jane even commented on it yesterday as she actually listened when Jane told her to sit. Lady is so good with Jack-Jack, although she seems to disapprove of most of our care of him, and stands over us watching very seriously when we're changing his nappy. She looks concerned when he cries, and rushes over to check he's ok. She even came to get me from the kitchen yesterday morning when I was doing the washing up, to tell me that Jack-Jack had woken from his nap, and then glared at me accusingly until I went to get him. Jack-Jack thinks Lady is the best thing ever and laughs at everything she does, so it's definitely the start of a beautiful friendship!