rambling and a progress report

Today was Mikko's IP (individual plan) meeting, involving myself, Mikko's early intervention teacher, his SLT (speech language therapist) and one of his preschool teachers. I love these meetings. They all tell me how wonderful he is doing and that he is right on track. I leave with a huge sense of relief as I am assured he is going to be "high functioning". This usually lasts until he throws a major tantrum complete with scratching and head banging and then I doubt everyone I panic that he is going to be anything but high functioning. Today was great though and I am still on a post IP meeting high. Even the dreaded 3pm school pick up went smoothly and without a hitch today and my 3 wonderful boys have been just that.

Mikko really is doing great though. He is using the words he knows and gaining new ones. He is babbling like a wee loon in 'Mikko-talk' too which is so cute. Basically in terms of his communication he is like a 2 year old and so I guess tantrums are par for the course and will hopefully reduce over the next couple of years.

Colin and I are doing the earlybird course at the moment. Well we had the first session last week and I couldn't go so it was just Colin. We have the 2nd session tomorrow and my Mum is coming over to look after Mikko and Kasper so that Colin and I can both attend. I think it's every Wednesday for 8 weeks so quite full-on but it's supposed to be a great resource for dealing with preschoolers on the spectrum so wish us luck!

Disco with Daddy

Finn had his first school disco last Friday. Daddy went along as parent help on "indoor security".
The theme was "neon" hence the high-vis vest though it also came in handy for Daddy keeping an eye on Finn!

just hangin'

We have just been hangin' around home lately but having a lot of fun doing it.
Finn has his first week back at school. He's gone into a new classroom and is doing really well. Tonight when I tucked him in bed and told him it was a school day tomorrow he squealed "yessssssss!" - it's so cool that he enjoys it so much.
He's doing really, really well at reading. Fine motor skills (writing, cutting etc) are really tricky for him so I am trying to get him to do things like duplo blocks (see pic), hammering, colouring etc to help.
Today we went to a toy store to look at some 'educational toys'. Things that would help Finn with fine motor skills and Mikko with speech. It was fun! We normally don't buy the kids any toys aside from birthdays and Christmas so I relished the excuse!
We ended up getting a sound/talking puzzle, a building set with little hammer and some schleich animals but I want to also get some threadind beads,a fishing game and more duplo :)

making fenced for the new Schleich animals

Building with Dad in the 'workshop'

Kasper watching the builders and listening to Bob the Builder

Mikko's been back at preschool and enjoying it - yay!!!!  He's had some great days this week and some real shockers. I feel like overall he's getting much more into communicating with us but worse in terms of tantrums :-/  Ah well - we'll get there :)