Party Time

It has taken me a little while to write this because at the time I felt genuinely hurt and rejected.


We celebrate another birthday last month, round 4 since the smalls came home (over 3 years ago!) and it wasn't as great as I had hoped. Everyone who up nice and early so smallest could open presents before school with a plan that once I got home from work we would have cake as a family and then she could open presents from other family members. It wasn't that great because she decided she couldn't wait and by the time I got home everything had been opened and it left me feeling pretty rejected plus awful for asking her to wait because I have to work.

In the end, after a few tears (mainly mine) we did have cake (just a little plan chocolate cake before the Frozen cake she will share with everyone at her party) and candles and we played her new 'telling the time' game before bed time. My evening was then spent putting a couple of Lego kits together (I am loving the Disney Princess range and want some for me to play with).

The party day was one of those where a week is needed afterwards for recovery. Everything was sorted - hall booked, bouncy castle arranged, cake being made by Grandma, invites were sent some weeks ago and this last week we made sure we have covered everything from food to music to decorations. I was feeling organised. I spent Friday evening (along with a local support group meeting for adopters) making sandwiches.

In the aftermath I also remembered that the next round of contact letters are now due and so my next task was to write them which I have done and they have been posted off.

A Miracle Worker?

A little over 3 months ago oldest started a 20 week course of play therapy, an option identified by our social worker when we asked for support with his behaviour and emotional immaturity. With a diagnosis of attachment disorder as well we embraced the course with a hope that it would, slowly, turn the tide and allow us to improve the home environment for all 4 of us.

12 weeks in and I am sure his therapist is a miracle worker.

He has an hour a week with her, just him, where he can play with what ever he can find and there are very few rules but he controls everything about the session (within the rules and allowance of time). Whoever takes him sits in the waiting room until his session is over. We were expecting progress to be slow, halted at times and we even expected regression at points and whilst we have seen regression the progress has been so much quicker than we expected. At home we have noticed a real difference in his ability to stop and think for a second before he explodes in a raging temper - sometimes this is all we need to reason with him to negate the severity or even stop it before it starts. We still have bad days: tiredness seems to be the factor that magnifies everything closely followed by hunger but these are getting fewer and less regular. I am really proud of him.

He has also been able to articulate that his sister is often the recipient of much of his anger. He doesn't know why and I doubt he will every full understand why but this is still a huge step forward for him,

It felt like such a breakthrough when he answered the question 'what do you want to achieve in Y1' (asked by a teacher at school) with 'I don't want to angry when I am cross'.