Wednesday 12 May 2010

Goal 2!

Well, Sam wanted another kick around again this evening, so Andy (proudly) obliged. Here are a few pics of my lovely boy!










Tuesday 11 May 2010

Goal!

Andy needed to wash his motorbike today, so he drove it around the back of the house into the alley running parallel to our street. He took Sam out to hopefully 'watch' and to be honest I had my doubts about doing this. There are no gates to either end of this alley, one end leads onto the main road and the other onto a smaller side street. Either way, if he started running (as he likes to do) we could be in trouble!

But he loves Andy's motorbike even more than running so he stuck around and watched! Then he got his ball from our little back yard and had a kick around with Andy in the back alley. And I mean a proper kick around, he looked like a right little footballer (even had his Chelsea top on)! Then he chased Andy for a bit and Andy kept throwing him up into the air. Sam had such a look of happiness on his little face, it was truly wonderful.

It might seem like a really small, insignificant thing for your child to kick a ball with purpose but for us it was a brilliant achievement. Well done Sam!!

Friday 7 May 2010

Team Around the Family

So I went to the 'team around the family' meeting today which was held at Sam's nursery. I took Sam to his classroom first and he went without any fuss or crying which was great!

It was nice meeting up with all Sam's professionals and we discussed mainly his education at nursery and the things that were already in place to help him and things that will be put in place to help him learn. We talked about his individual education plan (IEP) and how we are starting off with one goal for the moment and that goal is to get Sam to play/interact with his support worker for one minute. It sounds so simple, but it will probably be quite hard. He needs to want the interaction and to concentrate on it for a whole minute. This will be reviewed near the end of the summer term when we have another meeting. I left the meeting with a really good feeling and lots of good ideas.

One of the ideas is using a visual timetable with photos of the places Sam goes, people he sees, things he does etc. So he can see the order in which he'll do things and perhaps be able to communicate what he wants or where he wants to go. So I've got lots of photos to take!

Afterwards, it was too late for me to go anywhere else and too early to take Sam home, so I got to go outside and watch him playing. He was having so much fun running up and down a hill, a couple of little girls started following him and one kept trying to give him a hug, which of course he was wriggling to get away from! She said to me 'That's Samuel'! So funny, perhaps he has a little admirer!

As a family, we've managed to get transferred from our dentist back in Grange to Barrow instead which will make life a bit easier. Andy explained about Sam and they were quite happy to see him so as well as an appointment for me, we now we have an appointment for Sam to see the dentist for the first time ever near the end of May, eek! We have such a hard time cleaning his teeth that I'm kind of dreading the lecture I'm sure I'll get but we'll see what happens.


Tuesday 4 May 2010

Getting the Right Support

Ok, so long time again since I last blogged, got lots going on, especially with Sam.

At the end of this week we've got a 'team around the family' meeting between myself, the health visitor, Sam's support worker at nursery and the Early Years teacher. And also perhaps his speech therapist. Hopefully we'll come up with a plan together of how best to help Sam learn and progress. I have been wanting something like this meeting to take place for ages now, so excited!

The Early Years teacher came and observed Sam at nursery one afternoon last week and had some suggestions for teaching him. Sam is very tactile as I've mentioned before and so she suggested using sensory toys (which they did the following session and he loved it!), also taking the indoors outdoors as he is so calm and happy when outside, and also intensive interaction therapy which is where the teacher mimics Sam in his noises/movements/play in order to get a response/interaction. This is something we do in our house anyway all the time!

Another thing we've been to is a Portage drop in playgroup for disabled children. They only take on a certain number of families but because the Portage worker is also the organiser of the local NAS branch and is a lovely person she invited us along to join in. It's good for Sam and good for us as parents to meet up with other parents. Two of the little boys who are also attending the playgroup go to Sam's nursery and one of them is in Sam's classes. We went to this morning's session and got to go into a sensory room. I really wasn't sure if Sam would be interested, but once the main lights were out and the bubble tube came on he was hooked! He loved the lights and movement, really was enthralled. So enthralled that he didn't want to leave the room! We've been told that we can use it any time it's available for free, just to call ahead and book it! So many doors are opening up to us for Sam and we are feeling very very lucky.

William is doing well, he's sitting up on his own (well for a few minutes anyway!) and he is really moving now in his baby walker! He seems to have discovered his voice this week and has been babbling away like mad (and happily screaming too!). I think he's going to be a chatterbox someday!

Sorry for such a long post, I should really write little and often! Oh well!