Birthday!

Our boy celebrated his fourth birthday this past weekend. He coped better than we expected, but has also reacted in the way that we expected.

I picked him up from school last Fri, and was caught by his teacher who told me that they'd had a difficult week at school. I was able to explain that he'd had his birthday party the previous weekend, that he'd moved in with us just before his birthday and associates presents, parties and birthdays with moving homes. She got it immediately; that he is operating on fear at the moment.

We had a quiet day on Saturday. Just time spent as a family.

Sunday was a very different day. He was his actual birthday. He woke up and although he knew that there were presents downstairs, he was very happy to play upstairs. We sat and read books, and cuddled... he wasn't for going downstairs. Eventually we persuaded him, and he unwrapped his presents happily, but soon had enough and we moved onto something else.

He knew we had visitors coming, and he was on hyper alert... he wanted to know what every noise was, who every car that passed belonged to, what was happening, what was going on.

His Granny (my mum) and Gran Gran (my Gran), my cousin and her two daughters arrived. They all played nicely for a while. We had lunch. More people came and visited. He coped, and coped and coped, until he couldn't anymore. When everyone went about 4.30, he had a very quick tea, lots of cuddles and talking and then bed.

He is doing better than we thought he might this week. But it's not great. Birthdays are difficult, and we assume will continue to be so for a while yet.

Ooops

Sorry - I've made a commitment to myself to blog more; and I'd been managing it but the last two weeks have been busy/difficult/tired.

In summary: illness, meeting, meeting, illness, preparing for birthday party, birthday cake, birthday party, adoption celebration, illness, mother's day, illness, ofsted, ofsted, illness, CRB forms, illness.

As you can see - illness features quite highly, from boy-o's cold at half term, we have all been suffering with a cold, that keeps mutating and getting passed round. It's not been very fun, and M started with another cold yesterday. I think we shall just keep clinging on until Easter, when we can relax and chill!

The birthday celebrations I will keep for another day - as they deserve their own post; party last weekend, birthday is this coming weekend.

Adoption celebration event, is one of the magical things that our LA does for us. We enjoyed it last year, and more so this year, as we knew what we were expecting. It was fantastic to see so many familiar faces from adoption support group, the toddler stay and play, and best of all our preparation course. I talked to lots of people, boy-o bounced lots on the bouncy castle, demanded a balloon model made by our old social worker - nothing else would do. There was sand, tunnels, paint, all which were played with.

Ofsted visited my work this week. It involved lots of extra paperwork, seating plans, lesson plans (usually a powerpoint is enough), results tables... and super planned lessons. I was seen, I am content with what I was graded. I am super pleased with the overall result which we were told at 4.00 yesterday, all the hard work has indeed paid off.

Mother's day - for years I avoided Church on Mothering Sunday, if I have to sit through another service next year like the one I sat through this year, I might have to make sure my boy doesn't go. All about the wonderful bond formed between mother's and their children. And all about how mother's keep their children safe. Thankfully I had my special Brownie sitting next to me, and she focused my attention away from anything else. Boy-o was playing in creche, and didn't hear any of it - but we won't be able to do that next year. Grrrrr.

Second adoption plans are progressing, but been hampered by the workload of our LA. Things are moving, I know they are, but slowly, slowly, slowly. We did eventually get our form to fill in, we have eventually got the CRB forms and the medical forms, but it's all slowly, slowly, slowly. Social Worker A is visiting next week - she is A purely as she was our first social worker...although there may be another reason too.

And the meetings were useful, but two meetings in two evenings is too many.

More will follow - not sure when, but it will!