Parents' afternoon

We were invited into Peter's class today to play with the children, see the work they've been doing and have a special tea with them. We've had several meetings with the teachers, but it's the first time we've actually been into the classroom since he started at this school so we were very excited to see all the things he's been doing.

We wondered before we set off how the teacher would refer to parents/carers as a group as we know that Peter's not the only fostered child in the school, and there are other children on special guardianship orders, living with grandparents etc. but as we walked in we heard her say "We have some special visitors today children - your mummies and daddies have come to play!" Whoops!

As it's a special school, the teachers and assistants all use Makaton signing to aid communication for all children, and as Peter is only just starting to sign at home we hadn't appreciated how much they signed at school. Our own signing is limited to a few basic ones picked up from Mr Tumble, so we're got a way to go - it's inspired us to source some training so that we can give Peter some more continuity.

Peter loved having us there and was so excited once he got over the initial confusion as the normal routine had changed, and it was wonderful watching him participate in the singing and dancing with his classmates. We were amazed how involved he was in all the actions and how beautifully he was sitting on his own chair for circle time. He's come so far in a term!

Routines, signing and a purple baby!

We've got Jack-Jack's basic routine down now, and as long as we plan our day loosely around it, he's very happy to nap in the buggy/carrier, and has had many a milk feed or meal out in cafes. He's becoming quite the baby who lunches! It's quite funny - however grouchy he's been with us beforehand, he still manages to charm the people around us with his huge eyes and cheeky grin, and he's very popular wherever we go.

His social worker left a message this afternoon to say that contact is on for Monday, although they're not sure whether mum will be there or not. Apparently the plan is to talk about rearranging contact for later in the day, so that mum will have a chance to phone beforehand to cancel it if she's not going to be there to save Jack-Jack an unnecessary journey, which is definitely a positive step forward.

We were looking through a baby book this evening, and when Jack-Jack arrived with us he was doing about half of the developmental things expected of a 6 month old (we're not getting hung up on this, we were just reading through the lists to see what to focus on to help him move forward), and he's now doing everything on the 7 month list plus some things on the 8 month list! The things we've picked out to focus on are mainly waving, clapping, pointing, drumming etc. as he's not using anything apart from screams to communicate with us at the moment.

Jack-Jack can be quite a screamy baby, and we've noticed that he gets extremely frustrated if he's screaming about something and we get it wrong (as you can imagine). We decided to begin signing with him, and started signing "milk" on Monday before every milk feed. This morning he signed back, more than once! The next step is for him to sign "milk" when we're not expecting it, just to say that he wants some. We're going to start introducing more signs which should help with his frustration and get him communicating with us.

Jack-Jack tried blackberries at breakfast and strawberries at dinner time today, in one of these. He absolutely loved it! He could chew (well mostly gum and dribble) on the soft fruit in the net to his heart's content and make as much mess as he liked, with us supervising his mealtime rather than hovering. We're doing a mixture of fork-mashed and finger foods for him at each meal, and I do recognise the importance of learning how to handle and manage different textures of food without choking on it, but the nibbler seems like a good halfway point for now as he has been known to be a little over enthusiastic at times! I wish I could post a photo of the happy but purple post-blackberry baby, but you'll have to imagine it - start with a ribenaberry and cross it with Violet Beauregarde and you'll be halfway there!