National Adoption Week: Thursday

We all overslept again today. This is getting to be a habit. As we arrived at Birdy's nursery, she was shoving the last of a shortbread biscuit in her crumb-covered face. Top parenting. Not. She had some milk too. That doesn't really make it better, I suppose.

OB and I managed another morning at the table, mostly; working, mostly. That sentence only works because I completely count building Lego and K'Nex creations as working if you're six years old. Colouring, and creating vast armies out of propped up dominoes are also included.

He has been begging for lunch at the local pile-it-high for ages and, with the arrival of a little one looming, I decided today was our best chance. They serve a dessert there that is basically a week's worth of ice cream, sweeties and chocolate crammed into one glass sundae cup, and is the main reason why I don't take them too often.

Thankfully, both my children are pretty well behaved in restaurants. That is, if you count Birdy standing up on her chair while I'm ordering at the bar and shouting, "My want corn cob! My want sausishes! My want juice an' milk an' strawby ice cream!" as pretty well behaved. We made it through the meal without major incident anyway.

From there it was straight to our second Sensory Integration Therapy session of the week. I am increasingly concerned for our very pregnant therapist's safety, but she is unfailingly exuberant, playful and wholly involved. OB helped her design an obstacle course around the room and then threw himself around it three times.

We are only a few weeks into this therapy. During the first session we discovered that OB couldn't do a sit up at all. Today he did loads, bent backwards over a therapy ball, grabbing bean bags off the floor behind him. He also managed to catch a bean bag while standing on a wobble board. It's beyond amazing to see the results of this intervention appear before your eyes.

Afterwards, though, he was on the ceiling. The therapist always ends the session with a 'calm down' time, which OB hates and actively resists, despite her attempts to vary it every session. Today, although he sort of participated with the calm down, it clearly didn't work. At home we had an hour of that weird, giddy, craziness that always ends in tears or shouting or both. Today, both.

Their day was wrapped up with a hastily arranged evening playdate with a wonderfully accommodating friend while I popped over to the new LO's house for another introductory visit. When they talk to single foster carers and adopters about having a good support network, they're not joking!

It is approaching 1am and I finished my day's work about half an hour ago. That's flexible hours for you. I wonder if I can count on them to oversleep just a tiny bit tomorrow too?




Catch up on the start of our week starting with Monday.

Or read on . . . Friday