Dearest Bodhi,
Firstly I have a bit of an apology to make to you as this is a bit later than your birthday, early 6 weeks late, in fact. Time has run away from me, but I still wanted to write this letter to you. Let me start with belated birthday wishes as you turned 6 last month and had a lovely time. We went up to see your grandparents the week before in half term and your Nana made you an amazing shark birthday cake, and you had time with cousins. The weekend before your other grandparents and cousins came to visit and gave you early birthday presents.
We decided against a birthday party this year and the RSVPs and people not turning up was a little tricky last year. This year you decided you wanted the whole of the family to go out for fried chicken and then for us all to go pottery painting, Mummy and Daddy too. It was actually really lovely and you also go to put your handprint on the wall the pottery painting place. Mummy painted a flower power, Aria a unicorn, Daddy and Logan Pokemon characters and you painted a dinosaur.
You have had your challenges this year, I highly suspected moving up to year one from reception was going to hard as it was for Logan at the same age. You have had an awesome teacher and TA who have really helped you. This year we had some referrals go through for you and you are on the pathway for diagnosis for dyspraxia. Just last weekend you were diagnosed with autism and the psychiatrist recommended that we go ahead with an ADHD referral in the autumn. You have seen the occupational therapist a couple of times and she is also wondering if you might be dyslexic. I guess time will tell and we shall have to see where everything goes. We have worked with school and you have some good support in place, including dog therapy.
You still have a love of dinosaurs, but your big interest at the moment is sharks. There is not a lot you don’t know about sharks. Before Christmas you had your bedroom redecorated. Moving it from a toddler room to a big boy room. You couldn’t decide between sharks and dinosaurs, we we decided on two walls shark-themed and two walls dinosaur-themed. As well as a big boy bed with a ladder to climb up to which you really love.
You have been learning to swim for a year now. We decided to opt for private lessons for you as you struggle with overwhelm and coordination, and you have been doing so well. You look forward to your lessons with Lee every week, even if you get so excited you don’t always listen. But you can nearly swim a whole length now which is pretty amazing.
In order to help you with your coordination we decided to put you in form martial arts lessons. Then we decided to put your brother and sister in for lessons at the same time. Well, and then when Mummy and Daddy thought while they were sitting at the side they could join in too. Now it’s a full family activity, which is fun to all join in together and hopefully great for all our fitness and health too.
This year I am so proud of how hard you have worked at school. We were told you were at risk of not meeting expectations and struggled with your reading and writing. You have had gross motor skill interventions, writing support and phonics support at school and you have tried so hard. At your phonic screening you ended up getting 35 out of 40 which is absolutely amazing. But I am more proud of how hard you worked and tried.
You love your brother and sister very much. Logan has really grown up this year starting secondary school, so Aria is much more of your playmate and you play together everyday. I think there is going to come a time when she starts secondary school where she gets a bit too old for playing with you in the next couple of years and when that happens I know you are going to miss her terribly. But for now you play all the games and if I am honest, squabble as much too.
Happy Birthday, you are so awesome, we are so proud of you and you are my gorgeous little cuddle monster. You make my life better just by being in it.