Rosie’s Charm Necklace…

I wanted to post a photo of the charm necklace that was made on Rosie’s naming day. It has charms with wishes from all her family and friends. There are a couple more still to arrive (three, I think – there’s just about room for them!) It is an 18 inch necklace and it’s pretty heavy now. She is one lucky girl.

Barneys first day back at school went pretty well in the end. He was totally nervous, and anxious, but managed not to have a panic attack. Writing the letter to his school teacher himself (see post below) really seemed to help. In future I shall try this method with him to see if it helps calm him in other situations.

He loved his teacher. So much so that he came home and made a present for her! He got a box (the one our new kettle came in) and painted it, then stuck gold paper, lolly sticks and red glitter all over it. It was pretty big, and very colourful. Today he took it into school with him, and the teacher must have liked it because he came home with a special sticker and a Pirates of the Caribbean light up pen! He has had a few nervous outbursts at school where he has started to panic and felt sick (when moving rooms or going to assembly etc) but the teacher has managed to calm him down pretty well. She lets him sit with her in assembly. Barney says she lets him do anything he likes. He is very impressed!

I was also impressed as she phoned us after his first day of school to let us know how he got on. I am going in on Friday to speak with her. So far so good.

I was reading on an autism site last night about how the obsessive lining up of toys can often be one of the first signs of autism in a child. Barney still likes to line up his cars, but not as much now as he used to. I remember when he was 2 or 3 years old he would spend literally days at a time lining his cars up in various straight patterns. He could fill the entire hallway with his perfectly straight geometric car patterns. Once he had lined up about 200 cars he would start again with a different pattern. Even now, whenever we are going out for the day somewhere where he will need to entertain himself, we always take a big bag of cars for him to play with.