Non Verbal Frustration

As Ethan is getting older it can sometimes get quite frustrating that he can't tell us what he wants and this past weekend really highlighted it for us. 

On Thursday Ethan decided that he didn't really want to eat and was sick. On Friday he decided that not only did he not want to eat he didn't want to drink either. When he was sick again I knew it was time to call NHS direct. The frustration comes when they ask you if his tummy hurts and I have no idea. He can't tell me if it hurts and we are yet you work out a way for him to tell me and to be honest Ethan is only just starting to indicate that he wants things by leading us to places for example it's time to put on the Mickey Mouse Club House DVD he takes us to the DVD player so I think we are a long way off showing us that any part of his body is hurting! 

So they suggested that we take him to the local walk in centre and after not being able to find anything wrong we were sent home. 

What followed was a weekend of Ethan not wanting to eat or drink which caused us great concern and the feeling of helplessness is overwhelming. I never knew that I would think of speech as such a luxury!

After taking him to A&E last night and having a four and a half hour wait we finally discovered the problem. Ethan has tonsillitis and I have never felt so relieved to know why he didn't want to eat or drink. 

It has really made me think how much we do second guess Ethan's actions, trying to work out his wants and needs. The fact that he can't tell us if he is ill and we can't help him sooner makes me feel like a terrible mother. 

I know that there is a possibility that Ethan may never talk or that it will take a long time and before I knew about his possible autism my frame of mind was and still is he will talk when he is ready. 

The selfish side of me craves to know if my little boy will ever be able to call me mummy or even tell me that he loves me and my dream for Ethan a year ago was that he gets a good job when he is older. My dream for him now is speech. Something so simple, yet for some can be so out of reach! 

If these are only my frustrations I can't even begin to imagine what Ethan's are!

For now Ethan is on the mend and is as happy as ever he is my amazing little boy and always will be.

Ethan's First Birthday Treat - Colchester Zoo!

We often pass Colchester Zoo on our travels but in our adult lives we had never visited so we decided that we wanted to see what it was like there for Ethan's first birthday, our first official day out as a family. 

Ethan wasn't walking yet and to be honest he had only just learnt how to sit up on his own so he spent most of his time in the buggy. 

We started of by saying hello to this guy...

...but this little man wanted to say hello to Ethan. I would love to know what secrets he was telling him!

After this encounter Ethan promptly fell asleep, it must have been all the excitement! 

Whilst Ethan was asleep we had fun taking photos with lots of different animals!

When Ethan woke up we started to show him all the different animals in the zoo but they weren't really grabbing his attention so knowing of Ethan's love for water we took him to see the animals that also love water. 

We decided as a treat we would eat in Colchester Zoo's restaurant, this was very brave for us as we never went out without food prepared for Ethan. It was a very lovely meal, both me and Darren had a curry and Ethan had a jacket potato. 

With full tummies we decided to head over to see the elephants, giraffes and rhinos  At certain times of the day they let you feed the elephants and giraffes and this is something we wanted to do.   

 

 

Unfortunately the weather turned very cold and there was quite a wait for the next feeding time so we decided to call it a day after letting Ethan have his photo taken with the elephants. 

 

Colchester Zoo is a lovely place and we really enjoyed our time there. We have another trip already planned and money permitting would love to become pass holders in the future. 

Below are some of the other animals we saw during our visit.   

Ethan's First Christmas - Christmas Day

I don't have many photos of Ethan's first Christmas and I never get many of his birthdays either. I think I get too involved in everything on the day and never pick up the camera and I always hope that Darren would take more photos but he is even more camera shy than me but as Ethan is getting older we are getting better and blogging is making me use the camera more! 

We spent this Christmas with quite a lot of people which was nice, my parents, their friends and Ethan's other Nana and Pappy. Ethan was also still taking two naps a day so he missed having Christmas dinner with us. 

I ordered Ethan a special baby grow which showed the world it was his first Christmas, this is the photo we used on his thank you cards. 

I didn't want to overwhelm Ethan with his presents as he somehow had quite a few so we opened them slowly all day. Ethan doesn't understand presents at the moment, he doesn't get excited when he sees gifts wrapped up and he doesn't try to open them. I really wasn't expecting him to on his first Christmas as he was only seven months old at the time but I'm really hoping this is the year he gets it. We will just have to wait and see! 

Ethan with his musical train

Nana showing Ethan his Christmas book

A spinning toy, Ethan loves to spin things!

Hello Elmo, this toy was more for us!

Looking at his Christmas book

Pappy showing Ethan how to drive!

All in all we did have a great day but I did find it hard work and I wasn't even doing the cooking! I'm really looking forward to this year as it will be our first Christmas in this house and the first in our own home, I know my mums looking forward to having the dinner cooked for her for a change! 

Ethan's First Christmas - Christmas Eve

As we still lived in our flat which caused some space issues Ethan's first Christmas was spent at my parents house and we were lucky enough that Ethan's Nana and Pappy would also be joining us. 

I had already spent the week running up to Christmas at my parents because there were predictions of snow so we thought it would be best for me and Ethan to be there. I also don't really like to travel on Christmas Eve as I don't trust other road users but it turned out that we ended up driving to my parents as snow was falling and it was a pretty scary journey. 

At some points the snow was falling so fast you couldn't see the tread marks from the car in front and you could just about make out the car in front. I have since vowed never to travel in falling snow again but when we got to my parents house there was not a trace of snow anywhere as it missed them!

This is the first time that I can ever remember there being snowfall before Christmas and it was very touch and go if Nana and Pappy would make it for Christmas Day and at one point we didn't know what day it would be safe for Darren to join us. 

Thankfully Darren got to us safely on Christmas Eve just in time to have photos with Ethan in front of the Christmas tree in his fantastic Christmas PJ's!

Nursery - Highs and Lows

It's been a bit of a week for Ethan at nursery this week he had a couple of bad moments and I had another proud mummy moment. 

Lows 

Ethan had two incidents at nursery this week but its part of growing up and learning to stand your ground that I suppose we all have to go through in life. 

On Monday a little girl backed into him and he fell over and hit his head on the wall and on Tuesday one of his fellow classmates decided to bite his arm and he still has the mark to prove it. They were very apologetic about both incidents but its still sad to know that you can't be there all the time to protect them. 

Highs

Ethan brought home another piece of artwork for us to add to the fridge door. I think its a hedgehog!

Ethan's First Christmas - Meeting Santa

Darren didn't want to take Ethan anywhere to visit Santa as he thought he would be too young to understand and not enjoy the experience so I was very pleased to hear that Santa would be visiting our playgroup Christmas Party. I will let the pictures show you how it went!

To be honest I think I would have cried if my mum had placed me on a strange mans lap but in true Ethan fashion Santa's beard soon distracted him! 

Swimming Without Armbands!

For todays swimming lesson Ethan's instructor thought it would be a good idea to ditch the armbands and just use a swimming woggle to try to get Ethan moving!

Ethan has been having swimming lessons once a week in term time since January and he has yet to kick his legs or move across the pool in anyway on his own. Just to put it in some perspective as he is only two years and five months old, other children that started swimming at the same time have moved up to the next group, we are still in this group and will be for some time. But Ethan can float perfectly with his armbands and I'm quite happy to have him at just over arms reach in the pool as I know he is fine. He can also do some pretty amazing spinning in the water and I think he would quite enjoy synchronised swimming!

Our swimming lessons aren't just about Ethan learning to swim I also want to give myself confidence in the water as I am not a strong swimmer and nearly drowned in a swimming pool when I was little so I have some issues. So the fact that we have got to where we are at the moment in these lessons is something I'm really proud of. 

For those of you who don't know what a swimming woggle is please see the picture below...

As I decided to embrace this new suggestion I was very brave and left Ethan's armbands at the side of the pool. The woggle is placed under his arms so that it is supporting his chest and his arms are free to move. This is fine until Ethan puts his arms up and slips straight through the woggle. I then panic and pull him out of the water to find him either coughing up the water he has swallowed or laughing because he thought it was fun. I must add I'm in the swimming pool with him at all times, I don't think my nerves could take watching him from the sidelines! 

Now we are back to me having to get my confidence again and letting go of him in the pool but by the end of todays lesson he was happily spinning in circles and floating with the woggle even if it did give him more of a chance to drink even more of the pool's water than normal. 

I am pleased to report that we did have one kick towards the end of the lesson as the instructor gave him an elephant shaped watering can which he loves. I took it off of him and try to get him to follow me to reach it and he did move for it just a little bit. So now we have worked out with the woggle and the elephant watering can we may finally get him moving forwards in the water and not just spinning!

A Sunday Visit To The Sea

We decided to take Ethan to see the sea this afternoon to get out of the house for a bit. When we got there we were disappointed to find that the tide was in so we couldn't go for a walk along the sand today instead we let Ethan watch the waves for a bit. 

  

We then went back up to the top to let Ethan have a run around on the grass but he discovered the covered seating area and he liked how it made his shouts echo. 

Whilst there we heard a funny noise and looked up to see this man going for a ride!

We often see people kite surfing here but we have never seen this man before. 

We decided to take Ethan to the pier so we didn't have a wasted journey but it took a while to get Ethan to come back to the car, he had fun playing hide and seek with us. 

When we visited Hastings Ethan loved all of the flashing lights in the amusements so when he saw the flashing lights in the pier he couldn't wait to get in there.  

We call Ethan our little strong man because he likes to lift the heaviest toys he owns onto high places so we couldn't miss the chance to have his photo taken here...

We walked along the pier to say hello to the sea again...

...before taking Ethan onto the carousel so that he could have some fun with the flashing lights.