Autism Awareness Day

So today, April 2nd is Autism awareness Day. My Facebook news feed is filled with people sharing memes, links, photos, quotes and more. Some say 'light it up blue', some say 'paint it red', it's all great in theory, I'm all for spreading the knowledge. But tomorrow they will have forgotten about it. Autism is everyday in my house. Not just one day. And right now I HATE it. 

Fun on the farm

We went on a trip with Friday Club to Hatton Country World today. We have been before but not since before Momo was born. Once, Squashy cut his eyebrow open in a nasty accident with a digger in the sand pit, so he had wanted to give it a wide berth ever since! 

But we talked him into coming, with the promise of him keeping out of the sand pit. And he was very glad we did! He had a great day.

The sun was shining and it was warm enough for the kids to play without their coats on. It was lovely and quiet being a school day, there were only a few other families there besides our group. 

It was lovely being there with lots of other children, so the boys could play with lots of others. 

It's funny as Squashy tends to enjoy playing with slightly younger children and Momo likes the older kids! 

Everyone loved the guinea pig handling (except maybe the guinea pigs!) Momo wanted to keep one! 

The boys' guinea pigs were 'kissing' here apparantly 💗

There was lots of opportunity for outdoor, boisterous, crazy playing, which the boys love and knowing that a lot of the other he children are very similar means I can relax a bit more and not feel the need to tell them to calm down every two minutes.

Most of the group spent a long time on the bouncy slide and castles, which were all soaking wet but that just seemed to add to the fun! 

Squashy and some of the other boys spent a while panning for gold. 

If they found 10 pieces of gold they could exchange them for a medal, so they all spent a long time hunting and working together so they would have enough for one each.

They were all pretty pleased with their medals at the end. 

There were lots of friendly animals, all happy to say hello and be stroked and patted, much to Momo's amusement

Momo also decided to brave the sandpit, with squashy nervously looking on, bless him. 

He really didn't want to go in. I can't say I blame him, it was a nasty cut he got years before, although I think he was more upset that we had had to cut out day short by going to the local A&E to get it glued! He always seems to latch on to negative events at places we visit, obviously this one was quite horrible, but even smaller things like them having food he didn't like, or a funny smell, or he might remember there being someone there with a coat he didn't like the colour of! It's always really difficult to try and talk into coming somewhere again when he gets like that, but I try to persevere as 9 times out 10, once we get there he completely changes his opinion and ends up having a great time! 

We ended the day with a mad half hour in the soft play, there's some brilliant slides that they enjoyed.

It was nice to enjoy a sunny day out, with other families in relaxed settings. We are lucky to have Friday Club local to us.