We have a copy cat!

Luca copies Max in absolutely everything he does and so he is now bum shuffling too. At first he just noticed that Max seemed to go up and down with his torso and somehow that propelled him forwards, so Luca used to sit there for ages bouncing up and down hoping to move forwards too – unfortunately if he’d just eaten it would make him sick instead! Eventually he started moving forwards slowly, really more by default than anything else, but he has now developed a technique of his own. So now we have two little boys who cannot be stopped from getting into mischief!

Max’s bum-shuffling technique is now so sophisticated that he now moves at an incredible speed. However, and much more importantly, Max’s strength in standing is improving greatly and he can now take a few steps, aided either by holding him at the hips or by his hands. They aren’t very steady steps and he loses his confidence if he has any inclination that we are about to let go of him in any way, but whereas last week, if we set him up standing but either holding on to something or leaning on something, he would cry, this week we’ve turned it into a game which produces much laughter and pride.

We have been up to little of interest lately. Things have been hectic as usual just with the usual run of the mill stuff. Nonno has been up to visit lots, which has been great for him and for the boys. Both Max and Luca find his wheelchair (or wheelbarrow as he insists on calling it) and his crutches objects of great interest. Luca finds the brake lever on his wheelchair the perfect crutch to use to pull himself up to standing and Max thinks that pushing the wheelchair is a great laugh! Jasper thinks that the wheelchair makes a great kennel and tries to sit underneath it at the most inappropriate of times. So all in all it is fun and games. The only other real event, was that we spent a family day down at Christopher’s last Friday. We had a lovely day, we all went swimming, spent time in the sensory room and just had a lovely relaxing day together. It seems such a long time since we had one of those and Christopher’s is a great place to do it. We also spent the day with Lisa and Phil and their adorable little boy Sam when they were over from the States. It is amazing how quickly the children grow – Luca was a newborn last time they saw him and Sam was only about 6 months old. Now Luca is bumshuffling and Sam is walking!

On the school front, we have spoken to the headteachers of both Paddock and Greenmede Schools. Both believe that they can meet Max’s needs on an educational level. Just to clarify (and I hope I remember this correctly) Greenmede School is classified as a school for children with Severe Learning Difficulties and Physical Disabilities and Paddock School is for children with Moderate to Severe Learning Difficulties. As all the information we have comes through Wandsworth, I don’t actually know what classification Bedelsford School has but our impression of it is that it incorporates both the Greenmede and the Paddock Schools’ pupils.

We have recently revisited Paddock School and due to Max’s recent incredible development we are more than convinced of its suitability for Max (and they are convinced of its suitability for Max too), probably now over and above that of Bedelsford School. The advantage of this is that Paddock School is in the Borough of Wandsworth, as is Greenmede, but Bedelsford is not. Unfortunately Paddock School have a maximum number of 6 pupils in their nursery and they currently have 5 children with a 6th due to start in January. As 5 of the 6 pupils have just started there, there is little chance that someone will move up the school in the near future freeing a place for Max. As Bedelsford School is out of borough we are going to have a tough time trying to get Max into it, but if Max can’t go to Paddock and if Greenmede proves not to be stimulating enough, we will have to fight for Bedelsford. We are due to revisit Greenmede School in a couple of weeks and we are hoping to speak to Bedelsford School again soon.

On the extension front, we are not much further forward and have nothing of interest to share. We are waiting to get new drawings from the architect, apparently they are building regulation drawings which are much more detailed than those for planning permission. Building cannot start until we have those and two of our builders won’t quote without them. Our architect is really busy at the moment and we have yet to determine if he is going to do them for us or if he is going to recommend someone else. At this point in time we would be surprised if work started before January. We have however finalised the mortgage and we are in possession of the money to do the work. So an essential element is in place.