I alluded recently to a great connection that I now have with Valerie Foley’s here oft reproduced blog, jump on the rollercoaster, which is that my son David , has many learning challenges, not dissimilar to Billy’s (Valerie’s son Billy has autism and is the subject of her blog) David hasn’t been officially diagnosed yet. We do know that he is learning delayed in the areas of communication, adaptive behaviour and social/emotional behaviour and qualifies for special ed training with a ST, OT and special ed teachers at the local school district. I think we will probably have to supplement this with extra ST. Just another challenge to add to the list – David is a beautiful and fun loving child with a loving,caring nature, who despite his learning difficulties is fiercely intelligent, he’s certainly learned how to manipulate his parents and communicates his wishes and needs clearly enough! – he’ll be apples.
I went to a summer solstice party at a friends house, smoking stogies and imbibing in quite a few reds with Scot, Joe, Doug et al. on a chilly Saturday night one of the highlights of the weekend – thanks to hosts Inga and Scot wonderful company and party as always. On Sunday Bax, David and I attended the Fremont Solstice Fair in the pouring bloody rain – the kids had a ball – and dad got the usual mix of admiring stares and stares from others who consider my parenting skills inadequate, or worse still delinquent, as we got soaking wet playing in puddles and splashing about. My theory is this – they’re only going to be this age once, let em play and run amok (so long as it doesn’t interfere with others’ pleasure) they’ll remember the fun and look back on these times fondly. Despite the concerns of others who are more worried about my children’s health – this kind of activity will not kill them. The play benefit outweighs the health risk – easy decision.
Simon