I reckon on my scale of 1-10 today was a solid 8! I think I know why too… spending time with my tribe.
The particular tribe I spent time with today was my newfound 1voice tribe. 1voice is a UK charity and their mission according to the website is…
“A world where the voice of every child and adult, however they communicate, is listened to and heard”.
That’s what Noodle and I enjoyed today. We’ve not yet been to a 1voice face to face meet up having got involved during lockdown but we’ve joined in a few zooms and had a great time at all of them. This morning’s session was an hour and targeted at younger/ early AAC users just like our girl. It was so much fun! We worked with other children in a small group and wrote a very silly story about pancakes (anyone fancy banana and ketchup on theirs??!). After the session the organisers sent us a PDF of the story with symbols and so later in the afternoon on FaceTime Noodle shared it with some friends and Daddy vs. AAC could read it with her after work. So great to have these moments entirely built around AAC experiences.
One of the brilliant things about getting together with other families is how affirming and reassuring it is. Just a brief conversation with a parent who understands the challenges and can remind me that it’s worth the effort of modelling, modelling, modelling over and over and that it’s OK that it takes a long time has set me up for the week.
So why not quite a 10? Well my 10 looks like modelling all the time, no time without AAC around. That’s the goal isn’t it? AAC as Always Available Communication? Or is it..? IS it something else… there’s some food for thought.
For now though it’s late, I may manage to watch an episode of Bridgerton before I fall asleep… then again…maybe not.
More tomorrow. 🙂
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