We had such a nice day yesterday. I had my echo cardiogram (seems to be fine, will see tomorrow when doc gets results), then picked the kids up from Deb’s who had them for me. My friend Liesl had called me to see when we could catch up as her daughter Jasmine wanted to see Beth. We had been in mothers group together 11 years ago (my god that seems so long ago when written like that), then at kinder. The kids had gone to different schools. Liesl and another friend Karen and I have kept in contact through dinners but the kids hadn’t seen each other in years.
I grabbed some rolls and a cooked chook (chicken for those not in Australia) and headed over. To start with Beth put on a dvd and ignored Jasmine which was pretty much what I expected! Still, it left Liesl and I to have a good old chin wag. Bill and Sam (Liesl’s son) wanted to play some XBox after lunch so Beth had no choice but to play. She read a few books but I did hear her talking with Jasmine a few times who was playing with Bridie. When all was quiet at one stage I called out to her and she answered me straight back that she was in Jasmine’s room. She did watch another dvd but I was pleased that she had joined in on some of the play. Liesl was shocked that after one scan of the dvd drawer Beth knew where the second dvd was to be found. I told her that Bethie has a photographic memory of things like that!
It was so nice to catch up. The great thing about them seeing Beth is that they can see the differences and improvements in Beth. With constant therapies over the years I can often see subtle differences. It takes somebody who hasn’t seen her for ages to point it out though. When Beth was at kinder she had selective mutism so a lot of her personality didn’t come out. So much of Beth as an 11 year old is about her humour which of course her voice plays a big part. Liesl was amazed at how different she was from the withdrawn 5 year old that she remembered. I feel so proud of Bethie to see how far she has come.
