Busyknitter

……and it’s really very, very good

Quietly and without much fuss, my older son is growing up. While he doesn’t have the complex needs of my youngest, he’s never been what you might call an easy child.

We call him the “just-in-time boy”. He walked at 18 months, just when the Health Visitor would frown whenever she saw him. He started talking at 2.5, a week after Speech Therapy was mentioned. I’ll gloss over toilet training - suffice it to say we were lucky to find a tolerant playgroup. Reading was a huge struggle until suddenly at the end of Year 1, the lights went on.

And so on.

A lot of this I am sure is related to his mild dyspraxia, which makes any new physical task very, very dificult for him. It’s been obvious to me for years, but was only formally diagnosed last year. He’s learnt to cope over the years by avoiding anything that he finds hard, including some very, very basic skills and also by avoiding difficult social situations (who wants to be the only kid at Boys Brigade camp who can’t spread jam on bread?)

But this summer, things seem to be coming together at last. Here is the list of “firsts” clocked up this weekend.
-successfully cracked an egg into a bowl
-volunteered to do the washing up and made a decent job of it
-went out for a 2-hour bike ride without wingeing about being tired.
-tied his shoelaces (he’s starting high school next week and they don’t seem to make football boots with velcro!)

Phew!