Christmas is a funny old time really.
There is this innate habit we find ourselves looking back on the year or reflecting back to past Christmas times.
A year ago we were petrified of the future, 2 years ago I was 12 weeks pregnant with twins, 5 years ago we had no kids, 10 years ago we were young and carefree at the pub with our mates and couldn’t of ever imagined what a beautiful life we would share together.
For many parents of disabled children it can be a very emotional time at Christmas.
Looking back on another year of hospital visits, services provided to us, equipment, medicine changes, diagnosis, but also be a very uplifting time of reflection, new milestones, new found confidence of parenting, strengths found within ourselves that we never knew were there and friendships that have blossomed out of difficult times!
This year has presented us with its own set of challenges.
The dreaded covid-19 sent us all into hiding, with many of us still looking out of our periscope lying low on the radar whilst the rest of society return to normal whatever that means these days.
The freezing of the lifelines of care and support provided by health and social care really tested our community but I think we have shown ourselves what we are capable of and how much our kids really thrive on our first class input.
Most services have rightfully started to resume and everyone has welcomed them back, lagged in PPE none the less.
I am sure no doubt we will laugh about this in 10 years’ time at Christmas.
I have spent the evening looking back at photos from a year ago pinching myself at how far we have come.
How much more we know about early intervention, how our girls have shown so much resilience and how we naively knew nothing about the pandemic that was going to show up in 2020 and turn our lives upside down.
Tele-therapy has exploded and at the touch of the button I can get world class input from another continent on a different time zone.
Of course there has been some hard times and frank conversations, but we can’t get hung up on the low points it only takes away from the magic achievements.
I do wish however Santa had left me a pile of shares in zoom under the tree last year or a pile of face masks and hand sanitizer.
I can’t imagine what next Christmas will look like; I hope our house is still full of love and laughter, with an even bigger tree and some tyrant toddlers in standers and adapted seats ripping the tree baubles off and eating chocolate until we all feel sick.
Hopefully with coronavirus just another distant memory.