Having her nappy changed is more exciting than swimming

Made two attempts at family swimming. 


First attempt. Disabled swim session at a pool in Partington. The water was freezing. This lead to Scarlett shivering and being taken out within thirty seconds of getting in. Leaving Zack and Dan to enjoy a bit more swimming as The Pants wasn't arsed about cold water. 


Second attempt. Duckling swim session for pre-schoolers at Woolston. Really nice swimming pool. Asked to use the disabled changing facilities at the side of the teaching pool. All fantastic and lovely and lots of room. I was getting Zack and I ready. Dan was getting Scarlett and himself sorted out. Then Dan was getting Scarlett dressed again as he had forgotten his swimming shorts. 


Aqua Zack really enjoyed our swim. The water was very, very warm. And Dan sat upstairs with Scazlah watching. I think our family swim time is somewhat cursed. Reading this you would think aaah poor Scarlett she's not got to go swimming. Trust me. She really isn't that bothered about it. Having her nappy changed is more exciting than swimming. Zack on the other hand loved it.


The moral of this tale is, you must take responsibility at all times for bag packing. Do not assume that when you say, your swimming pants are downstairs that they will be collected and put in the bag. Here endeth the lesson.

I did say pigeon poo

We've all been off on a little jaunt to Sussex. After almost a year and half we returned to the Advance Centre to continue with the therapy that we started with Zack when he was a baby. So I don't bore you please look at my previous posts about this therapy if you want to understand what it's about.


Anyway, we had an extra companion this time, Scazzzahhhhhh. Double trouble on the journey down, which wasn't too bad as journey's go. I also booked us into an apartment for three nights to give us more space and a kitchen area to do his lordships blended diet. Well, you can't exactly mix up a shepherds pie concoction in a travel tavern, premier lodge....whatever those places are called.


Apartment was nice. Girl let us in, all looked good, she said goodbye, we settled in by shoving our backsides on the sofa and trying to get the TV to work. Dan came back five minutes later to say that he had dropped the keys down the lift shaft. Good start, quick call to nice lady and she told us just to get a spare set cut from the spare set we had. Right then, all unpacked, we notice we are attached to Asda. Perfect.  We are in the middle of Crawley town centre. Ooooh great (sarcastic great not as in yay great). We have six locks on the door leading into the apartment. Hmmmm, okay, well could just be overly cautious or we're going to die in Crawley. I don't want to die in Crawley. I needn't have worried it was all quite nice actually. Apart from the fact that the cleaners had left the windows open and the pigeons had shat all over the insides of them and it hadn't been cleaned. Go me cleaning and disinfecting window sills. Just like a home from home.


The day we left I mentioned it to the girl who tutted and said she's told the cleaners loads of times not to do that (by that I mean leave the windows open not poo on the window sills). After we left I got in the car turned to Dan and said I did say pigeon poo didn't I and not the words there was pidgeon shit all over the window sill. I still can't be sure of my correct phrasing. 


Dan said, "How come bird crap is somehow less offensive than dog shit?" "What are you on about?" I asked him. "Well, if you told her that there was dog shit all over the window you would have gone absolutely mental over it. But bird poo, it's all okay."


He does make a good point.


So the apartment aside the therapy went well and we managed to concentrate on picking it all up whist minding two children. Zack wasn't really interested in it at all, in fact he was having a three day off week. Scarlett had a fan club. A lovely little boy who would come in each afternoon. Run over too her and shout "Hellllloooo little baaaaby." I think he was autistic. I let him have a cuddle with Scarlett, he was very good with her, until he covered her eyes with his hands. She wasn't that bothered by it, she just tried to bite his arm instead.


Whilst we were away Scazlah received her first DVD. Yep. Mickey flippin Mouse Clubhouse was purchased to keep her entertained in the pigeon poo flat. She also used Zack's little floor seat for some extra good T.V watching.

Zack did some extra good sitting.

Slept in his own room. Had his mum get in bed with him until he fell asleep. This has since lead to unasseptable behaviour (I know it's spelt unacceptable but I like to spell it as Super Nanny phonetically pronounces it), ahem, yes, unasseptable behaviour at bedtime. Bringing us back to square one with bedtime fights again. I gave in a couple of times and let him fall asleep on me. Dan caught me and asked me what was occurring, I lied and said he just fell asleep when I read to him. He knows I lied. I don't care. He was very cuddly cute.






So far we've managed to do the therapy almost every day. And Zack has fought bedtime almost every day. Reasonable success and a pigeon poo free home equals good times.

Surprise, surprise he can hear.

Eye. Eye. Hear. Hear.


Zack's had them both checked out. He went to see his favourite eye lady for some black and white paddle waving. You have to give it to the young man he was on form. Full of smiles and very cheeky. Eye lady was so pleased with him and his behaviour that she said it had made her afternoon. She did the usual showing him a light, showing him some paddles to check his tracking etc. He did do some following and then decided not to bother. He decided to check her out by coyly looking round and peeping at her, smiling then turning away. 


Upshot of it all was that she thinks he knows exactly what to do to be able to use what vision he has, he just sometimes chooses not to. Whether that's because it is hard or whether that's because he can't be bothered (I  think it's the latter excuse) is really down to him. As I had thought, his vision is variable. Some days  it's good, other days it's not so good. I also confirmed with her that his right eye is much stronger than his left and we discussed the use of a patch. At this point in time we both agreed that to use one now may take away what good vision he's got, we may rethink the use of them at a later stage. Shame. I had a whole pirate outfit planned for Zack's patch.


Hearing got checked out too. Oh. Surprise, surprise he can hear. You don't say. He still has his glue ear which is affecting his hearing but he should grow out of that by about seven or eight years of age. The doctor (a new audiologist doctor who was very nice) did the newborn screening test on him again. The one which they click little sounds into their ears. I remember when Zack had it done and failed it. I remember when Scarlett had it done and passed. We were told that she wouldn't need to have it checked again until she goes to school. Both Dan and I looked at each other in surprise we were kind of used to not good news when our children have medical tests. 


Anyway, this time he passed his newborn clickety test. Well, on his right side anyway. The left side had a lot of background noise so wasn't that conclusive. I asked why his hearing has changed and she suggested that her thoughts were that the whole problem with his hearing has been the glue ear. There is nothing wrong with his ear drum, or any other ear bits and he doesn't have an auditory sensory processing problem.  Woohooo good news for Zack. The advice was to face him when talking to him and to keep background noise to a minimum.  I have known all this for ages. I have to creep about when he is in bed as one squeak of the floor board and he wakes up and starts shouting.


The past few months have been really busy. Scarlett is starting to want more of my time and just today I realised how good Zack has become, how he is growing up. I remember when we first brought her home and we had a couple of months of him not wanting to be put down on his own, wanted all my attention. Well now, he is so good if you sit him in his chair, or leave him on the floor with toys, or in his standing frame. He has the patience of a saint. I think he has accepted that Scarlett needs more attention and he just waits his turn. 


Scarlett loves her brother. If you leave them alone together on the bed and go out of the room I can hear her chatting to him. I'll come back in and she has turned over on to her side to face him, has hold of his hand and is gently cooing at him. If someone else she doesn't know touches him or if we play some rough and tumble with him, she watches him like a hawk, sometimes even gets upset. I am amazed at how she is already forming such a protective relationship with him. He on the other hand, puts up with her occasional hair pull or poke in the eye. He does get kicked in the body a lot by her. In return when he goes to touch her he tries very hard to control his arm so as not to be rough. And if they have a cuddle he responds with a massive grin. 


God help him when she finally crawls. Might spur him on to find his legs and get out her way. Either that or he better start saving up for a power chair.

He slept through until the morning. Bliss.

Zack's ability to switch on and interact has a lot to do with the amount of sleep he has during the night. 


As you avid readers will know we have huge problems with Zack sleeping and now, well we got to a stage were we said enough was enough. No more picking him up, no matter what time he stays awake until.


And we decided to go hardcore on him, we put him to bed and said whatever he does we do not pick him up and cuddle him to sleep. He stayed awake until 4am the first morning but I didn't given in, nope I stayed strong and he eventually gave in to sleep. We got him up at the usual time of 7am so the poor little man had only three hours of sleep. That night he went to bed at the same time, followed the same routine and was asleep by 8pm. He slept through until the morning. Bliss.


We have been following this regime now for about two weeks. He doesn't always fall asleep at 8pm each night, sometimes we have 1ams or 2.30ams but we still do not give in. He isn't screaming the place down, just moaning, we go in and pat him on the back every twenty minutes or so until we don't hear much from him. Then we know he's gone to sleep. 


The big difference is if he has had a good nights sleep he is brilliant the next day. He's so alert, smiley, happy, and very interactive. The other day he had a great nights sleep and was in a wonderful mood. So much so he didn't stop laughing all day. He was even making different noises and playing games. Simple games. Where I would go out of our bedroom, he would pretend to cry then I would go in saying "Did you shout me?" to which he would laugh hysterically and even try and make a mmmmaaa noise. It was the best day ever. I love it when he's like this as that is the Zack I know. The cheeky one, the funny one, the sociable Zack. 


I think the other thing that's made a big difference is his epilepsy medicine is making an effect.  He isn't having as many seizures, probably about 3 to 5 a day, which is a difference to what he was doing before which was around 15 - 20 a day. 


At the moment things are pretty good. Stable and progressing. This is where we like to be and what I hope will continue.