July-August 2011

Greeting all! This very full blog shows our gorgeous boy at parks, Richmond homes, weddings and at home being his glorious self. We hope you enjoy them.

FYI for those who don't already know, our Maximus has been diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder in July. We don't know yet at what level he is, high-functioning Aspergers or regular Autism, but we do think it is a kind of regressive autism because he was developping normally - even quite advanced - until about 18-20 months old before going back a few steps. He lost a lot of language and struggled socially for a while, spending a lot of time in his own world and losing some eye contact. We are very pleased to say that Max has been given and will continue to receive masses of support for his diagnosis including one to one speech therapy, Early Bird group, Early Years Foundation Stage Inclusion Support (for integration into pre-school and school) and appointments with a dietician to discuss trying a change in diet to help with some of his symptoms, chiefly improving his speech.

As far as we can tell so far he is only mildly autistic as he only has a few of the traditional symptoms and is actually slowly improving on all front, though the speech is definately slower. We have over the last few months heard an increase in fairly regularly used words from 5 to about 15, so we are hopeful he will continue to improve. This week we have started him on a dairy free diet to see if that has any effect on his speech, understanding of language and social interaction. We'll keep you posted!

This delightful little boy is happy every day and is really healthy, thank God! Here's some proof!

Here he is playing in Mea and Great Gran's house in Kew. He loved the big mirror in the bathroom as well as the MANY stairs to climb! He likes to be high up - see photos later for more of that!

Shouting at me (playfully) at the park in a puddle-strewn Kew park

This is an awesome pirate ship play area in Bracknell where Callum and I took Max for a run around one weekend in July

He also climbed a tree - I think Max's motto should be "if in doubt, climb it!"

Max's love of ladders and climbing lead him to follow Daddy up to our (newly tidied) loft. Good job Daddy!

This is the park at The Look Out which is great. Max is also loving drumming at the moment - see more evidence later...

Max enjoyed this twisty, turny thing for about 5 seconds then wanted to get off. He's saying "Come" to me here for me to help him get down

Dancing! "Jump around! Jump around! Jump up jump up and get down!"

"Tragedy!"

Playing bubble catching with Aunty M at her local park

More drumming! This time using Donkey Konga bongos!

Sleepy boy Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Dinner time

"You can't see me if I can't see you!"

Watching Daddy play Cars 2 on the DS

Playing draughts with Uncle Pete - I love Pete's face! :)

"What? I'm not stealing anything..."

So handsome

"Mumma, get that camera out of my face!"

See? I told you he likes to be high up! He copies the cats I'm sure. He lies across the top of the stairs as well!

Mmmmm new sofas!

Playing peepo from behind the old sofas outside

"These balls are in the way of my sandpit..."

"...that's better!"

The new iphone prototype had it's issues...

I had an idea to get Max more enthusiastic about painting by using his cars to make patterns with their wheels, but as it turned out, he was just a bit miffed there was some yucky wet stuff on his precious cars, so....

...we used good old fashioned paintbrushes instead

The Froy family at Badger & Karen's wedding

Jack: "Uh, Max? We're trying to get a portrait done here..."

Max: "My bad!"

Lucy, Harry, Hannah, Jack & Katie - who's missing?

Maximus! We just got him in this one before he had to return to the dance floor for another boogie!

"Come on Daddy! Shake your body down!"

Maximus LOVES his Jack Jack and often takes him by the hand to join him in playing, bouncing or dancing. Jack says: "Look, Max wants me! Yes he does Jack! He's just wonderful with Max. We love him.

Max and Jack getting jiggy with it!