Ruth and Luca

We'd expected Luca to start his regular Monday and Tuesday place at preschool this week. But there was a glitch. Ruth has been rightly determined to ensure that appropriate lunchtime supervision is in place: his galactosaemia means that he mustn't consume any dairy products - they can cause neurological damage to him. So any risk of informal food-sharing needs to be managed scrupulously.  We'd all thought this was sorted out, and then there were last-minute hesitations from pre-school, perhaps because of staffing pressures.
So the bonus for us was another laidback Monday with Luca, enjoying the usual round of indoor games, chats  and TV interludes. With semi-constant rain, we weren't tempted to go far. Later I took him home, and then took Eben to the regular Monday evening drum lesson.
Meanwhile, Ruth spent a chunk of Monday morning at pre-school, and finally managed to reach an agreement that sounds robust. Luca will spend his Mon and Tues lunchtimes with a small group of pre-school and school kids who all have specific dietary needs and there will be a staff member sitting with them. It'll still be sociable, but it'll also be safe. And it'll be built into an arrangement that already has staff cover.
The best way forward, in general, will probably be to get an Education and Health Care Plan put in place formally. This would have the scope to cover dietary needs and anything else that crops up later at school (there can be additional learning needs, with galactosaemia, though so far this hasn't been an issue for Luca). But apparently this takes around 16 weeks to process, in our area. So we'll see how that goes.
Ruth and Josh have handled all this with calm determination, I'm really impressed.