Is it Monday, and a School Support meeting went well....???? and a bird family murder...

The card my Beaver made me at Camp...

Oh where do I start....  Friday was a busy but crazy day...I did the School Run, swam 2km... ran a mile... then went off to collect Oatie early from School... dropped him off at home with his dad... to then run a brush through my hair to go to my eldest's school to volunteer for Lego Club... with Oatie, I hardly get to volunteer at anyones school, so I like doing a grade 1-3 club as I get to meet the kids he goes to school with and it's only a 6 week commitment on a Friday for 30 minutes.  So after that I dove home packed the last few items for Scout camp, and then picked my daughter up early early to go to my eldests Mother's Day Tea celebration.  Each Class Grades 1-6 did a skit and after you were presented with a rose.  While the kids watched a short story, the mum's and siblings had strawberry shortcake and a cup of tea (tea and saucers) or pink juice.  After we got home we ate an early dinner so me and my little Beaver Scout could go to Camp.

I'm a Scout Scout leader and my eldest is a 3rd year Beaver, so he was allowed to camp with the Cub Pack, as long as an adult was with him...  So we kipped in the smallest two man tent EVER... I usually don't mind being in it as my pack and I fit just about ok... but having another body and a Webkinz Bat in there too, just tipped the balance over the edge...!  I woke during torrential rain that was so heavy I brought out boots into the inner part of the tent... and woke up bolt upright at 3.30am! with severe claustrophobia, my shoulders were in agony from being scrunched up... I couldn't sit up and my arms were trapped and the mummy bag was tight around me and I knew I couldn't even dive outside as this tents zipper sticks.... and the only way to get out is to do a gymnastic manoeuvre that I haven't been able to do for at least a decade!!!  LOL!  The only way I managed to clam down was, flinging my sleeping bag open and sending some S.O.S texts asking my husband to bring a bigger tent... for the second night... which even though he was sound asleep, just took my mind off the whole trapped thing.  I looked over and then saw the BAT and my beaver scout, on my half of the tent... so after moving him back to his side and just freeing my arms I felt so much better.  I made a pact that if after 5 minutes I still felt trapped I'd have a wonder outside the tent and stretch my legs.  Having spend over 1 year of my life camping by the age of 15...  I stopped counting after that... I realised that my being silly about being claustrophobia at a trade off to my eldest enjoying a pursuit that I've enjoyed my entire life, my parents bought a caravan since I was a toddler and we camped most weekends before I became a brownie... was far more important.  He'd be cold in a larger tent, here he was warm and snug and really enjoyed the experience, in this tiny tent......  so for night two, I chuckled, when I saw his huge smile on his face when he slept and thought I'll be ok, I have him and a Bat to hug... lol!

Aside from that, we had a brilliant time, the other Beaver parents followed their Beaver around, but as I'm friends/knew with most of the other leaders, and they were supervised at all times and the camp was pretty small only 55 campers including adults  (we had 10 parent helpers on top of leaders so it was almost 1-1 ratio...), I let him just join in with the Cubs to get the full experience, he had to think for himself, and get to breakfast, negotiate the table system, and wash up, pack his mess kit and get to the activities on time, speak up about his allergies and I was actually in total awe and was gob-smacked how this almost 8 year old was such a natural camper, like my standards are high,.... and he blew me away.  I was there, but might be 20feet away having a watchful eye but if he looked my way, I'd pretend to look at woodpecker.... but when on the Cargo net which 20 of them could fit and he fell and his leg was dangling to the ground through the net about to get twisted... I bolted across the field and in a few seconds and stopped the net (thankful for my running fitness...).  I'm sure at one point when the kids were doing a treasure hunt, it wasn't my activity but my son was doing the hunt...... that this other leader must have thought that I was totally over strict... the kids were by the stream bank... and were within 1foot of the water's edge... water didn't have much of a flow and was shallowish...and at a glance it didn't look too dangerous... but with mountain run off... you just never know.. and also in the older level of Scouting, when we take our Scouts Canoe camping no one not even an adult is allowed 10 feet of the waters' edge without a life jacket, which must be fully zipped....  So I kept on saying away from the edge and stopped the hunt till they all complied...  and explained the rules to the Grade 2/3, who thought about it for a good few moments... one asked a safety question, and then they all moved from back from the bank.... and what was sweet, if one forgot another cub would remind them of the water safety rules.....

Mothering Sunday was nice, after my fellow troop Scouters cooked me a breakfast and made me a cup of tea... my Beaver came and gave me his card and a hug hug.  In the Afternoon, we went home and my daughter had a dinosaur party to go to while Beaver and I unpacked... and a Chocolate cake I made earlier was thawed out the night before... and we had a nice takeout... but I fell asleep at 21:00.

Today we had the OT meeting with the special needs school boards co-ordinator... and his preschool teacher.  OMG I can't believe it was a Monday and the meeting with the School Board OT went well!  Well I was not very happy but being a softy seeing a heavily pregnant woman... kind of melted me a bit....  :)

So I had to re-explain about ABR and the benefits and we're working on his pen holding motor skills, and she commented on his gait and I was like, it keeps changing depending on which set of techniques I'm doing with him.  We we agreed on a chair for him to participate in on Story-time and I ran it by ABR  So he could sit on the floor and hand independence from his aide....

Here are some TREE BUDS.... FINALLY!!!!

Which is some sad news... his Aide is moving back to Quebec....  Slightly devastated... his aide is one of the nicest people I've EVER met... and finding anyone as good as this guys right hand will be a challenge...  But the school know about it already so they have 3 months to find someone....

I've downloaded the app that the speech therapist recommended I use with JJ, but no he doesn't get speech therapy... I was told that I have great technique with him... so I'll be fine !?!!?!!?!?!?!?!?!? hmmmmmm... yes a conversation for another day!  The app, so far is a "deep breath"... it's written in a way that it's so linear and doesn't multi dimensionally think... so you have to think to use it... kinds of defeats the object for me... like Oatie will need a strategy to use the app...  I will not bag it... till I have used it for a week... just to see... but I hope that we like it.... it wasn't a $3.00 app...

So that's where we're at...  Oatie climbed in his seat and back out... and we had a great ABR session, 3.5 hours today...  I loved it I walked in from Camp and he said "mama Bench???" I said not today Oatie.. Mama going in the Shower.. he came up and sniffed me and said "Mama smells nice..." lol!

Oh and while we were savouring nature... when I went to put my backpack away,,, one of our windows outside our basement had evidence of a Bird Family massacre... you could see the outlines of the wings of the birds being pressed up against the glass.... it must have been a bird/birds of prey who took out this family as apart from the mark of the birds wingspans against the glass, claw marks etched in the glass, there wasn't a single drop of blood.  Euwwwwwww.

The scratches is the birds markings but you can see the wing print on the right hand side of the photo in the middle..