Rubbish

Punching a pillow is not only how we continuously feel but it's also what we've been advised Leo can do / should do, as and when he gets angry. PJ and I saw a therapist today who specialises in children like Leo and he quite happily played with the play specialist on the ward whilst we went for a chat. The therapist said that if his behaviour was escalating to the point of anger and biting etc, then that would just be 'naughty' but because he just 'goes', his head just flips and he's bordering on rage in literally one second, then this type of behaviour is pure anger at his not being able to communicate to PJ and I how rubbish this whole situation is.

Leo did in fact tell us whilst the football was on the other night that he 'wanted to go back to Spain because England was rubbish!' I personally don't think it's England which is rubbish; I think it's the lack of his friends and things he's grown fond of in Spain that he misses, and the fact he has to go to the hospital etc etc. Thank goodness he doesn't know what we know otherwise he'd really think things were rubbish.

Trying to find a house is a tricky rubbish situation too as even though we'd qualify for housing benefit of £650, we'd need to put towards this to find somewhere we'd feel happy calling home for a year or more. Having said that, finding the extra is not the problem. It's finding a landlord who will accept a family on housing benefit which is wierd as it's guaranteed income for landlords regardless of what the credit crunch is doing? I guess there's the whole cultural thing in this country about being on benefits! Plus we also need to be able to give work references which is tricky as neither of us are working right now so overall our grand plan is being scuppered and we'll have to wait a while longer before we can to move into a place we can make into a safe, secure and comfortable home for Leo, and us, to have some sort of normality.

Hopefully Leo will cheer up tomorrow as he is seeing his cousin baby Sophie again after seeing her a couple of weeks ago. She is over from Dubai and Julia, my sister-in-law came to see us en route to catching up with some old school friends in Bristol a few weeks ago when Leo was in hospital. This time my brother is also over with them as they're having Sophie christened on Sunday, so a nice happy family get-together to counter all this 'rubbish' will do nicely.