A few highlights

Hmm, these gaps in posting are getting longer... Really need to find the mental space to blog. Its not just something that I find restful, but also a good way of recording our family life - and not just the home ed.

I was a diarist as a girl/young teenager; I wonder if other bloggers were? Is it a prerequisit of being into blogging?

As always when you leave it too long, it makes it harder to remember what you've done, and in what order. So, in no particular order, here are the bits I remember!

Joshua working through some learning connected to rivers, using the River Dane (near where we stayed) as a focus, courtesy of this site.

The boys rediscovering Neopets, and finally giving into William's request (of the past 2 years!) to make him a Neopet. So meet Loven_Wills! (er, and yes, I have a Neopet too!).

Meeting with the group up at the park, where us parents all sat and had a jolly good natter, and put the world to rights. I really find the support and friendships of other HE families to be one of the most remarkable, and rewarding aspects of HE versus school.

Visiting some HE friends, as I try to catch up on long-postponed visits.

Not exactly a highlight, but handing over the courtesy car and now being without whole-family transport, was certainly a milestone day..

Roarke got awarded a brilliant contract, with a major US company, now in the UK, which came about by him seizing a moment and taking a chance to risk a conversation to "sell" himself with someone he met in a totally different context. Early days, but as/when it is all signed and sealed, I'm sure I'll have something here to say about it :0)

Up at High Elms park today, with another HE friend and her son, and watching the boys playing totally unfettered, unguided and unguarded, for 2 hours. They pottered around the park, found flint-type stones and made arrows, wittled wood, made walking sticks, and played a "hunter gather" kind of game. Fabulous.

Getting our free British Gas green pack, and listening to William asking Joshua to read through all the "trump" cards and explain what each of the green initiatives meant..

Seeing the number of responses to the HE consultation break the 300 barrier... lets hope its got much further to go. Feel free to post comments here with your response number, if yours is higher than that, as we are trying to keep a track of the rising numbers.

Jonathan continuing with his 1 1/2 ounces a day weight gain, and having grown 4 cm in 5 weeks, now starting to grow out of his 0-3 babygrows!

Crumbs, there has been so much more, and so much more that the boys have been doing. I've heard Joshua repeatedly saying to William that he needs to learn to read to be able to do things "like us"; I'm hoping his encouragement might have an effect! He seems to instinctively realise that all the time he keeps reading things FOR William, he (William) won't make an effort for himself!

Talking of William, seriously seriously thinking that he too is an aspie. I know I've mentioned it before and always end up thinking its just learned behaviour... but there are more and more things adding up.

When we found out that Samuel had Aspergers, we looked back and felt such failures as parents for not knowing, and therefore expecting things of Samuel that he had been able to deliver - and often either blaming him (as "naughty") or ourselves (as failing to be "good" parents) when we'd had problems. We felt that, if we'd known, it would have been different.

So I'm so concerned to miss anything - but likewise don't want to generate an issue if there isn't one.

However, above and beyond things which could easily be copied behaviour, William is showing other signs. We've realised he is unable to recognise faces - relying on someone's hair colour, or if they wear glasses etc, as the sole means of identifying people (even to the point of thinking someone else is Nanny etc, when you'd think he'd know her face at least). He is also showing signs of repetitive speech, and flapping. Whilst it IS possible he's just picked this up from Samuel, he does it so much more recently, and I remember Samuel really having a noticable "change" around the age of five, and I know that Roarke's mum always said he changed overnight too at that age.. Anyone else noticed that age 5 was significant for their aspie?

He also has memory/retention issues, and on top of all this (which may not sound a lot, but it is from this end, trust me!), a biggie is smearing... taking place in the toilet (thank God, and not else where) which whilst small scale, is exactly what Samuel used to do.

Right, off now to catch up on some more emails, then to feed the little fellow. Hopefully, I'll get around to catching up on some blog reading, as well as this blog posting!