Helena got lost recently, she went on ahead and when the somewhat slower 3 year old and I arrived she was gone. It was a very stressful hour as she happily went the wrong way, realised, turned around and came back. Unfortunately I’d given her the car key so couldn’t go looking. In some respects my child is an alien to me. The 3 year old and I knew where we were and where all the roads went….

So to rectify this problem I have been using more words, talking about what I can see but she seems so la la la about it all, never seems to notice any landmarks, she delegates all that to me. Mr Maker made a pirate map (the same way as me, not that she noticed that) so she made a pirate map.

Pirate maps…. Helena drew bits for her 3 year old friend, who has a totally different drawing schema to Helena at that age.

I decided seeing as maps were in to give her and her 3 year old friend afternoon tea by map.

This is a map of Nana’s house. The different colours are because we had to do it 3 times. They would have liked more times but there wasn’t time. The 3 year old who always knows where she is and how to get there didn’t get to hold the map!

We walked her 3 year old friend (her map is the beautiful one in purple) to her home making maps of our journey. There were tears when there wasn’t enough space but eventually it all worked out. Helena was being super observant – it could have turned into a very long walk.

We’ll have to walk there again some day to see if Helena remembers! I so know where I am so I can not begin to understand how to develop her understanding.