Winding down.

We all seem to be saying the same thing (well okay not all but quite a few!) – that somehow the summer is rushing by and we are tiring our kids out with all the social life!

I thought my girls and Big and Small did very well; it was a largely successful meeting, mine are very pleased to see them (and naturally me Jax too!) and Maddy particularly seems to have really enjoyed the opportunity to have had someone “who is 4 like me” to play instead of the focus being on having company for Fran. I have to remember that i have to “sell” HE to her now over the next year really, like i had to for Fran at the end of playgroup. At the moment Maddy is actively looking forward to going back to nursery; i’m not hurt but i am wary. There isn’t a school in the area i would be prepared to send her to, nor would i do it while we aren’t settled in our “own” home in case we had to move schools for her but she has to want to be HE’d too, even if the option isn’t exactly open to choose school, i don’t want her to feel HE’s been inflicted on her. Still, a great deal changed for Fran over the last year of playgroup and she was nowhere as able as Maddy is; if Maddy was starting Reception in 2 weeks she would be bored already to be honest. She has spent the week doing mental maths and working out patterns on her fingers, her reading is as good as Fran’s was less than 2 months ago (and frankly its only that i am deliberately letting Fran get ahead that means Moo isn’t even better, if she was my only one she would be reading by now i think) and her understanding of “topic type” things is really blooming.

It makes me shiver to think that i could have spent this summer dreading that she was about to start full time Reception in a couple of weeks; where she academically able she is not socially able unless its reasonably carefully managed. Jax and i were talking about her last night, and how little of the typical autism/social behaviour she tends to show but it occurred to me today that basically its only because i am stage managing it all from the wings for her that she manages. I doubt Maddy would psychologically last 5 minutes in a classroom with no special help. She needs someone with her all the time for most of her nursery day apparently. Its one thing to have people around you who are tolerant and mummy downstairs, when you have been prepared for what is going to happen and you don’t go if you are over tired or wobbly – its a bit different to have to go all day every day regardless. The first morning at Jan’s illustrated to me very clearly something i had almost forgotten was an issue.

Anyway, today was, beyond the departure of the Big-and-Smalls, nothing very much. I fell asleep at least twice more, everyone watched Lilo and Stitch, Maddy and Ammi played with Leap-pads and Maddy had a long solitary game outside with sand and water, where she cunningly worked out that a clever way of extracting a thin toy from a rabbit water bottle was to fill said bottle with water so it poured out more easily. I feel engineering coming on here… We managed not to lose an escapee rabbit and Fran played for a long time with a set of cuddly Bugs Life toys i had successfully hidden for quite a while! Hm. Everyone also played with the Happy Street for the first time in i don’t know how long.

Ended up with Fran reading 2 Bob books to me; this is all happening very quickly now. I can see that very soon she isn’t going to need much more from me. She has a pretty solid (if occasionally a bit ill applied!) grasp of phonics now so i would think that its more a case of starting to learn some of the look-see words and gaining confidence. The last four books in A2 have nothing new in them so i am planning to do all of those in the next day or so really, i can’t see it being an issue and then starting B1 with a few Flying Boot books thrown in for flavour. She is just sounding out words all over the place now – today it has been “meercat” “toot toot” and “office” from the television, most of which she then sat down and wrote out surprisingly nicely. Maddy is also showing much more interest in letters and writing them too. All in all i feel that my choices over the last few weeks have been utterly vindicated by all this, its a great feeling for all of us.

At bedtime Fran asked for the story of Noah’s Ark so i read it to them and then read the first tale in the “Tales from the Ark” book i picked up recently too. It was very funny and made us all giggle lots! I’m not sure what old Miss Mason would say about it but it brought the story of Noah to life, so i think that counts really.

**”Frankly” count… just one!**