Amazing spatial cognitive capacity

Since he was little, Kareem was interested in his surroundings; even if it meant creating a big mess using all possible items that he can get hold of.

A couple of years ago he discovered Google maps, and somehow realised that it was a map and asked about our house. Gradually it became his hobby to open the app and start looking for his own house by himself, even without accurate spelling.

He loves taking a virtual trip from his home to his relatives’ houses, the school, the park and then back. Tonight, he went to Google maps on the laptop and took his mother on a trip from home to church (over 2.5 miles across several turns and roads) then back to my house. From there he took her to a club he goes to sometimes then came back via the garage-not sure if he wanted virtual petrol! Then he went on to his school before going home. It is a long and complicated journey that requires a lot of cognitive skills and spatial awareness, as well as memory and recognition.

In real life, he has been walking between his house and mine confidently for a while- and won’t look to us when we walk behind. He walks looking ahead and does not look back. Now after several trips to school with this mechanism, he goes by himself through pedestrian lanes (with mum following behind and away from the road).

We are very thankful that he seems to have settled in the new school, though occasionally the school calls to take him because he did something he should not have done. When he gets frustrated and can not explain what he wants, or he faces the word “no” he will become distressed and throw things around. The trick is to anticipate his frustration and divert his energy to something positive. We also learnt to stop/forbid something without using “no”. Of course, sometimes I forget but he does not throw things at me, he just won’t do what I ask him. Then I have to think of different way to persuade him.

Perhaps using google maps may appear like a tiny thing not worth writing about. Yet for us every achievement is a really significant event for us -his family- that is worth celebrating. For one thing, it marks progress in his development and it makes him happy. This in turn makes us very happy and celebrating this is worthwhile and mitigates the frustrations of a world that is not always welcoming or understanding of difference

Bless you Kareem for all the pleasure you give me. You are my sunshine-literally.

A new start A new hope

After a difficult year, two years really, at primary school- thanks to COVID-19 and other things, Kareem started a new secondary school. He is taking it slowly with ups and downs. At last, this week, he seems to be settling in and the school is trying to provide for his needs.

From my expereince with Kareem’ schooling I can say that inclusion is not just a a legislation that schools are obliged to implement. Fundamentally, inclusion is about believing that all kids have a right to an education that provides them with the environment and the tools that help them to achieve their potential-whatever it is. More importantly, it is the real belief that all kids can contribute to the wellbeing of the school community. For example, inclusion of kids with special needs like those with Down Syndrome, make a huge contribution in teaching staff and other kids about understanding “the other”, and the value of diversity and kindness.

Yesterday we got some lovely reports from the school: “….wanted to say a huge well done to Kareem for how brilliant he has been the last 2 days!”. “Excellent, he went to the big English lesson today too! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and looking forward to seeing him on Monday!”

Fingers crossed for more of these reports and less of not preventing his frustration before it builds up!

Last Thursday I went to walk to school with him, but he insisted on going alone. His mum kept a distance behind him to ensure safety, but I was too far to follow so I missed seeing him going inside the school.

He is very proud of going to school by himself (he does not see his mum behind) and is positive about waking up to go to school. He gets dressed, brushes his teeth, washes his face, and breakfast-all by himself. This is a huge difference from his mode last year. Thanks to all the staff who contribute to Kareem’s welfare.

Kareem is very lucky to have a loving and caring family and a super wonderful mum.

His dad sent me this video of happy dancing Kareem. 

16th March 2021 - The incredible Mr. Oakley

This term Kareem is lucky to have the amazing Mr Oakley, his teacher assistant who is succeeding -keep fingers crossed- to persuade Kareem to return to school.

Since last week, it has been a little bit easy to get Kareem ready for school in the morning. He decides from the night before if he would go and if he would have lunch at school. It has been very hard for Kareem to cope with the school changes due to Covid. That was on top of having problems before Covid.

Anyway, now Mr. Oakley managed to get Kareem to start doing some work, which for the family, is a great achievement. He is learning about carnivores and herbivores dinosaurs. Like many children, Hareem loves dinosaurs and can say the names of many of them. He laughs at me because I do not know the different ones and cannot say their names.

kareem walks to school on his own and he seems to take pride of that. It is still a fragile progress and we try to support and praise to get him to re-like his school and his lessons.

Thank you Mr. Oakley.

StNicholas Primary

teacher , work for Kareem, which he enjoyed.

Feb 11^th 2021

Thanks to covid19, changes in school systems, lockdown, and school closures, Kareem is refusing to go to school for his 2 days a week. We used to persuade him to go by getting my daughter’s dog and sometimes my sister’s dog to wait for Kareem outside his school to take him home. Now he is not even persuaded by this.

He has a very creative teaching assistant who tries to teach him online, but Kareem gets bored quickly. He'd rather play word games or watch specific TV programmes where he is in control. At least these activities are helping him to improve his language vocabulary, expressions and conversational flow.

It has been almost a year since he stopped coming to my house and me going to his. We used to do some learning using programmes like BBC bitesize, which he used to enjoy. Now his education is totally dependent on his parents in his house, and it takes long time to persuade him to do 10-15 minutes work.

I hope that once I am vaccinated, I will be able to have him at my house to work and play. I dream about him playing like this picture from last summer. I love this picture. It is of happy Kareem.

You are my sunshine

There are several blogs that I have written but not published yet. I will publish them by the date they were written even that they may appear in the wrong chronological order! . 

09 January 2021 

This week I walked with Kareem and Ottah, my daughter’s dog to the nearby park. Kareem loves playing with the dog throwing a ball and see the dog catches it and runs with it before leaving it for Kareem to throw it again.

It was so cold so we did not stay long. As we were walking home, he left me and walked to talk to two ladies walking about. He said hello then complemented one on her colourful scarf and the other on her jacket! I came near them – preserving distance- and he introduced them as the ladies who help him swimming and introduced me as “my favourite aunt”. Not sure how accurate he was in describing me as such!  

I have not met many kids who have something nice to say to people like Kareem does. He sees beauty in everything and everybody. He told them that he was missing swimming.  But then was happy to continue walking with the dog.

Every night Shadi and Kareem ring me say good night. Tonight, Kareem said to me: you are my sunshine. In reality he is my real sunshine who brighten my day and evening by just seeing him, listening to him and celebrating his achievements big and small.

A morning with Kareem

Ottah, my daughter’s dog, and I went to pick Kareem up. He was happy to see her and walked with her with his coat and his glasses on. I was watching for the moment that he gets frustrated and throws his glasses, but it did not happen. He kept stroking the back of the dog as we walked and telling her that he loved her. Clearly, he was happy with the dog so there was no cause to be frustrated. Gradually he gained confidence and took the lead from me and walked gently to the end of the road pulling her gently when she wanted to go elsewhere.

 

At my house, Kareem played and talked to Ottah for a while bringing her toys to her to play. She responds to his commands very quickly has he enjoys telling her to sit or gives him a paw, after which he rewards her with a bit of treat. Because she would eat anything he gives her, he thinks she is constantly hungry and I have to tell him that she is not!

 

After playing for about 20 minutes he went to the office, sat at the computer and started karate Cat. I cannot thank the @BBC enough for these wonderful educational programmes.

Kareem stayed 30 minutes with uninterrupted concentration doing the English grammar exercises. I was delighted to learn that he knew his punctuation really well (about 95% without my help), all the spelling and correct words. I was happily surprised that he recognised adverbs and adjectives without my help and more over he knew the type of sentence: past, present progressive, past progressive. At first he confused verbs and nouns then after a couple of sentences, he got it right.

 

Doing well has succeeding is his biggest motivation. It was lovely (and also melting for my heart) when he looked at me with a huge smile on his face after finishing all the questions in each “belt” and said: I am clever. Yes my darling you are clever. Very clever indeed if you get the right stimulating environment and a patient helper who can find the right material and encourage you to achieve your great potential.

 

Afterwards, he wanted to play some of his usual videos, but I said no. He got upset and turned to his video (he had control of the computer). I was going to switch the screen off but realised that it would irritate him more. So, I asked him to talk and decide what to do together. We agreed on two minutes to watch. His mum arrived and he just peacefully left it.

In fact, we arranged the morning on the night before. May daughter discussed and agreed with Kareem that if he does his work, he could have a sleep over. The expectation of that, I think, made it easy for him to do what he was supposed to do without being angry. He did not need to show his frustration or to get his voice heard by spitting when he was not listened to. Everything was agreed beforehand.

 I love you Kareem.

 

Kareem sleep over

10/10/2020

Kareem's sleep over 

Kareem is having a sleep over with me today. He was so excited although he knew that the dog was not in the house!.

 First thing he started playing around, dancing then decided to be the dog and slept in her bed! In passing by the piano, he decided to play. He played with his fingers not “hand bang bang”. It sounded like “Brother Jack” .

 

After doing a bit of drawing we had to negotiate some homework. This normally takes time. Stupid me, I put an educational game on the computer for which he immediately turned to some of his own games. So we had to go through another negotiation using carrots like: walking the dog tomorrow or coming again for a sleep over. He said “ I promise” to do homework after the game. 

Well, it took sometime but eventually he chose a page of “spelling double letters” and we played it as a game. I think when he knew the answer, he wrote it quickly but when he was not sure, he would try all the possible options and laugh at the ones that sounded wrong/funny.

 
I thought he would do only one page but to my happy surprise he decided to do another one. Then I cajoled him to do a page of math-timetable 10.

 

He decided that he wanted to have pizza for dinner, but I said that I never made pizza and I did not know how to make it. He immediately insisted that he would teach me after he played another game.

Looking at my Italian cook book, I  got an idea about making pizza. I thought that I would have to negotiate leaving the game but to my pleasant surprise he just came and asked me to carry him to the kitchen top and he told me how to make the pizza. He rolled the dough and watched me putting it in the pan and finishing the filling then he left to the computer.

 

Kareem is one of the politest kids I have ever seen. He always says please and thank you for anything and everything. It is a sheer pleasure to cook for him. Not only he appreciates good food, but he also always has lovely words for the cook. We had our pizza and then went upstairs to read a book. He read one of the Gruffalos to me. Good reading even that some of the words are not clear.

After a long bath he insisted that I read a book and he read another then brush teeth and I was rewarded when he said “ I love “.

 

Good night my beloved boy. You are the pleasure of my life since the first day I say you as a newly born baby.

 

 

09/10/2020

Every night Kareem and his brother calls me to say "good night". Sometimes they call but he refuses to start and I have to say it first. Depending on his mode, he may reply with fast sentences: Good night. I missed you today. See you tomorrow.  Other times he listens to me and puts the telephone down.

Today he came to my house and played with my daughter's dog. The dog is almost the same size as kareem. While I have to repeat an order to her at least twice before she listens, it is enough for Kareem to say "sit" and she immediately does. Kareem gets her to lie down, gives him a paw, speaks, spins around even without a treat.

He also loves Milo, the other dog int he extended family. Milo has the advantage of being small so it is easier for Kareem to handle him. 

 

Tonight he rang to say: good night, see you tomorrow, it was nice to see you today.

PS I have not been writing Kareem's diary because he has been  unhappy at his school and his mum is still trying to sort things out at the school. 

Kareem at the time of Corona

I have collected lots of stories and pictures of Kareem and his family during lockdown but I have been too busy to write them down. So I am starting from today and hopefully will focus later on publishing snapshots of what I accumulated.

Today I had a knock on the door. It was Kareem in T shirt and pants asking for some yeast for his cooking. Apparently, he outgrew all his shorts from last year and his parents bought new but wrong size!

He knows about keeping your distance, but I will ask him next time what he understands about Corona virus.

Later on, his mum sent pictures of the pizza he made with his brother Shadi. They take over the kitchen for themselves and together they make the pizza, adding all the toppings they prefer. Then Shadi puts the Pizza in the oven.

Kareem loves his trampoline and so that was where he and Shadi had their lunch and then their desert: cold watermelon.

I think if my love for Kareem were distributed in the Middle East, all the wars would have stopped!

I saw kareem after 2 weeks afar!

At last and after 2 whole weeks, I saw Kareem! He came to my house and stood outside 3 meters from me. His mum hugged and kissed him for me from afar. He came to show me his new look after his mum cut his hair. I very much miss him during this “stay at home” time. However, since they moved to their own home, he and Shadi, his brother, ring me every evening to say good night before they go to bed. Shadi is normally gives me a short “hi, good night” while Kareem says: “good night. I love you. I missed you today.” “I may see you tomorrow -with his lovely pronunciation of letter r”.  

He has been staying at home and deciding what to do every day. He gets dressed in school uniform in the morning after inventing a game to play in bed with his mum as he used to do during school days.

 

Yesterday he had a painful finger so: “ I cannot do my home work my finger is ill”. But of course, the bad finger does not stop him using the remote control.

When he came to my house, he saw his old scooter that I put out for anybody to pick but he decided to use it and go home riding it.

 God bless you Kareem.

19 Feb 2020

It has been long time since last blog. During that time, Kareem has grown a lot and has continued with his “adventures”.

Some people classify kids with Down syndrome as “lovely peaceful angels” as if they were a special genus of human beings. I totally disagree. Every kid, with or without Down syndrome is a special kid with his own character, needs, talents, and capabilities. Yes, Kareem needs special attention in some areas that -for example- his brother doesn’t need. But Shadi also has different needs.

Personally, I am very keen that Kareem reaches his maximum potential in academic learning. I leave social and other learning to his parents! Talking of social development, there has been some improvement over the past few months since last blog regarding throwing things away.

Kareem still throws his glasses away when he is frustrated, but that has become an uncommon behaviour. He certainly wears his glasses by his own will for much much longer time. This is a great achievement given that he is supposed to wear his glasses all the time. We still cannot be sure that he will keep them on while he is in the street or on his bike from school, so he goes without them at those times. Personally, I am not sure that it is good for him. I’d rather he wears them, and I watch him despite losing the glasses in the street before.

At school his behaviour is naughty. Specialists say that it is his hormones as he is entering puberty time. Last week he threw things in the class and then told the teacher that she was stupid. The school tries a mixture of soft support and assertive “punishment”. Basically, they try to encourage and praise good behaviour and condemn bad behaviour till he recognises that behaving badly has consequences that he does not like, and good behaviour is rewarded. We try to do the same at home. This support requires a great deal of patience and open mindedness. It is also important to always remember not to compare him with any other kid whether he/she has Down syndrome or not. In general, I believe that comparing children is bad for psychological growth so I never do that with Kareem.

My daughter, who always has great positive influence on all the family kids, has special way of treating Kareem and he adores her. He rarely behaves badly with her and I am still learning from her attitude and actions with him.

Kareem's summer adventures in the house!

مغامرات كريم

"امبارح قفل علينا احنا التلاته الباب (أبوه وأمه وأخوه) هو جوه واحنا بره ومينفعش نفتح بالمفتاح من بره وقعد يلعب ف اوضة الجلوس وكأنه بيقول طب وانا أعملكم إيه! بعد مناورات من أخوه شادي وافق انه يفتح مكتب ابوه ويجيب مفتاح الباب اللي من وراه وطلعهولنا من فتحه الجوابات في الباب. بصراحة كذا فِعل بس قدر يعملهم وقلنا ماشي أهو بيتعلم".

"النهارده كارثه سبته يغسل وشه زي كل يوم ونزلت احط الغسيل شويه ولقيت سقف المطبخ بينقط. الباشا سد الحوض وساب الحنفيه مفتوحه وقفل الباب عشان منسمعش وقعد في اوضته. الكهربا فصلت وستنيين حد ييجي يصلح المأساة".

من كام يوم كان عندي بيلعب ف الجنينة وقَع شماعة من علي حبل الغسيل فهل يرجعها ع الحبل عادي؟ لأ طبعا لازم يخترع طريقة مسلية أكتر. بقي يطلع ع الكرسي وينط يرمي الشماعة ع الحبل وينزل يستناها تقع عشان يكرر القصة تاني! ا

Kareem’s adventures

Yesterday he shut his mum, dad and brother outside, and they could not enter the house. It took a lot of persuasion from his brother to convince Kareem to open his dad’s desk and get the house key and pass it through the letterbox.

Today, his mum left him to wash his face as he does every day. She went downstairs to use the washing machine. Then she noticed water dropping from the kitchen ceiling. She then discovered that Kareem plugged the sink and left the tap on and then shut the bathroom door so nobody can hear the sound. He innocently stayed in his room. Electricity was cut and now they are waiting for the engineer to fix the disasters!

Few days ago, he came to play in the garden. The coat hanger fell off the washing line. Would he return it in a normal way? No, he had to create a more amusing way. He got into the chair, jumped and threw the coat hanger to the line, then came down to wait for it to fell. Then he repeated the game again.

Tom, the best of best teachers

Tom Cosford is Kareem’s teacher at St. Nicholas state school in Oxford. Tom is simply amazing. He is highly professional, patient and understanding. However, you may assess a teacher, I am sure Tom will score the highest! He understands Kareem’s character and needs and knows how to deal with him in his best and worst modes and behaviours.

Tom knows how to include Kareem in the class learning and activities. Tom was instrumental in enabling Kareem to participate in the class trip staying for a whole week without his parents.

Tom and St Nicolas school are a great example of how to integrate children with special needs in school learning and activities so that they can achieve the maximum of their potential. I hope that other children are in schools with great staff like St. Nicolas: the headmistress, the teachers, the teaching assistants, and all the team.

Tom was on Oxford Radio news this morning. Kareem and his mum went to the BBC Studio and surprised him!  Here is the interview with Tom and Kareem’s mother- the first few seconds of the news.

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_oxford

And here is Kareem having fun at the BBC Oxford studio. 

Kareem scored 48% in year 3 maths! Perhaps this does not sound impressive for the reader especially if one realises that Kareem is actually in year 4. But this is a great achievement for Kareem.

In 2015, when he was 6 years old, Kareem was able to count up to 20 and started to write the numbers. Soon he was able to count till 100.

A year later, when he was 7, he started to learn to add simple sums.

Then Kareem started to challenge himself a bit more adding double numbers, then triple numbers:

I was concerned about how to explain to him how to add numbers such as 98+49. Coming back from travel in early 2019, I was happily surprised to find that he was actually doing just that. When I asked his mum how she managed, she said that it was the school and his wonderful teacher.

Now Kareem knows several timetables: 2,10,11,12 and almost timetable 3 by heart. His favourite number is 12x12. I thought that he might remember the results if the timetable was written in order. Yet today, I jumped around timetable 12-his favourite- and I was happily surprised that he actually knows it all!

Kareem is lucky to be included in a really good state school, which is well-run and has dedicated and excellent teachers. They include Kareem to a great extent in the class in all sorts of learning activities and they really help him to achieve his potential in learning. He has perseverance and self-motivation if he is dealt with appropriately.

Kareem has a very supportive and patient brother, Shadi who helps Kareem sometimes with his learning. Between these 2 boys, there is a great love and affection but that deserves separate blogs.

Well done Kareem on your fantastic progress in maths. I am so proud of you my love.

Watering the plants or watering me! Kareem the gardener

20^th June 2018

Kareen has such a strong mind and a great determination to do things his way. Today he insisted on watering the plants by himself so he switched the tap on and took the hose around the garden. I had great difficulties persuading him not to water the walls or the grass. The problem was that he suddenly decided that watering is much more fun if he directed the hose from watering the plants to watering me! I reacted angrily because I was afraid that the water damaged my hearing aids- never mind getting my clothes, hair and everything soaking wet.

A little while later, Kareem became bored of spraying plants, grass, walls, me and left the whole operation. Actually, he is not a bad gardener if nothing else, like his brother playing football, distracts him. He had already planted strawberries from a cutting and beetroot from seeds. Whenever he waters the garden, I remind him of his planting. 

Last year he planted and harvested Spinach.

In August this year, as the beans started to appear,  he started to harvests what he can reach. We are waiting for the tomatoes to turn red so that he can pick them up.

Kareem is such a great helper in the garden.

At a fundraising event for Down Syndrome charity

In june this year, a local Down Syndrome charity ran a fundraising day. It was based on walking in beautiful green fields bathing in sunshine. Teams were exhibiting various products for sale and doing different activities and having creative T shirts and signs with the team name.

  

I was proud of my extended family, including very close special friends, who did the walk in 5 countries in 3 continents. Every walker in the team had a sign on his/her T shirt saying “Dream Kareem”.

Kareem himself walked 3 laps in the field and then decided that it was enough and that it was time to play football. He usually plays games and sport like everybody else for a little, then he invents his own style of the game. On this occasion he decided that he would kick the ball with his foot towards me, but I had to bend down to get the ball and threw at him by hands for him to receive it and kick it again!

Afterwards, he decided that he should go with me to the team's tent and to lie down -it was nice to lie in the shade after playing in the hot sun outside. He had fun unzipping and zipping all the compartments in the tent and sliding from one room to the other.

Shadi, Kareem’s brother took the walk very seriously before he enjoyed playing football. He walked 20 lapses- while I was able to only manage 11 lapses.

It was a lovely day and Kareem was, as usual, our joy and treasure with his wonderful caring brother, Shadi. The day was also successful as the charity was able to raise over £36,000. Dream Kareem team managed to contribute just over £500.

I can spell more than a 100 words

“I can spell 100 words”, said Kareem proudly. Spelling has become his latest game. Thankfully we passed the stage of persuading Kareem to spell “is”, “and” when he would rather watch TV or play with iPad. Actually, he has been learning a lot through special TV programmes (the amazing Mr. Tumble) and the iPad but that is for another blog.

Kareem used to go to this sport of the kitchen floor and play games on his IPad

Of course, learning to spell has taken a lot of time and efforts from the school, the family and from Kareem himself. I remember in 2015, we used little coloured words to get him to visually recognise common words. I played the words with him almost every day for long time. We had a big jar of various words and we would put a limited number of common words in a smaller jar and use it day after day. Gradually we would add more words to the small jar until one day we were using all the words from the big jar.

 

  

Recently, Kareem’ mum invented a way of making writing and spelling visual. She would draw a little table for the letters of a particular word then he writes the letters in the squares. Afterwards, he would write it down the whole word. Somehow, he liked this way of learning. Clearly visual learning is his thing.

For example:

T	h	A	t
That

After days and days of doing few simple words -almost- every evening, he started to decide the words, make the table but not use it for writing! Instead he would write the word first then do a table but the cells did not correspond to the number of letters!

Of course, it was not easy to get him to sit down and do “homework”. We use different method like: what do you want to do first? Invariably it is “watch Pippa Pig”. Then the negotiation starts on which homework first-usually after one Pippa Pig.  He decides between English, maths, science, spelling. We do not name these subjects as he now knows them. He also decides whether the work is from books, sheets, computer.

With the writing, Kareem would spell and thus the game started. Almost every day he would verbally spell few words until he reached a hundred words.

Yesterday Kareem was proud to tell his aunt the words he was able to spell. He would say: “I can spell….” and then he spelt the word correctly. Then his aunt would ask him to spell other words. At last, she asked him to spell: “cat”. He said: ta, aa, c. We must have looked baffled. He looked at us and said: “spell back”. Then he liked the new game and started to spell backwards other words: dog, quarter, mummy, dad, Kareem.

Today with friends he spelt backwards lots of the words he knows: school, children, where, when, what, book,…

I cannot describe the happiness of all the family especially his mother with his spelling “forwards”. Now that with Kareem spelling so many words “backwards” we are in ecstasy!

25th February 2018

The boys made a delicious cake

Both Kareem and Shadi love cooking especially making cakes. I must admit that they make delicious cakes. 

It started with the boys helping their mother in adding and mixing the ingredients. Then Shadi started to choose a recipe from one of the cooking books and to make it under his mum’s supervision. Now he can make a cake from the beginning to the end by himself. He has had lots of practice using the electric mixer and is a very careful and caring boy. He knows that he must stick to the slowest speed.

Kareem decides when to make a cake and what type it is going to be. We use the opportunity to get him to measure and to write down the ingredients. He now knows very well the basic ingredients of any cake: flour, butter, eggs and sugar. Then he decides the flavour and whether to add orange juice, milk, coco or coconut or something else.

This time Kareem and Shadi decided to make a chocolate cake together without adult interference. We were watching the use of the mixer, ready to jump in if needed but the two boys handled it really well and were very careful. Kareem named the ingredient while Shadi read out the amount and they both measured it. Shadi was controlling the mixer and Kareem was happy to help by putting his hand on Shadi’s. Then they both worked to pour the mixture in the tin and mother helped putting it in the oven.

The result of the cooking was one of the best cakes I have ever tasted. It was so hard to stop eating it!

Well done boys!

At the hospital for tests

Long time since last blog! How did July and August fly away that fast?! 

Kids were at holiday. Kareem has had great fun on his newly erected trampoline  and working in the garden: digging, planting and harvesting. -more on that later.

Today (7th Sept. 2017) Kareem is at the hospital doing test (gastroscopy and colonscopy) because he has difficulties going to the loo. He is a great kid when it comes to hospitals and doctors. He is so well-behaved there. 

Few months ago, he sat courageously to have 2 teeth pulled out and went from hospital to school talking about his trip. He loves Peppa pig going to the dentist perhaps because he can relate it to his visit although Peppa did not have to have any procedures!

Well done Kareem for the courage of your little heart. 

Taking the medicine before going to theatre.

All ready now

Good luck Kareem

PM: I went to the hospital to see kareem. H'd finished his tests and was sitting in the bed with a "remote". He did not want to go back to school or home. He wanted to stay in the hospital and play with the remote (which changed the bed position). He was not wild about the white rose I gave him and when he smelled it he said it sment of strawberry! But he took the chocolate then gave it to his dad. Clearly the remote was more interesting. However he agreed to give the rose to the nice nurse.

While mentioning the nurse.Huge thank you to the staff at the JR kids hospital. God bless the #NHS and push Tories plans away from it! 

Friday, 24 July 2015 He is now playing football

Besbes (Kareem) loves playing “bou” (ball) in the garden. He walks while kicking the ball forwards till it stops-usually at the flower bed when he says “goo”. It seems that he is always scoring goals. We have to play according to his rules so when it is “ma tè” then it is his turn to kick the ball. He always stands near the end of the rockery facing the patio while the other person stands on the patio. This is one of his rules. Sometimes he changes position and waits in the patio sitting crossed legged on the bench! I think that is when he is tired but still wants to play. He takes little rests.

It has been a great achievement that Kareem can walk, run, kick, know the rules and create his own. Everything takes time but when he does it, everything is a great achievement that brings lots of genuine happiness to all of us especially when he laughs. He has the most gorgeous laughter. It is like  lovely music of a clear bell.

الآن يلعب الكرة

بسبس (كريم) بيحب يلعب "بو" أي كورة ف الجنينة . هو بيمشي بالكورة وهو بيشوطها مسافات بسيطة لغاية ماتقف –وغالبا ماتقف ف وسط الزهور وساعتها يقول "جو". وبكده هو دايما بيحرز أجوال!  واحنا علينا نلعب طبقآ لقواعد اللعبة ال هو اخترعها فمثلا لما يقول "ما تيه اي my turn" يكون ده دوره ف المشي بالكورة. ودائما يقف عند طرف الجنينة حيث السور الحجري واللاعب الاخر يقف ف الطرف الاخر عند الممر. ولكنه أحيانا يعكس الوضع ويجلس متربعا علي كرسي ف انتظار الكرة. اعتقد انه يفعل ذلك عندما يكون تعبان اي انه يأخذ استراحات قصيرة.

انها إنجازات كبيرة ان البسبس يستطيع ان يمشي وجري ويشوط الكرة ويعرف القواعد ويخترع قواعد اخري للعب. كل شئ يستغرق وقتا معه ولكن كل تقدم يحرزه يجلب سعادة غامرة حقيقية لكل من حوله وخاصة عندما يضحك. أعتقد ان ضحكته هي ألطف ضحكة –كأنها جرس جميل