Happy New Year

Hi, and welcome to 2008 in our house!

How was Christmas/the festive season for you?

We've discovered that William is gluten sensitive (for his behaviour) and Samuel has also gone into almost permanent meltdown, between the increase of gluten, the excitement, and the chocolate...

Christmas day ended ok, with a meal that (for once) timed out perfectly, with everything cooked to perfection (she says modestly) and gravy that The Campaign For Real Gravy would be proud of.

We all enjoyed the Doctor Who Christmas Special, by the way.

The presents seem to have gone down well. Definately not as many as last year but all things that they had either asked for, or we knew they'd enjoy.

Boxing Day was a quiet family day, which was very nice, with a nice cheshire crumble for dinner, using up some turkey.

The following day we had visitors in the evening for a "grown up" dinner. I took a risk with cooking a new starter and main course, which fortunately turned out brilliantly! Our guests brought a lemon meringue pie for desert and, sadly, this led to the concrete discovery that Jonathan is definately also sensitive to egg - as I had a horrendous night with him and he was in a lot of pain and discomfort :0(

During the day we did a bit of shopping, including a quick dash to sainsburys in the morning.

Friday, we had visitors from church (a family with three boys all under 4 including a baby a few weeks younger than Jonathan) for lunch, and then we went to David & Grace's in the evening. A very sociable day, but by the end I was quite stressed as the hyper state of Samuel and William was really getting to me.

Will seems to be getting "worse" in front of our eyes; I think it is mainly down to the season, the gluten and the chocolate (they got given some as gifts unfortunately, plus what we had chosen to give them, such as their daily choccie from the tree). However, he is definately further up the autistic scale than Samuel.

The boys chose to spend some of the money they got at Christmas, and at Matalan found a HUGE megablocks dragon set, reduced from £80 all the way down to £19.99! They were extremely pleased, and all three put in to it together. Joshua and Samuel then chose to buy some clothes - with their own money!

How old do I feel?! Joshua went off on his own in the shop, to the boys section, chose the clothes, tried them on, made his choice, then came to find us. A huge step; not only is he a boy (and not as into shopping as maybe a girl of his age) but this is a child who up until even a year ago was very "young" in some ways for his age, and not self aware at all. Now he has a sense of self, self image, his place in the world, and is reaching out and creating who he wants to be. Awesome stuff. Moving, exciting, scary, and challenging to watch.

On Sunday my long time friend Stan came for the afternoon, and that was a brilliant end to the year for me. He spent a lot of time with each of the boys too, including talking to them about wargaming, which I hope they might get into (certainly Joshua who I think would find it very stimulating and educational). He helped Joshua with some serious ideas for the board game he is creating, which is his project for the start of the year - he is going to get it to the point of being able to sell it, hopefully.

As long term readers know, I hate new year, and this year was no exception. However, we had been invited out (for once!) and went around to a pleasant, relaxing drink and nibbles to a lady from church, then onto a more formal old style "do" at another place. Unfortunately not my thing *at all*, but I stayed for about an hour (the host had kindly made me my very own casserole to ensure my portion was dairy/soya/egg free!) then took the boys home (at around 9.45). Roarke just managed to get home before midnight (or the door would have been locked!) so that helped.

The boys all agreed that, as from today, they are starting to introduce a bit of routine to the start of the day. Just to set them up, they will do their chores after breakfast, then a minimum of 15 minutes of *formal* learning, before heading off to do their own thing.

Autonomy really is the only route for my lads, especially with the aspergers, as I don't see how curriculum can work, nor how you MAKE an aspie do anything! However, likewise, having no routine as a family has obviously become an unstabling influence on the boys. As it isn't our house, I don't feel I have the same control/influence over the household, and so the natural rhythm of any housework etc doesn't even fit. The conscious choice to do stuff first thing, regularly, hopefully will help us all.

Certainly today Samuel did 20 minutes of times table work (he chose maths as his "has to" subject as that is what he has to have for his business empire to be a success), Joshua worked on his project (the board game) and William revised the reading books, with his Nan.

Can't remember if I wrote this before, but Jonathan is now crawling, as well as sitting up well on his own, and has also now started to take both finger food and purees, though still only tiny amounts. He has, though, refused to drink the amino acid baby formula (and having tasted it, I don't blame him) so it looks like breastfeedign will be continuing still (despite him starting to bite!).