and the award for Proudest Parents goes to...

I was only joking about the next post being spring 2010, but things got away from me and here we are (and there piglet is, as long as the string doesn't break).

The lovely thing about minding someone else's kid is you get moments to yourself to do extravagant things like check your email, hang the washing out, answer the phone, bring the washing back in again due to unforeseen showers, and catch up on your blog. Thanks Millie, I owe you big time. Poor Millie is slightly bored by being The Handsome Prince once again while Eleanor hogs the Snow White costume, but is a good sport and happy to help out with the required Kiss. She's also understudy for The Wicked Witch / Evil Stepmother and has to feed Ellie an apple - finally part of the 5 a day which has been somewhat lacking. I'm working on getting Cinderella's pumpkin onto the dinner table, and have plans for Pinocchio's carrot nose (work with me). Daniel will apparently be the Seven Whores when he gets home from school (desperately stifling a snigger at that one).

Daniel's diet has made huge improvements in his behaviour, and we're about to rev it up with a leap into the world of caesin-free / specific carbohydrate diet and about a million new supplements. He's really improved on the diet/enzymes so far, but we've got far to go.

Yesterday Dan came running in from swimming clutching a badge for swimming 5 metres. I nearly cried. His swimming teacher apparently actually did! Not sure whether I'm more impressed that he sat on the side without an adult to nail him there, listened, and waited his turn, or that he then swam across the deep pool on his own. As he can't swim in a straight line it was more like 6 metres to be fair.

I got a call last night from his swimming teacher, apologising as she had secretly never believed he'd be able to get his 5 metre badge. Not only that, but instead of it being his last lesson as we thought, she has moved heaven and earth to get him into a class for next term.

Quick update since the last post: Daniel got a place at a fantastic autism-specific unit in a school 4 miles away, and is doing really well. They have a sensory light room, allotments, cherry trees to look at out the window and huge playing fields (bear in mind this is London folks) and really warm friendly teachers. It also ensures at least half a dozen birthday party invites for him during the year as opposed to the single pity invite we might have got in a mainstream class. (We had 45 children at Dan's 4th birthday party. Guess how many return invites he's had?) They also don't mind our cavalier attitude to education in that we've only been sending him 4 days a week and have no intention of upping it to 5 until he's actually 5 years old. I'm constantly amused by the English Education System's loose definition of 'Rising 5' to mean 4 and a quarter. The move back home is on hold for now, and we'll just see what happens over the next few years.

Term is nearly over, and thankfully I've convinced Pete to let us go to Centreparcs this Easter. We have a long tradition of surfing over Easter, and as 2 adults in a youth hostel or dodgy caravan it's not too bad as long as you get the whisky/shoredump ratio just right. But a few years of sitting in a so-called sun tent on an English beach waiting for the hailstones to stop so you can make a break for the car is enough. We'll surf abroad until the kids are old enough to judge their own risk of hypothermia.

We're also booked to fly home for late May-June, and can't wait to catch up with everyone.

Right - time to go - Dan has arrived home, gently refused the girls offer of a role in the Snow White extravaganza and is now trying to see how many barbie dolls you can fit in a toy oven - I'm sensing we are moments away from the traditional sibling fistfight, so a round of sugar-based snacks should be just the thing to kick it all off completely. Heigh ho!