The Surprise Missing Canine Tooth

The Tooth Fairy will be paying a visit tonight. Not that J is remotely bothered or aware of the tradition.
I hadn't even realised he had lost another tooth - bad mummy.
My middle son O, found it on the floor by my late Grandfathers old leather arm chair.
As J was not back from school, we did do a check on the dogs, but I knew it couldn't be from them as it was a small tooth and looked human.

When J returned, I asked him  to show me his teeth, and he duly obliged. I shone a torch in his mouth, and yes, there was a small gap, with a new tooth already well on its way up.
It is the first of the canines, and I had only checked a few weeks before, for the age of when children begin to lose those ones.

As with most things in J's life, he went through trauma during the first two baby teeth loss. He let out blood curdling screams and had the panicked panting and shock, when he was losing his first tooth.
He refused to eat with the tooth during that time, and he delayed its exit for quite a while.
Finally the first tooth, and the second tooth were lost only a few days later, and occurred at school, during assembly. Again he became highly distressed, and was removed by a support staff, to help calm him. His eagle eyed teacher spotted a tooth on the floor by his chair, and quickly assessed it was from J, and that was the reason for his outburst.

There is an old blog post here, from December 2010, where he had lost his seventh tooth.

Since then, he has lost all of his eight front teeth, four top and four bottom, and he never made any fuss, never became distressed, and never even attempted to show me.

This tooth is the first I have managed to keep. All the other teeth, he either threw away - apart from the assembly ones - or flushed them down the toilet. I would only be aware that another tooth had fallen out, when I saw the gap.

He has amazingly strong teeth, white, and totally free from any decay. I look upon that as a blessing, as it would be horrendous trying to get him to sit still for an injection in his gum, let alone actually sit in a dentists chair, lie back, and open his mouth. So far, he has progressed to allowing the dentist to shine her light into his mouth, use the little mirror, and paste on some fluoride gel. This alone has taken two years to build up to, and he still won't sit in the chair ; the dentist goes with the flow and his needs, and lets him stand by the door, a hand on the handle, ready to leave as quick as possible!
We are lucky that his dentist has a lot of autistic children on her books, and her manner and approach is exactly what J needs.

I can now be on extra alert for the next canine to become wobbly, and maybe I will actually be there to catch it. Maybe, but probably not!



                    J's canine tooth that was found on the floor

The Kindness of a Stranger

There is a really heart warming and uplifting story that has hit the news.
I have done a few checks on it, to authenticate it's content, and it appears to be a genuine one.

In North Carolina, America, the England family were having a meal out in a restaurant. Their eight year old son, Riley, has special needs. He has had brain surgery to try and manage his epilepsy, and he is also non verbal, which can lead to him becoming frustrated and agitated, causing noise and disruption.

The England family, with Riley, bottom right.

During this particular meal, he became noisy and began banging the table.
The mum was feeling self conscious and anxious about the other diners, and how they might feel.
I have been in that situation, and you can't help but keep looking around trying to see if people are staring or nudging each other, passing judgement.

When their food began being served to their table, another waitress appeared, and had tears in her eyes. She handed the family a note, and written on it was this.........

A stranger had paid for their meal, and wrote a sentence that not only gave this family some much needed comfort, but has spread round the world, touching the hearts of many.

What this stranger felt was a small gesture, is in fact incredibly poignant, and resonates with all of us that can relate to this familiar scene. How refreshing. How kind. Thank you Mr Stranger.

His Second Week at the New School

J is loving his new school.
He bounces around in the morning, dressed and ready well before the school bus is due to collect him.
Upon his return he is giggly, laughing, and full of cheer.
It is true what someone from his old school said ; that he is ready for the next stage in his education, and needs more challenges.

There has been one incident so far, as documented in his 'home / school' record book. Apparently he was repeating a fellow pupil's name over and again, and the other pupil became angry at him for doing so. J was put in to a 'time out'.
I am kind of stuck, wanting to remind the teacher that J does have repetitive speech. It is a comfort to him, albeit a nuisance for others.
If he latches onto a new word that gives him sensory enjoyment, it is hard to stop him repeating it.
He also becomes stressed if his process of saying the word is disrupted.
As this is a special needs school, it surprises me that the teacher was so abrupt with him, and in her message to me in the book.

I will just have to let it ride, as I do not want to be 'that parent'. Plus, J is happy. He probably has no idea about the incident being inappropriate, and the need to not repeat a word that is annoying someone else.

Moaner? Complainer? Yes, that's Me!

I am a bit of a complainer. A moaner if you like. But I actually address the problem that is irking me, rather than do nothing proactive, except seethe with anger, or frustration.

I am very proactive when it comes to most parts of my life and family.
Don't get me wrong though, I do not make complaints about the smaller issues of everyday life, such as queues in shops, loud music in a restaurant, two shop assistants talking about their social life instead of manning another till during peak shopping time - these do irritate me, but it's only a small part of my day, and pointless becoming irate over - life is too short to sweat the small stuff after all.

What is the point of suffering an injustice or malpractice, and not doing anything about it? Instead just complain to friends and family, over and again? - Do something! How can companies, organisations, businesses, etcetera, learn, if they are not told where they have gone wrong?
I always think to myself that, if I can improve a service or facility et al, just from an email or letter, then the next family receiving help will not have to experience what I, or my family have had to.

Again I will state that I am not a busy body or a tattle tale. I don't look for faults just so I can put pen to paper. It just seems unfortunate that over the last eleven years, the services that are in place to help, guide, inform, support, educate and medicate, have quite a few 'teething problems', 'hiccups', 'lessons they will learn from', and my family seem to bear the brunt of one or all of them!
It is a standing joke amongst certain friends and family as to what will go wrong, be forgotten about, or misplaced, in the services and support J receives, that I then have to sort out.
I have to keep my humour up, as it really is a farce sometimes, and it's almost unbelievable the amount of times clerical errors occur, just for one child.

I think about the people in Britain that complain non stop about the government. Quite rightly complaints should be aired, as many politicians work only to better their lives, not the people that elected them into power.
But what about those that didn't vote? The ones that declared their abstaining rights. The ones that couldn't be bothered to go to their local polling station and put a cross in a box. How can they make a fuss about their government, when they didn't actually participate in electing them?
It's like buying a house right next to a motorway, and then three months later complaining about the noise. Actions have consequences, but so does apathy and stoic refusal.

If I can make a positive change to something I have no control over, and ensure future families avoid the same error making from others, then I will do my upmost to keep on and never stop trying.

The First Day - And a Small Hiccup

Well the day finally arrived, and the start did not go well, thanks to a slapdash attitude from the transport department.
J's bus did not turn up until 10 minutes before school began! It takes about 15-20 minutes to drive there, and they still had more children to collect.
The escort told me that their company had not been given any details about the names and addresses of who they would be collecting, until late afternoon, the day before! Then they had received two more names that morning and had to work out the route to collect all the children.

I, of course complained to the transport department. It was not the bus driver or his companies fault.
I had a rather clipped woman in the office give me the impression I was in the wrong and that, in her words "it's only year 7, it doesn't really matter that much".

So I fired off an email to her.
*I pointed out that it was J's first day at a new school.
*We had been told collection time would be around 8.15am, and so he was all ready to go. He was a bit stressed because he couldn't wear his old school top, but I was managing him. But then, because the bus was so late, he got into an almost melt down state. "Hello bus", over and over again. Crying. Smacking his arms. The bus arrived at 8.40am.
*The year the child is in makes no difference to the time of arrival at school, and punctuation is still expected at special needs schools ; the same rules apply.
*Being blasé about it, really doesn't cut anything with me.
*The whole point of requiring the transport is because I cannot take him myself
*Children with autism, learning difficulties, cognitive delays, communication limits etcetera, like routine. It makes them feel secure. They are not lifeless beings that get ferried about. They still have feelings.

I received a reply within the hour from her.
The obligatory apology was issued.
Then an explanation ; They don't give out the details of the children being collected until the day before as there can be changes.

I accepted her reply, and left it there.

Apart from that, it seems J had a good first day at his new school. He came home happy, singing to himself, laughing, and being very jolly.

Later on in the evening, I found a drawing he had done on his magnetic drawing board.

I asked him who they were, and he tried to tell me, but because there are new names in his class, he wasn't able to say them clearly for me, so he mumbled.
They are all wearing their uniform too, with the school logo on the top.

It is so good that J can communicate his feelings by his drawings. I could tell from his happy state that he had enjoyed school, and this picture confirmed it.

The bus arrived on time this morning, and J raced off to get aboard. I hope yesterdays trouble is the only one we encounter this year!