Road trip

Sharon was on the road for the last week, which was hard work for all concerned. Marie came over to help out with the logistics of child pick-up and child minding so that I didn't have to take any time off work but there was a lot of clock-watching and tail-chasing. Sean and Finn's parents' night was on the Thursday. Sean is doing well, according to Mrs. Cameron, who showed examples of how his written work was progressing in style, format and content from the beginning of the term. She's happy that his maths is coming on too, especially the way he had grasped all aspects of symmetry, and that his times tables are improving. He doesn't get into trouble although he can get a bit distracted at running his "shop" with Lewis (where they've been trying to sell Harry Potter drawings amongst other things) instead of getting on with whatever he's supposed to be doing. She expects him to do something entrepreneurial when he grows up. There must be a bot of Gormley in him then - he's not all Wallace!

Mr. Peach said Finn is coming out of his shell a little and contributes during circle time and in class discussions. He seems to like it when he knows something and is recognised for knowing it. Mr. Peach said Finn seems to be the "go-to" man for some of the maths stuff, which Finn likes, and that he's very good at ICT, which is no surprise given his ability with a mouse from the age of three or earlier! His one area of concern is the one we struggle with too - trying to get Finn started on pieces of work that require him to do writing. Often he'll do the drawing bit first, which he's good at, and then run out of time to do the writing part. We feel he struggles to know what to write, despite being well able to form sentences and read very well. Whether it's spelling that's a problem or being a perfectionist and not wanting to get it wrong or be criticised; it's hard to say. But he seems to be doing well in class, popular without being overly friendly with everyone.

Stuart and Lesley collected the boys on Tuesday to take the middle two swimming. Finn has swum very well the last few weeks and even Rowan managed half a width without clinging on to the side and spending most of the time not listening and mucking about. I took Rowan to the Eye Pavilion on the Friday morning to have his eyes tested once more and to see Dr Mulvihill, the eye surgeon. Sure enough, his prescription has changed and they detected an astigmatism in his right eye, in addition to one in his squinty left eye. Dr Mulvihill has prescribed him with bifocals as he says the turn seems to be when Rowan is trying to focus on things close up and straight ahead and that bifocals can help with this. Gradually, over a few years, the aim would be to reduce the strength of the bifocal and so get the brain to better control the eye muscle. However, there is no time limit on surgery, so if the bifocals aren't doing the job it may be that we go for the surgical option. Often Rowan sneaks his glasses back on when he goes to bed as he complains that if he wakens up his eye is sore when he tries to look at his clock and he says he can see "two of things", often pointing to things that ought to be peripheral to his field of vision while his eye is pointing in another direction entirely. It's a bit concerning, but he does seem to see OK with his glasses on.