Marie's Web Log

We went back to Honeylands last Friday (Amelia and I). This time, in addition to playing with the nursery nurse, Amelia took part in some physical activities (or rather, looked on shyly for most of it) and had her eyes tested - though not for short and long sightedness, they'll do that later. This was for things like periperal vision and depth perception.

Apparently Amelia's depth perception is very good. Mine, however, is not. Amelia was sitting on my lap for the test, and the person doing the testing held up a card with four squares filled with what looked to me like random patterns. She asked Amelia to point to the one with the blue circle in, and Amelia pointed. Damned if I could see anything. I didn't have my glasses on, so I knew my vision wasn't perfect, but still. It's weird because I don't wear my glasses a lot of the time, but it's not like everything appears one-dimensional to me! It may partially explain why I'm so bad at ball sports like tennis...

Today the speech and language person, Jill, came to the house. Of course, Amelia's stuttering wasn't bad this morning - it's usually not too bad when she's not tired. Jill said Amelia's language does show a mild delay, which didn't surprise me. I'd already noticed that other kids of the same age tend to be more fluent, using longer sentences, etc.

Last Friday I also chatted to a child psychologist. He said this week he'll give Amelia an IQ test. I didn't know they still did those. It'll be interesting to see how it goes.

Waiting for my client to get back to me with final changes (I hope) on the book project. May get some work 'Americanizing' a math (or 'maths, as they like to say here) textbook. I did a sample as a test, and even though it was only Grade 6 level, it still made me feel a bit queasy. Just not a numbers person.

Posted by marie at 10:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hi. Not sure what to say today. My mind goes blank when I sit down to write - not a good sign. Amelia is back at nursery - did I say that before? She seems quite happy to be back, and remembers the other kids and adults. She had a bad (sleepless) night last Thursday, but we're not sure of the cause.

Last Friday morning I took Amelia to Honeylands, a local NHS centre for children with special needs. She's taking part in an assessment programme there to see if there's any support we can give her in the future, especially when school starts. This came about because we were concerned about some sensory integration issues she seemed to have, though those have improved since the initial referral last year. She still has a stutter though, so she will be assessed by a speech therapist, and they will also test her visition, which I think is a good thing too.

You tend to hear lots of criticsm of the NHS - it's the national health service, but people with money often opt for private care due to long waiting lists, complaints about poor standards, etc. But our experience at Honeylands was excellent. The people were all lovely, and the amount of resources applied to just one child - and not a very severely affected one at that - surprised me. She goes again for the next two Fridays, and there's a nursery nurse (basically a preschool carer) there with her the whole time, plus the other specialists.

Weather has been quite warm still, but the leaves are yellowing and falling. Last Saturday we took Amelia up to Bristol to go out to lunch, and then to an attraction called Wildwalk which I find quite hard to sum up, but involves the history of life on earth and lots of ugly insects. This was in celebration of her adoption day, which was three years ago on Sept. 16. Hard to believe.

Posted by marie at 09:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been neglecting you, sorry. It's been a difficult transition for me, coming back here. Just as we left Canada, an autumn feeling was beginning to creep into the air. The mornings and nights were cooler, and down in NB there were already trees with patches of bright red and orange leaves - a hint of the brilliant colour to come. Autumn is my favourite season in eastern Canada - the best season. Some might say the only good season. It's the season I really miss. Autumn here in the UK can be dreary and grey and brown, though it is a sunny day today. It's not the same, though.

And I miss being around my family and friends. It was great to see Amelia and Keira together, even though Keira is still so young. I hope they'll be good friends when they get older. I never put that much importance on being close to family until I became a parent myself - kind of a cliche, I know.

Amelia is back at nursery now. It seems to be disrupting her sleep - something I thought would happen in Canada, but did not. She goes to nursery three full days a week. She was supposed to be starting preschool one morning a week as well, as a prelude to starting school next autumn (!) But we got a referral through to Honeylands Children's Centre, which we've been waiting for for some time. She supposed to go there for the next three Fridays for an assessment re: her sensory and social issues, so that is probably going to mess everything else up. To be honest, her 'issues' are much less severe than they were last year when we first asked for the referral, but as it took so long to come through I didn't want to turn it down.

As for me, well... Finishing off a work project in the next couple of weeks, but don't have anything lined up after that. Time for more marketing I guess.

Bye for now...

Posted by marie at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)