Friday 12 September 2014

Facial Expression Battles

School started back on Tuesday and to say I was dreading it was an understatement. Boy Wonder wasn't ready to go back and nothing further had been sorted out about his support at school, so in affect they weren't ready either.

The arrival at school went okay as although Boy Wonder was verbalising that he didn't want to be there, seeing his football buddies gave him a welcome distraction. I spoke with the TA about key holiday things, in particular the medication not being increased due to his weight loss of a further 1kg and the need for a supplement drink during the morning. I also spoke with both teachers about the burglary just in case either child mentioned in their 'What did I do in the holidays' work, making it very clear that it is done and dealt with and everything is okay.

I went off to work and spent a few hours doing the prep for the interviews ( for my job) as I have chosen to leave this role and work less hours as a consultant. As with many parents of disabled children, there becomes a time when you have to make that decision and for us it was when the hours spent in hospitals and education meetings started to out way the hours spent working. It effectively makes you unemployable which means that only two options remain - stop work altogether or work for myself part time with flexible working hours. I opted for the latter.

I parked on the school car park on pick up and walked into the playground. Boy Wonder came out as I was trying to get Cat Girl ( it is very busy in the first week due to the new reception children.) He started to run off and become very excitable, throwing things around. His teacher and I stopped him and she took him back into the classroom to get his weighted jacket and to try and calm him whilst I got Cat Girl. It took ten minutes to get her from the classroom, but once collected we met Boy Wonder and attempted to leave the playground. At this point he started to shout, throw himself to the floor saying that I was hurting him. The new Head teacher stood and watched with a look of shock on her face. Boy Wonder interpreted this as a cross look so reacted by shouting at her that he was a bad boy and to stop looking at him. We eventually got to the car, followed out by the TA and after a lot of thrashing about in the car he finally sat down. I explained to her that Boy Wonder's confusion with the new Head's facial expression and she said that she would do some work on facial expressions with him. It's so easy to forget that Boy Wonder is shockingly poor at correctly reading facial expressions in new people.

This evening we travelled to London with Boy Genius and family. They had been invited to Prime Minister's Question Time and asked us to join them. We arrived at the hotel and joined them for dinner in the restaurant. Both Boy Wonder and Boy Genius seemed to be still reeling from their first day back at school so moods were erratic and unstable. We did have a good waiter however, who gave us a quiet spot in the restaurant and was very good with the kids.  After dinner we took them back to the rooms to settle down. I settled Boy Wonder down by tickling his back and firm hold which took about an hour but eventually he fell to sleep. He looked exhausted!

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