What a great day. I really enjoyed the children today. They were a pleasure and a joy to be with.

Some of the highlights:

Problem solving. The picture shows Bright Eyes getting a solution to his problem of being thirsty next to a bubbler that was just too tall for him. I thought that was pretty good. That's his sister walking up by the way. She likes to get into photos...

Bright Eyes and his sister in the pool. It was too cold for me so I sat and watched as they jumped in together and had a ball. Bright Eyes referenced her, waited for her to jump and sought out her face for the emotional response after the jump. He invited her (not bossed her) to join him, and copied what she did as well.

A complicated game of cubby-houses. I rearranged the lounge room so there is a great space behind the sofa - perfect for a cubby house. It's out of view too, so I don't worry too much about the mess. The three of them set up beds, problem solved when the baby wanted all the beds to himself, and played happily in the morning, not even missing their normal TV time.

Bed time. Bright Eyes and his sister go to bed together in our room. They read and play for a while until it gets dark. Tonight when I went to calm them down and say goodnight, the two of them were tucked up together pretending to be twins, looking as cozy as could be.

Original speech. I can tell when Bright Eyes is using his own words compared to a script (even when I am unaware of the script) because he gets his parts of speech slightly wrong. I find it cute, and I'm encouraged by it because it shows he's processing and trying things out. Today, I put a hot pancake pan under the tap and it did that big sizzle steam thing. He was standing nearby and reeled back, saying "I'm afraiding of the hot!"

RDI therapy time. We played a game today which worked really successfully. We had a bounce on the mattress on the floor, then fell over together and looked at a card from a simple 'charades' game. It gave an object or a simple action so we talked about it, and then acted it out for a minute or so. A couple of times he didn't want to do the action (skipping and fishing) so we chose another card which he preferred.

Then we did an up in the air game, landing wildly on the mattress. "I'm a boy, and I'm broken" he said. He would crash, and then say "I'm broken" so I would be a doctor and fix up legs and arms, ears and nose. He took a turn to fix me up when I got broken.

Finally, I let him use the Thomas trains he brought in with him and we played an interactive pretend game, chuffing around together and talking to the Fat Controller here and there. It wasn't a script he was following, although there were elements of the stories he knew in the play, but a genuine shared experience.