The slightly expanded version of Wednesday

Moo woke up at 5.30 with something on her mind – i have no idea what but she lay next to me twiddling and fretting. I ended up waking myself up to chat to try and divert her. First of all we went through all the family relationships, in a very orderly way and she knew that Granny and Grampty were my mummy and daddy. Then she said “But who is Daddy’s mummy????” I explained that she was dead but that seemed to go over her head although she obviously accepted she wasn’t about. I found it really interesting – Fran was a bit older when this occurred to her but her first thought was for Max and whether it was upsetting for him. She was very concerned about whther he had cried, whether he had said goodbye to her etc etc – Moo seemed immune to any empathy, she had just worked out that someone was missing. Having said that Grandad and Auntie L are familiar people to her so she had obviously picked up that Auntie L is NOT Daddys mummy, so i was quite pleased that a certain amount of “emotional cueing” as it were had gone in. Its funny really – when we expalined it all to Fran we felt it needed careful handling and were very concerned with how she would cope with it (Fran cries at Disneys films and she’s not even grown up!!!) but with Moo i knew i could just tell her and it wouldn’t affect her emotionally. Lol.

We then started to talk about the baby (Fran WANTS a boy, Moo wants a girl) and suddenly Moo said “How will the baby get out? Will it jump out of your mouth?” I like that, logical thinking! When i gave her the possible real options she curled up in a ball and made sick noises! Its funny really, by the time Fran was 4, Scruff was here and Fran was very clued up about those things but a combination of circumstance and Moo’s much more babylike, unquestionning outlook has meant its not really been talked about with her.

Skating was good – there was an adult male skater practising jumps and Scruff was giving him a chorus of rousing cheers. The girls did good and didn’t grumble that they didn’t get sweets after – when it was once a week it was fine as a treat but now we go 2-3 times a week we can neither afford it nor will i allow the habit to develop. Its good for Moo to accept that sometimes we do and sometime we don’t, partly because of her routine obsessions and partly because she is showing all the signs of being like me – she asks for sweets and snack food constantly and will just go on and on – she also loves chocolate spread out of the jar and i caught her doing “on for me, one for my sandwich” this week when she was making her lunch – cheeky wench! At the moment she is still slim although chunkier than the others and i think we need to try and instill a certain amounty of natural restraint into all our lives. I know very well that i don’t know when to stop with sweet things sometimes.

Unfortunately Moo then went into permanent meltdown – we did a while at the soft play area but because they were in skating clothes she couldn’t hack it and wailed for the rest of the morning. She fell asleep in the taxi and was subdued and twiddly at nursery.

I picked her up and had a long chat about the pre dx report her LSA had done – it basically is very good and describes her as able but rigid, happy but fairly isolated and needing a lot of support to do things that she finds frightening. She is apparently barely integrating there unless she has a staff member with her but when she has she tries valiantly to join in. ((As an aside, this is clearly not the Moo i know in the HE world who seems to integrate just fine on her own terms and when she feels safe so i don’t think its going to be much of an argument for school!!!)) On the other hand i DO feel that this year so far has moved her on in lots of ways and made all our lives happier and i know that i don’t feel that she has suffered for going, so i guess its been a good thing over all. Then i spoke to the SENCO who asked if i still wanted her place there again next year – i said yes. She said it was fine but added “Although i don’t think that Moo would get a statement i do think she would get a years worth of settling in hours (of support) in reception if you wanted them” – but i don’t. I firmly feel we are an HEing family who use Early Years provision because i feel broadly comfortable with how it works. I’m going through this to get Moo as much as i can for the next 18 months, not to prepared her for school or get anything for when she goes into school.

So – we shall see how this afternoons meeting goes.

The Knex has gone down really well, although of course we now have 3 sets of it and Moo can’t mix them up to do bigger projects because it has to stay in its rightful set… sigh…. Fran played with her very small set all evening which i was pleased about.