Productive day :-)

I didn't think today was starting well, when at 9am I tried to contact either Boss Lady or Admin at our LA - neither were available as Panel were sitting today!! Its just the way my luck runs really!! Was feeling quite bummed out about it and decided to keep busy and get on with lots of other jobs round the house to keep busy and diustracted - it worked :-) I eventually got to speak to Admin in the late afternoon, and by then she had already read and acted on the email I'd forwarded from the DfES - very impressive. Even more impressive when you consider how slow my LA usually works!! The offending letter was already in the hands of the secretary to the ADM, and Admin said she is confident she will have the revised version by Wednesday afternoon when I take our completed medical forms to the offices. YEAH :-) She will then get everything sent straight back to the DfES and hopefully our papers can start their merry journey to China again - with no mistakes this time PLEASE!!!

Little Miss Sensible has been looking in more detail at her two favourite options for volunteering in India and is leaning more towards the smaller (one man band) organisation rather than the slick bigger one. The only trouble is, she has found out her holidays from University probably aren't long enough - volunteers are asked to commit to 4 weeks in India and her hols are only 3 weeks long!! She is waiting to hear from both organisations whether they would allow her to do a 3 week placement. She is also talking about going over there in the Christmas break - so she would be away from home and family, for the first time in her life, over Christmas. I'm not sure how either she or the rest of us will cope with that!!

One of Drama Teen's teachers rang this evening to let us know that she is being put forward for a place in NAGTY (National Association for Gifted and Talented Youth). Little Miss Sensible is already a member, and Drama Teen is overjoyed to be able to follow in her footsteps. It has given her a HUGE confidence boost, which is great, as her outward confidence is only a thin veneer over a lot of anxieties. She is also planning to take part in a 26 MILE walk with friends over the Summer to raise money for charity! I did point out that she complains bitterly about the school sponsered walk that is 1/5th the distance!!! We will see....

Following advice from the OASIS conference on Saturday, I gave Little Prince another 'transitional object' (we already have a comfort blankie - well actually we have several as it does occassionally NEED washing!). The advice was to find an object he could 100% associate with me, as he had his blankie while he lived with his foster carer, so he doesn't totally associate that with me, even though he finds it extremely comforting!! I was told NOT to take blankie (or blimDAR as he is currently known!! His own emphasis!!) away, or try to replace it - but introduce the new object as an extra. Anyway, he finds it very funny when I call him my bunny rabbit (among many, many pet names, this seems to be the one that appeals to him most) - so I chose a small cuddly bunny rabbit (definitely portable lol)!! I explained to him that I was giving it to him to remind him he was mummy's bunny rabbit - and that every time he looked at it he could think of mummy. He insisted on carrying it in his hand to nursery, blankie was placed in his book bag as usual - and he was still carrying it when he came out of nursery!! He also went to sleep with bunny on his pillow, as well as blankie in his hand and sucking his thumb, as normal. He is SO going to hate me for writing all this when he is older!! Hopefully this will help alleviate the last vestiges of his insecure attachment and help him feel more stable and calm when things get a bit overwhelming.

The other thing we are working on is his 'pincer grip' he still holds his pencils/crayons/paint brushes in a 'fist' grip and his nursery teacher has advised us to try to encourage him to use the pincer grip instead. Last week he was very resistant, but today he tried really hard and was getting there :-) Teacher has also given us a triangular shaped gripper that slips over pencils to help him learn the correct grip, this is one of her own from home, while we wait for the one she would really like him to have, which is soft mouldable plastic and apparently feels nicer. But school have only just noticed they haven't got any spares so they are on order at the moment.

Well its getting ridiculously late and I meant to go to bed hours ago, when I'd finished emailing my friends. But I couldn't resist a quick check of my fave websites and then realised I hadn't blogged today. Night night everyone, sleep tight :-)