We are the festive receptionists' mothers - we bring shepherds, aliens and travelling cribs to a nativity play near you

[mistletoemulledwinemoodlum]

This is our new festive thread ladies.

When they said it's a girl to me I said 'yas of course it is'. I knew she would be, mainly because I so wanted a boy I am fully down with the girlie stuff now, and happily buy all the glitter and cheapo hairclips I can access.

Aranea - what do you think? Does your dd seem to take longer or do things differently to others? The delay sounds very familiar to me, particularly if my dd is tired or busy or just having a 'la-la-la' day.

Interesting that your dd has the same time lag thing, tree.

My dd1 is a pretty compliant person really, she so wants to be good ('today I'm going to be gooder than the police!' ). I do see the teacher's point, she does seem to take a moment or two to think before acting (and then acts very very slowly sometimes. grr). But I still think she responds faster if it is something she's desperately interested in, which makes me think it's not a problem as such.

And I especially notice it if she is tired. She seems to sort of block out the real world when she's tired and has had enough. I dunno. It seems that once questions are raised over one aspect of a child's development, people start looking at everything in a different way. I am trying not to get sucked into that this term. It got me down a bit last term.

Don't all small children have a time lag? If boy is engrossed in something I usually have to ask many many times. HIs dad's a bit the same though.

I think the difference is that it applies even when dd1 doesn't appear to be engrossed in anything. My hunch is that actually 99% of the time she is engrossed in something internal and invisible.

I think your hunch is likely to be right.

As a complete aside, and of no help - except it might make you feel less alone with the little niggle worry that you have.....dd2 has spent the last hour nodding her head, pulling her little tufts of hair and clenching un unclenching her little fists and I have spent the whole time [in between posting you understand ] thinking this is it. You're autistic and I need to get used to it. Add to that she is dairy intolerant and I am now about to begin my twice weekly spiral into worrying about the mmr.

Tomorrow I will wonder what I was on with and she will be as calm and responsive and non-other worldy as is possible.

I tell ya. Bloody nightmare. Where's my chocolate hmmm?

I have always had a very intense internal world - it was certainly rather more than other children. If I was 'busy', I just would either not hear stuff or it would filter through slowly. I could sit still, 'busy' for hours. It's still like that really so I shouldn't compalin about dd and dh.....

Does she ever talk about having pictures in her head? I did at about this age and dd has started to

There's a lot of worrying to do isn't there?

DD used to be quite unresponsive, and then we had a all singing all dancing hearing test, and it turned out that she had glue ear (which comes and goes, it isn't necessarily consistent), so I spent last year fretting about her lack of responsiveness, only to find out that it was because 70% of the time she didn't hear. . Its worth thinking of that as something to check as well - I'm sure you have, but in case you haven't...

God I hate the saturday swimming. I am almost phobic about wet dirty changing room floors, and the whole thing stresses me OUT. Phew. All over for another week.

With a dd and a ds, i can tell you that ds is much more straightforward than dd was at his age. Playdates are easier, to an extent - boys just get on with it. But then when they don't get on with it, there's no mediating, its just no good iyswim.

Right. Need to rush around the house making it acceptable before dd's little buddy arrived. Her mother was the one involved in Bakedbeangate, which is a hideously embarrassing story I'll bore you with another time

Where is my grammar - an all singing...

I would like to hear about Bakedbeangate.

Please

So far my children don't seem too complicated although DS shows excellent drama queen/king tendencies. DD often seems to be more mature than he is, which confuses me somewhat.

Have organised her to have a small friend coming round after school on Tuesday. Is it bad to hope it is reciprocated and I can have a child free school day some time?

I did taking both children to see a film this morning. Saw Where the Wild Things are at a Kids Club showing. Glad I didn't pay full price for it, although it was all right. Had a really uncomfortable seat though - it tipped downwards and as I had DD on my knee had to do interesting shifting around. Should have moved seats really...

Keen to hear about the bakedbeangate too....

We used to do Saturday morning swimming. It was hideous. Our changing rooms are really really dirty, toilets smelly, pool really cold - yuck.

Noah - that reminds me to check our kidsclub showing - I find it too expensive normally, but they usually show films that we've already seen!

We have no such kidsclub, which is a shame dd woul dlove it.

I am never ever going swimming on a SAturday morning. Line in the sand and all that. No way. Parenting gone mad

Unless I am in a tuscan villa or somesuch.

Bakedbeangate is something that if I tell you, you have to all swear not to think less of me

I don't want to big it up as a story, its just a small thing in the embarrassing pool that is inter-mother relations. When dd's friend has gone, I will relay...

I will not think less of you I promise

Our kidsclub showings are £1 per person. Used to be £1.50 per child and free for an adult so if one person takes both children and is therefore nice to the other parent, it is the same cost.

I was nice to DH. Who is now asleep on the sofa after his obviously hard morning

The public has a right to know - spill The Beans.

I don't even like Baked Beans - but need to know

I'm pretty sure dd's hearing is OK. When she doesn't react I generally ask if she's heard me, and she always has.

It's nice to hear you were the same, Acinonyx. She hasn't particularly mentioned pictures (well, she does sometimes, but it's usually quite specific iyswim) but I have the impression she is usually either imagining something or trying to figure something out. I just hope she doesn't get on the wrong side of anybody in school as a result, or get pigeonholed as having too many 'issues' now that they are hyper-alert to her.

Tree, it must be just horrible worrying about someone who isn't even talking yet. There must be so little to go on really. I hope you do get a lovely worry-free week now.

I seem to have spent most of the day dd-wrangling in order to get her to produce her homework. I don't really know what's expected - they said she should research at the library and on the internet, and then produce a factsheet. I have no sense of what they are expecting to see. Hope she's done enough and it's appreciated. She did actually work quite hard in the end, but I was exhausted by the end of it all. God, I have had to eat SO many chocolate biscuits to recover.

I'm sure they expect very little really, it's probably more about sewing the seeds of research and working at home, producing something and bringing it to school. The whole process.

From what I see of the bun fight that is the modern huge classroom I would feel reassured that they can't possibly be too alert to anything. They haven't the time! I know what you mean though, I think it is a common problem - the idea that the child becomes their label. Rather than a child with x,y or z, the child just is x,z or z.

She has you, to watch over her and keep close tabs on what is happening and why. Tell them all your concerns.

There must be so many different types of child, the teachers must pigeon hole all of them. At playschool mine was typical only child loner who spends alot of time with adults. Which doesn't sound so good. Actually they loved her and she loved them.

So where are they at, are you seeing the OT or will s/he just receive the paperwork? And who or what is a sensory whatsit?

ANd what is Bakedbeangate?

She's seen the OT for an assessment, then the OT visited school to see her there. I've filled in a sensory profile questionnaire, which is about how she responds to different kinds of movement, noises, visual stimulations etc. I think she over-perceives movement, which makes her quite nervous about physical activity on top of the fact that she is poorly co-ordinated and has not got good muscle tone. And they've given a similar questionnaire to the school to complete. And then I think the OT will come up with a suggested programme of activities for her. Or something. I hope. I think they'll be looking for things like whether the hectic noisy classroom environment might create more problems for her than for another child.

The OT says he will be putting all the information together to try to establish why dd1 does things like wandering out of line rather than staying behind the child in front of her. It's nice I think that nobody is assuming she is just being annoying and perverse. And the alleged 'processing delay' is another thing he's trying to pin to a root cause. Luckily he seems quite sensible and open to the idea that it might just be because she is thinking about something else.

Did you do it on yourself? I hate all loud noise, can't bear to have the radio on when cooking etc. Hence dd1 is totally the same, she grew up in a very peaceful house.

It sounds very reassuring doesn't it? Like they want to make things easier for her if that is required.

Could she be vey sensitive to physical environment? Perhaps zones out a little to dampen down all the messages coming in. I think I mentioned that book waaaaay back, The Highly Sensitive Child. I found that really helpful.

Tree, did you see you were in morningpaper's roundup?