He may not be able to speak a word, dress himself, understand dangers or resist custard creams.

He may be awake each and every night, badly bite himself when stressed, strip all the beds 5 times a day and put everything he finds on the floor in his mouth.

He may need constant, vigilant supervision just to keep him safe and, due to the severity of his autism, will never be able to live independently, build a career or find a partner to love,

but,

He is one of the worlds truly innocent and gentle souls, free from malice, free from duplicity and wholly loveable and it is my greatest privilege to be his protector, his advocate and his mum,

Happy 18th birthday sweet Toby

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Thank you all so very much for your kind and thoughtful comments, emails and direct messages wishing Toby a happy birthday. He had a lovely afternoon full of the simple pleasures that make him happiest; balloons, cake, lego, sensory toys, curry for dinner, salted caramel ice-cream for pudding and a ‘disco’ in the evening – he likes dancing by himself with the lights off and the disco ball on!

Thank you again for all of your kind good wishes x

Monday morning. It’s nicely quiet and calm here and I’ve just finished my favourite breakfast of poached egg (thankyou Mrs chickens) on hot buttered toast with a pot of tea – a good start to any day. I had planned to be back here on the blog sooner but it has taken a little longer than expected to get Toby settled back at school and Amy moved into her new uni digs. At last though we are back into familiar routines – to some that might sound boringly monotonous but here routines are a welcomed necessity and help our little family function.

Toby is now in the sixth form at school and so doesn’t wear uniform. As someone who takes great comfort in the visual clues that different outfits bring to his life, he has had a little difficulty adjusting but we’ve settled on familiar school shoes and black jogging bottoms paired with a colourful T shirt (previously strictly weekend wear) and a new grey hoodie, and he’s now adapting. Amy has had some challenges with settling into her new digs after a summer of living at hotel mum & dad but is now (I think and hope) happy to be back at uni and ready for year 2.

Now that I have time to myself again I’ve been tidying the house and sorting out paperwork relating to Toby’s transition from child to adult social services – lots of reading and research to do and a lot of planning too. Once I’m on top of the paperwork and have caught up with emails I’ll be joyfully turning my full day-time attention back to knitting and pattern writing – I can’t wait! I have so many ideas bouncing around my head and hastily scribbled in notebooks over the last 3 months and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you. A sneak peek of one of the free patterns I’m planning on sharing is above.

I’ll be back soon with more knitting news, ’til then thanks for dropping in to visit with me,

J x