Upsidedowncake!

Hannah made us a great pineapple upsidedown cake in Home Economics this week. Everything else we have pretty much managed to keep the right way up! That is if you skim over the fact that Kirsty in attempting to purchase a diary to keep everything in order managed to get two! Don't ask!! Fraser has been at scouts, guitar, netball. Murray has been at cubs and drums and both boys have been at Key club at the Baptist Church in Perth. Hannah has had flute and piano in addition to the cake baking and other school pursuits.

Finlay has been at nursery this week and while Mum stayed with him on the first afternoon he was very quick to say good-bye and wave her on her way on the second day. He had been water painting outside with his wee pal Jed, (a great nursery activity for those of you not familiar with it) and both boys had somehow, just somehow, managed to "paint" each others backs. Great fun and so good to see. He will have three afternoons a week at nursery and he has a support assistant with him.

Our target this week from Speech and Language is for Finlay to learn to say the different pets we have in the house and cat and dog. We are going to allow him to say Buzz as hamster is quite a big word. The focus for our Makaton learning is going to be on food words. Having set targets is a deliberate strategy for all the relearning that has to be done. Finlay has already added the word "sorry" to his list and has the odd occasion to use it, being the wee monkey he is.

He now has the hand splint for his right hand to wear at night while he is sleeping. He does also have a support for his thumb during the day but at this point is not at all keen on this and as soon as it is on, it is off again. It is a concern to us that he will not use his right hand for anything and is resistant to any attempt to encourage him in this. He has quickly developed strategies to do things using his chin, teeth, arm to assist. This is a big prayer point for us right now.

Tomorrow we are off to Glasgow to have a happy birthday Grandad day. There is some talk of fishing or canoeing in the morning with Dad and Uncle Johnny. Should be fun!

Definitely back to routines..........

Family walks!

Time out!

The serious business of pond dipping

It is hard not to look back at our holiday pictures without a bit of a sense of longing!! It was great to have those days without too much we needed to achieve. Our life at the moment is requiring the purchase of a diary, which has a lot of extra space to write our commitments for each day.

The kids have completed their first week back at school and have done well. This week we have to look at building in their clubs and other commitments. These things are important. Bruce started back at work officially yesterday. It was fun for us all to be at the Big Day at Lendrick Muir and we really enjoyed catching up with friends while Bruce worked.

Finlay is having a visit to nursery tomorrow with Mum. He has a good level of independence and will enjoy all the fun of nursery and being around the other children. It will take a little while just to make sure that he is well settled and we will see how that goes over the next few weeks. A clearer pattern for his therapy sessions will also emerge as our therapists settle into term time timetables. He also has an appointment tomorrow morning to be assessed and measured for his hand splint. He will wear this when he is sleeping to keep the muscles in his hand in a good position.

Finlay continues to be his cheery wee determined self. He absolutely refuses to slow down when he is moving about and does unfortunately come a cropper on occasions. Today he is sporting a black eye and one day last week went full length into a very large and muddy puddle. This he was not very pleased about! Did it help him learn the lesson of pace? The black eye would suggest not! Does anyone out there know where we can get a hold of a 4x4 pedal car? Most of them seem to have motors and the point is to get his wee legs both working. The reason for the 4x4 is stability.

We really would value your prayers just now for an ability to prioritise and organise all our activities and energy to carry them all out. We pray for Finlay that he would respond to the therapy and we would see his speech, and gross and fine motor skills, continue to progress.

Hats, holidays and routines.

Just to show that we are keeping our sense of humour here is our little one wearing a very fetching hat at Jennifer and Andy's wedding.

And no, he did not wear it all day! That was Kirsty's job. Here is the family with David and Fiona................. all looking very smart.

We are now back home from our holiday. We had a great time but it was all too short. We fished, went pond dipping, (Bruce being the most excited at this as he was the only novice at this particular sport!!) and took lots of walks. We took a walk in the grounds of Balmoral, did not see the Queen but she must have been somewhere close by as we did have a chat with some of her body guards who were checking up on what we were up to! We did see Tessa, Alan, Shona and Clare who stayed in a B&B near by one evening. That was lots of fun.

Now it is back to reality again. The older crew are getting ready to go back to school. Murray is battling really bad ear ache and we are praying that this clears soon as he is up every night. Poor kid! (and poor parents actually!) Finlay is due to start nursery but this will take a little planning with the school, his therapists and ourselves and that will begin to happen next week. We know that he will enjoy all the fun of the nursery and we need to look at the support he will require and also how best to fit the different therapy sessions in and around. Again we are so grateful for such supportive therapists.

Finlay will be seeing speech and language twice a week, and Ot and physio continues. Speech and laguage are recognising that the stroke has caused what is being treated as verbal dyspraxia and the therapy is focusing in on this, helping our little boy to co-ordinate his muscles to make different sounds. At the moment he can produce a sentence but without a clear context it is difficult to work out what he is saying. There are lots of exercises and games we can help him play. We continue to work on Makaton.

Later this month he will see the specialist to be fitted with a splint to wear on his right hand to keep the muscles in a good stretched position while he is sleeping. On the 16th September his right foot will be put in the cast as we have mentioned before.

Under Dr's advice Kirsty will not be returning to work quite yet. While coping well with all the challenges of just now, it is not without its stresses and strains and it is important that Mum is able to stay strong. The good news is that Bruce has another week of holiday left so will be around next week to help with getting four kids to a fair number of different venues at a whole collection of different times, all fed and watered too!

Enjoying a wee break

We are now enjoying a wee holiday in a lovely little cottage in Braemar and it is just what the doctor ordered! Its nice to spend time just us as a family doing normal stuff.


All Finlay's therapy sessions this week were moved to the beginning of the week to allow us a few days away so we had a very busy few days.


On Monday we saw the Orthopaedic Consultant. He was quite happy with Finlay's progress which was reassuring. He has decided against the Botox for now which we are happy with. Instead he is considering using a splint on Finlay's right hand while he is sleeping. He also plans on putting Finlay's right foot in plaster for 2 weeks. After 2 weeks the plaster will be changed for another which will be kept on for a further 2 weeks. Our wee boys' foot is currently quite stiff and this will ensure the tendons etc are stretched fully and should then minimise loss of movement and ensure his knee is correctly aligned. This is likely to happen in a few weeks time, after Finlay has has another few sessions of hydrotherapy. The Physio we saw previously, who specialises in working with people who have had strokes, is coming to see Finlay again next week during his hydrotherapy session.


Speech and Language therapy sessions continue. Finlay is now able to say certain words clearly but when stringing words together in a phrase the clarity of sound is lost. It is then only possible to understand what he is saying if we know the context. We are continuing with Makaton and the use of a communications board.


It is hard to believe but our wee one is due to start nursery soon..where does the time go?! Our current Physio will continue to work with Finlay once he starts nursery but we are not sure yet if he will continue with the same Speech Therapist and OT or if he will work with folk assigned to the school. What should happen though, is we should get into more of a routine, where we have set days and times for various therapies. This will make life much easier when it comes to planning ahead.


We are very conscious that young children suffering strokes is unusual and as such those working with us are working in a fairly unknown area. However, they have been brilliant and we are really impressed and grateful for the care we have received and are continuing to receive. It does feel that everything possible is being done to help our wee boy in his recovery. We do also really appreciate those of you who pray for Finlay and for us as a family. Thankyou and please keep praying!