Red Balloon Nursery

Massimo started nursery on Thursday afternoon. He was clearly not really aware of the momentous occasion and was totally relaxed in his buggy ready to go out. Max is supposed to wear a smock top over his clothes to go nursery but we haven’t received it quite yet. As soon as we do we will show you more pictures. All the following pictures were taken on his first day at nursery and the lady in the pictures with Max is his one-to-one teacher Orlaith who is absolutely brilliant with him but before I could post any pictures I wanted to get her permission first, hence the slight delay in the entry. Jemma stays at the nursery with him as his carer and looks after all the suctioning and feeding and all things medical. At the moment Max does spend most of his time on a one-to-one basis with Orlaith although he does join in with the group music lessons which he loves.

Other news: we got back from France on the 3rd January and the date was determined by an audiology appointment for Max on the 4th. So we turned up at St George’s ENT department at the appointed time only to discover that the appointment had been cancelled and rebooked for the 8th March as the doctor was still on holiday. Quite miffed we returned home only to receive a letter the following week telling us that the March appointment had had to be cancelled and had been rebooked for June. I called the hospital in frustration as this is 6 months later than the original appointment.

Unfortunately the doctor in question is owed quite a lot of holiday and study time off and this is making it rather difficult to manage her appointments. Well I can understand all that, and Max’s appointment isn’t urgent, it is just a general routine check of his hearing in the same way his eyes and teeth are also checked regularly (every 6 months, mostly). Anyway the best they could do was an appointment in May! Watch this space. We have been back to the Brush and Bisque-it a couple of times this year already. One Friday we went with Sarah and Moira, who thoroughly enjoyed themselves until they found they had a parking ticket on their car. The following week Auntie Sandra came to visit and was there for Max’s first day at school and the following morning we had another fun painting session.

We have had other appointments too. In some ways it feels like since Nonno died we haven’t really been back in our routine, but now we seem to be picking up the threads with all the various professional input. We had a visit from the health visitor to measure Max for nappies, we get these free from the NHS from his third birthday, which is relatively soon. We had a visit from Jackie from Portage who was amazed at Max’s increased concentration, his skill with his stacking cups, the strength he has gained in his walking, and his increased communication. She went to visit Max at nursery today to give Orlaith input on what she feels, from her point of view, they should be working on and encouraging him to do, like practising his kneeling. As Max is a bum-shuffler, kneeling does not come naturally to him, but I’m sure he will learn in time. I never thought that Max would learn to lie on his stomach and he certainly can and does, so I’m sure it is all just a question of time. We also had a session with his Speech and Language Therapist whose visits are further apart than most and she last saw Max when we did the trial with the speaking valve. She, too, was very pleased with his progress and she taught us the sign for penguin so that Max can learn to do it when he wants to watch Pingu, which is rather a favourite pastime. She also thought that if Max is interested in the Teletubbies, that is exactly the right level of language development for him as all the sentences are very short. She told me to comment on all that Max is doing in two word sentences so that we can increase his vocabulary and his signing. For example, “Max, big car”, “little car”, “car in” (ie put it in something). I’m sure we’ll get there in the end! But also to comment on everything around him, what we are doing as well as what he is doing. I think Jemma and I may get a little weary of all this talking! She will also be visiting Max at nursery next week.

Luca, as the pictures show, is currently concentrating on learning to stand unassisted and I keep finding him in various locations around the house where he has pulled himself up to stand and then realised that actually this isn’t a fun place to be, like in the kitchen facing the wall, at which point he cries for help. Luca has also learnt a few signs and says please and down and now is trying to learn milk and biscuit.