Parents Evening

Parents evening for Picklepot was actually a pleasant surprise. We were told that he is a very intelligent, very capable, very witty and very well mannered boy who is a credit to us and how hard we work with him. The teacher said he is a joy to have in the classroom – most of the time – and when they went to the residential home to sing Christmas carols on Wednesday (yes, he went in the end) the residents said he was very well mannered and polite and a very charming boy. He made friends with one of the residents and had a good old talk with him, and when I picked him up from school on Wednesday he was telling me all about this gentleman, and how he’d celebrated Christmas as a child.

With his maths work, Picklepot is very clever, but she needs  him to get his times tables learned well as he needs them as the ‘backbone’ for the upcoming work. He is superb with maths, but he doesn’t know his times tables well enough and this will hold him back from further advancing as Year 4 continues. His English written work is very good and he has a great grasp of language and words and their understanding, his reading is fantastic, but he needs to learn to put things in writing for the work to be completed – his impatience to get the writing part done as quickly as possible results in him making mistakes that he could avoid if he took some time over the writing, and he often tries to use clever words or language without doing so properly – he needs to learn to walk before he can run, in her words! His grammar is not so great, but he’s working on it, and it was the one thing that on his part of the feedback paperwork he’d listed grammar as something he finds difficult, so in the New Year I’m going to find him a work book that he can do additionally at home to help him with that. She said his artwork is brilliant, he loves drawing and has a real flair for it, and the feedback from the after school coding club was that other than the one incident I knew about when he lost his temper, he has worked very hard and picked up the work very quickly. The teacher who runs it feels he has a flair for it and if he decided to continue with coding he would go far.

All in all it was really nice to have a chance for a proper chat with Picklepot’s teacher – as she said, when we catch up at the end of the school day and she has things to tell me she kind of ends up offloading all this negativity onto me of what has gone wrong in a day but often there has been great moments too and she doesn’t get time to convey them or the bad moments have overshadowed them, so to be able to speak with her was good. We discussed the communication book and she said she’s going to make sure that comes home regularly for me – the period it was not coming home, she was not in the classroom at the end of the day so she hadn’t been able to ensure it came home – we discussed the fact that the connection between him being slow and missing out on the residential home trip wasn’t clear for him as there was no logical connection and she said OK that’s a good point I understand what you mean.

I did raise with her the fact that break time and lunch time has been taken away in order for him to finish his classwork. I said to her that I totally understood he needed to do the work, that was not my issue, but I was concerned that if he didn’t get time out of the classroom to run around and let off steam then it would make things more difficult in the next lesson to get him focused on task and not be extra fidgety. She said just to make it clear, he’s not missing whole break times or lunch times. If he’s not been concentrating in class and hasn’t done enough work I give him a choice – he either does it in classroom time like everyone else, or he’ll be staying in at break or lunch until it is done, the choice is his. She said she doesn’t enter a discussion about it, just gives him that information and walks away. A few weeks ago this would have had him throwing a fit and chucking things about yelling but now she said she hears him huff and sigh for a moment then when she looks back at him he is getting on with it. At the end of the lesson when everyone else goes out for break or lunch, he stays in to finish the task and she said normally it’s very quickly done by then because he’s keen to finish it and get out so he only tends to miss a couple of minutes.

I said to her I didn’t want her to feel that I was bombarding her with notes / messages but that I felt clear communication between the school and the parent was important and she agrees with me and encouraged me to continue as I have been which is reassuring. She said sometimes Picklepot does come out with things such as “my mum says I don’t have to do that” and I said if he does, just call me and ask me, I have no problem with you phoning me, or emailing me, or texting me, and asking me, because I know that it’s a bad game of Chinese whispers between the teacher, and Picklepot, and me, and I don’t want anyone getting annoyed or upset because they’ve taken what he’s telling them as gospel truth and not finding out how the conversation actually went. There’s never been a point I’ve said to him he doesn’t have to do anything to do with school so I don’t know where he’s got that from but it’s something he seems to like repeating about PE, work he finds boring or too hard etc.

All in all I was happy with the meeting and feel like we’re on the same page at last. I asked her about the organisational side of things and said it was something he really struggled with, so we’re going to try implementing some new ways of reminding him into the classroom and into home life to support him further.

One Step Forward - Two Steps Backward

Picklepot had a much better week last week and I had hoped that we were through the rough patch but then yesterday his teacher mentioned a few issues to Daddy P when he went to do the school run. Apparently Picklepot is taking too long to complete his schoolwork so they are taking away half his break time to finish it off – I have an issue with this purely for the fact that he needs the time at break to run around and let off some excess energy, so if he’s not getting the full amount of time to do that they’re then expecting him to sit down and focus while he’s still too energised and hasn’t had chance to release some of the energy. I’ve already said to the school – many times before – that they can send schoolwork home for him to finish after school, as I feel this would be more beneficial for them as it wouldn’t cause disruption to the rest of their day as he would have had full break time and chance to go wild and then come back into the classroom and refocus.

In addition to this, the class are due to go to a residential home tomorrow to sing Christmas carols for the residents, and Picklepot has been told that he might not be allowed to go if he continues being so slow at getting himself sorted out. Yesterday he was the last one out of the class by a long time, he came out carrying his coat (the others had all put their coats on) and when we got home we discovered he didn’t have any of his books with him that he needed. Again it’s something I’ve spoken to the school about before, it’s all part and parcel of the ADHD diagnosis that he finds planning and organising difficult, and that he gets easily distracted. It isn’t that he’s deliberately taking so long, or that he is so forgetful, but he needs additional support in place. Historically teachers have allowed him to have a checklist on or nearby his desk to ensure he doesn’t forget anything, but the teacher this year seems to think that it’s time he learned to remember things and I’m not convinced she understands that it isn’t something he can learn to do. I know adults with ADHD who rely on check lists to make sure they don’t forget anything! I think she’s expecting too much for a child of 8 with the additional needs he has. I also don’t see the connection between him taking too long to get his stuff together and get out of school at the end of the day and him missing out on going to the residential home – to me, this is not a logical consequence, so how on earth is he meant to understand that connection? If he was late out and it meant that he couldn’t go to the park on the way home because we’d run out of time, or he couldn’t go to an after school club because it was too late, then that would be logical to say it’s because he took too long getting out of school, but I think missing the residential home trip is a tenuous link to say the least.

On Friday, the class had maths homework set, but Picklepot says he wasn’t aware of this homework being set so he didn’t bring his maths book home over the weekend. The teacher says the homework was definitely set and other children in the class are aware of it so she is blaming Picklepot for not listening / daydreaming. I am blaming the fact that yet again it was not noted down in his homework diary – as I have asked them to ensure all homework is, yet they’ve not done it since the start of the September term despite agreeing with me that it was a good idea – and I am blaming the fact that the home-school communication book hasn’t been sent home since the first night it came back, two nights after my meeting with the SENCO and the headmaster about the difficulties Picklepot was having at school. The idea was meant to be that as well as letting me know how his school day had been, they could also note down homework in that, but as we haven’t seen it I’ve no idea what homework has been set. (Again, this is something the teacher says that he needs to ‘learn to remember’ and I’m not sure she understands that it isn’t something he is going to ‘learn’ and that by pushing this point she’s driving his anxiety through the ceiling which then makes everything worse) Yesterday morning Daddy P asked the teacher to make sure that the maths book came home so that Picklepot could do the maths homework – it was left in his drawer at school again, because he felt rushed out of the classroom at the end of the day, and was one of the items that he’d forgotten to bring home with him.

I’ve put everything into a letter and reminded Picklepot about a hundred times this morning to make sure he gave the note to the teacher today so she’s at least read through and knows my thoughts on how we should be working together to support Picklepot, rather than stressing him out and causing his anxiety to escalate, we need to be managing our expectations realistically of what we think he is able to do. Whenever I’m having a conversation with the teacher such as her telling me he isn’t sitting still nicely or he’s becoming distracted easily and I say to her well that’s the ADHD, she’s always coming up with yes but he can do it when he wants to. She’s missing the point completely that he’s not doing it when he wants to, he’s forcing himself not to move and as a result when he is out of school he’s going crazy because it’s like a fizzy drink in a bottle that’s been shaken all day at school and then once he’s out of school the lid is taken off. I asked if he could have something to fiddle with in class to help him focus and she said no because it will distract other children; I asked if he uses his ear defenders to cut out the excess noise in the classroom and she says no because she doesn’t like any children using ear defenders as it makes them more of a target for bullying. I’ve been told she’s such a great teacher and I do like her, but I really don’t think she comprehends SENCO children properly or how she can support them best in her classroom. We have parents evening booked for Thursday after school so I’m hoping to be able to have a proper chat with her then and try to explain my points clearly.

It’s not been a great start to Year 4 for Picklepot to be fair, and with all the Christmas festivities now building up his schedule and routine has been changed and he’s getting overwhelmed with all the pretty things and the lights and everything that’s going on, so it’s looking like we’re going to have a rough few weeks. I just hope we make it through Christmas relatively unscathed and we can start 2019 fresh and with some things in place to help support him more.

Finally Getting Somewhere

It’s been a while since I last updated anything here, so I thought now I have something to update with I’d take the opportunity to write it down.

As you know, we’ve been waiting since February 2017 for an assessment for ADHD for Picklepot. We finally got a preliminary appointment with the ADHD nurse in September 2018, and after spending forty-five minutes in a small contained space with myself and Picklepot, she looked at me and said, “Is he like this all the time?” So I said yes. She asked how I coped with it. I said I wasn’t aware I had a choice – he’s my son, and since I can’t poke him back where he came from I had to cope with it 😉 It’s just something you do, as a parent, is cope with your child, because when nobody else is willing to help you (professionals I mean) what other option is there.

Anyway, at the end of a two hour meeting with her, she said that there was no doubt in her mind that Picklepot did indeed have ADHD, which is a very common co-morbid issue to have alongside the ASD diagnosis. A week or so later, I received the report from her, in which she’d detailed a lot of information about what she’d seen and she’d picked up on a lot of subtle things which I wasn’t sure she would notice during that meeting, so I’m very grateful that she’s obviously on the ball and she knows her stuff. In the report, she recommended that Picklepot had a formal assessment with the Dr who can then put the official tick in the diagnosis box and once we have that we can then move forward with how to help Picklepot deal with everything, and strategies to help us deal with it too.

The weird thing about that was that the letter for our appointment with Dr A had arrived the day before, and was set for 22^nd October, so I already knew we were getting that appointment, and I was surprised (in a good way) how soon after our original appointment it had been set up. We went along on Monday to meet with Dr A and once again we were in quite a small room – Dr A didn’t have a box of things to fiddle with as the nurse had done, and Picklepot quickly became very restless. He was moving around the room constantly, touching sockets and light switches, standing on chairs to look out of the high windows, he stood on the measuring thing to see how tall he was, stood on the scales to see how much he weighed, wanted to play with the blood pressure machine but I saw his eyes lock onto it and managed to distract him away from that before he touched it! When it was time for the doctor to talk to Picklepot directly he first wanted to sit on the bean bag on the floor, then changed his mind and wanted to lie on it, then he put it on top of a chair to sit on the bean bag on the chair, eventually he settled for sitting in the chair with his feet on the bean bag but he continued to fidgit and move the whole time. He found it difficult to understand the doctor, who has an accent he isn’t used to, and he was looking at me a lot for confirmation of what the doctor had asked, or for clarification of what was being asked.

The letter had advised to allow an hour for the meeting, in reality it was again closer to two hours. When we left Picklepot was bouncing off the ceiling and chattering away at a million miles an hour, as usual.

The doctor has confirmed ADHD diagnosis (he said it’s very obvious and he hopes that if we work together we can work out a way of treatment that will greatly benefit our whole family). He said that for school it might be best to consider medication to help him concentrate on what he needs to concentrate on, but he did warn that due to the ASD it may not mean that Picklepot is able to conform entirely to the mould that the government expect from children his age. He said if we do medicate it will help the concentration, but it won’t give Picklepot the reason “why” he is expected to do something at school, why he needs to write things down (if he knows it, and I know he knows it, and the teacher knows he knows it, he sees no point in ‘proving’ it to anyone else) This is, the doctor confirmed, a classic ASD trait and will not be something that can be resolved with ADHD medication, so he warned me that we would still need to deal as best we can with that side of things – but that is what I expected anyway, so no shock there.

The doctor feels that Picklepot’s sleep issues are potentially related to his body not being tired enough for sleep – though he is continually on the move, he doesn’t do any structured sport (with the exception of PE lessons at school) so he has recommended that we look into something along the lines of football, tennis, swimming, dance etc, something with a routine class in place where he does specific tasks and learns new things each time, and at the end of a set period EG a term he can see how much progress he has made. The doctor feels this will help make him more physically tired, and ready to sleep. On this basis I am looking into swimming lessons as this is something he is particularly interested in.

The doctor will send me an information pack about ADHD, included in it will be a number of things we can think about trying to help Picklepot going forward. One of these things would be medication, which the doctor does recommend in Picklepot’s case, but he was very clear that ultimately the decision needs to be discussed and agreed between myself and Daddy P. At our next appointment we will discuss how we would like to proceed, and start down that path.

I came away from the clinic feeling relieved that we finally have a formal diagnosis, relieved that we now have a plan of action to move forward, but also somewhat disappointed that it has taken me so long, so much battling and fighting for the services needed, to get this far. I understand that it is not the fault of the wonderful staff who have dealt with us, but the fault of a damaged system which is not providing enough staff to keep this rolling at the speed it should be. If I had given up fighting for Picklepot after finding out the paediatrician had discharged him then we would not have got this far, and Picklepot would be continuing to struggle to cope, his school work gradually suffering, his frustrations and his anger issues getting more and more out of control, until what? Until he fails the school system and gets into trouble for fighting, or worse? Until he’s arrested as a young man and enters the court system, unable to control himself and unable to understand why? This system seriously needs more support than it currently has, and as someone who has mental health issues myself I feel it is falling seriously short of supporting our young children and their mental health. If a child of 8 is ignored when he has such issues, how is he expected to be able to deal when he is 13, or 16, or 18, or 21?

So here we are now, we have a diagnosis of ASD and ADHD for our 8 year old whirlwind of energy, and I am hoping that moving forward we can now get the correct support in place for him in school as well as at home (and at Cubs, and the other after school clubs he attends) to be able to help him realise his potential.

I’m a very tired mama, but I will not rest until my child has all the support he needs, and is entitled to.

ADHD Assessment – An Update

So, quick back story.

December 2015 Picklepot was officially diagnosed with ASD. Paediatrician refused to do ADHD assessment at that time as he said that all five year old children behaved the same way, despite evidence from Picklepot’s class teacher and school SENCO stating that Picklepot was more extreme than his peers and indications were that ADHD was a contributing factor. Paediatrician stated that he would have Picklepot back for review appointment in a year to do ADHD assessment.

January 2017 I contacted the Children’s Development Centre where the paediatrician was based, as I had not received an appointment letter for ADHD assessment in December 2016 as the paediatrician had advised we would. I was informed that the paediatrician had signed Picklepot out of their care at Easter 2016 before he had resigned from his position there. In order to get an ADHD assessment for Picklepot we would need a new referral. I was told either GP or school SENCO could do the referral. I asked for clarification three times that SENCO could definitely do it, as I had been told for ASD assessment it had to be GP referral and not SENCO. They assured me SENCO could definitely do it. I relayed this information to the school SENCO and she contacted the Children’s Development Centre herself to confirm she could do referral and also to find out who she needed to address it to. She was provided a name of a staff member, so she wrote to that staff member.

February 2017 the staff member at the CDC that the school SENCO had written to contacted her back to say that A) She couldn’t accept a referral from school SENCO, B) She wasn’t in charge of dealing with ADHD assessments and C) They no longer did ADHD assessments at the CDC. I took Picklepot to the GP for him to provide a referral instead.

In April 2017 we received forms. Lots and lots of forms. I had to fill in forms and I had to ask school SENCO and Picklepot’s teacher to fill in forms. They had to be completed and returned within 7 days of receiving them, which we did. In addition to this I was contacted by letter and asked to call the team to discuss my concerns with Picklepot / why I felt ADHD assessment was required.

I called the number, I discussed with the lady on the phone why I felt ADHD assessment was required, she asked me to put it in writing and provided an email address for me to write to. I dutifully sat down and wrote everything out and emailed it.

E Mails went back and forth from this email address for some weeks, asking for additional information, me asking when I was likely to hear something, and each time I got a polite reply back. Until one day I received a reply that said “you shouldn’t be using this email address it is not for parents it is for professionals only” so I replied and said, “You can see from the email trail that I have been communicating with the department for some time with this email address as advised to by staff member XXX when I spoke to her on the phone”. The reply back was, “You’ve been told wrong, don’t write to this email address again, we will not reply to you”. Rude? Yes. Something I have unfortunately come to expect from this complete joke of a system.

In August 2017 I received a letter confirming that the referral had gone from one department onto the actual ADHD team that would be able to provide the assessment. In October I received a letter from the ADHD team advising that Picklepot was on the waiting list for an appointment for assessment, but that due to how busy they were it could be some time before I received an appointment.

That brings us up to date. We’re now in June 2018, 16 months after the referral was originally made, and we still don’t have an appointment.

In the letter for the ADHD team it states that if you have any additional concerns before your appointment you should phone the number provided and speak with the duty person. I did that last week and asked to speak with the duty person and was told that until I have an appointment date they cannot help, and that someone else would phone me back urgently.

I’m not sure why their idea of urgent is so laid back because in my job if something is to be actioned urgently it is to be done within 24 business hours, however despite the fact that this department are dealing with the mental health of vulnerable children and their families, it took them an entire week before they phoned me back (yesterday)

The ADHD nurse I spoke with was lovely and sweet and very understanding, but ultimately she can’t do anything more to hurry things along. There is ONE SINGLE specialist in the whole of Norfolk and Suffolk who can provide assessment for ADHD and he has been working his way through an enormous back log of patients who were referred going back to before Picklepot was. For some time there was NO specialist who could provide assessment in these two counties, so any referrals were basically just on hold until he started the job, with no support or assistance for the children or their families. THANK YOU to the NHS cut backs in the region. If I could afford to go private I would, not because the NHS staff don’t work bloody hard to do what they do but simply because my son is struggling and the longer we wait the more he is struggling.

Picklepot is nearly 8 now. His social and communication skills are suffering. He’s having difficulties at school – his impulse control is non existant – he is acting out with throwing things, screaming, shouting, crying. Daily life is a struggle of trying to support him the best way we can and trying to encourage him, while at the same time trying to help him understand what is not acceptable and why. As much as I know for a great deal of it he can’t help the way he is behaving, it’s still important to me that he learns why he shouldn’t behave that way, because I cannot have him hitting / throwing things at people, it simply is not on.

The ADHD nurse was sympathetic and took note of what I was saying. She advised me about what I can do to ensure that when we DO finally get an appointment we have all the information we will need to hand, and no need to be sent away to get more information and then return for another appointment in another God-knows-how-long. Hopefully if we can get everything we need together then at our appointment it will be a nice simple assessment and diagnosis. (I know it’s in the post, it isn’t a question of IF he has ADHD but WHEN he is diagnosed)

Once the diagnosis is done, only then can we actually move forward in a helpful way. The diagnosis will allow the school to claim for more support for Picklepot, I can speak with the GP and the ADHD nurse about potentially having medication for Picklepot to help him concentrate.

It’s frustrating, it’s soul destroying, it’s hurtful to watch your child suffer the way Picklepot is suffering. He is trying to hard but it’s getting more and more difficult for him and he is struggling more and more. I know it isn’t the fault of the ADHD team, they’re doing the best they can – but it is the fault of cut backs and money saving exercises for mental health services in the local area and that is inexcuseable. My child has plenty of support from his family and friends, from his school and from our Helping Hands group, but many children don’t have that kind of support and they are suffering even more. It seems like they are the forgotten ones, they are shoved to the side and ignored and the situation is showing no signs of getting better.

So for now we continue to wait. I will speak to school SENCO when Picklepot goes back to school next week and get her to help put everything in place that the ADHD nurse has advised we will need, so we are all prepared for when the appointment eventually does happen. For now we continue to muddle along as best we can and hope that the damage it is doing to Picklepot’s mental health is something he can recover from.

The system is screwed up, and I am so tired of these constant battles to get anywhere, but as his mum I will continue jumping through whatever hoops they put in my way in order to get him the support he needs.

Jan 2018

Well we’re officially well into 2018 now, Christmas seems like it was ages ago (even though we’ve STILL got our Christmas decorations up as Daddy P is in charge of putting them up and taking them down, and he hasn’t managed to get round to taking them down yet!)

Fortunately for us, Sunshineface got over his bought of chickenpox a couple of weeks before Christmas. While he was suffering with that, Daddy P, Picklepot and myself all had a horrible cold, but we were all feeling much better by the time 25^th December rolled round.

Picklepot had fun at Beavers Christmas camp – the night they stayed over it snowed, so they got to have a run around in the snow on the Sunday morning before coming home, which added to the festive feeling: We arranged a Helping Hands Christmas party with a very special guest who came along to give the kids a little early present: I attended a work Christmas party at a hotel in Borehamwood with a movie character theme which was brilliant fun: There were meals out with friends, present buying and wrapping, not to mention Daddy P decorating the front room (yes, I know, epic timing lol and it still isn’t quite finished!)

While Picklepot has been, shall we say, much more challenging over the Christmas holidays, he made me very proud on Boxing Day as we spent the day over at Grandparents P home, with my SIL, BIL, nephew and niece. It makes for a crowded living room with all of us squeezed in there, plus presents as well, but Picklepot handled it brilliantly. He excused himself a few times to go off elsewhere to have some quiet time and play on his pad, he ate most of his Christmas dinner (encouragement from Grandma goes a long way!) and he managed to keep himself from becoming too overwhelmed. I was very proud of him – especially considering that after some of his meltdowns before that during Christmas break had me concerned that Boxing Day was going to be awful!

Both boys are very fortunate to have got so many lovely gifts, from Father Christmas and from us and our family and friends. We had a lovely time, it really was brilliant.

Unfortunately at some point during the Christmas fun my right hand became incredibly painful. I totally lost grip, I couldn’t move my thumb without it being excruciatingly painful and it made everything so awkward and difficult to do. I waited it out thinking that I’d sprained it or something silly, but instead of getting better it just got worse. Before I knew it the thumb was swollen around the base on my palm and the back of my hand and I was really struggling to do anything.

I had a call back from the GP surgery who had me in for an appointment that morning – they took some bloods, and the doctor examined me. She was concerned by the pain I had and I was sent for an X ray immediately as she was worried I had fractured my scaphoid bone.

The following Tuesday I spoke to the surgery again who confirmed my X ray had come back normal, but my blood tests showed that my red cells were enlarged. The marker for arthritis had shown up, so they wanted to take more blood for further tests. I went back and had more blood taken that morning; I then spoke to the doctor again on Friday. She advised that the second tests came back normal – if they’d shown another marker, alongside the arthritis marker, this would indicate lupus, but as they didn’t show this other marker we now go down the line of arthritis. She says this would cause the pain if I’m having a flare-up at the moment and the lack of mobility to my thumb. She has done an urgent referral to the rheumatology department at the local hospital, so currently I’m waiting to hear from them with an appointment. If their assistance doesn’t help within 10 weeks and I’m still in as much pain, I will have an MRI to double check that it is not a fractured scaphoid – sometimes the X ray doesn’t pick it up since it’s such a small bone – if it does turn out to be a fractured scaphoid I will either need a cast or surgery, depending if it’s aligned or not, to resolve it.

We also got a letter from the ADHD team in December, to tell us that they’re very busy and we’ll get an appointment as soon as possible. Considering we’ve been waiting since February 2017 I’m not holding my breath. I’ll get another appointment with the same GP we saw before and ask him to push for us. Picklepot is finding it harder and harder to focus and he’s beginning to really struggle. I don’t want him to get too far behind in school before it is looked into more. I would rather we get this in hand sooner than later. He’s going to be 8 this year – another 3 years and he’ll be off to high school, and we need his focus and concentration vastly improved before then.

Picklepot has been having further issues with the horrible child in his class that has been a bully since day 1 … I was furious over the Christmas holidays when I found a card from this child who had written “I hate you” on the back. I was so upset I emailed school immediately even though it was Christmas holidays, expressing  my absolute horror at finding this message and demanding that something is done about this child, who has had countless tellings off regarding their behaviour, particularly toward Picklepot, and yet continues to be just as nasty. The SENCO (currently acting Deputy Head) called me the day they went back to school and we discussed at length exactly who it was, what had happened, whether the child had been any better since their last telling off over their behaviour toward Picklepot, and going over what the school would be doing. This child has spat at Picklepot, tripped him over, pulled his hair, called him names, pushed him, taken food from him (his apple / packet of crisps mysteriously goes missing after the child has been nearby the lunch bags) he has had his coat removed from his locker and found on the floor in the boys toilets with the other child in the toilet at the time (coincidence?) The child has lied to get Picklepot in trouble, he has deliberately shut his hand in a classroom door, he makes up stories to tell other children and is generally making Picklepot very unhappy. I am giving it til the half term holidays then I will be in contact with the SENCO again to discuss improvements / issues.

Hope you all had a very Happy Christmas too, and that your 2018 brings you plenty of love, laughter and happiness.

-        Mummy P

21.11.17

I think the kids might be coming down with chicken pox, but I’m not sure, and I always thought it was one of those illnesses that came on and you knew for sure very quickly, but once again here’s my kids doing it differently!

Picklepot had a spot come up on Sunday, which was itchy and he picked at before telling us about it. We thought it was some kind of insect bite and used some insect bite cream on it to stop the itching.

On Monday after school he looked pale, he had a slight temperature, and he was quiet and not his usual bouncy self. He said he felt sick and he didn’t eat much dinner despite it being one of his favourite meals. He had a few spots on his back that looked like blisters.

This morning he came into me at 7am telling me he felt rough. His temperature was up slightly still, he looked pale and he had found some more spots. I was surprised – I had expected, if it was chicken pox – for him to be covered in spots by this morning, but he wasn’t. However they definitely look like chicken pox spots.

He stayed home from school. Throughout the day, more spots have appeared, but still he isn’t covered in them, though they are small blister like spots, like chicken pox spots. He seems to have felt more like himself as the day has gone on – his appetite is definitely back, and he has been gradually getting louder and more bouncy – but his temperature is still slightly up and with these spots slowly appearing I am fairly convinced he has chicken pox. It’s just a case of waiting to see what happens now.

Sunshineface has not been his usual happy self in general the last couple of days. He’s been very cuddly – he asks to get up for a cuddle one moment, and then when you pick him up he’s trying to get down again, and whinging the whole time. He hasn’t been eating a huge amount either, though he has been drinking a fair bit, and last night he was all snotty and bunged up overnight, coughing in his sleep and waking himself up because he was finding it difficult to breathe. I was expecting him to have a full on cold this morning but it seems to have gone – I am wondering if he is also coming down with chicken pox, though there is no sign of any spots at all on him.

Myself, I had chicken pox when I was 11, and while Daddy P can’t remember how old he was when he had chicken pox he has had it, so I’ll be quite happy for both boys to have it now and get it over and done with. Certainly I wouldn’t want them to have it when they’re too much older. I’m shocked that given how many of his friends have had chicken pox over the years that Picklepot has gone without catching it up to now. If it is chicken pox, it’s kind of good timing, as Daddy P is off work next week so he’ll be around to help out with the sickly boys, and it’s far enough in advance of Christmas that they should be fully recovered by then.

For now it’s a case of waiting to see how it develops. 

The Overload of a Busy Day

We had a great day today.

This morning was our Helping Hands ASD Family Support Group. One of the mums who comes brought along her dad, who does photography. He brought along a background, some props, and proper lights. Some of us wore Christmas jumpers, some of the kids wore Christmas jumpers, we had lots of photographs taken and it was a much more relaxed environment than taking the kids to a photography studio. They had fun, they messed about, they were relaxed and enjoying themselves and we got photos taken. I’m hoping we can use them for Christmas cards / gifts. Last year we were let down massively last-minute by the photographer I’d booked and I wasn’t able to get professional photos done of the boys before Christmas. I’m really looking forward to seeing how they came out.

After group, we came home and had lunch, and after that Picklepot’s girlfriend came round for a play date. They were noisy, they were silly, they made a big mess, they had fun, they enjoyed themselves. It kept Picklepot entertained – without him being glued to the TV, playing computer games or annoying his little brother all afternoon. Daddy P was off work, so he kept Sunshineface happy while I got on with my work. It was all good.

I did the kids dinner around 6 and then Picklepot’s girlfriend was picked up around half past. Picklepot had his afters, he had his usual milkshake and cookie, and everything seemed fine. We watched some cartoons and then went upstairs to put the boys to bed.

At this point it all went wrong. Picklepot had already been asked to tidy up his room. When we got upstairs he started messing around and not tidying up his room. Things quickly escalated between him and Daddy P and got a bit loud and a bit crazy and ended up with tears and screams of “I hate you” and Picklepot coming to tell me how mean Daddy was, and when I sided with Daddy P he started shouting at me. After about half an hour of that he still hadn’t got any further with tidying his room, so I suggested that maybe we should have a game. I suggested that we should see who could pick up the stuff quicker – daddy with the bin bag to throw things away or Picklepot to put things away. Picklepot really wasn’t happy about that and the meltdown continued but he did manage to sort things out.

He really was overtired and I should have seen it coming considering the busy day he had, so I did kick myself that I didn’t, so tomorrow we’re just having a quiet day at home and I’m glad I planned it that way. I still have some work hours to do but not that many, and we can chill in our PJs and watch TV and cuddle and generally just have a day “off”. I forget sometimes that he needs that, because he does so well with coping most of the time. He’s had a full on week at school, Children In Need day on Friday which meant wearing PJs to school (which he was thrilled about) and then the photos today at group and having his girlfriend round to play, it was all too much and I’m sorry it ended in such an awful meltdown tonight. I wish I had realised sooner that it was too much for him.

Live and learn, right. Tomorrow is another day.