Great Day

Today was one of those days when you just feel blessed. Thomas and I went to our playgroup. When I told him we would be going he asked if I was going to stay all the time, I said I would and did he want me to stay. He said yes because, ‘then I am safe and I love you’, which is a nice reason to want your Mum around. Lady visited her Grandma as usual while we were at playgroup, since it only caters for pre-school age children. It’s a nice group with great coffee and cakes and since Thomas goes off and does his own thing the whole time, I get to chat with the mums and admire the babies. A woman asked me what I miss about London since moving here and it’s just my sister, a few good friends and the wonderful toy library sessions run from the Project for Children with Special Needs.

It was run by volunteers who gave me much needed support when Duncan was even younger and I had spent all my time at other playgroups running around after him feeling stressed, apologising constantly, picking things up that Duncan had scattered in his usual way after investigating them. My first time there, when I said sorry because he’d knocked something over or was climbing on something or poking about in someone’s handbag, I was told not to bother apologising, he was fine and so was everyone else. I learned to relax and let the 3 children enjoy themselves (another benefit; they allowed school-aged children to attend too). I meet some lovely families with just the best children. We got to know each other and celebrate the children’s successes.

I remember one day a woman came to sing with us bringing some beautiful hand puppets and she sang a little song called ‘3 little birds sitting in a tree’. Duncan went right up to her, and sang right through all 3 verses in his sweet high voice, trying SO hard to pronounce the words and every adult in the room had tears in their eyes when he finished. Another man used to bring a didgeridoo and one child, who was deaf and delayed in all his development, smiled when the didgeridoo was played beside him and reached out to touch it. We’d never seen him reach before then.

Well I didn’t bore the poor woman silly telling her all that! She also asked me about autism so I tried to give a short summary of the autistic condition! (You tend to have about 2 minutes when talking to most mums at playgroups before one of you has to see to the kids!)

After Duncan came home, he wanted me to read his little Pinocchio book over and over. He was saying all the names until he got them right, and Jiminy and Gepetto aren’t that easy to say! He sat behind me and looked over my shoulder as I read, hiding behind the curtain every so often when the tension was just too much to bear! I told him Gepetto is Pinocchio’s father or Daddy and then talked about how his Daddy went on the aeroplane and will be back in 1 day. He said ‘Daddy get noisy Lady’ (a train he wants) and I said, ‘no, Daddy will get sweets’, to which he said, ‘Daddy get sweets, Daddy get noisy Lady’!

Before they all went to bed we were watching the Madagascar DVD, the bit with a dance video for the song ‘I want to move it, move it’ (sung by that Baron Cohen bloke, you know, the funny one ;-) ). We all danced round the room as they played it 4 or 5 times! So, a good day.