Monday at home! Yay!

Phew! After our busy weekend, it was useful to spend a day at home. Grace and Jack had typically varied reactions to that. Grace was relieved and very content to spend her time after 'schoolwork' drawing and listening to music in her room. Jack, was raring to go again and was excited to be heading out the door to bowling and quasar with the Scouts and Explorers. He doesn't seem to need down time. Or alone time. Or debriefing. Or De-stressing. "What's stress again, Mum?"

I spent the time, not leading Grace through Maths, catching up with laundry and phone calls and starting to find books and reply to email orders for my small books business. Then I had to stop and tidy up as we were expecting a visit fom two Special Needs specialists from the Connexions Service (careers and Further Education advice for people aged 13-19). Jamie was coming home from work early. They were due at 4.30pm.

Realising I was in my sloppy 'at home' clothes and had no make-up and not even brushed my hair yet, I dashed upstairs to make myself look presentable. I had pulled a brush through my hair and was changing my clothes and had mascara on one eye when I heard knocking on the door. It was 4.10 and Jamie wasn't even home yet! Jack was in his room, playing electric guitar and listening to music with headphones on - yes, at the same time. Grace hovered in my bedroom doorway panicking and refusing to answer the door for me. She does that. It's an ASD thing. So it was up to me.

I tumbled downstairs pulling my socks on and let them in just as Jamie arrived. With half my make-up on. :sigh:

It was actually a pretty productive and helpful meeting, which I wasn't expecting. (I have a cynical streak.) We got lots of information about what's on offer in Oxfordshire for young people with Grace's dx and have a number of leads to follow up. The annoying thing was how little understanding they had of home-educated children or how HE works. They kept telling us how Grace needed some social interraction to help her develop social skills. At one point, we had to stop the interview and set them straight on how much interraction Grace has with people. I think they started to believe us but it's always so irritating when people insist on believing that no school=lack of socialising opportunities. I've worked blooming hard to make sure that is not the case in my 10 years of HE!

But apart from that, it was useful and informative. We are feeling a little more positive about Grace's future every day.

Jamie went to a music leaders' meeting with the pastor, Jack won at bowling and Quazar (as per usual), Grace sang and drew (to decompress from the stressful meeting) and watched Eastenders with me. I've only just started letting her watch it and I sneakily use it as a life-skills lesson, though she has no idea what we are doing. We talk about people's motivations, always so incomprehensible to Grace.

"Why does Honey not love her baby with Downs Syndrome? If I had a baby like that, I'd love her even more because she'd need my love more than an ordinary baby." That from a girl with autism. A hard lump at the back of my throat. I was so proud.