Season of trees and festivals

Raffy has been on two camping trips in the past month. One was a pop-up festival for a friends birthday with bands, DJ's games and a magician. 

Now we are gearing up for a proper 4-day arts and music festival in Cambridgeshire. The one and only Secret Garden Party! We have a pitch in the Sanctuary area offering Reiki and Osteopathy treatments to all and sundry plus hopefully seeing Public Enemy and Martha and the Vandellas! Who knows how the trip will pan out?! It really is a new one for all of us.

I can't believe it's been so long since the last update. We have had a two day outreach with Gerd Winkler, a highly experienced Son-Rise Program® teacher. It was a lot of money but was very much worth it. 

We are still reaping the benefits and implementing his ideas. So much love, respect and challenges for when Raffy was interactive and we saw our boy reach out of himself even more than before. 

It was so inspiring to see and also to have an expert on hand for every crazy eventuality! 

Raffy is at the stage where he is coming through his classic autism diagnosis with more sophisticated language, jokes, questions and expansion. He can seem more challenging at times because he is finding how the world works and testing things out with words and actions. 

We found out we can ask him to do more things like put his own seat belt on in the car as he really is able to do this. His motor skills in general are coming along. He is even finding out ways to keep us doing stuff for him by mentioning that only 8 year olds can do it and he is only 7!

He is experimenting with climbing up the steps of the slide and coming down on his own, balancing on ropes and doing some hanging from monkey bars. All big risks for him.

He is now vitally interested in trees and leaves and is busy identifying the local trees. He carries around his book - British Trees: A photographic guide to every common species (Collins Complete Guide) and is currently on the trail of a hickory nut!

Our Son-Rise program has changed to allow more time outside the playroom with games around people and their interests mixed with some homeschooling elements. Such a brilliant period of growth. We are very very proud of him.

Our gorgeous lad :)

Raffy enjoying the good weather. Collecting flowers in yet another box!

The Iron Giant

Raffy is having some emotional breakthroughs and it's so very exciting to witness. In the last week he has started to show some empathy. He held my hand last week when I cried while reading a sad article in the newspaper.

Today he asked me if he could watch a film with me. We watched The Iron Giant (based on a Ted Hughes novel) and he rubbed his eyes when the deer was killed by the hunter and wanted a hug.

He's been having some physical and verbal outbursts over the past six months and this is a fantastic step forwards. He is a wonderful boy. It's not an easy path for him. We are so proud.

Autism Breakthrough! Essential reading for all :)

Raun Kaufman was the first Son-Rise child. He is now a biomedical expert, Son-Rise teacher and all round brilliant person (I've met him!)

This book is going to be the bible for autism parents and any professional who really wants to support and help families and kids/adults on the spectrum. Or anyone who wants to be part of the broader human race! Raun is the dude. 

Pre order from Amazon UK in hardback or paperback.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Autism-Breakthrough-K-Raun-Kaufman/dp/1250041112/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394710770&sr=1-1&keywords=autism+breakthrough

Climbing the Mountain :-)

Here he is! Attending a party for the first time and having a great time in his unique way! It was a party for one of his sisters friends. He wasn't invited but ended up joining in a bit. 

Slap bang in the middle of everyone singing 'Happy birthday', he yelled out "Who's birthday is it??!" 

This is a serious machine mountain with it's babies. 

Who are all wearing hats and being zapped by viruses.

Raffy asked me to take a picture of him waving the sticks from our new-to-us but broken xylophone! He wanted to check out the traces!!!

Toxic River 

Another masterpiece by the resident creative genius (one of them!)

Sleep

Ever since Raffy was born he has had problems with sleep. He has always found it hard to relax enough to drift off. As a baby we used to be rocking him and singing almost all night to try and get him to sleep. And he didn't sleep anywhere near the hours that other babies slept.

As he got older it got more extreme until last year he was awake until after midnight every night. Sometimes he would last until after 3am. Then be back awake at 7.30-8.30am.

When I say awake I mean hyper. Like a chatting, shouting, jumping bean. Demanding food, toys, scripting at a million miles an hour. There was no timetable or strategy we hadn't tried. I stopped mentioning it to anyone else because I think some people found it hard to compute! Brian and I did a shift system.

At the end of last year we started seeing naturopath and now with a cupboard full of supplements Raffy has started to relax in the evenings. It has made an unbelievable difference to our lives. Raffy now mostly goes to sleep from between 8 and 9pm and wakes around 7am. Breathe.

The virus tree and some words!

Raffy is getting interested in spelling, reading and writing. Very much on his own terms of course. He is loving finding out about the beginning of the universe and the Big Bang. Plus drawing virus trees and serious host cells... Bonk!