Friday, November 24, 2006

A bit of a waffle involving geese, plates and anxiety

Realising the other side of being educated as a speech therapist, and partly home-educating, it’s difficult to just switch off and‘enjoy’ playing with my children. Always thinking in my mind, what are they learning, are they developing normally?! So this is something I aspire to do.
I was playing 'catch' with H and I told him to WATCH the ball as he invariably drops it. Then he took this so seriously, opening his eyes very wide (but still not really tracking where the ball was going!) His relationship with little sister still a bit love-hate, leaning more towards the hate side, ‘I’m going to destroy you’ was one phrase used, answered by a scream and she’s just recovering from a bitten finger. I know one of his favourite foods are fishfingers, but this is taking it too far. (actually just now he’s lovingly said to her ‘Is something wrong’ when she whinged a bit). He is so different in his sensitivity, has always been shy, but just checked out on the web about selective mutism and turns out its an ‘anxiety disorder’ which makes it sound worse than it is I think. He showed a slight sign of improvement as he spoke to me in English in front of his teacher the other day. He can speak Swedish (does a little at home and they say they try in English with him, but I think its not the language, but reluctance tot talk at nursery or to other non-family members that is the prob). I do know a sister whose son was the same and he did start talking at school once he was 5 or so. It’s amazing he’s the complete opposite at home, Mr Chatterbox ! Anyway still on sensitivity, th e other day I asked him to take a plate to the kitchen, and specially told him to put it on the table as I anticipated placing it in the sink would result in breakage. I saw him change his mind and attempt to put it on the worktop, but then it fell on the tiled floor and of course broke. He immediately burst into tears, crying inconsolably, and asking me to mend it with sticky tape. I managed to calm him down by recounting how I was always breaking stuff when I was young. Then I told him we wouldn’t mend it but bin it. He then kept apologising throughout the rest of the evening, and checking the plate in the bin a few times. He said ‘I’ll be careful when I’m bigger, on Sunday’.
Also he uses cute mispronunciation of ‘spaceship’ which he insists is correct: ‘skaceship’
Hafsah picking up small Hama beads, lego etc with nice pincer grip, oooh dangerous! Index finger poking of many things, a whole new world opening up of annoying parents by changing tv channels on remote etc on the horizon, poking nostrils and eyes. At night sometimes crying as if SO distressed, but a couple of nights in a row I was SO tired I actually managed to not be immediately woken by the cries and SLEEP through the wails, this is first for me as a mother who’s hormones seem to keep me sleeping so lightly, and not like a sloth in my student days. Last night she went into an excited screaming fest, me hoping the neighbours wouldn’t complain as it was past 10.30 pm. They were happy screams, but meant I had to rewind the program on the DVD player I was watching many times as I wanted to note down a book recommended by a sheikh on Islam channel’s Islamiqa. (Which reminds me, subtitles are not just for the hard-of-hearing, but also for parents with very vocal offspring, only prob, not all channels, programmes have them)
Autumn has come and almost dispapeared into Winter ina matter of weeks, the leaves were late falling I think this year, but now it’s getting chillier but still in plus area of the thermometer,which I must say, is a plus.. The geese are migrating South in their ‘V' shapes as I tried to point out to kids, although S did note some went into a letter ‘Y’. Obviously a bit of a fight for leadership there, not unlike the Labour Party.
Oh, a continuation of the ‘Saturday sweets topic’ the nurse at the dentist recommended this as well as DH bringing home a free bag of sweets from work (no he doesn’t work for Willy Wonka) called ‘Saturday sweets', it’s like almost compulsory to have sugar binge on this day.

No comments: