Fantastic mummys

                                                               
Ok I am sorry any Daddy's, you are all lovely too but today I am blogging happy thoughts.

I went to my usual MOT hospital appointment at Bath Min on the 25th of Aug. I have never...never in my years I have been going there, ever seen parents who are also service users/patients. Today I met two! Its almost as though someone knows how I have been feeling recently, scared,bit alone in the parenting world etc.

One was a smiley lady with an even happier husband, she had a ten year old girl who was smiling, laughing, chatting,confident,kind and articulate. She was clearly very used to attending hospitals with her mummy and she wasn't at all cross,fed up, impatient. Instead she was just such a lovely child. So nice to see!

Second mummy entered, she had been waiting for far too long for her appointment, her daughter was independent and had taken herself off around the shops whilst her mother was at the hospital but I think this mummy was worrying about her credit card being over bashed by her unsupervised daughter! I didn't meet this girl but my husband did. This poor mother was obviously having one of those disabled parent days, she had other things to do as any parent can understand, and waiting for nearly an hour for her appointment was making her anxious! She was dropping her mobile phone which smashed into two bits so my husband also arthritic picked it up slowly for her and attempted to fix it,he is ever the gent.She was so grateful and told us she was having one of those days, we instantly knew what she meant. A day where your hands do not seem to function with the speed your brain is working! She also told us that she had dropped her car key so often that day that she was on her way to a garage ,as soon as her daughter got back from shopping and her appointment was done, to get it fixed and then had to rush home as her daughter was having a sleep over party and she had to get things ready for that. We met her again outside,her car was not starting because the key had been dropped so often it had given up life. So my husband stayed to try and fix it for her whilst I pushed Christopher around Bath. He got it working and she was so glad he had, bless her. However why I am writing about her is because she was still smiling! Despite an exhausting evening coming up and a million things to sort out she was not looking fed up,she did not look irritated with her daughter, she was just getting on and laughing about it. She impressed me, I knew she was in pain, you can see it all over someone's face when you also have a similar illness, she had been kept waiting far too long at hospital, she probably wanted to be joining her daughter in a nice shop together but didn't then have time, she had to drive to a garage to get a new key, she had to go home, cook,clean up and still keep smiling for her daughter and her friends and you know what, I know she did do all those things because the attitude of "I can do it" is printed all over their faces, the "I can't do it" people always have a fed up look on their faces, just something I have learnt growing up as a child and now into an adult with illness. I stay miles away from the "can't do it" folk, they are vampires of the soul!

Disabled people rarely sweat the small stuff, sure there are mega wingers in this category and all as unattractive as the "well" moaners, wingers and can't do ers. However there are the ones that appreciate life, appreciate their child's life, appreciate that some aspects of life are serious but some aspects of life are not and we learn not to sweat the small stuff. We learn prioritisation very quickly in child rearing, I would say I am a dab hand at it after 8 mths of Christopher being in my life. Christopher came with us to Bath but he was laughing the loudest in the waiting room, he was grinning at all the nurses who fell in love with him, he knows mummy and daddy have all the time for him,he had a lovely day prior to the appointment as we had gone around Bath for him to sight see, gone into the Disney store, we met with a friend and went to have cakes and coffee in M&S and Christopher decided he would eat Daddy's cake! We brought him a new book and read it to him in the hospital waiting room, the day was not about the appointment but it was made into a day for him. We got home at 6pm and we didn't sit down until 9pm. We got him into his slumbersac,read him his bedtime story,gave him his milk,sang twinkle twinkle,both kissed him goodnight and then the house work started! It feels like an elephant has walked all over us at the end of the day but we love him so much, we want to protect him from the dullness of us being ill, we want to show him the happy side of life. We don't want to waste the little energy we have during the day running around places he would hate and instead we have to leave this till he is asleep. Sometimes it is difficult to keep prioritising because there are things you are itching to get on with during the day, sure I pop him in his high chair or Bumbo seat with toys whilst I make important phone calls, or he comes out into the garden with us whilst my assistant dog and I play fetch but we all manage and muddle through as a family and we all seem a very happy family at that :o)

So to all parents, don't sweat the small stuff, it can wait! Your child won't be a child forever,life is too short, always make the most of what you have now x