Long Time, No Write

Don't give up reading this! I know I haven't posted for ages, but things are really hectic.

I've had my visit from Bromley LA (voluntary) which, I have to say, went well.

We've managed to get out to visit some of the families in the HE group, with whom we are building friendships.

We've managed to get NEARLY all of our Christmas shopping done.

We have turned around 700 catalogues in our door to door round, with the help of the boys.

I've been doing a lot more gluten free baking, including for our family, Christmas meal around at my brother's yesterday, which was really lovely.

I'm now almost 16 weeks pregnant!

Our home education has continued, with the usual mixture of Class TV, documentaries, interactive websites, conversations during car journeys, observations and questions.

We had a go at home made Christmas cards (and I managed not to interfer!) and the boys made some beautiful ones.

Joshua took part in our church's "nativity" play on Sunday, which was really good fun.

We've also feel that we are making more progress with Samuel's semantic/pragmatic disorder, as he is slowly showing signs of gaining more understanding of some of the language that we use regularly. We are also learning to remove as much idomatic language as possible from our day to day conversations around him.

I don't seem to have had a moment to rest, or a moment to think. That's probably, at a subconscious level, deliberate.

Christmas was always my Dad's special time. He was such a big kid at Christmas - we always arranged for him to get a letter from Santa and took him on the Santa Special - and it is not the same without him. I am finding it increasingly hard - even going to buy a card for Mum was impossible. I couldn't face the words on the "Dad" cards, or the fact that I was getting just for Mum, not "Mum & Dad". I may end up making one as I don't want to go into the shops again.

Even the Christmas shopping has been hard - I seem to see things everywhere that I would have bought for Dad...

On the subject of cards, apologies to anyone who should be getting one - another job I seem to be having trouble facing as I haven't written any yet...