Team Newman / Ferme

Just a quick update to say that the PECS is still going great with Lachlan and Dan is picking it up slowly. He still won’t initiate a request but is quite compliant when we guide him through the process. We’re also having some success with sign language too. Lachlan has learned to sign “money” and “open”. (The money is for a toy cash register.) The problem is that he uses the most recent sign he’s learnt (at the moment it’s “open”) for everything. It seems that in his mind the sign doesn’t mean “open” it means “do what I want”. But it’s still progress and I’m over the moon. Again, Dan doesn’t initiate any signs, but is happy to be assisted to sign “more book” when we’re reading a story.

As for me, I’m driving again and the foot seems to be getting a lot better. It was hurting quite a bit last week but it isn’t as painful anymore. I’m supposed to start going back to the office two days a week next week, however, I have been thinking about asking if I can work two days at home and just one day at the office. I’m not sure if I’ll do it though, because Lachlan makes the nanny’s life pretty difficult when he knows I’m home. He’s ultra clingy at the moment – hopefully because his last molars are coming through. It makes life quite difficult when I can’t do anything without him wrapping himself around my legs.

Finally, Richard had a big day today with his bus project getting some great publicity. There’s heaps of news coverage about it on the web, just no kudos for him.

For those who don’t know, PECS stands for picture exchange communication system and is part of the speech therapy that we’re doing with the boys. The way it works is that we create a whole stack of picture cards for everything the boys could want or need, and then we teach the boys to get the card for the thing they want, put it on a board with a card for “I want” and then give the cards to Richard or me. So they build the sentence “I want X” and we can give it to them (or not as the case may be).

It’s taken me a while to get organised enough, but I’ve finally made up a bunch of cards, and we started in earnest yesterday. Both boys were quite resistant to it at first but they’re much better now. In fact, Lachlan is doing unbelievably well. I thought it was amazing yesterday when he started handing me the card with “I want swing” written on it (after I’d given it to him, already prepared) and would point to the pictures. Then today I started giving him a few cards to choose from and he would select “swing” and build the sentence himself! I though that was brilliant until he actually started constructing sentences for himself without me supervising him! I was doing something else, so he went up to the board that I had left out with the cards, and he went and built the sentence and brought it over to me. This is exactly what we want him to do, and he’s achieved it in less than 48 hours. Now he just has to learn what all the other cards offer him and we could be well on our way to establishing a great communication system.

Dan is still a little resistant to taking the cards (in order to give the request back to us) but once we guide (force) him through this process, he’s quite interested in what the cards look like and what they say, so he’s at least paying attention, which is more than I really expected. He’s also learnt the sign (as in sign language) for “more” when it comes to reading books, and he’s also started to point to things which to us is totally amazing. I’m really happy and excited about how well the speech therapy if going. It’s wonderful to be seeing some progress!

Just a quick post to update my status. I’m now walking again without the moonboot, but it’s going to take a little while to build up the strength in my calf and ankle again. I’m allowed to drive, but I’ll be starting with short trips before I head back to work. The 60km round trip would be a bit much for me at the moment.

As for the boys, they’ve been a bit sick this week. Dan woke with a fever in the middle of the night one night last week and spent the next couple of days out of sorts, off his food, and sleeping with me. Then he’d pretty much recovered and Lachlan came down with much the same thing. Unfortunately for Lachlan (and for me) his suffering included vomiting instead of nights in the big bed. Anyway, they’re both mostly recovered now, though they’re still very tired and quite grizzly. One positive to come out of this is that Dan seems to be sleeping through the night again. Hopefully he’ll keep it up.

And here’s the picture of the week. One of my most favourite pictures ever.