Our puzzle monster

Wow - and just like that it's September already.
Tuesday 1st: Rachel ended up with the flu last week and she hardly ate the entire week. I took her to the doctor on Monday morning - just to make sure we were not missing anything else. The doctor felt confident it was just the flu and told Rachel she would need to take it easy for at least a week and build up her strength again. Rachel was very disappointed to miss ballet on Tuesday, but I did get her down for St John later. She really wants the 100% attendance. She promised to take it easy, and I realized she didn't have the energy to do much more. She is on the mend (eating again) but just no where near enough energy for ballet or work this week.
Wednesday 2nd: It is always so fun watching a little child put on their parents shoes. :-)
Thursday 3rd: This evening we started an "amine challenge" on our FAILSAFE diet. So the idea is that we introduce food that are high in amine content but low in salicylates to see how everyone does on amines. So the foods that we are introducing are chocolate, banana, older cheeses (we have only been using fresh cream cheese for the last 3 weeks), older meat (ie- it's been in the freezer for over a month) and rice (although no one is really excited about that).
So there was big excitement today and the children got to enjoy chocolate covered bananas. Ruth had told Hezekiah that he could help her stir the chocolate - so he was extra excited.

Friday 4th and a much better day at Champion Centre today. The teacher had tried to see if Asher would search for something under cups. But she just saw cups that needed to be stacked up. :-) So she has tried again with a few face clothes, and that worked fine. Although at one point Asher decided to eat the toy and try and hide herself. :-)

For a couple of weeks her speech therapist has been trying to teach Asher to say "go" after "Ready, Steady" but up till today we were not having any success. Today the speech therapist just kept changing activities as Asher lost interest and the idea of giving her "train" rides in this big bean bag. She would sing a little song as she pulled her along and then she would stop and sing "stop, look and listen" and then Asher would say "more" and so the teacher would say "Ready, Steady" and after a few times, Asher started making and "oooo" sound for the "gooooo". She had so much fun and it was lovely to watch.

Sunday 6th. Puss does loves boxes, and she surprised everyone with getting into this tiny one.
It was father's day today and Ruth put so much effort into preparing. She was too excited about the gift mug we bought for him on Friday, so he got his present then already. She spent ages yesterday preparing for today though. She made cards and loom band presents for everyone and even got a "pass the parcel" game organized. Some lovely, special memories. Thank you Ruth.

Hannah and I headed up to the school playgroup for our "outing" this afternoon. I managed for 40 minutes and then my ears were too sore from the cold wind, so we headed back a bit early.

Hannah was ok with the plan though, as I helped her make hot chocolate for everyone. With whipped cream and grated chocolate on top. :-)

On Sunday afternoon Asher got started on her puzzles again. She has developed a new habit this week of asking for the entire pile of puzzles. Before you could just give her one at a time (although she would often go through the whole pile). It got to the point though where she wanted a specific one and would keep saying "no" to the offered puzzle. So this way she can build them in the order of her choice.
I know it's a very serious photo - but this is her routine. With every piece, she will look up and ask (with a grunt or something) what it is. And that's serious business for her.
There are some that she can say, and she makes the sounds of a number of the animals. But even with those she likes to have someone say it with her.
All done. I wanted to see how long it took her, but she had a toilet break during building.


Then she played with these. Ruth noticed that she had put them all in their colour groups when she un-packed it. So when I got the camera out to take a photo - Ruth decided it was a good opportunity to practice her photo bombing skills. :-)
Less than an hour later she wanted to do them all again! I finally realized I need to try and get some more for her, and so we have a few more coming for her enjoyment in the week ahead. Our enjoyment too though - as we all get rather tired of the same ones all the time. ;-)
This time I got to time her, and it only took her 15 minutes.




Hannah doesn't like having her hair tied up as it gives her a headache. So I quickly did this for her for church this evening. I took a photo so that she could see what it looked like. :-)