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.

10.11.17

This week, Daddy P has been off work. It’s been nice having him around to help me with the day-to-day juggling act of taking care of the boys, the housework and my work! We’ve taken it in turns to do the school run, taken it in turns to get up in the night when one of the boys has woken up, and taken it in turns to cook the evening meal.

On Sunday, it was our 11th wedding anniversary. We had a day at home with the boys, then went with Grandad P to a local fireworks display & funfair. It was Sunshineface’s first experience close up with fireworks, and he seemed pretty impressed, though there were some points he kept saying “No, daddy!” and turning away from the display, but I couldn’t work out if it was certain noises he didn’t like, or something else, as it seemed to vary when he was saying no. We bumped into Picklepot’s girlfriend and her mum so we went round the funfair with them and she and Picklepot enjoyed going on some of the rides together.

On Tuesday after school we had parents evening for Picklepot. We had a good chat with his Yr 3 teacher, Mr A, and we found that Picklepot is streets ahead for his maths work – Mr A is going to start setting him Yr 4 work as he is finding the Yr 3 stuff boring – for his English and his Reading he is being quite lazy and although Mr A knows he is capable, he is not showing his skills and so he is beginning to drop from ‘exceeding expectation’ to ‘average expectation’. It’s just trying to get him to see the point in doing a lot of it – He knows he can read well, so he sees no benefit in ‘proving it’ to anyone else; in the same way he knows he can write well, and has excellent comprehension skills, so again he sees no point in ‘proving’ himself. I’ve explained to him that for school, they need him to ‘prove’ it, so they can track his progress.

Mr A said he is a very popular member of the class – especially with the girls! – and that he has got a lot better working with others in a group when needed, though he is still happiest working alone, and Mr A said he does tend to ‘cherry pick’ a group that he knows Picklepot will work best with. His lack of concentration, his ability to daydream the time away, his motivation being hand-in-hand with approaching loss of playtime, his easy distraction, is all part and parcel of Picklepot and Mr A is sympathetic to that, so he is working out ways of ‘dangling the carrot’ so to speak, in order to motivate Picklepot by reward for doing well, rather than punishment for not finishing things.

Year 3 started swimming lessons last Friday, and I was very apprehensive. Whenever we’ve been swimming before, Picklepot has been dead keen on the idea and as soon as we’ve got into the pool he’s attached to me like a limpet and won’t let go. It can get quite awkward as he’s so tall now and there’s me struggling to move around with this child whose arms are tightly wrapped around my neck, freaking out because he thinks he’s going to drown if he loosens his grip on me at all. He’s also always complained about how cold he gets when we’re swimming, and then once he’s cold he won’t move at all, so once out of the pool he’ll just stand like a statue, wrapped in a towel, complaining how cold he is, and not getting himself dry and dressed. All in all, I thought the school swimming lessons could be pretty disasterous!

However, first lesson was last Friday, and Picklepot sprang out of school full of enthusiasm. He said he’d absolutely loved it, really enjoyed it, couldn’t wait to go again etc. Last night he asked me to include his goggles in his swimming bag as he wanted to try putting his face underwater this week. Last night at bedtime I was getting annoyed with him for being so slow at getting ready for bed, so I kept on at him to hurry up, and he kept moaning he didn’t feel well. The moment I said, Well, if you’re not well you can’t go to school tomorrow, and if you can’t go to school then you can’t go swimming! And suddenly, he was feeling much better … 😉

This weekend both myself and Daddy P are off work, so we’re planning a nice lazy weekend with lots of family time. My mum might be coming to visit on Saturday, it’s been a few weeks since we last saw her so it will be good to catch up if she can visit, but it depends on her new job at the moment as she might end up working.

The week has once again gone past in a blink and I don’t know how it’s Friday again already! But I am definitely ready for this weekend!

A Quick Update

The half term holiday seemed to disappear in a flash! I was working, so we didn’t get chance to go out much, but on the Saturday we held our ASD Helping Hands group Halloween Party! It was a great success with all the kids in fancy dress (and lots of the adults, too!) Plenty of party food was consumed, as well as lots of Halloween cakes and sweets, and we played some games as well. Everyone seemed to have a good time, now it’s on to organising the Christmas party!

School started again on Monday, and on Tuesday morning when I took Picklepot in I asked him not to go round the side bit of the playground where the trouble always seems to happen with the big group of kids playing that horrible game known as “Bulldogs” which ends in someone getting pushed to the floor and hit / kicked (the last week of last half term one kid had his trousers pulled down as well and everyone was laughing at him) The school have asked the kids not to go round that part of the playground but of course kids like to do what they’re told not to. Anyway so I said to Picklepot don’t go down that bit, he said OK and stayed at the edge, then a group of older kids ran over to him and punched him! He was very shaken, came over to me and explained what had happened, and I had a chat with the teacher who’d come out to blow the whistle and get the kids into school for the start of the day. He said he’d go round and have another chat with everyone but as Picklepot doesn’t know the names of the kids who assaulted him they can’t punish those children specifically.

This weekend Daddy P is on leave from work, we have our ASD Helping Hands group on Saturday morning and then a firework display on Sunday evening which we’re taking both the boys to. It will be the first time Sunshineface has gone to a firework display so I hope he doesn’t get too scared by the noise. We’re taking Grandad P as well, since we know he enjoys a good funfair with the kids!

It's The Half Term Holidays!

The last week of school seemed to go without any issues for Picklepot, though there were two incidents I heard about from other mums who have kids in his class which concerned me.

Both times it was due to the kids playing a game called Bulldog before school started, in a corner of the playground that is quite hidden. The first incident was a boy from the 6^th year getting pushed to the floor and getting beaten up by the surrounding crowd, fortunately he got away without being too seriously injured and his mum was able to calm him down and go and speak with the staff in the office. He’s now able to go into school through the office each day, to avoid another incident in the playground. The mum was informed that the kids shouldn’t be any kids playing in that corner of the playground at all, and that a teacher should be in the playground monitoring the kids from 8.30am to ensure this kind of thing didn’t happen. A couple of days later another kid was pushed to the floor in a game of Bulldog in the same corner of the playground; he had his trousers pulled down and the surrounding crowd were laughing at him. His mum, understandably, was absolutely fuming (I would have gone mad if it had been Picklepot in that situation) This happened after 8.30am, but there was no sign of a teacher in the playground monitoring the kids, and again they were in the corner they shouldn’t have been in. This incident prompted one of the staff going round to every classroom that day, telling them that the game Bulldog was banned, and that the corner of the playground was off limits before school. Whether or not that is enforced or will deter the children from doing it I don’t know yet, but I for one am keeping an eye on that corner and will be over there like a shot if I see it going on again. I wonder how kids can be so mean to one another – it’s always been the same, I remember it at my school (though not to that extent in primary school) There’s a couple of names that keep coming up time after time with issues, one of which was involved in both the incidents in the playground during the game of Bulldog last week, and that name is also the same child who has been causing Picklepot issues and slammed his hand in the door the other day, so whether his parents will actually take notice of the school telling them again that he is in trouble I don’t know. He struts around the school with this smirk on his face, he is a proper little nasty piece of work, and while I know he has a lot of issues himself and a lot going on in his young life I don’t believe anything gives him an excuse to behave like a thug. I am keeping an extra close eye on him, and his siblings. (He has an older sibling that Picklepot thinks is his friend, but basically they wind him up at lunchtime until he gets in trouble for misbehaving because they’re telling him to do stuff, hiding his lunch, holding his property above their head and making him jump to get it, and then he gets in trouble for fooling around)

The school was closed on Friday for an inset day, so Picklepot came to Disco Duck dance class with Sunshineface and myself, and he seemed to really enjoy that. Sunshineface got a certificate to say he completed a full half-term of classes. Then on Saturday morning I dropped Picklepot off at the Beaver hut for Roald Dahl themed camp weekend. He was really looking forward to that, so I hope he’s had fun. I pick him up in a couple of hours.

Next week I’ll be working so we can’t do much, but on Monday while I’m in the office there’s an exhibition about Magical Creatures (based on the Harry Potter books) at the local library so I’ve told Daddy P he should take the boys to that (apparently there will be real owls to meet) and on Thursday there’s a new parent & child group starting off at a local tea room so I’m planning on going along to that as well. I’m hoping to get the boys out to visit some friends too, so hopefully they won’t get too bored. 

Don't Upset Mama Bear

It’s been a difficult week for me as a mum this week.

Picklepot informed me that one of the kids in his class has been particularly nasty to him recently. For the last 2 years this other child has been deliberately kept away from Picklepot as they would argue and fight, but starting at the beginning of this term the other kid told Picklepot that he was “done being nasty” and wanted to be friends this year. Picklepot being the forgiving boy that he is, he accepted this and for the first couple of days things were good.

Then the other boy started his old tricks again. He pinched and kicked Picklepot when the teachers weren’t looking. He pulled Picklepot’s hair, called him names, told him only girls have long hair, even smacking his bottom if Picklepot tries to walk away from him.

The last straw for me came when Picklepot came home from school with a red line across his fingers. I asked him what had happened.

We’d had a discussion the night before about this other boy, and I told Picklepot that a bully is normally a bully because they’re jealous of you. I told him he was good looking, clever, kind and thoughtful, and had lots of friends. This other boy was probably jealous of those qualities, so the way he made himself feel better was to try and make Picklepot feel bad about himself. After that, Picklepot drew a lovely picture, showing two boys smiling together, one labelled with his name and one with the other boys name. It said “We be friends” over the top of the two boys, and he said he was going to give it to the other boy and tell him they should be friends and stop being mean. I thought it was very sweet of him and he took it into school the next day to give it to the other boy.

He did as he planned, and gave the picture to the other boy, and told him that they should be friends, and the other boy said “OK I accept”. Picklepot thought this was genuine and went to walk away to go for break, when the other boy called him back so Picklepot paused with his hand in the doorframe of the classroom. The other boy slammed the door shut on his fingers, laughed at him and screwed up the picture, calling Picklepot names and saying he would never be his friend.

My eldest son went to the first aid room for an ice pack for his fingers, but he didn’t tell them the whole truth about what had happened. Though only seven, he has noticed previously if he reports an incident and names this boy, when the teacher then talks to the boy he knows who has ‘grassed him up’ and he will come back after Picklepot twice as bad as before. So Picklepot, aged seven years old, lied to the teacher attending the first aid room that day and didn’t tell her that this other boy had deliberately slammed his fingers in the classroom door, because he was scared of what would happen if he told on the other kid, and the other kid coming after him to do something worse.

To say I was livid would be an understatement. It took all of my self control the following morning not to march up to the other kid and drag him by the scruff of his neck to the head teacher. However, I managed not to. I managed to keep a lid on it until my meeting with the acting head teacher that afternoon, when I spilled to her exactly what has been going on with this boy since the start of term, and explaining to her in a barely controlled voice that wobbled because I was SO angry about this incident that I expect this to stop, right away. I do not expect to hear any reports of any more name calling, pinching, kicking, hair pulling, much less bottom smacking or slamming of fingers in classroom doors. She was aghast, she had no idea what had been going on, and she promised faithfully she would sort it out.

For now Mama Bear is resting, but her ears are listening and she sleeps with one eye open. You’d better believe I will be growling if anything happens next week!

Poorly Picklepot

On Wednesday night, Picklepot came into our room crying. He said he had tummy ache, and didn’t feel well, and he ended up sleeping in our bed. It was our first clue he was unwell.

On Thursday morning, he was slow to get ready for school – he kept saying he had tummy ache but he said it was because he was hungry, so we hurried him along to get dressed and go downstairs for breakfast. Despite him repeatedly saying he was hungry, he didn’t eat much breakfast, and then it was another battle getting him to brush teeth / brush hair and get out of the door to go to school. He was very moany and complaining a lot, but he can be like that in the morning anyway so we kind of didn’t take much notice of it!

At quarter to ten the school phoned me to say that Picklepot was really feeling under the weather, he was complaining of aches and pains and had a bit of a fever. I went to school with some kids Ibruprofen and we made the decision that a member of staff would give him the medicine and he would continue at school to see how he felt once the medicine kicked in. I knew he had cooking planned for yesterday and I knew he’d be upset to miss it, even if he was unwell, so I didn’t want to take him home early unless I had to. After being given his medicine I went home again, and I didn’t hear anything from school so I figured he had perked up a bit.

At the end of the school day Picklepot was escorted over the playground to me by the teaching assistant Mrs G, he was crying and she said he had been like it all afternoon. She said he’d been complaining of feeling poorly, he was quiet and crying and not like his usual self at all, and she said maybe he was coming down with something. I took him home and he cried the whole way home. At home he got into a onesie and snuggled on the sofa under a duvet. He asked for a chopped up apple, but he didn’t eat it. He didn’t want any dinner and he fell asleep on the sofa after another dose of Ibruprofen.

While he slept he was pale, with flushed cheeks, and he was restless while he slept and moaning / crying in his sleep. Just before 8 I had to take Sunshineface upstairs for a nappy change, and while I was there I thought since it was almost bedtime I’d get him in his PJs and get him ready for bed. While I was sorting him out, Picklepot woke up on the sofa and came upstairs. He said hello to me as he walked past, and he went straight into his bedroom and climbed into bed. I went in there a couple of minutes later and turned off the light since he was cuddled up under the duvet and he didn’t say anything. I checked on him 20 minutes later, after Daddy P got home and took over putting Sunshineface to bed, and he was snoring.

Overnight, Picklepot was up quite a few times. He was crying, saying he was in pain, he was aching, he needed a wee, he needed another drink, he had two more doses of Ibruprofen to try and get his temperature down and get him back to sleep again. When I woke up with Sunshineface at 8am I knew that Picklepot wouldn’t be going to school, so I rang them to register him absent at 8.30 and after that I called the doctors surgery to get an appointment for him today. Since it’s Friday I didn’t want to leave it and have him get much worse over the weekend.

We got to the doctors in good time for our appointment, and unsurprisingly after a quick exam and taking his temperature (39.5) the nurse confirmed that Picklepot has definitely got tonsillitis again. She got a prescription from the doctor for some penicillin, which I picked up from the pharmacy in the same building before we left. I also got some more Calpol since we’d run out, and the nurse said I can double-dose Calpol and kids Ibruprofen to keep his temperature down. When he has a fever he is much more prone to more violent night terrors, so we’re working to avoid that!

We came straight home afterward and he took his first dose of medicine, he’s been cuddled up on the sofa all day watching YouTube videos and while he looks a better colour he is still very quiet and clearly not feeling right. Fortunately Daddy P is off work today so he was able to stay home with Sunshineface while I took Picklepot to the doctors, and he has been able to watch both kids while I got on with work.

We have plans all weekend, so I’m not sure whether we’re going to have to cancel them yet or not – I’m going to see how he feels and take it as it comes. It would be nice to get out and do stuff / see people as planned, but if he’s not well enough there’s no point trying to force the issue, it will just end badly.

Fingers crossed he feels better soon!!

ASD Helping Hands Thetford Family Support Group Library Display Project

This week has seen the culmination of weeks of planning. Some time ago, I saw a post from our local library on their Facebook page, showing off their latest wall display in the children’s area – a local childminding group had created it, and not only did it showcase some of the kids artwork but it also was an excellent promotion of the childminder in the local area. The library had commented that they welcomed other local groups to contact them about using the space for their own display, and immediately I thought of our ASD Helping Hands group.

The ASD Helping Hands Family Support group has been invaluable to Picklepot and I since we started going in January 2016. For two hours every fortnight we meet at a local venue and there are arts and crafts activities, the chance for the kids to play together and enjoy themselves without worrying about being judged by their peers for their ‘different’ behaviour, a chance for adults to have a coffee (or tea!) and a chat about things, a place for us to discuss things, a place where we don’t have to worry about what anyone else thinks of us because all of us are in this together.

Since joining the group I have made friends who truly understand what it can be like. The group has changed, we moved venues at the beginning of this year and some people don’t come any more, other people have started coming … but on the whole we still feel like not enough people know about the group, not enough people know it’s there and it’s available. The idea is that this is a family support group, so all members of the family are welcome, and even if the person with ASD doesn’t want to come to the meeting, that’s OK, they don’t have to; the idea is that everyone feels welcome, nobody feels judged and the group is a place you can come and enjoy yourself.

With the idea of getting information about the group to more people who could benefit from it, I contacted the library and asked if our group could be considered to create a display. The library were quick to say yes, and the date was set that our display would be up ready for the week starting 11^th September. At our next meeting we discussed some ideas of what we could do, and we came up with our plan.

We drew around hands and cut them out, and everyone decorated some hands with colouring pencils. We found a foam tree with foam leaf-colours which we cut out hand shapes and on each one we wrote the name of the children in the group. I created a big poster for the centre of the display saying ASD Helping Hands.

One of the ladies who comes to group knows someone who works for the local free magazine, and she contacted them about the display – they said if we sent a high resolution photograph along with a small written piece to go along with the photograph, they would run it in the magazine as a local interest story, which again obviously promotes the group and tells even more people about it.

Yesterday, myself and one of the other mums (and her daughter) met at the library with our display in a carrier bag in pieces, armed only with a wall staple gun and our imaginations on how we were going to bring it altogether. We talked, we laughed, we worked it out, we planned, and we got the display up on the wall. It took us the best part of 2 hours, but it was time well spent and we are so pleased with our efforts when we were finished.

Today was our first Helping Hands meeting since before the summer holidays. Afterwards we all went to the library together, and one of the mums’ fathers met up with us with his fancy camera, and he took some photographs of the group in front of the display. We now need to choose which of the final two photographs we are going to send to the magazine along with the article.

I’m very proud to be part of our little group. There’s lots of stress and tears involved when you’re struggling to get where you need to for a family member with ASD, but our group has shown me there is lots of laughter and friendship along the way as well.

We Are Each Unique And Beautiful, Together We Are A Masterpiece

Oh! What a Day! (Because if you don't laugh, you'd cry)

Last night my friend asked if I could take care of her daughter today while she and her husband attended a medical appointment. I agreed quickly – their girl is always a pleasure to take care of, she’s Picklepot’s “girlfriend” so they get on like a house on fire, and she’s also great with Sunshineface. I had no plans other than to work, so I thought great, the kids can play and I can get on.

She arrived this morning just after 8.30 so I was still wearing bed hair, PJs and seeking out my first coffee of the day. After a night of getting up with Sunshineface (who was most adamant he did not want to sleep!) I was in serious need of caffeine. Fortunately my friend and her daughter are perfectly used to seeing me in this condition and it’s no bother for them. Picklepot was already up and dressed, patiently waiting for his girlfriend to arrive for their playdate.

I did some work and got everything up to date, I did an online shop for delivery tomorrow since we just got paid and have NO FOOD in the house, and I drank my second coffee before 10am. Things were going well. Then the husband woke up and sorted himself out, came downstairs with Sunshineface. Breakfast was being consumed by the two bigger ones, and the Sunshineface was provided with a chopped apple (which he mostly chewed and then left the chewed up chunks in various places around the front room, but no matter, he’s much like me and rarely eats properly first thing in the morning)

I got myself dressed and came downstairs, husband left for work, I did some more work and got everything up to date again, got Sunshineface dressed and we left the house to walk to the little shop down the road. While the big shop is arriving tomorrow, I needed a couple of essentials today. We also needed to put some electric on our key meter, so our main purpose was to stop at the shop to sort that out, but in addition as it was a sunny day and work was all up to date I thought I’d take the kids to the little park near the shop to let off some steam too.

We walked to the shop, I checked my account before taking out some cash (nightmare fear of the money not going into the account for some reason on payday!) and I went to get the electric key out of the pocket on the pushchair to top it up in the shop. I hadn’t brought the key with us. I’d taken it out of the meter and placed it on the radiator in the hallway ready to put in the pocket on the pushchair and take with us, then in all the palaver involved with getting three children out of the door and one into the pushchair I’d forgotten to pick it up.

We walked back home, I dived indoors and grabbed the key, we walked back to the shop again. We were in no hurry, the kids were behaving themselves and it was nice weather. I kept telling myself it really didn’t matter, even though Picklepot kept complaining that now he was seven I should have left him in the park with his girlfriend on their own while I went home to get the electric key (Nice try, kid, but NO!)

At the shop, the bigger two decided they didn’t want to come in so I headed in with Sunshineface in the pushchair and picked up what we needed. Sunshineface decided now was a good time to drop his feet onto the front wheels of the pushchair – you know, while I’m juggling bread, milk, cheese and butter in one hand and steering one handed around a tiny shop with barely enough room to get down each section. Cheers, kiddo. I made it to the front desk (feeling proud of myself) and put down my shopping, asked the lady for some money to be put on the electric key, and just as I was asking for two mixed slushies for the big ones they came screaming into the shop because Picklepot was being silly and doing something he shouldn’t have been so his girlfriend came to tell me what he was doing and he came to defend himself. I said OK whatever, I’m getting slushies if you behave yourselves so they both did a happy dance and squealed a lot and shouted requests at the lady behind the counter about what they wanted.

Once we finally staggered out of the shop we went to the park. To my dismay it has quickly become an open rubbish bin … litter just about everywhere, broken bottles and cigarette ends, empty squashed cans, crisp packets blowing in the breeze and all that kind of sad crap you find blights so many places which should be really nice for the community to enjoy. I decided to overlook this, the kids were thrilled to be at the park, they ran off ahead to play.

Picklepot found a kid he knew playing with another kid – no parent in sight – just two six year olds on their own in a park in the middle of a housing estate. They were doing their best to break something – I don’t even know what it was – and immediately started asking Picklepot to share his slushie. Annoyed, I called him over to me, told him to leave his slushie with me while he played, asked him to play nicely and not destroy whatever it was the other boys were destroying. He returned to them and immediately started to try and destroy the object. They’d progressed by then from stamping on it and throwing it to climbing up a frame with it and chucking it off the top. I was a bit concerned about someone getting hurt, as well as annoyed that he was so quickly ignoring my wishes and joining in. So I shouted over to him, you play nicely you don’t try and break stuff or you come in here with me. He shouted back, But they’re trying to break it! So I thought to hell with it and yelled back, I don’t care what they’re doing, they’re not my children, but you know better than to try and destroy things especially if it isn’t your property! Pretty quick all of them stopped doing what they’d been doing and started playing. I thought OK and left them to it.

Picklepot’s girlfriend was in the fenced off area with Sunshineface and myself, and while she was playing happily with Sunshineface I did think it was a bit rude that Picklepot had just left her to it while he went off with someone else. Then he shouted help. I looked round and he’d climbed up the top of a frame which has various ways of getting down again – a firemans pole, a twisted rope ladder, and a set of those double bars you slide down. He’s climbed up it a thousand times before, and come down those double bars with no problem. He’s come down them head first, feet first, dangling with just his arms, backwards, you name it. This time he’d climbed up and decided he was unable to get down.

His girlfriend went over there to help him and I heard the other boys start taking the mick about “A girl” coming to his rescue, which got my back up. That girl has bigger balls than most boys I know. She’s utterly brilliant with Picklepot, she keeps him calm and stops him getting too worked up, and I knew for a fact she’d be able to talk him down no problem. She also has no fear herself and is quite happy to climb up the frame and come down the firemans pole without even blinking. So she did that a couple of times, and I was so proud of the way she simply ignored the other two as if they weren’t even there, and eventually Picklepot had the confidence to come down the double poles again.

After a while at the park we came home. Sunshineface was hungry and the other two kids were bugging me, three other girls had turned up (alone) and I’d had enough and wanted more coffee. We walked home without too much issue, though Picklepot was being a bit silly and mucking about it wasn’t too bad.

Once home, we had some lunch and my friend arrived. She stayed for a while so the kids carried on playing. I did some more work, got up to date again, things seemed to be going well.

Then Picklepot came in from the garden to announce that because his girlfriend was being bossy, he’d thrown his trainer at her and now it was in a bush and he couldn’t get at it. He wanted me to get it for him. He expected me, in a summer dress, to climb through a 6ft tall rose bush and pull a trainer out of a prickly bush. Um, no, you can ask your dad to fetch it later and then you can explain to him why you threw your trainer in a bush in the first place. My friend and her daughter went home. A busy day but bar the odd issue, fairly successful.

As mentioned earlier, our choices for dinner were limited so I put into the oven what we had left to make a meal. It was about halfway cooked when an urgent scream from Picklepot in the front room alerted me to the fact that Sunshineface had somehow got hold of the Sharpie marker pens I use for my grown-up colouring books.

I went into the front room and found Sunshineface sitting in an armchair with an assortment of 20 Sharpie pens around him, on the floor in front of him, handfuls of them. Lids were off, he had purple on his t shirt, red on his knee, green on his foot and an assortment of colours on his hands. Once I gathered them together, put the lids back on, I went to take him upstairs. I realised I couldn’t walk across the front room due to the amount of toys between me and the doorway.

As I started to tidy up I asked Picklepot for help, to which his response was, “I didn’t make the mess” I said OK you didn’t tip the toys over the floor but you played with them, so help me tidy up please. “I didn’t make the mess I only played with the toys” So I said well I didn’t even get to play with the toys but I’m expected to tidy it all up! He still wouldn’t help me tidy so I did that myself. Then I took Sunshineface upstairs to try and sort him out. Turns out that Sharpie pen won’t come off skin with baby wipes, nor with a hand soap and warm water scrub, so leaving him covered in Sharpie quickly became my only option and I was about to go to the loo before we went back downstairs when I realised the loo was blocked with loads of paper.

After unclogging the toilet, and going to the loo, and scrubbing my hands thoroughly, I took Sunshineface back downstairs so I could serve up dinner. Of course, it had been halfway cooked when I was called away for the Sharpie incident, and this whole time of clearing up and sorting out toys and the blocked toilet and trying to clean up Sunshineface meant that dinner was a crusty relic of what it could have been.

We ate what we could of dinner, then the kids had ice cream for afters, and of course Sunshineface covered himself in melted ice cream. Along with the Sharpie on his clothes, I decided to strip him off and put his clothes straight in the wash.

The washing is on (with plenty of Vanish!) and work is up to date (again). Husband has just arrived home and Sunshineface is running around in his nappy and nothing else (he won’t keep his dressing gown on) the purple Sharpie went through his t shirt so he has purple splodges on his tummy and a red line down one side, to compliment the red spots on his knee, the green squiggle on his foot and the multi colour design on his hand.

Now husband is home, the joy of the bedtime routine can begin. I just hope Sunshineface is more tired than he was last night and we don’t end up sitting there til 10.30pm with him throwing George Pig soft toys at my head telling me “No sleep”.

I’m exhausted, and I’m looking forward to my Archers & lemonade tonight!