What the Dr said.....

... was a lot more than the speech therapist. I went as my pms is worse (stress) and also my asthma (also stress) meaning I can't take my usual painkillers (stressful in itself :). I also wanted to chase up whereabouts in the system Deborah's referral is, as we've not heard anything yet. It turns out that the speech therapist had already discussed her suspicions about D being somewhere on the autistic spectrum with her, yes, more than had been discussed with me the mother but hey why make me worry? If I wasn't so desperately, desperately upset I might be cross. Yes the speech therapist had said she wanted to refer D on, but as she hadn't actually used the word "autistic" to me - well somehow it seems worse and more final now, even though it actually isn't.

It's getting to be the elephant in the room at pre school - last week I was on the verge of taking her out completely after they started rehearsals for a school nativity which resulted in a 24 stress fest and screaming for D. I kept her home the next day, only for the nursery teacher to phone up saying the head teacher stated that D "needed" to be in that day....... Needless to say, we went to town and to the museum and met up with friends who D relaxed and laughed with. The day after we had 2 sets of friends round in the afternoon, the second a nursery friend who was amazed to see D laugh and sing. Pre school is now treating her as if we have a diagnosis (ie pushing her with the play because "that's what worked for another little girl in year 2 with transition problems") so we are going to have a word with them. Anyway, being on the brink of removing D she has now started to really enjoy pre school, which is lovely but confusing. Talking to the leader at our local Home Start group she says that when we do finally get to see the specialist we will get a list of all of Deborah's specific needs. This same leader always emphasises how much eye contact Deborah makes and how elaborate her imaginative play is which is heartening.

On top of everything, we took D to a festival celebrating the Buddha's Enlightenment at the Priory on Sunday. Over the baby monitor yesterday we heard the following,

"Not have ears, not have mouth, not have elephant, not have door, not have fingers, not have hippo, not have momobot, not have momobot, (then with feeling and satisfaction) I AM momobot". There was also a "not have nothingness" in there somewhere too. Direct link to the heart sutra which we had recited.

Ian is so beautifully constant with all of this, I love him more for it. Talking about it yesterday he just looked at me and said simply, "She will be ok you know". I don't know but I'm heartened by the fact he thinks so.