Things things Coraline is up to, aged four and a half

1. Working on stepping holding onto a hand. She can do maybe 20 steps like this. She definitely favours holding a hand and stepping, to crawling. She is not yet walking independently.

2. Going to preschool Monday to Friday. She has three great therapists in place through the Local Authority (O.T., physio and speech) after a gap of five months after we moved to Devon, and our amazing private O.T., Shelley, who specialises in Neurology and reflex integration.

3. Sleeping well

4. Getting a bit fussier on eating. She is not feeding herself independently with a spoon but she’s good at using her hands

5. Growing quickly!

6. Musical books and musical toys. Music is big for her - it makes her happy and calms her

7. Sensory behaviours e.g. a lot of repeatedly hitting her mouth and forehead with her hand and flapping her hands in the air. We are working with Shelley to help us understand this

8. Routine. Coraline doesn’t like new things too much so we introduce one new thing at a time slowly until it becomes familiar (e.g. one activity). The range of things we do is fairly limited. If we are out socially Coraline tends to just stick to her pram and her musical books as this feels safe for her. She is not interested in activities like the playground or softplay yet.

9. Taking our hands to take us where she wants to go and also taking our hands to sign nursery rhymes for her as she does not have any words yet and doesn’t generally sign Makaton herself though we are sure that she knows a lot of signs.

10. Smiling more. A pretty cool one!