Communication Difficulties: Update

Over the lifetime of my blog I have talked about Little Bear’s communication difficulties quite a bit: first of all in Living with Speech and Language Difficulties then later in A bit of a rant, Another try at SaLT and SaLT, EP & an Assembly. In the most recent posts I have focussed on our quest for formal speech and language therapy rather than Little Bear’s communication needs per se. As therapy has been going pretty well, I thought it was time for a look back at the development of Little Bear’s communication and how priorities have changed over time.

When Little Bear first arrived his primary communication need was to develop his listening and attention skills. Little Bear simply wasn’t tuned in to language – he ignored it in pretty much the same way you would ignore background noise. He didn’t see the point of it and sadly I don’t really think he thought it bore any relevance to him. Little Bear’s listening skills were poor which impacted on his ability to understand language and on our ability to get him to co-operate.

I can remember wandering around a beach with him during Introductions. In my typical SaLT fashion I talked to him as we wandered. I pointed things out and named what we saw. Little Bear found this completely alien and tried to shrug me off like a nuisance insect. I think he even took to shushing me. Equally he did not respond to his name or any other command. Getting him to behave and keeping him safe was incredibly difficult without the use of language.

Over time we worked on this, mainly by keeping listening fun to start with – lots of drawing his attention to passing noisy things such as aeroplanes or dogs or sirens. I definitely found that in order to engage Little Bear with listening, we had to start with non-language tasks. We were probably quite silly and playful too, which helped.

As Little Bear’s listening skills improved a bit, we were able to work on his comprehension at the same time. Probably as a result of the listening and attention issues, Little Bear’s understanding of language was certainly delayed for his age. We noticed that he often said “what?” and needed us to repeat things for him, sometimes several times. We all reduced our language from the beginning to help him understand as there was a clear pattern that the more complex the vocabulary or the longer the instruction/ explanation the more Little Bear struggled.

Little Bear’s vocabulary was very poor for a 3 and a half year old so we did lots and lots of modelling which has developed both his understanding and his expressive language. I think if I had to pick one strategy that has been the most effective I would say modelling. There are several reasons. Firstly you don’t need any equipment to model language – you can do it anywhere and completely spontaneously which makes it very practical within busy family life. You can easily work to your child’s level – either just modelling back their sentence without errors or by adding in an extra word to extend their sentence length. I would often have a couple of targets in mind at any one time e.g. for Little Bear to understand the concepts of same/different, so would model those concepts each time an opportunity arose in play or just when out and about.

You can use modelling to develop any aspect of communication – initially I used it mostly for vocabulary and sentence building. I have moved on to using it for grammar and speech sound accuracy. I don’t think I would have predicted that it would be as effective as it has been: Little Bear’s progress has been huge. The great thing is that it is a very positive approach and at no point has it felt like I’ve been nagging or correcting Little Bear. In fact he got so used to me using the strategy that if I didn’t model back his sentence after him he thought I wasn’t listening properly and would repeat himself until I did! This is in stark contrast to the boy who didn’t want me to talk to him at the beach.

Little Bear’s comprehension is now patchy on formal assessment. His understanding of basic concepts such as hot/cold, first/last, same/different is within the expected range. His understanding of different sentence types is at the low end of average and his understanding of complex sentences continues to be below expectations. However, in everyday life we have noticed leaps of progress.

I recall one day driving past some electrical cables that had come down in a storm. My natural instinct was to point them out and tell Little Bear about them but I remember stopping myself because I knew that he had no idea what electricity was and I wouldn’t be able to find a way to explain it that he would be able to follow. These days his wider understanding of life is growing all the time. I recently mentioned London in passing and he said “they had a nasty fire there, people died” and another time we were looking at a map and I said “that country is America” and Little Bear piped up “is that where Dobald (Donald) Trump is building his wall?”. He is full of surprises these days and it’s brilliant to see his understanding of complex concepts developing all the time.

Little Bear’s ability to express himself on arrival was also poor. I remember him saying “you came back” on the second day of Intros and this being quite a momentous sentence. On the third day he said “you came back again” which was poignant and sad and lots of things but also the longest sentence I heard him say for a while afterwards.

I don’t think it is any coincidence that Little Bear’s behaviour was as it was. His lack of ability to ask questions, negotiate, explain himself and talk himself out of situations certainly lead to a high level of frustration and anger and the unavoidable need for some very expressive behaviour.

For a long time Little Bear expressed himself through pointing and enthusiastic use of “that”. He had some stock sentences that all followed the same structure: I go running, I go playing, I go sleeping. He used the words he did have creatively to get his points across e.g.“bik” (big) meant lots, tall, deep, full, massive.

Little Bear’s expressive language now comes out as being within the expected range on the Renfrew Action Picture Test. I don’t honestly think this is an entirely accurate representation of his abilities but he does use lengthy compound sentences and I have noticed that being able to do so has helped him in many ways. Just today he had his IPad in the car and I heard a crash as though he had thrown it on the floor. “Did you throw that?” I asked him, “No Mum, I tried to put it on the seat but you went too fast and it slipped on the floor”. I have no idea if this was true but I had to credit him with the good explanation. Previously I might have wrongly assumed he had chucked it and he might have got into trouble and not been able to defend himself. Having improved language skills has definitely helped with behaviour in more ways than one.

A big indicator of Little Bear’s progress with his speech and language skills is that now he is having formal SaLT our agreed priority is his speech sound system. It is generally agreed that language should be the main priority with speech being more of a secondary skill. Our decision to focus on his speech is due to his language skills being good enough and his speech now being the biggest barrier to his communication. It is funny how priorities have changed.

Little Bear’s speech was pretty much unintelligible at the start. Then we tuned in and as he didn’t have many words it didn’t take long for us to be able to translate. That was all well and good until his vocabulary sky rocketed and then we were back to having no idea what he was trying to say again.

Using mainly the modelling strategy we have targeted voiced/ voiceless confusion (“beas” for ‘peas’), articulation of ‘l’ (there was a little more than modelling involved in that one but not much), production of l clusters (pl, cl, sl, fl etc) and some random inconsistent/ storage errors e.g. “gog” for ‘dog’, “nogat” for ‘yoghurt’, “mu-ey” for ‘money’, “di” for ‘dummy’ etc. However, despite all that, at the start of SALT, Little Bear was still fairly unintelligible to the therapist at the age of 4 and a half. It transpired that his vowels were jumbled which was resulting in very unusual sounding speech – his teacher had even asked me if he was foreign.

At this point, although I am a SALT and had worked on lots of aspects of Little Bear’s communication myself, I was glad and relieved to have another therapist on board. Vowels are complex, they are in all words and I couldn’t really see the wood for the trees. I was pleased to have somebody to defer to for clinical decision making. She didn’t really know where to start either so after identifying which vowels were going wrong, we pretty much just plumped for one to have a go at. It was ‘eye’ as in pie, pipe, kite, nine, five etc (for non-SaLTs think about how they sound, not how they are spelled). It turned out that Little Bear could make this sound and he could say it correctly after a consonant e.g. pie but as soon as a consonant was added after it (pipe) the vowel distorted. In this example it became “pap”. Little Bear could hear the difference between pipe and pap which helped.

Once we had figured this out and done one session of therapy, Little Bear had cracked it and was spontaneously generalising the sound. We were both unprepared for it to be that quick. I was also surprised by how often that vowel crops up in English and therefore what a difference working on it made to his intelligibility.

We have since worked on ‘ow’ as in house, mouse, brown which were coming out as has, mas, bran. Little Bear acquired ‘ow’ in much the same way as ‘eye’. We then tried ‘err’ for no particular reason other than because it was another he couldn’t say but for some reason that one just isn’t coming so we have switched to ‘ay’ as in pay, plate, eight. Little Bear can say it in words but is not generalising it as yet. I am now getting a bit tangled up with which vowels I need to model for him!

The formal therapy is pretty good though it is not completely plain-sailing.

I had thought it would be helpful for me to keep in touch with the therapist via e-mail between appointments so I could keep her updated and take away the need for her to change her session plan on our arrival – this happens most weeks due to Little Bear’s unexpected/erratic rate of progress. However, apparently this would be against policy which seems odd to me. I frequently used to use e-mail to keep in touch with parents and think this is a missed opportunity.

Also, it turns out that Little Bear is now entitled to therapy in school because he has top-up funding. However as his speech requires specialist input from a therapist only, he has been deemed more appropriate for clinic therapy. I suggested that maybe the funding could be used to train school staff to work on his language targets alongside this. Apparently it cannot be done because the school team and the clinic team are separate and you cannot be on two lists at the same time. Whilst I get this, I can’t help feeling frustrated at the lack of flexibility and feeling a little like he’s missing out on his entitlement. A system with two rigid lists does not have children and their individual needs at the centre of it.

Either way, Little Bear continues to make fabulous progress and for that I am extremely thankful.

Schools Out

For the past fortnight the Bears’ school has been in transition, with each class getting settled in their new classroom and with their new teacher. Things seem to have gone fairly smoothly but I checked in with Little Bear’s teacher yesterday, just to be sure.

I wrote a few weeks ago in Support about school (and us) having secured funding top-up funding for Little Bear. I have recently found out that the school have been able to advertise for a TA and that they have employed somebody and this person will provide Little Bear with 20 hours of support per week. Obviously this is great. They will work from 8:30 am so will be able to greet him and will finish at 12:30 meaning he gets support for some of his lunch time – a flashpoint when things often go awry. He will have 1:1 or small group support available for all his core subjects.

I’m very pleased about this.

Things are never perfect though and there are a couple of little niggles at the back of my mind. Firstly I didn’t expect the TA to be anybody that I knew. It turns out she is a parent of children in the same school. I don’t know her but I know of her as she has previously volunteered in the school, in fact in Big Bear’s class. She used to hear them read and was quite infamous amongst the parents for making slightly judgemental comments in their take home books.

I have noticed that if you smile at her she tends to look the other way.

I feel a little uncomfortable that she is a parent too and that she is going to know lots of things about Little Bear’s background and his behaviour and his learning needs. I have to assume that she is a consummate professional.

I am going to need her to start speaking to me though because I consider there to be a team around Little Bear, consisting at the moment of the teacher and myself & Grizzly, and Mrs. C will soon be an integral part of that. We will need to work closely together and will need to be consistent in our approaches. I am trying to keep an open mind and am hoping that we can achieve the partnership that I’m aiming for.

Little Bear’s teacher and I have agreed to let Mrs C settle in and get to know Little Bear and then for us to have a meeting in maybe the third week. This will help us all get up to speed and hopefully signal the start of a good working relationship.

Unfortunately Mrs C has been tied up in her old contract and has not been able to meet Little Bear during his transition weeks. The school have provided a different TA for the interim. Little Bear has bonded with her well and has been happy to work with her. His teacher and TA have been impressed with what he has been able to achieve with support. He has concentrated well and been co-operative.

There is an obvious risk that the inconsistency of returning to a different TA could throw Little Bear. There is a risk that he may not bond with her as easily and may not be as keen to work with her. I hope this is not the case and it is just my natural tendency to think of all the things that could possibly go wrong talking. I am keeping everything crossed that Mrs C’s firm approach will be ideal for him and that he will work with her quite happily.

My chat with the teacher also revealed that whilst things are going pretty swimmingly in the mornings, the afternoons are a different story. Little Bear does not have support in the afternoons. He seems to be doing ok with accessing the carpet time plenary session but when the children are meant to be doing some independent recording it sounds as though he is doing whatever he fancies. I can see why he would because he cannot do independent writing yet and it sounds as though he is struggling to occupy himself with something constructive and is tending to get into a bit of bother instead. The reduced supervision will be difficult because we know he has a tendency to lash out where verbal negotiation is needed and we also know that the other children have a tendency to purposefully push his buttons. With the best will in the world the teacher cannot see everything at once and it is quite a full on class. I can see why things are going belly-up.

It sounds as though the one thing that will occupy him is the IPad… I really don’t want him to spend every afternoon glued to a screen. Hmm.

Also, it seems as though Little Bear is not being particularly co-operative with things such as tidying up when asked. This is interesting because he generally will tidy things away if I ask him to at home. Ever the opportunist I suspect he is just doing what he can get away with. It is so important that we all handle situations like this in the same way otherwise Little Bear picks up on the inconsistency. When he detects that the boundaries aren’t particularly clear or firm I do think that his anxiety rises and his behaviour deteriorates.

My plan is to let the holidays happen and to send an e-mail ready for the start of term with some thoughts on things that might help. Perhaps it would be helpful to have a bank of activities that would occupy Little Bear when he can’t access the work – things that would provide him with a bit more variety and learning potential than the IPad alone. I’m also wondering about alternative recording options for him such as recordable switches and talking tins, until his writing has developed a bit more. I will need to be clear about how we manage it if Little Bear refuses to tidy up or turn the IPad off when asked.

It could be that afternoons without support are not ok but we’ll have to see how things go.

The conversation made me even more thankful that we got the funding that we did and made me shudder to think what things could have been like if Little Bear was trying to manage whole days without tailored support.

I need to forget about it all for now though: school’s out! I have no idea how a whole academic year has gone already. Time really does fly.

When I tucked Little Bear in tonight I told him how proud I am of him and how well he has done at school. I know it hasn’t been plain-sailing but overall I am very happy with how his first year has gone. He’s done brilliantly. Over the summer we can really focus on his speech and keep trucking with the reading and writing. I know school is out but the learning needs to continue. He’s pretty keen these days and we can easily weave lots of learning into the things he chooses to do.

So far I am feeling keen and enthusiastic for my task ahead but I think we should take bets as to how long I will last before I’m tearing my hair out and counting the days until term starts again!

 

 

Cabin Fever

Little Bear is poorly. He has been off school a day and a half already. We’re on the 3^rd day. He’s still off because I am adhering to the 48 hour rule. Grizzly is abroad with work and Big Bear is at school. Big Bear won’t be home until the evening because he has football and my parents are picking him up and giving him his tea.

Little Bear and I are having some Quality Time.

We’ve made an army of armoured snakes from clay. He’s helped me put two washes on. We’ve checked whether the new pond is ready for the fish yet. It isn’t. We’ve checked on the fish and fed them. We’ve played Hide and Seek. I’ve tried to teach Little Bear that he shouldn’t tell me or show me where he’s going to hide. He should wait until my eyes are closed then hide somewhere I won’t find him easily. He keeps hiding where I can see him. I don’t think he’s quite getting it. We’ve played Lego Ninjago and Power Rangers. We’ve tried to count to 20 in the right order a lot of times. We’ve made two Hama Bead creations.

Little Bear is tired. He needs to lie on the sofa. He chooses a TV programme. He wants me to sit with him. I want to tidy the kitchen and hang the washing out. I sit with him. It’s nice to cuddle him. I pick up my book. He tries to shut it. He wants me to watch the programme too. I don’t want to watch Power Rangers again. I sneakily read the book and try to ohh and ahh in the right places.

Little Bear is engrossed. I will try to do some jobs now as the house is a tip. As I have left the sofa Little Bear is no longer engrossed. He is following me around. I get back on the sofa: the jobs will need to wait.

Little Bear is increasingly unsettled. He can’t keep still. He wants a different programme every two minutes. We turn the TV off and try to play. He can’t settle to any toys. We try the IPad. Little Bear wants a new game. You have lots of games I say. Little Bear wants me to watch him on the IPad. I don’t want to watch the IPad because I keep getting migraines and because surely this is the one time when he could entertain himself?

“Mum” he says. Mum, Mum, Mum.

I got a new motorbike Mum.

MUM! It’s not working.

Mum, which game should I play now?

Mum, I got lots of coins.

Mum! Mum!

What Darling?

Err….Mum?

Little Bear has kept up an incessant stream of chatter pretty much all day.

There are smells coming from Little Bear that suggest he needs the toilet. I ask him to go. He throws his IPad and screams. He does go to the toilet but slams the door and the seat. He’s still screaming. Apparently I’m an idiot.

He comes back and tells me that I made him sad because I asked him to go to the toilet. He tells me I’m an idiot again. I tell him (whilst trying very hard to remain calm) that it is not ok to call me an idiot and that my job as his Mum is to look after him – that includes helping him go to the toilet when he needs to.

I go upstairs for a change of scenery and a few minutes of peace and to get some more washing. After about 3 seconds Little Bear appears behind me. He tried to shove a Power Ranger into my hand.

“The toilet!” I think, maybe I could get some peace I there? My backside has barely skimmed the seat when Little Bear pads in and climbs straight up onto my lap. Mum? Who do you want to be? The black one or the red one? Mum?

The desperation is setting in a little now. I mentally count up how many hours we have been holed up. More than 50. I think maybe it feels like quite a bit longer.

Little Bear helps me put the dishwasher on. He tries to swing on my cupboard doors. He starts pulling the mat out of the sink, splashing water everywhere. Would you like a bowl of water to play with? Outside, I add. “Ice” he says.

I have a moment of divine inspiration – I have an ice cube tray with random items frozen into it in the freezer. YES! I say a little over enthusiastically, go and find your tools.

Little Bear sits outside working on the cubes, trying to release their ice-locked contents. It keeps him busy for about 5 minutes but having more than a metre of space between us is an actual relief. I iron his Hama beads for him.

The doorbell rings. I practically skip to answer it. Another human adult! Maybe they have come to rescue me?!

No, they meant to go next door. I could cry with disappointment. Don’t people know I’m being held hostage in my own home?

Little Bear has finished with the ice cubes. We read his school book. He tries hard. I give him an ice cream. We snuggle up on the sofa again. He hugs my arm. I put my arm around him and draw him to me. He puts his face on my tummy. I love him so much.

Little Bear is keen to go to school tomorrow. I start fantasising about being free and what I might do with my time. I know it will mostly involve being alone to give my brain a rest.

Once we’ve made it to tea time I know we are on the home straight. There would still be a shower to navigate (complete with a kick and refusal to get out) and bed (which would take a long time and involve lots of shouting and throwing things) but we’d done it. I had not lost it. Little Bear was still in one piece. I still had about 85% of my sanity.

Thank goodness for school and the space it gives me! Oh wait, there’s just a week until the 6 week long summer holidays you say? That’s over 1000 hours of Quality Time…

AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

 

First and Lasts

Just to be contradictory I will talk about the Lasts first.

This week has been Little Bear’s last in Reception class. As of Monday he will be taking part in two transition weeks in his new Year 1 class (and ditto Big Bear in his new Year 4 class). I think many children who are Care-experienced find goodbyes difficult: they tend to stir up lots of emotions about loss, lost relationships and missing people. Goodbyes can be pretty anxiety provoking and hard to find a way through. Little Bear has been lucky this year in that the goodbye is really only to his classroom as his teacher is moving up with him. We are very relieved about this as it should definitely ease the anxiety and I’m hoping it will mean a smooth run into Year 1 without any need to play catch up while a new teacher figures out all his quirks. Likewise all the same children will be in his class.

However, there is still the finality of last shared reading sessions, last days in Reception and on Friday a last day afternoon tea for parents. We nearly didn’t make the last shared reading session as I had caught a bug and had succumbed to sleep on the bathroom floor (yes, grim indeed). Thankfully Grizzly was working at home and reshuffled everything to make it. He was really glad that he had as Little Bear was over the moon to see him and had been anxiously waiting for one of us to appear. He was well aware that it was the last time we would have the opportunity to go to it.

Although still a little green around the gills I made sure I was there for the afternoon tea on Friday (I just pretended that the children hadn’t really made the scones and that they wouldn’t be at all contaminated by sticky fingers and that mine didn’t really have a hair on it!!). Little Bear was so happy to see me and was more clingy than usual. We spent a lovely 20 minutes or so building a Duplo house. Little Bear was not keen on sharing the Duplo or me with any of his peers. He didn’t really want to come away from me to join his class in singing to us, even though I was right there watching.

The parents all went outside for a few minutes whilst the children did final registration. I must have been slightly out of Little Bear’s eye line while I ferreted around in the ‘jumper dumper’ (a depressing wasteland of sloughed off sweatshirts) and he must have panicked that I had left him, though I never have disappeared before. He tried to distract himself with another scone but the TA said he couldn’t have one. This was the final straw in what was evidently a simmering pressure cooker of emotions. Little Bear made his last exit from Reception class by pelting his toy at the waiting parents and screaming.

Thank goodness for the emergency KitKat in my handbag.

The emotions continued to be untameable on the walk home when Little Bear insisted upon balancing alongside the roadside curb edge despite me telling him several times to walk on the path part as it would be further from the cars and much safer. Little Bear was unable to heed my instructions and I eventually had to move him to the safe part of the pavement. This resulted in a hit and a scratch which I chose to ignore.

A few seconds later Little Bear said “I just scratched your hand” in a small sad voice. “Yes, you did” I replied “but I’m ignoring it because I think you’re feeling a bit sad”. I suggested that when we got home it might be a good idea to have a rest in front of the TV. When we got in Little Bear wasn’t particularly up for that plan. Nor was he keen to go to the toilet when I asked him to and was starting to get offensive.

Usually at these times you can talk, reason, cajole, shout, fully lose it to your hearts content and Little Bear will not heed your words. However, somehow he got onto my knee and must have listened to what I was saying (though it didn’t look or sound like he was listening at all). I did some wondering about how he might be feeling and maybe it had something to do with it being the last day in Reception class. I gave reassurance about his teacher going up with him and Big Bear chimed in, in that instinctive way that he has, about how Year 1 is not scary and will be fun. I suggested that Little Bear was likely to head towards getting himself into trouble if he continued as he was and that I was trying to help him not to do that by giving him a rest. By some miracle something resonated and he asked if I would sit with him on the sofa.

We spent the next hour or so with Little Bear wedged between my thighs, his legs atop mine, the back of his head pressed into my chest watching Paw Patrol. I didn’t think it was a coincidence that the programme he chose to watch was one he used to choose when he was a bit younger.

Lasts are so hard for our children. Evidently the last day had brought all sorts of other things into question for him, most basically, was he still safe with us or were we leaving him too? I wonder how long he will need to be here before he can stop asking that question.

 

The First that I wanted to talk about is much more positive, though it has been hanging in the balance for most of the week. Little Bear was meant to be going to stay at my parent’s house this weekend. It would be the first time he had slept out since being with us (23 months now) and when I thought about it, I realised it was a pretty big deal.

Big Bear has slept out quite a few times now (sometimes because he needs a break) and on the last few occasions Little Bear has felt quite left out. Up until recently we would not have considered it all, being as though it would only have been fair to the grandparents if we could have sent Little Bear with some Valium and a flak jacket for them. As that wasn’t possible, we really couldn’t have inflicted the task on them.

However, apart from one fairly bad occasion, my parents have put Little Bear to sleep at our house successfully several times and sometimes he can be angelic at bedtime these days. The problem is that bedtimes are still very variable and we couldn’t guarantee what kind of night he might have if he went there. Irrespective of all that, my parents were feeling brave and we had pencilled in this weekend to have a try.

Bedtimes throughout this week have not been good. Things have been thrown, pulled, poked and spat on. Grizzly and I decided that if Little Bear could not show us that he could be sensible at bedtime, at least on Friday we couldn’t allow him to go. It just wouldn’t be fair and could go really badly. Of course we wanted the first attempt to be successful. However, we were pretty keen on it going ahead because Big Bear was super excited about getting some Mum and Dad time and as always we would have to balance both of their needs. Little Bear really wanted to go and has been excited about it for ages and my parents really wanted him to go.

I was very clear with Little Bear last night that he needed to get into bed and try to sleep. He shouldn’t be standing on the other end of his bed or pulling his door or shouting or throwing things. I was clear that if he couldn’t be sensible he couldn’t go to his grandparents. I know he understood this because he explained it back to me.

Bedtime did not go particularly well. It wasn’t horrendous but he certainly wasn’t trying to sleep and I did get called an idiot. It took quite a long time.

This is where adoption gets complicated. Although I know that Little Bear understood the rules I don’t honestly think that he can control himself enough yet to stick to them (not all the time anyway). This is where giving a consequence is unfair – is it really right to punish something he cannot control? Well, no. However, I could not have re-iterated and reinforced the rules more and as I had been clear about the consequence in advance, would I now be undermining myself and the rules if I didn’t follow through? How would Big Bear feel if his plans were scuppered by his brother’s behaviour? How would Little Bear feel in the morning when he found out that the consequence was really happening? Would it damage his self-esteem that I didn’t trust him to try the sleepover? Another day a fresh start and all that…

It is very easy to tie your brain in a knot of over analysis.

In the end Grizzly and I reached a compromise we were both happy with and I ran it by my parents to check they were on board too. Little Bear did get a consequence for his bedtime behaviour: he was not allowed his I Pad today (we are consistent in our use of this rule and feel it does have a useful impact and has helped with sorting the bedtime behaviours in general). However, we agreed to let him try the sleepover. If things went awry and he did not co-operate my parents would bring him home. Big Bear would get his evening out and I would keep everything crossed that Little Bear could manage.

This morning Little Bear woke me before 6:30, already half- dressed and asking me for a “packing bag”. I was pleased that I wouldn’t be dampening his enthusiasm. He was fully dressed and packed by 7am.

Although Little Bear was excited, he seemed a little nervous too. He wondered if my parents would come if he shouted them. He was upset Big Bear wasn’t going too. He would miss him. He needed reassurance that it was just one night and he would be back tomorrow.

It is not just Lasts that are complicated – Firsts have their fair share of issues too.

I have purposefully waited until this evening to blog because I really didn’t know which way things would go but I’m very happy to say that Little Bear has managed to get to sleep at my parent’s house and though I’m sure there will have been some shenanigans they were not sufficient to end the mission. I’m so pleased that we will be able to tell him how proud we are of him tomorrow and that we have missed him (the house is strangely quiet) and that he can sleep over again another time if he wants to because he behaved himself and my parents enjoyed him being there. Well done Little Bear, another fabulous first to celebrate.

Also well done and thank you to my parents as the three of us have had a lovely time going out for a grown up tea and seeing Despicable Me 3 and Big Bear is very happy.

Phew. I wonder what next week’s first days of Year 1 will bring?