Saturday 30 January 2010

ROARY.......

Emily came home from her special school this week ~ very excited.

They had a visitor you see - not just any visitor - a very special visitor and Emily LOVED him.

ROARY I HEAR YOU WONDERING

The racing car ?

NO - not the racing car....

ROARY WHO ?

 


Now for all of you HULL CITY fans out there you will know exactly who he is and are probably quite jealous right now {he he}.

For those of you who don't he's the mascot for Hull City football club.

Emily has not stopped growling at me since... infact here she is now stood at my side screaming and growling at these pictures as I'm typing ♥ 

Monday 25 January 2010

Special~ness....

During our journey on this pathway that has been chosen for us we have come across ALOT of special people..

Special Children
Special Parents
Special Families
Special Professionals

Most people do care, some don't mind you, but thankfully most people do.

ONE person that most definately does

Is Emilys support worker at her mainstream pre-school

Siobhan is full of SPECIAL~NESS

We feel lucky and blessed to have her




Her passion for what she does is obvious, nothing is ever too much trouble and she's always looking for new ways to help Emily (and all of the other children she supports within other settings as she works for the PLA)

Just the other day she turned up with a gift for Emily ~ some lovely wall decorations for her bedroom

THANK YOU SIOBHAN - THEY ARE LOVELY



and Siobhan
THANK YOU FOR ALL THAT YOU DO ~ OUR APPRECIATION CANNOT BE MEASURED BY WORDS


Wednesday 20 January 2010

Eye Eye ..

Emily has been seeing the Orthoptist now since she was around 1 year old.

She was originally referred by the Health Visitor for her squint.

It took over a year for Emilys squint to be confirmed ~ up until that point we where told it was more of an "optical illusion" due to the flatness and broadness of the bridge of her nose and due to the epicanthic fold (excess skin fold on the upper eyelid) ~ but finally at age 3 a squint and astigmatism where finally confirmed.

Emily was prescribed glasses at age 3 ~ she is long-sighted.

I have felt for a long long time that Emily struggled with perception problems too - she always turned her head to a side when looking at certain objects, she never saw what was under her nose and various other little things concerned me. 

Recently Visual Impairment assessments have also confirmed that Emily does indeed have perception difficulties too ~ difficulties with depth, distance, movement and speed {now we understand why she bumps in to things and also feels with her feet when the floor colouring changes, as to her it looks like a hole or a step!!)

Due to not been able to test Emily accurately and having variations in abilities at her appointments they have kept a close eye on her.  Appointments have been usually 4-6 months apart. 

Last week she had a further check-up and unfortunately she really struggled with her right eye.  I think the Orthoptist thought she'd lost her concentration but my Mummy gut is telling me something else - she just couldn't see the pictures.

The Orthoptist listened to my concerns and agreed that it does appear that we have some definate deterioration in her right eye, possibly patching her good eye is all that will be needed {sounds like fun - NOT!!}

They want to see her again within 2 months this time...

I will keep you posted after the next appointment.

Monday 18 January 2010

All Grown Up

At Emilys new school the children have the option to wear a uniform

and most of the children do!!!

So I just thought I would share this moment with you

As the title of my post states ~

ALL GROWN UP





Did I shed a few tears ??

What do you think ??

Sunday 17 January 2010

SNOW FUN ....

Now for me it was "NO" fun - as pretty as the snow looked
I was full of cold
The driving was horrific
I just was not in the mood for the inconvenience of it all

However for the kids it was lots of fun!!

SNOW FUN
{I wasn't a totally misery guts - as ill as I felt I did still take them out to play in it!!}



and Daddy played out too....


Friday 15 January 2010

Oink Oink....

I feel in a blogging sort of a mood today but haven't really got anything to blog about!!

So I thought I would share these pictures with you - I just love em..

I did share them on facebook at the time of taking them but feel it would be a shame for my non-facebook friends to miss out on them..

HOW CUTE AM I ??



OINK OINK ........

Thursday 14 January 2010

Would you say she's happy?

As per my previous posts, you will all be realising just how anxious I was about Emily starting her new school............................ this morning I dropped her off for her 2nd week, so this is her 3rd session today.

This morning the classroom teacher, Sue, very kindly passed me some photographs which were taken of Emily at her new school last week - I just had to share them.

NOW WOULD YOU SAY SHE LOOKS HAPPY ??



One happy little girl - so one VERY happy Mummy
xx

Friday 8 January 2010

New Year & New Beginnings.....


I've not fully relaxed over the festive season, knowing that a new chapter was beginning for Emily at the beginning of 2010.

Followers of my blog, you may recall a couple of my previous posts, one titled "Headaches" and one titled "Glimpse of the future" (need a quick reminder then just click on them for the link).
Well here we are - time passes so quickly - but we are here - the future - the time to move on to new beginnings in the world of education.

Emily is continuing with her mainstream pre-school placement for 3 sessions per week, this placement is very well established for Emily now, she has been attending here since she was nearly 2 1/2 years old.  She has a one to one support worker, which has changed once or twice during that time but I have had a lovely relationship with them with lots of open door communciation - this works well and long may it continue {well until they kick us out ready for big school anyway!!}

On Thursday of this past week Emily started her new pathway ~ a pathway which has not been an easy decision or battle for us.  I don't mind admitting as the start date drew nearer, doubt started to cross my mind on whether we had done the right thing {back to that parental guilt we all feel I think!!}

Emily started her new "special" school placement which is for 2 sessions per week.  We still don't know in which direction we need to go with Emily educationally so chose to continue with the best of both worlds until we do!!
I don't mind admitting just how nervous I was on that first morning, I knew Emily was going to be very very unhappy when we left and I knew I was going to struggle with it - it's happened so many times before!!

BUT

What do Mummys know anyway???

The nights sleep that I didn't get the evening before was for nothing!!!!
 The nausea I had suffered for days was in vain!!!!
The tears I had cried had been wasted!!!!
All that worrying and for what - NOTHING!!!!

Apart from a few little flinches from Emily (as some of the children flung their arms around her) and perhaps a little cling to her Daddys leg until she realised there was no real threat to her life ~ she happily went in to her new classroom, with her new teachers and her new friends to enjoy her new school.

We couldn't have been happier

Saturday 2 January 2010

What a Lovely Beginning....

to 2010...

This afternoon Emily was invited to a birthday party of a little girl at her pre-school

**HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOLLY**

and what a lovely time we had.

It was so nice to watch Emily having a good time with her friends {obviously I was close by helping her to access all the equipment} but Emily was the one "in charge" and doing exactly what "she" wanted to do ~ and do you know she surprised me, she was even managing 3 or 4 jumps at a time on the bouncy castle before callapsing in a heap, of which she found funny and even funnier when it was Mummy who fell in a heap!!!

It was also lovely and very touching to see just how the "mainstream" {I hate to say normal} children really do interact with Emily, obviously the communication problem does make things difficult, but it was so apparent that these children do like and care about Emily.

For that I am truely grateful...

Not only grateful for the friendship of all of these lovely natured children that they show towards Emily but also very grateful to the parents of these children - to the parents I would like to say THANK YOU.

Thank you for your friendships, thank you for your encouragement, thank you for showing an interest and thank you for encouraging your children to not see Emily as different or someone to fear.

xx THANK YOU xx