Easter at school

Tom's Easter hat was part chick/part nest. I don't have a better photo of the finished product at this stage but like this one because he looks so pleased with himself. We used one of my summer caps, the rim is tight enough to stop it falling off but the top part is loose enough so that it doesn't disturb his "ears". The best thing is that he can put it on and take it off on his own. My cap is now covered in glue and chicks, eggs and beaks so I think it's safe to say that it's now Tom's dressing up hat!! I'm sure the Gap will bring out another range this summer.

I went to watch the Easter parade at his school and was really impressed. I hadn't told him I was going so he was a bit surprised and went very quiet. The teachers asked them to do various things such as "all the boys stand up and parade round to the music". The music was loud and I wondered how Tom would cope, he looked at the others and one of the teachers discretely went up to him and reiterated the instruction. He got up and walked round the sports hall with his friends with a big grin on his face. It was so great to see that he fits in so well at this stage is coping well, I know that the teaching and support staff at the school play a huge role in this. He is only just starting his education and Jason and I are novices in this but I think for his first setting Tom is in the right place. He gets treated like all the others, is developing social skills and the staff are really keen to make it work for him and they work with us to achieve this. So a thank you to James Peacock Nursery school.

Dressing up again

I am sitting in bed with Tom putting off getting up, we have to make an Easter hat for his school Easter parade. I have purchased a selection of Easter chicks, eggs and things to make a beak. I am struggling with how I'm going to attach all this to his head - my first thought was to attach it all to his woolly hat but that might be too hot, how will I do this without sending him to school with something that's going to knock his coils off his head?

I'll keep you posted....

The letter 'P'

Last week Tom's school did the letter 'P'.


P is for pancakes, popcorn and .......Pirate! He was so happy with himself. He was slightly taken aback when he got to school and the teachers were dressed up as pirates. He came home minus an eye patch and a telescope but he knows the letter 'P'.

Back to blogging and Tom's blue ears

I can't believe how long it has been since my last post. I have spent the last couple of weeks thinking that I must be a bad blogger because I don't make time to write. However...I've now decided that I am just adjusting to my new lifestyle which is less structured than my previous one and more Tom filled - which is great but I have less time at a pc.

Quick Nursery update
Tom makes me so proud, he is doing so well and is such a little character. He has been at his nursery school for about 4 weeks now and loves it. He still doesn't tell me what he does in much detail (or any detail actually) which I am now getting used to, our daily conversation goes like this - Me: "What did you do today" Tom: "I was at school" Me: "what did you do" Tom: "I played" Me:"What did you play with?" Tom: "Cars". Tom always plays with cars, thinks about cars, probably dreams about cars and imagines that he is playing with them when he isn't so what did he actually do at nursery?

Talking about ears
He is becoming more aware of his implants and talks about them, I have taken this cue to talk to him about them. For a while Jason and I have talked about how we will explain to him what happened to him and we have decided that we will just talk to him casually about it from a young age so that it's not a big deal. Last week we went to a soft play area which is a bit of cochlear implant nightmare in terms of avoiding static (static can wipe the programming on the external parts of the implant). There are ball pits and plastic slides everywhere. I asked him if he would take off one of his 'ears' and he said he didn't want to. I said ok but don't go down the slides. He really wanted to go down the slide but he wanted to go with me so I thought 'Ok, he's got to live a little and his friend Chloe is going down so I don't want him to be left out'. We went down the slide and I was scared - it's a massive tube, very steep and dark, hot and stinky - lovely. The worst part is that I got a big electric shock and wasn't even going down very fast. On the way home I talked to him about it and said that next time we go there he has to take his processors off if he goes down the slide. I tried to explain why in 3 year old speak "if you go down the slide with your ears on they could break them and we'd have to go to see Tracy (his audiologist) to fix them". I explained that he had very special ears and sometimes we need to take extra care to look after them. He said that Joe (his friend) goes down the slide without ears, he thought about this and then said "Joe can't hear his mummy". I had to try and explain that Joe uses his different ears to hear and that he doesn't have the special ears that are blue (Tom's coils are blue) so can hear without blue ears. I went on to say that Tom has special blue ears because his other ears were damaged and broke when he was a baby. He was then given a new pair of blue ears to hear with. You have to understand that this is all new territory to me, I had (and still have) no idea what to say without permanently damaging him emotionally, and that by this point my heart was breaking and I wanted to go home, go to bed, hide under the duvet and cry. Tom was in the back of the car, he was looking out the window and squealed "mummy a lorry, it's red just like Mack (from the film cars), look it's big". Hopefully no damage done this time.

First day at nursery

I am sitting here twiddling my thumbs because I've just left Tom at Nursery school for the first time. He is used to be away from me at his childminder's but this seems like a much bigger step. He starts properly next Wednesday but they wanted him to come in for a session when it was quieter (before all the rest of new intake starts). We met his Special needs assistant, she will be there for his full 2 and a half hour session but focusing on him for the first half hour spending the rest of the time with another child with special needs. The first half hour is when they tell the children the plan for the afternoon so for Tom I feel that it could be a good arrangement. We don't want him to have a one to one set up because we want him to be independent, he does however struggle in noise so knowing the plan will help. But then maybe it would be better to have more than half an hour? I don't know I guess we need to see how he does.

Anyway in the meantime I just want to know how he has got on this afternoon, he was soooo excited about going I just hope the reality of nursery school has lived up to his expectations.

Excitement levels rising

Tom loves christmas. He keeps saying "we are getting ready for xmas", he has been waking up earlier than we'd like so I'm hoping that after December 25th he will go back to his long lies.

It's just as well he is so happy and excited as we haven't had the best week. I don't want to go into detail tonight but a combination of implant funding battles being lost and family members going through a terrible time are making things a bit hard. Thank goodness for Tom and his xmas spirit. I have to say that I have learnt a couple of mummy lessons on the xmas front.

First -Read the party invitation properly
We went to our first CICS Xmas party and it was fab. However we did get there a teeny bit late and were the last to arrive, when we walked into the room I noticed that all the other children were dressed up. There were fairies, policemen, santas etc... and then Tom dressed in normal clothes. I thought he would be too young to notice but he said to me "they are all dressed up". My heart sank - poor little chap is going to feel like the odd one out - anyway he didn't dwell on it. His comment was had the same tone as "it's raining today" and thankfully no further comment was made.

Second - hide the presents well
Tom has been asking for a garage and a mini for a few weeks now. His previous garage broke and was thrown away, he accepted this but when he realised that Santa brought presents he started hinting that he'd like a garage and a mini. I scoped out the garages on offer and bought him one that looks like it will last (he loves his cars). I hid it in our spare bedroom which is in the loft thinking that he never goes there. His friend Franky came over to play and they went exploring in the spare bedroom (a.k.a known as Dave's room, Dave is my brother who Tom adores). Tom came running downstairs and had the happiest look on his face "there's a garage up there, in Dave's room, Mummy come and look". Oh noooo, I looked at Frankie's mum in a panic, she advised that I say it's someone else's so I did but I couldn't think whose it might be. Tom's face dropped a bit and then he said "It's Dave's". Phew, so I have since told him that I posted it to Dave. He seems to have accepted all this.

Smart boy stupid parents

I know I'm biased but my son is very smart. He does however struggle with getting his stupid parents to understand simple things so has to find ways of explaining things to them. He often has to break down information into bite size pieces so that we are clear about his needs. Yesterday he had us in stitches when he did this. He has been testing his boundaries recently and getting him dressed can often be a battle. He finds a million and one things to do that are far more interesting than getting dressed, he is the king of distraction. It is tricky because at some points during getting dressed/undressed he doesn't have his implants on and so then communication can break down. I wonder if I let him get away with things that I wouldn't normally because of this. Anyway I ended up losing my patience realizing that I was being taken for a fool and so I put him on the naughty step. We have only just introduced the naughty step and usually the threat of a spell on the naughty step gets him to comply. Yesterday it didn't!! I put him on the step and went to talk to Jason who was working (trying to work) in his office.

We could hear Tom shouting and having a full on tantrum. Then he stopped and started saying "I want to get off the step" followed by more shouting...followed by silence then "I want to get off the step" (he could get off the step at any point but he is inherently a good boy so stays on it until we say he can get off). Then more silence whilst he realizes that his parents are clearly not understanding what he wants so how to explain it them? ..hmmm... then "I want to get my bottom off the step" ...silence..."I want to get my bottom off the step and walk it to the bathroom".."my bottom doesn't want to be on the step mummy"

What do you say to that? I had a good chat with him about why he was on the step then we got on with our day.

Needless to say this morning he got dressed without any problems.