It’s Charlie’s 9th Birthday! It’s a super special one as he shares his birthday with his older brother, and today his brother is 18.

It’s been a lovely calm day, which was amazing. Charlie often gets overwhelmed on his birthday and it becomes too much. But today I seem to have cracked the balance. The gifts weren’t wrapped, I do this for 2 reasons - first is the effect wrapping paper has on the environment and secondly because unwrapping a present just causes more anxiety and for the last 2 weeks, I’ve had constant questions surrounding presents as Charlie hates the thought of surprises and not knowing. So I either keep them in a gift bag or in the brown amazon parcel boxes! This year all his presents came from the amazon delivery guy so it was really easy to manage that.

He got all presents that he had asked for, Heeley’s, a telescope and fish. And we have got to get the fish tank set up and organise fish before the next lockdown which starts Thursday. As usual though, he hasn’t open a couple of presents and that’s purely down to the fact it’s too overwhelming, and less is definitely more as he really can’t handle it. The noise, busyness and excitement of the day is real struggles.

We have gone out tonight for our evening meal and again that was really testing. We were there for an hour and there was perhaps 2 or 3 moments where I thought he could of easily run off due to the overwhelming and stimulating environment. And of course, because it was busy and noisy and has all the characteristics of an environment where he struggles the most.

Now it’s off to bed, although I think it will be difficult. Because he has so much he needs to process from the day, it really will take him a while to settle off. I am fully prepared for tonight’s battle, along with back to school tomorrow! I feel as though we have been off forever! Can’t wait to see what the next half term brings.

Happy 9th Birthday Charlie

Georgina