Found under my sofa

Taxi

Meat cleaver

Road sign

Thomas the tank engine book

A grape

Assorted pens, pencils

One (only one!) of Pups enzyme tablets - he's always dropping them.

A long lost application form for the summer holiday club

4 cat toys

A monkey

One needle

Lid from drink bottle

A LOT of dust.

Sadly no money, or missing treasure.

In my dreams...

......once my little Tigs started school, I would be free to get so much done. have tons of time, and be full of energy to complete a few projects and start dozens more. To do some voluntary work. To maybe do a few extra hours paid work.

In my dreams.

The reality? The last two weeks trying to organise moving Mum to her new home, rushing over to the old house at weekends to sort / pack up / throw away all my parents nearly 50 years of married life, plus a tons of stuff belonging to grandparents. Trying to hold it together on the one day a week I do go into work, so it doesn't show that I am shattered all the time.

Well we have finally moved mum, and have an offer on the house, which we are minded to accept. So phase 47 of the 'sort out the parents' plan is over. The most important bit - get mum somewhere to live where (I hope) she can be safe and happy. Relax for ten seconds. Now move on to the next phase. Sort out money, start the massive job of emptying our spare room of the piles of clutter we've acquired. Sell a few things.

And Tigs has just gone down with one of his stinking colds - and when he gets a cold he gets one. So that's one little boy who won't be going to school tomorrow, so I can't go visit mum to see if she's settling in or needs anything. Still, I'm happy that she is in the 'right' place; everything seems to say she's where she should be. I hope she feels the same and settles quickly. I hope so, because I chose this home for her.

mum and dad

I can't imagine what it must be like at 82 to lose your husband, home, and most of your pssessions, to move 50 miles from home to where very few people know you, to a home chosen by someone else; and to have to start again. I just pray it will be easy for her. She coped really well with the journey, although she was exhausted, and the staff were very welcoming.  It's a small residential home, with about 25 residents with really friendly staff. I thinks she'll like it. I hope so!

A new beginning

Tigs started school this week.

He admitted to me that he was a bit worried, and he has regressed slightly lately; in the nicest possible way. He taken to carrying his cuddly cat and half a dozen of his bears around with him at home(he's a bit of an arctophile) He's also been taking them to bed, which he stopped doing a few months ago. He tried to smuggle his doll into his school bag. And dad and I are getting lots more cuddles than usual.

I like it.

On the day school started he ran out of his bedroom at 7 o'clock screaming "I'm going to school, I'm going to school!"

Since then he has been high as a kite, although I have noticed yesterday that  the wind is dropping slightly.

 When we got to school the first morning he was all for kissing me goodbye in the corridor; he did not seem at all concerned. I had to persuade him that I was coming into the classroom.for a while.

That day he literally bounced all the way home from school (we have a ten minute walk to school)

Pup seems to be coping ok in his new class so far as well. He has a male teacher this year, which we are very happy about. They seem to be getting down to work straight away - year 3 means real work, no more play. I think it will do him good.

And I am getting used to a new era, of being child free at home. The first day I felt completely lost, and spent about an hour wandering the house. Going out for lunch to a friend whose little boy has just started as well  was a real help. Today is my first full day home alone. It is going very slowly......

One hard thing about Cystic Fibrosis

Cystic fibrosis is a hard enough thing to deal with, but one thing I find particularly hard is the not knowing.

Not knowing  in five or ten or twenty years time whether we will still have our son.

Whether he will be fit, active; able to work rest and play like anyone else.

Or maybe exhausted, oxygen dependant, wasting away for want of a lung transplant.

Not knowing whether a treatment will be found to 'cure' him. There is no real cure for any genetic condition. There are drug therapies in the pipeline. Gene therapy, lung treatments. Any or all of them may change the future for CF sufferers. Maybe it will become just a 'mildly debilitating' condition as I heard it described recently, instead of a lethal killer.

We don't know.  He doesn't know.

He's lying on the sofa right now, worn out after a trip to the hairdresser and half an hour at the playground. Every time we have a bad day like this I wonder if it's just normal tiredness for a child who is growing fast and has had a busy few days, or a short setback; or the beginning of the downhill slope for his health.

 I try and be positive. My sister has been reassuring me - her daughter is going through a growth spurt at the moment and gets very tired.  And he was clowning around in the swimming pool yesterday with as much energy as anyone. So maybe it's just me. I should stop thinking.