Over christmas i managed to get an appointment with Charlies peadiatrician, there have been some things worrying me for a while , but everytime i spoke about them i generally got the same response that it's just a phase .... they all do it .... etc etc ... but i dunno , something felt wrong , can't really describe it ! maybe its the old "mothers instinct"

Anyway the things I have been worrying about are things like , obsessive behaviour - getting fixations on things like a piece of string !! , having to be the one to close the front room door and going into full on hysterics if someone else does it , - really aggressive behaviour , not just baby tantrums that they all have but full on biting himself till it hurts , banging his head on the floor / walls / anything around. Hitting out at us if we try to stop it, headbutting and biting us , throwing toys at faces etc... which i know could be a phase , but when its been going on this long and then when it peaked with him biting his wrist until he cut it , thats when it seemed something more. He is also having little blank outs where he will just fall into a really deep daydream we can't snap him out of then he carries on normally ! With a very strong family history of epilepsy this really worried me , he is going to have an eeg but the peadiatrician thinks he may just be getting a sensory overload and his brain is just "switching off" which is a big relief.

The other stuff not quite so good , She explained that sometimes children with visual impairments and difficutlies can develop autistic traits in the second year of life , and that many of his behaviours fit in with this. So the plan now is that he is being reffered to the multi disciplinary team and will see a speech therapist , special needs nurse and occupational therapist for a deeper assesment.

So all in all was pretty gutting! but at the same time was this MASSIVE releif that someone was actually listening to my worries and agrees it needs assesing more and i'm not such a paranoid mum afterall!

It's gonna be a long journey and this is just the start , but thats further on than we were and for that i am very thankful !

We knew Charlie was going to be our special boy from very early on but this just means he's that little bit more special !

All in all ..... I wouldn't change him for the world, his problems are still a part of who he is , and whats not to love about that.