On moving forward.

We have certainly come very far in the last year. Looking back a year ago, at the start of Mr L's OT, I struggle to even remember how tough it was - somehow the brain blocks out the worst. The tantrums that we only see now and again on a very scaled down version was in full swing. There was almost no recognition of any abstract concepts like shapes and colours. The tiniest thing ticked him off. The isolation tent was in full use.We were so sleep deprived, I can hardly express how tired and totally exhausted we were (2 to 4 hours awake up to 5 nights a week). It was tough just to get to school and work and back, never mind potty training etc. Life was a huge struggle.

A year on and things have certainly changed a lot. He is fully potty trained, he is loving his school and can not wait for his weekly OT appointments. And lo and behold, I am almost scared to put it out there, but we are sleeping. At last after more than 4 and a half years. The last month has gone without one of L's classic SID kid total sleep failure nights.It is a huge thing in our lives! And I am so grateful, reading that a lot of SID kids only start sleeping through at about 6 - but we worked on it, believe me. We are still using Melatonin and rushing and compressing.

He is also learning his letters via letterland as the class proceeds (but have to mention that Mr C knows every single one of the alphabet) and although a lot of the time it is still difficult to get and hold his attention, we are certainly moving on towards better times. We have had a preliminary speech evaluation and in future we might have a stint of speech therapy. But we are moving full scale - to our target being sending them both to grade 1 at the same time at the same school. The alternatives just stress me out too much. To send him a year later (because we will not be able to hold back C who is at the moment testing a year ahead of age) to the same school has it's problems, to send him to a different school to catch up and later to the same school also has its issues. But both his OT , his current teacher and the head mistress of the school they will be attending next year for grade R(on the grounds of A's school) believes that a lot can happen in the next year and a half that could possibly just realize our dream of having him ready for main stream school on age.

O yes, it is indeed going well. He seem to progress in leaps, then stand still or even regress a bit, and then take another leap, rather than the steady development rate of our other kids. I know it is typical, but it both provides for huge stress and huge joy when achieving a new goal.