IT WAS HALLOWEEN at the Hargan’s last week! Jamie dressed up as a one-eyed monster and loved it. Lily had a black cat costume but she didn’t like it and refused to wear it. The only other costume I had for Lily was her Easter bunny outfit. Not really suitable for Halloween but she liked it so job done. 16-months-old and a diva already! So, we had a cross between Halloween and Easter.
As you do.
Halloween night, kids dressed up and a big tub of sweets waiting at the door. Up high of course, out of reach of the little monsters in my own house.
5.30pm and just sat down to dinner and of course the doorbell rings. Jamie and Lily race to the door and just as I open it, a crowd of six or seven kids roar, “Trick or Treat!!!” Lily totally freaks and runs off while Jamie thinks this is hilarious getting a scare. I take the sweet tub down and the kids all help themselves to a couple of bags of sweets and off they go.
10 minutes later and the doorbell goes again. This time, Lily is wise and stays half way down the hall, while Jamie races to the front door all excited. “Trick or Treat!!”
This goes on for the next hour with the local kids loving it all.
7.20pm and it’s nearly bath time. I peer out of the window and there are only a few trick or treaters left going around the houses.
“Okay one more time at the door and then it’s bath time guys!” I say to Jamie and Lily.
I get the usual whinge in response from both of them and then surprisingly it all goes quiet without a fuss. I nip upstairs to get their pyjamas organised and the doorbell rings again. I race downstairs and shout on Jamie and Lily but no answer. I open the front door and see a couple of kids dressed up as clowns and nearly jump out of my skin! I hate clowns after watching Stephen King’s ‘It’ when I was 10-years-old and never recovered from the trauma! Desperate to get the door shut I reach over for the tub of sweets but it’s lying on the floor with only a couple sweets left at the bottom.
“Sorry, I’ve only a couple of sweets left.” I said to the kids. But they were happy enough and sauntered away down the street.
“Right you two, it’s bath time!” I shout to Jamie and Lily.
Nothing.
“Jamie! Lily! Let’s go upstairs!”
Still nothing.
I walk through to the kitchen and the kids are nowhere to be seen. I hear a rustle and a giggle coming from the hallway so I quietly step under the stairs and there are the two of them – sitting behind their toy kitchen while Jamie is unwrapping the sweets and Lily is shovelling them in as fast as she can!
“Eh, what’s going on here?” I ask.
They each look up with eyes like saucers and fire the last of the chocolates into their mouths before legging it up the stairs.
The little devils are working together now. I’m going to have to up my game!
It was a good news week for us too. It has been five weeks since Jamie had an appointment with his speech therapist and she had advised me the last time that we would benefit from a workshop they offer. The workshop is just for parents to attend. The idea is that it gives us tips and advice in ways to help improve and encourage speech. Last week I got a letter in the post inviting me and Jamie to a video interview, prior to the workshop attendance. Whatever the heck a video interview was but Jamie and I headed off anyway.
We arrived at the speech therapy department at the local medical centre and checked in to the waiting room for our appointment. The place was packed with kids, all different ages and there was so much going on, Jamie sat amused.
The door swung open. “Jamie Hargan?” a lady asked.
“Yip that’s us.” I replied and followed the lady through to her office.
It wasn’t Jamie’s speech therapist that we had seen before.
“Hello, my name is Chloe and I’ll be doing your video interview today.” She said.
“Okay, but what exactly is this?” I asked.
“Well, what we do is we take out the box of toys and you and Jamie play like you would at home and I’ll record you. The point of this is for me to see how you interact and offer guidance and ways to help Jamie’s speech. It also allows you to look back at the video and see how you can encourage Jamie to talk.” She said. “It gives us both an insight into how we can help at the workshop.”
“Okay.” I said.
I didn’t realise I was going to be recorded, while I was looking like I had been dragged through a hedge backwards and Jamie insisting he wore one red sock and one green sock before leaving the house! Fox ache!
“Right, just you and Jamie play as you would at home.” Chloe said, and I heard the beep of the recording start.
What seemed like forever, but was actually only ten minutes later, Jamie had rhymed off the alphabet, told me all the farmyard animals he knew, counted to 30, went through all the colours, sang three songs and asked if we could have burger, chips and a milkshake for dinner.
The therapist told me that Jamie wasn’t what she had expected. I told her that his speech has come on massively since starting nursery and that the difference in him in the last five or six weeks is huge. She told me that the workshop is really only for parents with kids that would only have ten or fifteen words max and wouldn’t be able to chat in sentences. She said she would get in touch with Jamie’s regular speech therapist and advise that she wasn’t needed.
Brilliant!!
The following morning, I got a phone call from Jamie’s regular speech therapist to say she had been informed that the video interview went really well and Jamie had made a huge improvement. She said she would take me off the list for the workshop and arranged an appointment to see me and Jamie in the new year for an update but was very happy with the progress he’s made.
To say we are over the moon – yes. Relieved? Most definitely! I have been so worried about Jamie’s speech over the last twelve months that I was beginning to panic at the prospect of having to face other issues. Of course, that still could be something that we need to face, but to hear that he’s made huge progress and be at the stage he should be at his age is fantastic news.
So, with Halloween now done and dusted, is it safe to mention the ‘C’ word yet? I mean Christmas of course! I’ll need to have a think and ask Santa for something else now because with Jamie now chatting away, my Christmas wish has come true!
