Somehow, that tiny bundle of joy that we brought home from the hospital turned 4 this week. In the blink of an eye, our tiny baby is now a proper little boy, and what better way to celebrate than getting absolutely FILTHY!
Due to the pandemic, Noah hasn't been able to have a proper birthday since his first, so seized the opportunity and dived headfirst into planning something that we knew he would love.
What better for an orally motivated sensory seeker than a fully edible and taste safe messy play party?!
We made 6 stations, including a Dinosaur excavation pit, with little dinosaurs frozen into angel delight and hidden in a sandbox filled with porridge oats (12kg to be exact, the woman on the check out in Tesco's didn't get the joke when I told her I REALLY like porridge), as well as an entire bucket filled with rainbow dyed spaghetti pasta, marshmallows spider webs with raisin flies, yoghurt paint, jelly puddles, and cake flavour playdough. It was a sensory extravaganza of colour and texture, and the kids went NUTS!
Noah took a little bit of time to get started, but once he found his feet he loved it. I think he ate his body weight in spaghetti and oats and made sure he dragged his nursery keyworker (and family friend) around the pit, exploring as he went. After a while the jelly, porridge and spaghetti all mixed together in a slip and slide, which made them all skate around the tarp with squeals and giggles, as they went down on their bums in the muck.
A traditional party was never going to cut it for Noah, they just don't interest him, and as it was HIS day, we had to think out of the box and come up with something on his wavelength, and I'm so glad we did. It really is true that when you meet your SEN child where they are, and not where society expects them to be, amazing things can happen.
Happy Birthday Noah, how are we going to top it next year?!
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