muliebrity.co.uk

I did it.

I really did.

I have blisters under my feet (*must wear socks in future*), I have scared a fisherman (*must not sing loudly and tunelessly to backing music when approaching riverbank at sunset*), I have worried the dog (she’s getting the hang of the stop-start run bursts now, but was very concerned about them to start with).

I still, however, finish each session scarlet, sweating and unable to speak.

It’s still HARD. Though not as hard as the first one.

Do I move on to week 2, or re-do week one til it gets easier?

Onwards. Always moving onwards. That’s the spirit.

Think I’ll go have a lie down now…

On the upside, there may be totally necessary shoe shopping ahead…

Right now, my girl is in school.

In her nooniform and everything.

At 6 this morning she climbed into bed with me, and as I hugged her close I listened to the wind blowing a hoolie, the rain slapping at the windows… and I wanted to hold on to her forever. Just breathing in the delicious smell of her, feeling her warm and sleepy, curled into me like we’ve done so often over the last four and a half years…

…and just refuse to let the world come and take her away.

Not yet.

Course – three hours later she was bustling excitedly into school without a backwards glance. Little Sod.

(apologies to Keris, who read this first…)

Enough.

Bored.

Tired.

Simply fed up with No.1 not being well.

Today, the school called to say he’d had enough.

And I didn’t go and get him.

I told them to send him back to class.

*sigh*

The guilt wracked me for an hour, until he called again, and this time I practically ran to get him.

And yes, I’m well aware how that makes me sound.

Frankly, I don’t care.

He has hit a point where it’s just easier for him to give in than it is is for him to exert himself, to make himself plod slowly forwards even if he doesn’t feel like it. And that doesn’t help anyone. I do trust my own instincts – I do know when he’s genuinely done too much, had enough, and actually in need of me. And also the times when he’s simply a bit tired, overwhelmed, hungry, or feeling emotional – and just wants to retreat back to his home, to the comforting blanket of familiarity.

Having missed so much school, he still finds certain parts – the busy corridors in particular – utterly overwhelming when he’s feeling fragile.

But they’ll never get less so until he forces himself to endure them.

And then, in the evenings. When he wanders pathetically down the stairs, saying he feels *whispers* “Really BAD!” – when he hasn’t done his bedtime routine, when he has been lying quietly for no more than 30 minutes, when I know he is interrupting my small window of adult ‘me’ time not because he feels extra-ordinarily unwell, but because he is lonely, and hurting, and honestly just wanting one of us to go and soothe him, lie down with him, cuddle him for a while.

And more often than not we send him back to his room with a flea in his ear, with a brisk, “well, lie quietly then, get up and read if you need to, what do you want us to do?”

It’s harsh. And as we say it we know it’s harsh. And as we watch his shoulders droop, his resigned quiet face turn away, one if us will huff and puff, but get up, go with him, be the parent he needs.

He’s just a 12 yr old boy.

Who hurts.

But for two and a half years we have been nursing, soothing, cuddling him through this strange horrible invisible illness.

And I’m so TIRED of him not being well.

The constant draining emotional need of him is so bloody wearing.

And simply writing that, no matter how true it is, makes me feel just a bit shitty.

and I, of course, expected to feel nostalgic and wistful for that golden summer when my three tow-headed boys looked like this, and needed nothing more than each other. I saw my No. 1, bright, sparkle-eyed, fit and just bursting with beautiful health. Boy was dancing, jumping, running, fizzing with his endless energy and enthusiasm and saucy fun. Jolly was just so very hugely enormously solidly gigglingly wonderfully JOLLY.

What I did not expect was the reaction of the boys. How at the tender ages of 8 and 9 they could be so wistfully nostalgic for those golden days of their ‘childhood’. How they miss the old toys we have gradually decluttered over the years. How they had already forgotten the way they played, their utter absorption in each other, the way they were three brothers, and yet one body of boys.

I did not expect to see No.1 slowly sadden and quieten as he compared his current slow and cumbersome self to that bright shining boy on the screen. The one he still is in his head.

I saw Boy watch, amazed and joy-filled as his small 3yr old self leaped about the floor with his daddy, playing, dancing, kissing and laughing together. Somehow, in the telling of his horrible anti-daddy 18mths stories, he came to believe he was a bad and hateful boy – one hour of home movies showed him this was not the case, and I watched a weight we hadn’t known was there be lifted from his small shoulders.

Jolly watched, amazed, as he fell down, giggled throatily, and got back up again. Over and over again. I quietly whispered in his ear, pointing out that the new moody tantrum-screech-cry he issues forth whenever he thinks he *might* be hurt isn’t the way he always was. That he wasn’t always so quick to fury, so fast to take offence. And as his family coo-ed and laughed and smiled and doted on the happy-shaped chunky bundle on the screen small pennies began dropping into place.

I love my big bold wonderful boys with every thing I have. But I miss my golden trio too.

It has been a lovely day.

The in laws are dog sitting for their friends again, but are returning home next Saturday, so we decided to have an Easter Sunday dinner with them a week early.

The lamb roast was delish, the pavlova scoffed to the last crumb, the sun shone, and the necessary French cricket match was as funny as only a silly family tradition can be.

But as the afternoon wore on, it became apparent that enough was enough – No.1 started to get tetchy, arguing over each point won/lost (he actually said “you cannot be SERIOUS! It was OUT!” and didn’t understand why the grown ups all collapsed with squeaks of giggles).

Eventually, we called it a day – Boy and Jolly carried on playing football, and NO.1 retreated indoors. In high dudgeon.

Then there was a shout.

And crying.

I went upstairs (slowly – am too used to his histrionic melodramas) to find him sprawled on the office floor – he’d come rushing through, caught one foot in his other trouser leg and gone sprawling, cracking his arm on the radiator.

Ouch.

Small bruise showed, so I was dutifully sympathetic, gave him a hug, and told him it’d feel better soon – just go rest up for a while. We know his hyper-sensitivity to pain causes him to over react to the slightest thing, so I was rather unconcerned and went to put the kettle on.

He appeared in the kitchen 15 minutes later still in tears. White face. Unable to move his arm.

Genuine alarm bells rang.

I dosed him with nurofen, applied a pack of peas (frozen ones, not some mystical cure from Sunday roast left overs), and sat with him for a while.

It soon became apparent that this was the real thing – or as close as we’ve ever come to it.

Not a single hospital dash for children before; we’ve got off lightly, I think.

C packed him into the car, and headed for A&E. In laws went home, I rounded up the smaller troops for some tired TV before bed.

Small drama followed when C rang to say there wasn’t an A&E at weekends at our local (9 miles away) hospital. What?

Had to call the emergency contact number o the door, to find the nearest is Dorchester. 25 miles away. *sigh*

So off they pootled.

Turns out he’s tried very hard to break it, but not quite managed it, just mashed the growing plates together in his wrist. Very painful, treated as a break with a splint, but will heal quicker and no need for plaster.

One VERY sorry for himself boy now sleeping in bed.

Two rather frustrated parents wondering how the heck he’ll manage to actually stay in school, let alone write his exams in 10 days time…