Mothers Day Thoughts

Mothers Day has been a nice day, spent with my lovely daughters and husband. I wish my own Mum lived nearer as I miss her, but I'm very thankful that I still have her, and I so appreciate all her advice, support, care and love. I hope my own girls will always love me that much too. It's a difficult day for many who no longer have that support, and my love goes out to all of them too. I wish I could hug them all, but I'll have to make do with sending virtual hugs.

I've always so much I want to blog about, but so little time to do it - not least because the computer is one of the most interesting toys in the house, so whilst little girls are awake I rarely have first call on it! Sasha has only just gone to bed; after crying and begging to be allowed back down to watch TV when we took her up at bedtime I actually gave in and so she quietly watched the requested Angelina DVD. Sure most parents would think me crazy giving in, but the thing is that she is normally SO good at bedtime that I see it as a reward for good behaviour rather than bad (or at least that's how I kid myself!!). I was happy that she came to me at the end of the DVD and say she was ready for bed - not something Tamsin would ever do!! Of course there's always the slight fear that she will want to repeat the behaviour, but it hasn't really happened yet (I'm frantically grabbing at wood now...).

It is difficult to explain why we need to be flexible to other mums, and I only really understand why they're unlikely to understand because the parenting style has to be so different between Tamsin and Sasha. It's a juggling act, and I'll admit we don't always keep all the balls in the air. I have somehow become fairly good at my circus skills though....

Little things make Sasha happy, and that makes me happy too - like today, after watching the highly entertaining 'Mr.Bloom's Nursery' (dare I say it, VERY weird crush alert...!), Sasha was desperate for a pair of 'deelyboppers' (if you have no idea what I'm talking about click here for a great website I've just found!) just like Margaret (the cabbage) wears in one particular episode. She knew of course that we had such a pair - what we didn't know was where they were, having not been used for months. Mummy struck rich though in the depths of the dressing up box, and it was worth the extra effort to see the smile on her face. I only wish I'd taken a photo to share with you. In fact she has gone to bed grasping said deelyboppers and I'll have to sneak in later to retrieve and make sure she doesn't injure herself on them during the night!!

So a quick Statement update - we did in fact receive the paperwork in the post saying Sasha now has the SEN Statement of Special Educational Needs. In reality this is a big long list of what the classroom teacher needs to do to help Sasha specifically - how she will actually find all this extra time when she has 29 other children to manage, I really don't know. But obviously Sasha has to be my main concern, and there are pointers in there which should help ensure everything goes smoothly - if they are followed. We are extremely lucky to have found a good school, where she already attends nursery, and I just have my fingers tightly crossed for everything to go right for Sasha in September. We'll see. The statement gets reviewed every 6 months under 5 years old, and then once a year after that, so there's not much rest from all the paperwork for us just yet.

A bit non-parents may not want to read now :)
Happy news for us - Sasha has agreed to put big girl knickers on for about 4 of the last 6 days or so! Not for a whole day, just a few hours per day at most, but it's a start. Considering her complete anti-knickers and anti-toilet stance which is why we've held off toilet training, I'm pleased we're getting somewhere. It did mean however that I spent 2 hours of Mothers Day on potty alert (i.e. following her round with the potty, and watching her like a hawk, with no result), and in the end as we needed to go out, we went back to the nappy (as she wouldn't go otherwise) - and then of course she promptly did a huge wee in it! We've had 2 accidents during the knicker-wearing time, one of which included a 'number 2'; that surprised her somewhat! However as I think she has been worried about the 'poo in knickers' situation, at least it helped her to see that it's no big issue. It's only a small step, which I know most other mums would not think worth celebrating at the age of nearly 4, but to me it is a huge step forward. I'll keep you updated on any progress, I'm sure you'll be delighted by that ;)