It’s half term and quite a lot has happened since I last posted. For starters Archie’s a year older. He had his birthday; we had the annual family surf lesson. There was no swell, but Archie’s brothers were happy to catch ripples with Tim while Archie, Harry and I went for a paddleboard around Burgh Island. An SUP is now on the shopping list.
We were lucky with the weather. This video was taken less than two weeks before our calm sunny day:
After the dreadful May winter weather it’s continued to get warmer, as of this week we’re now surfing in summer suits with no boots. Heaven.
And communication wise? There has been so much progress. The talker is pretty much glued to Archie these days. He appears with it in the morning when I have barely woken up. It’s produced at bed time. He chats about everything and anything, from his desire to surf in northern Ireland (next year, next year,) to his wish to go on the cruise ferry to France and swim in the pool mid-channel. My job is to ensure it remains charged, everything else is in Archie’s hands.
Recently Archie has been talking about walking the dog (“maddog’) after schoo.l I understood what he was saying using his combination of speech and sign, but thought it would be good to get it on the talker. So using icon tutor I found ‘after’. Archie did the usual thing he does on finding a new word – explored the buttons around it. Deep joy of joy, next to ‘after’ and ‘before’ there is ‘top’, ‘middle’ and ‘bottom’. Bottom. Oh great. I’ll leave the rest of the conversation to your imagination, but he told me it was ‘funny’, (I told him ‘naughty’ and eventually he conceded that it was ‘silly’ – we compromised). His brothers find his new expressive vocabulary hilarious – in the way only 7 and 10 year old boys can.
But yes sentences are getting longer, and Archie’s confidence is growing. And oh, after a year of sitting/kneeling on the surfboard yesterday he caught wave after wave standing up. Good times.
A Life Unlimited 