Peter's turning five very soon. Five feels like such a massive milestone - it's the end of being a toddler and the start of being a fully-fledged child, and as a parent/carer you find yourself thinking scary thoughts like "only five more years and we'll be looking round secondary schools". One minute you look at your four year old and they seem so so tiny, and the next you wonder how you never noticed how tall they were getting. You start comparing photos from the start of the school year and see all the little changes in how confident and grown-up they are.
So Peter, on the cusp of turning five, here are five things I love about you:
- Your singing! You sing when you're happy, which is 99% of the time. You sing at the top of your voice, and you sing in whispers when we've asked you to be quiet. Even though you haven't worked out the concept of a tune you sing as though your life depends on it and some of my favourite moments are singing duets with you. At the moment you seem to like folk music and show tunes - a killer combination.
- Your independence! Nine months ago I never thought I'd miss you taking my hand and needing me by your side, asking to be carried 100 times per day, gluing yourself to my lap every time I sat down, wanting me to stay by your bedside until you fell asleep… but I do. I'm so proud of you and what you're achieving every day, but I selfishly wish that we'd had more of your baby days to treasure.
- Your communication! You're trying so hard to overcome your communication difficulties. You're working out new ways of letting us know who you are, what you need and how you feel, and when we get it wrong you tirelessly try again and again to get us to understand.
- Your determination! Everyday tasks are more difficult for you to learn, but you don't give up. It took you four frustrating tries this morning to put your hoody on but you got there! You're keen to learn and are patient with us as we work out ways of breaking down tasks for you and giving you the necessary 'muscle memory' to do it for yourself.
- Your memory! You've memorised hundreds of songs and rhymes, entire episodes of Peppa Pig and In the Night Garden, about 20 different Thomas the Tank Engine books plus loads of sections of Disney films, adverts, you name it. You can recall these at a moment's notice with frightening relevance to the topic at hand, whether we thought you were listening to our conversation, or not!
You are going to be a force to be reckoned with as you grow up, and I'm so looking forward to going on that journey with you.
Sunday, 22 June 2014
Sunday, 15 June 2014
Out of the mouths of babes
We are a Christian family and pray with Peter every day, as well as singing worship music together and attending church. Peter has delayed speech and understanding, and I've often wondered what his first real reference to God or his first prayer would be. Maybe it would be something profound!
Someone was handing round little slices of cake as we were leaving church this morning, and we gratefully took one each to eat in the car. It was the Vicar's birthday cake, so on the way to the car I said that we'd need to say thank you to the Vicar next week for giving us some of his lovely cake. Without missing a beat, Peter said "thank you Jesus for cake, amen."
His first prayer. It was definitely heartfelt and to the point!
We'll work on the theological issue of confusing the Vicar with Jesus at a later date…
Someone was handing round little slices of cake as we were leaving church this morning, and we gratefully took one each to eat in the car. It was the Vicar's birthday cake, so on the way to the car I said that we'd need to say thank you to the Vicar next week for giving us some of his lovely cake. Without missing a beat, Peter said "thank you Jesus for cake, amen."
His first prayer. It was definitely heartfelt and to the point!
We'll work on the theological issue of confusing the Vicar with Jesus at a later date…
Thursday, 12 June 2014
Family likeness
Today I noticed something fascinating.
As Jack-Jack's birthday is coming up we've found ourselves missing him more than ever, and today I decided to look his adoptive parents up on Facebook to see whether there was a recent photo of him. There he was as soon as the page opened, and it was astonishing how much he's changed! He no longer looks like the baby they collected from our house at the end of the introductions, he's now a little boy, and even more than that he really looks like his adoptive mum and dad.
When he lived with us, people used to tell us that Jack-Jack looked like us all the time. They'd stare at us each in turn and exclaim how he could have been born to either one of us. He doesn't any more, he looks like his new family.
Esmeralda was at a training course a couple of weeks ago where all the participants passed round a photo of their child as a point of reference. No one knew that she's a foster carer and not related to Peter at all, but when she passed his photo round all of them said how much he looked like her.
It's all down to a combination of picking up turns of phrase, sounds and accents, facial expressions, body language etc. from the people you spend so much time with, but I found it amazing that it's happening so quickly, enough to be noticeable in a photograph!
As Jack-Jack's birthday is coming up we've found ourselves missing him more than ever, and today I decided to look his adoptive parents up on Facebook to see whether there was a recent photo of him. There he was as soon as the page opened, and it was astonishing how much he's changed! He no longer looks like the baby they collected from our house at the end of the introductions, he's now a little boy, and even more than that he really looks like his adoptive mum and dad.
When he lived with us, people used to tell us that Jack-Jack looked like us all the time. They'd stare at us each in turn and exclaim how he could have been born to either one of us. He doesn't any more, he looks like his new family.
Esmeralda was at a training course a couple of weeks ago where all the participants passed round a photo of their child as a point of reference. No one knew that she's a foster carer and not related to Peter at all, but when she passed his photo round all of them said how much he looked like her.
It's all down to a combination of picking up turns of phrase, sounds and accents, facial expressions, body language etc. from the people you spend so much time with, but I found it amazing that it's happening so quickly, enough to be noticeable in a photograph!
Monday, 26 May 2014
The lows
Fostering, like anything is full of lows as well as highs. It's easy to feel guilty when things aren't going so well because overall Peter's making such fantastic progress, but it's important to be realistic. We recently found out that our close friends and family have no idea what our life is like on a daily basis because whenever we speak about Peter we're so full of our love for him and pride in his achievements that they assume everything's fine and dandy at home. We're still relatively new carers - we need to learn how to use our support network so that they can actually support us!
Peter is extremely full on from around 4am when he wakes, to 6.30pm when he goes to bed. His volume dial is always turned right up and both Esmeralda and I carry earplugs to wear to take the edge off when it gets unbearable. His attention span is very short, and he cannot be persuaded to engage in something if he hasn't chosen to do it himself as he has a meltdown. At the moment there's a big discrepancy developmentally between his brain which gets over-stimulated with very little, and his body which needs high activity levels to burn off energy. There are many things that are completely out of the question for us with Peter for now, such as going out for a meal, going to a playground with more than one entrance, anywhere with a pond, river or lake, going on an aeroplane, staying in a hotel, going to any organised group activity (where there are any expectations to stay in one area/room or follow even simple instructions), staying anywhere more than a couple of hours, having more than one or two visitors at a time. Visiting someone's house is hit and miss - with careful planning we might be able to stay an hour. We can't browse around shops, go to the supermarket, a museum, stately home. We go to church, but sit in a side room as he can't cope with sitting in the congregation. He doesn't play with other children or have friends, so we don't do play dates or birthday parties. We can't use a crèche or leave him with anyone. We can't go anywhere we might need to queue. We have to plan days in advance based on how we think he'll react, but he's very unpredictable so there's a fair chance that we'll have to turn around and drive home 20 mins after we get somewhere. Thankfully we haven't had to take him to the GP as he would have to be pinned down to be examined and it would be traumatic. We have to micro-manage his food as he can't tell us when he's hungry, thirsty or full, grabs any food he can see regardless of whether it's on someone else's table/plate, stuffs his mouth until he chokes and would eat until he was sick.
He needs constant supervision, has no concept of safety or rules, cannot be reasoned with and doesn't understand even simple explanations like "it's closed". He has no comprehension of good/bad behaviour or rewards so things like star charts would be pointless. Due to his size and level of understanding it takes both of us to keep him safe and organise the day, so whilst he's awake neither of us gets much of a break.
There are loads of things he enjoys and can do of course, and we have great fun together, but it takes a lot of energy to "manage" Peter's time and anxiety levels so that we have as many successful days as possible. Cutting Peter's school hours down was absolutely the right choice for him and we can see the benefits, but it's intense and we're all tired. This weekend tempers have been somewhat frayed, so today we veged at home and watched DVDs together.
We'll be speaking to his social worker this week about finally arranging the respite that we were promised before he moved in, but which seemed to fall off the list of priorities once he was placed. He's 5 - we're not going to send him away for the weekend, but we would appreciate Children's Services funding the odd Saturday at a special needs playscheme, or approving a qualified babysitter so that we could have a meal out after he's gone to bed. Eight months is a long time in any job with no time off.
Peter is extremely full on from around 4am when he wakes, to 6.30pm when he goes to bed. His volume dial is always turned right up and both Esmeralda and I carry earplugs to wear to take the edge off when it gets unbearable. His attention span is very short, and he cannot be persuaded to engage in something if he hasn't chosen to do it himself as he has a meltdown. At the moment there's a big discrepancy developmentally between his brain which gets over-stimulated with very little, and his body which needs high activity levels to burn off energy. There are many things that are completely out of the question for us with Peter for now, such as going out for a meal, going to a playground with more than one entrance, anywhere with a pond, river or lake, going on an aeroplane, staying in a hotel, going to any organised group activity (where there are any expectations to stay in one area/room or follow even simple instructions), staying anywhere more than a couple of hours, having more than one or two visitors at a time. Visiting someone's house is hit and miss - with careful planning we might be able to stay an hour. We can't browse around shops, go to the supermarket, a museum, stately home. We go to church, but sit in a side room as he can't cope with sitting in the congregation. He doesn't play with other children or have friends, so we don't do play dates or birthday parties. We can't use a crèche or leave him with anyone. We can't go anywhere we might need to queue. We have to plan days in advance based on how we think he'll react, but he's very unpredictable so there's a fair chance that we'll have to turn around and drive home 20 mins after we get somewhere. Thankfully we haven't had to take him to the GP as he would have to be pinned down to be examined and it would be traumatic. We have to micro-manage his food as he can't tell us when he's hungry, thirsty or full, grabs any food he can see regardless of whether it's on someone else's table/plate, stuffs his mouth until he chokes and would eat until he was sick.
He needs constant supervision, has no concept of safety or rules, cannot be reasoned with and doesn't understand even simple explanations like "it's closed". He has no comprehension of good/bad behaviour or rewards so things like star charts would be pointless. Due to his size and level of understanding it takes both of us to keep him safe and organise the day, so whilst he's awake neither of us gets much of a break.
There are loads of things he enjoys and can do of course, and we have great fun together, but it takes a lot of energy to "manage" Peter's time and anxiety levels so that we have as many successful days as possible. Cutting Peter's school hours down was absolutely the right choice for him and we can see the benefits, but it's intense and we're all tired. This weekend tempers have been somewhat frayed, so today we veged at home and watched DVDs together.
We'll be speaking to his social worker this week about finally arranging the respite that we were promised before he moved in, but which seemed to fall off the list of priorities once he was placed. He's 5 - we're not going to send him away for the weekend, but we would appreciate Children's Services funding the odd Saturday at a special needs playscheme, or approving a qualified babysitter so that we could have a meal out after he's gone to bed. Eight months is a long time in any job with no time off.
Thursday, 22 May 2014
Birthdays and waiting again
I'm not sure whether it's because we knew we were in this for the long haul when Peter moved in, or whether it's due to his age or additional needs, but even though we're now in our eighth month together it still feels like early days in many ways. In contrast, Jack Jack lived with us for only nine months before he was adopted and it felt like a lifetime. We've been thinking about him quite a lot recently as it so happens that Jack Jack and Peter's birthdays are within a couple of weeks of each other. We're looking forward to celebrating Peter's fifth, but it's reminding us of last year when we were planning Jack Jack's first.
We had a catch up with our social worker Jane recently and have officially been put back on the lists so are waiting for the call for a second placement. We know the right child is out there, and it feels like it's coming at the right time for Peter as his attachment continues to progress and he's settled so well with us. We still haven't decided whether an older or younger child would be better for Peter as there are positives and negatives to both, so it will be much easier to receive a call from the duty team and assess whether we think a child is the right fit for our family based on their specific needs rather than an imaginary set of needs based solely on age. Peter has only really been interested in playing with/near other children for a month or so, so it seems like good timing - I think he'll love having another child around once he gets over the initial shock of having to share our attention. It's quite exciting passing the spare room, glancing in and wondering who will be living there in the next few weeks or months.
We had a catch up with our social worker Jane recently and have officially been put back on the lists so are waiting for the call for a second placement. We know the right child is out there, and it feels like it's coming at the right time for Peter as his attachment continues to progress and he's settled so well with us. We still haven't decided whether an older or younger child would be better for Peter as there are positives and negatives to both, so it will be much easier to receive a call from the duty team and assess whether we think a child is the right fit for our family based on their specific needs rather than an imaginary set of needs based solely on age. Peter has only really been interested in playing with/near other children for a month or so, so it seems like good timing - I think he'll love having another child around once he gets over the initial shock of having to share our attention. It's quite exciting passing the spare room, glancing in and wondering who will be living there in the next few weeks or months.
Sunday, 11 May 2014
Full of surprises
Peter is amazing us every day at the moment - he seems to have decided to teach himself to read, armed with his weekly ration of Cbeebies, a couple of Vtech talking toys and a shelf full of picture books. He knew all his letters before he moved in with us but we've kept it very low key since then - a few matching games here and there if he showed an interest, but all based on letter names, not sounds. (I clearly hadn't read the "Jolly Phonics" handbook…)
We received a report from school recently that was very positive, detailed and descriptive in all areas of Peter's development, although they seem to think that he only knows the letters that make up his first name and isn't fussed about the rest of the alphabet.
Imagine our surprise when out of the blue a few weeks ago, Peter tips a pot of foam letters into the bath, plucks out c, a and r, sticks them on the side of the bath and says "car". He played it cool after this, but earlier this week followed it up with "weel", after a thoughtful and considered process of sounding the word out phonetically (hence the missing "h", but interesting that he put in a double "e".)
He's also started recognising a bizarre selection of whole words - so far it's been "warning", "sky" and "moo", all out of context so not recited as part of a story or with any clues of particular fonts and colours. It's fascinating!
We've bought some resources to start helping him along, but are taking his lead. As school are finding out, our boy isn't a performing monkey, he's very bright but on his own terms. We're so proud of him!
We received a report from school recently that was very positive, detailed and descriptive in all areas of Peter's development, although they seem to think that he only knows the letters that make up his first name and isn't fussed about the rest of the alphabet.
Imagine our surprise when out of the blue a few weeks ago, Peter tips a pot of foam letters into the bath, plucks out c, a and r, sticks them on the side of the bath and says "car". He played it cool after this, but earlier this week followed it up with "weel", after a thoughtful and considered process of sounding the word out phonetically (hence the missing "h", but interesting that he put in a double "e".)
He's also started recognising a bizarre selection of whole words - so far it's been "warning", "sky" and "moo", all out of context so not recited as part of a story or with any clues of particular fonts and colours. It's fascinating!
We've bought some resources to start helping him along, but are taking his lead. As school are finding out, our boy isn't a performing monkey, he's very bright but on his own terms. We're so proud of him!
Tuesday, 29 April 2014
Easter holidays
We had a fantastic break. We'd planned in an activity for each day of the first week, and then went on a trip away for five days on the coast. Peter loved the beach and paddling in the waves, and even had his first ice cream in a cone! He threw himself into every opportunity that came his way, and it was amazing to see his independence and confidence grow over the fortnight.
He has so much energy and enthusiasm that it's easy to forget that although physically he's nearly five, mentally and emotionally he's about half that. By the Friday before school was due to start again we realised that it was all getting too much for Peter. We reigned it all back in and spent some quality quiet time at home, reading stories, laughing together, doing jigsaws and singing, without any distractions or stimuli like the TV, iPad or visitors. Peter really responded well to the new relaxed routine and we've had a peaceful and easy start to the Summer term.
With all this in mind, we've decided to calm things down around here for the time being. Fewer planned activities, less screen time, going out at when it's less busy, and a focus on family time at home. We've even cut down on Peter's hours in school as we saw how much better he did in the holidays when he was able to nap every day and the effect that had on both keeping his moods regulated and the quality of his night time sleep. We'll be picking him up after lunch and will evaluate how he's doing at half term to see whether we'll continue.
In the spirit of Easter, it's been a wonderful rejuvenating time, and feels like a fresh start for all of us.
He has so much energy and enthusiasm that it's easy to forget that although physically he's nearly five, mentally and emotionally he's about half that. By the Friday before school was due to start again we realised that it was all getting too much for Peter. We reigned it all back in and spent some quality quiet time at home, reading stories, laughing together, doing jigsaws and singing, without any distractions or stimuli like the TV, iPad or visitors. Peter really responded well to the new relaxed routine and we've had a peaceful and easy start to the Summer term.
With all this in mind, we've decided to calm things down around here for the time being. Fewer planned activities, less screen time, going out at when it's less busy, and a focus on family time at home. We've even cut down on Peter's hours in school as we saw how much better he did in the holidays when he was able to nap every day and the effect that had on both keeping his moods regulated and the quality of his night time sleep. We'll be picking him up after lunch and will evaluate how he's doing at half term to see whether we'll continue.
In the spirit of Easter, it's been a wonderful rejuvenating time, and feels like a fresh start for all of us.
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