Saturday 27 June 2009

The lady was fantastic. She should have her own tv show.

The vision specialist teacher came to visit Zack on Tuesday. She turned up with two Ikea bags full of creative little ideas for stimulating vision in children. 

It worked so well that Zack fell asleep through the whole session.

 I, on the other hand was amazed at how inventive you can get with a bath scrunchy and an octopus clothes dryer! The lady was fantastic. She should have her own tv show. Out of this bag came one small bottle of water filled with gold glitter, two round bath mats, one black and one white for contrast, stripey socks, paper bags made of holographic paper, it was endless. Most of her finds where purchased from Ikea, including some black and white material....why didn't I think of these things before I went and spent £32.99 on a miracle and milestones mobile from Fisher Price?

In the middle of all this oooohing and ahhhhing at the stuff, Zack decided to have a choking fit and turn blue. He does this every so often when he is dozing. I think he forgets to swallow his saliva and it starts going down the wrong way so he gags and coughs, this is usually over with in a couple of seconds, but this one, he couldn't get his breath, it did get a bit scary. After some slapping of his back he sorted himself out, but he was a bit pooped after it all so went back to sleep again.

When the vision teacher comes back in a couple of weeks she is going to bring the little room (ie. cardboard box) with her. It's based on Lillie Neilson's theory of containing visual stimulation in a small room for babies so that it is amplified for them minus other distractions. Can't wait.

I also couldn't wait for Dan to get home so I could ship out to Ikea for a few visually stimulating tools. I came back with the following items:

1. One black and one white bathmat
2. Two different types of black and white fabric
3. Four black and white prints along with frames to pop them in
4. A set of finger puppets (I took my eye off the ball there, but I really liked them, they reminded me of finger mouse)
5. A packet of red and black bath scrunchies (these now hang on the ceiling of Zack's nursery, if you didn't know us you would think we are very strange parents)
6. A hotdog and a drink (I didn't come back with these, I ate them, you have to, it's the law when you visit Ikea)
I came home with my goodies, I was impressed, Dan was relatively impressed, Zack wasn't arsed at all.

We have booked our place at the Advance Centre and are going there next week for three days. I have also noted that it is meant to be a heatwave next week, so I am not looking forward to the drive down with Zack melting in the back of the car. 

Zack is still having his little episodes of spasms. At the most it is 10 a day, still the same, pursing of lips, neck stretch and arms down to the side. We are both extremely worried about it. We are hoping it isn't some form of infantile spasms, but I guess the only way we will find out is for the doctor to send him for an EEG, I presume that is what they will do when we let them know about it. I think if they get to about 20 a day we are going to contact the hospital. Until then we will hang on until our docs appointment on the 9th July. He still doesn't seem disturbed by them, he just can't control it. 

Zack allowed his mum to go out for dinner the other night. The first time in ages. I really enjoyed it. It was good to talk about other things other than the little man. Not that I mind talking about him but getting away for a few hours was great. I feel quite guilty when I think like that but I suppose you have to be a little selfish at times otherwise you'll end up getting so engrossed in the situation that you lose yourself. Anyway, I have arranged to go out again, this time for a few little cheeky drinkies......I let Dan know my plans. He asked how I am going to manage to get up on Saturday morning to feed the Zacky Pants, I suggested it would be very nice if he could do it and perhaps look after him for the whole day as I am most likely to be not very well with a small headache and a vomiting virus! 


No comments:

I want to alleviate the fear of death

The other day I caught up with the last Season of This is Us. It's been running for a while and is the story of three children and the o...