Good news

Went for my testes check up today. Both are still descended and I have to go back in a year. They're a little small but that doesn't matter. I'm relieved I won't need them doing again, I've had more than enough general anaesthetics. :)

Developmental assessment

This was done to prepare my statement for school, to give the local authority an idea of what i'll need support with. I'm doing better in verbal than non-verbal. I need to focus more on my shapes, colours, numbers and visual perception. Some questions were silly. There was a book open with pictures of 4 different houses, i was asked 'which one is the posh house?' The POSH house? I think my homes are pretty cool (I have 2!), but have never referred to either of them as 'posh', or small, or big for that matter. These assessments are good because I now know what to focus on more, but they're always to be taken with a pinch of salt.

IEP

Papa went to nursery today to meet with the SENCO and the educational psychologist. I have new goals now but overall I'm doing very well.

My speech is coming along great, I have 'classes' every day for 15 mins where the focus is purely on language. I'm to make more animal sounds to encourage more words.

Time also to focus on toilet training. I'll be nappy free for an hour both at nursery and at home. I'm quite aware now so it should work out.

My concentration has improved a lot, I engage in all activities at nursery for over 10 minutes at a time. I love cooking and playdough the most. My fine motor skills need a little more work, I need to learn to draw a full circle and an 'L' for Luca. I love drawing and painting so don't think those targets will be too hard to meet.

I have my developmental assessment tomorrow, to prepare my statement for when I go to school... so watch this space!

Celebrating food, because I can

I started eating orally in October 2006. I've just had a meal so thought I'd celebrate food, it's still such a novelty. For the first 15 months of my life I didn't eat or drink. I had breast milk but never tasted it, it went straight to my tummy via my nose.. avoiding all taste buds. You wouldn't believe it if you saw me today. You wouldn't believe I was once tube fed. I love raw broccoli. I love tomatoes. I love chicken. I love weetabix. I love liver. I love pasta with cheese. I love spinach. I love lamb. I drink water and milk. I use a fork and feed myself, I drink from a cup. I love the texture of food and I love the taste. I'll try everything once and so far there's nothing I haven't tried twice. I love sucking on lemons. Thanks to www.notube.at.

2nd teste descended today

Well, I'm back home now after not such a long day, but a very early rise. Papa fetched mummy and I from home and drove us to hospital. I didn't really know what was going on but I handled the preparation for surgery very well. The nurses didn't frighten me like they usually do at times. We went for a long walk to a room and the last thing I remember before waking up was drawing mummy and papa pictures, I was aware of a funny smell but It didn't bother me too much. I started getting tired and couldn't draw at all, I lost all strength.

Next thing I woke up in a strange room and my throat was very dry and I was so thirsty. Mummy and papa came and i sat on mummy's lap, but I was so disorientated I was trashing about a lot. I just didn't want to calm down, only managed to when we were back at the ward and eventually fell asleep for an hour and a half. When I woke up I was right as rain. I had some water to drink and mummy let me eat her lunch, it was yummy! After that I went for a wee in the toilet, I told mummy and papa how much I loved them and had a little walk around the ward. I was allowed to go home an hour later. I'm doing so fine and feeling great. Hopefully that'll be the last general anaesthetic for years to come.. touch wood.

HALLO!

How much effort does it take to say hallo to me if I say hallo to you? When mummy takes me to nursery on the bus I greet the bus driver first, they always greet me back. Then I say hallo to the passengers, there are never very many at that time of the morning. It works like this, if i say hallo to someone and they say hallo back, we pretty much say hallo to each other for the entire journey.. repetition and all that. But sometimes I say hallo and they don't reply, they ignore me. So I say it a little bit louder because maybe they didn't hear me the first time... they ignore me again? So I shout, as loud as I can .. H-A-L-L-O!!!!! And guess what? They say hallo back. But I don't bother saying it again, not with those types anyway.

Bed time..

.. is different now at mummy's home. I've slept in my very own bed for 2 nights. I've always slept with mummy or papa because I've not been very good at self-soothing, it stems from the tube feeding days.. and think mummy secretly liked having me close to her. I love to have human contact too. Well, for the past two nights I've been in my very own bed. The first night I went to sleep very quickly because I was tired, but woke up 10 minutes later, and then every 10 minutes after that until around 9.30pm when i fell asleep. Woke up at 1am and went through to mummy's bed and spent the rest of the night with her. Last night I went to bed with winnie the pooh. I slept right through to 5am before I went to look for mummy. I like my room and my bed and I'm rather proud of myself. I'm going to be 4 in July so about time I did this, at least I know I can always climb in with mummy if I want to. Think next time though I'll sleep with upsey daisy.

Kings of Leon

Ooooooooh ooooooooooh, i bought a papaya!!!!!

I'm a lyric king!

The secret garden

I can count to 10

It's no big deal but mama and papa seem to think it is, I surprised them. I can count to 10, easy peasy lemon squeezy. I do wish they would stop underestimating me.

I'll do it!

I am highly motivated at the moment. I want to do it all. I want to take my jacket off myself, using the zip... I want to put my shoes on, I want to tie my shoelaces and I want to start using the toilet soon. These things are all a bit tricky but the important thing is I WANT to learn how to do them, so therefore, I will.

Night night

When I go for an afternoon sleep I say 'night, night' even though I know it's day time. I say 'night, night' to all of my favourite things.
'night, night football'
'night, night Mr Tumble'
'night, night Bob the builder'
'night, night higgledy piggledy house'
'night, night papa'
'night, night mummy'

Not a happy bunny

I went to Great Ormond Street Hospital today to have a testes check up. One was descended a while ago, and now the other needs to be done as well. I'm confused, they assumed the other would descend naturally... how can they just assume that? I now have to have another general anaesthetic. It'll be in March and I know I'll be scared because I'm much more aware now. At least mama and papa will be with me when I smell the funny gas that puts me to sleep.

My holiday in Italy

I'm sorry I've not blogged for so long. I've been busy having too much fun! I'm back from Italy now and had the most brilliant time with papa, nonno, nonna and elisa. I loved flying in an aeroplane and I loved the snow. Nonno and nonna gave me a guitar for christmas... it's the real deal! I love it.

I get to celebrate Christmas twice!

Yep, I'm a lucky boy. I get to celebrate twice. Tonight I celebrated with mama. She let me choose a christmas tree... I don't think I realised what I was in for though. When we brought it home it terrified me, it was much bigger than me and kept falling over. I thought it would smother mama, but it didn't. She decorated it with little mirror balls, silver pinecones and pretty red lights. It didn't look so scary after that. Emma and Simon came over and made some mulled wine, then I got to open my pressies. I got a scooter and a sportacus outfit. When I put the outfit on I got right into character and attempted handstands and flick-flacks! The scooter was a bit tricky but i'll get the hang of it. I got lots of other little presents which I'll enjoy playing with when I get back from Italy. I go to Italy Christmas eve with papa. I'm so excited to see nonna, nonno and elisa. I talk about it all the time, but I'll miss mama and reckon she'll miss me too.

Rock star in the making

i'm back! things i like....

I love playing with straws (still!)
I love saying 'hallo mummy' and wrapping my arms around her thighs.
I am so gonna be a rock star. As soon as i find the cable for the camera i'm going to put my video up on here.
I love people. I'm so social and love having mummy's mates around. I've just met lindy for the first time. i love lindy. i love scott too and emma and dawnus.
I'm happy to be back and looking forward to blogging some more. I've been a tad lax lately cos it went private.. and I'm sorry. I've made it safer on here now, so there are no important details about my life if someone wanted to find me.

Speech assessment

I'm about 10 months delayed in speech overall. I'm making good progress, here's my report. Mama and papa are very proud of me.

Attention and Listening- stayed engaged in all the table top activities I wanted for 20 mins+, we had the room to ourselves. When getting restless accepted 1-2 minute breaks and then back to the table. Visual attention for assessment pictures/booklet a strength.

Social interaction: happy to come with me but started asking for the other children outside- which I was pleased about – asking for other children, not distracting himself by wanting to go to another adult. When really proud he had done something he called out “Yusuf look” when Yusuf had come into the background of the room.

Expression: coming on leaps and bounds in this area. More and more spontaneous 3-4 word phrase phrases, all very appropriate “say bye bye Dora” as soon as I suggested packing up the dolls (which included a Dora the explorer doll– who he has asked “who’s this?”). Using Negatives “no, not this”, labelling pictures, showing all the vocab teaching you have done, using plurals, -ing endings answering what, where , and yes/no questions. When Luca didn’t know the correct name he offered his own pillow, Luca: “oh sleepy head”. So overall on the assessment I used (Preschool Language Scales – 3) Luca demonstrated all skills in the 24-29 mths range and developing skills (half of the items passed) in the 30-35mths range. Given in August 07 his age equivalent was 13mths – I am pleased with this progress.

Comprehension: again showing pleasing progress. Understanding spatial concepts in, on, off, full range of body parts (and proud of it!) developing pronouns ie. “give it to me, give it to him, one for you, developing quantity – understood Give me …‘all’, ‘one’, ‘the rest’. Not sure of ‘some’

Recognizing actions in pictures e.g. where’s blowing?. Luca understands what objects are used for e.g. “which one can you ride?” Luca using lots of gesture to keep me entertained and keep my attention on him. Similarly on the receptive language parts of the assessment (Preschool Language Scales – 3) Luca demonstrated all skills in the 24-29 mths range and most skills in the 30-35mths range. Given in August 07 his age equivalent was 14mths – I am pleased with this progress.

Speech

Oh wow, I'm starting to talk, and quite well at that. All of a sudden words are starting to pour out of me. It's great... I find it's less frustrating for me now, so don't have to push others to get their attention! It's taken me a little while to get here but so worth the wait. I have a lovely little voice and can't wait to have proper chats with mummy and papa.

I wanna be a rock star!

Air guitar is my thing at the moment. I love music and singing along to the tunes. I don't have a real guitar so every evening i go to the kitchen drawer and choose a spoon of some sort. My fave one is the pasta spoon, followed by the salad spoon, followed by the wooden spoon... and last, but not least.. the serving spoon. They all make for great guitars. I strum on them, stamp my feet, jump up and down, dance and sing (the spoons also double up as microphones), all the while shouting 'mama look!'

I'm so gonna be a rock star when i grow up.