Blogging for Sanity

An anniversary whilst we were away; two years since my first blog post. One of my better I think; perhaps I should have left it there. I had lofty dreams of somehow instantly becoming known as an insightful, witty, blogger, someone who would effortlessly churn out endless entertainment which would somehow be seized on and read by millions. No children would be identified; this would be a blog about me, the parent/fostercarer/woman behind the child in the wheelchair; the children themselves would be but bit players in my grand theatre. Ego much?

And then Goldie died, and life wasn't terribly funny for a while. And this blog became my outet. Uncomfortably personal at times perhaps; I've certainly had people worry that this is my own private diary and that I have somehow forgotten to hide it from public view. Not so; I don't reveal everything here, but writing things out and knowing that it will be read by someone or someones definitely helps me to shape my own thoughts. Posts then perhaps become thoughts in progress? No wonder they're often long-winded; I guess I think slowly.

Putting my thoughts down here, sometimes deeper, sometimes marking a memory, sometimes just sharing a moment; it helps to empty my mind before I sleep. I blurt it all out; I edit quite a bit of it away, refine the rest and then what's published is gone, off my mind and onto the page, and I can sleep.

It's been surprisingly useful as an archive; I can click back through the months and see what's changed, what's the same. Not that our whole lives are up here; we definitely have too much life for that, and so much of it is other people's stories. But I think there's some kind of essence here - enough to get a hint of the flavour of our days. I hope so anyway.

I find myself up to my elbows in poo (and no, not metaphoric poo), and as I wipe it away I find myself mentally composing the blog post that will describe it. I don't end up writing even half the many bodily fluid posts I've thought of (aren't you thankful for that?), but the mental process takes my mind off the smell and the heat and the squishiness (and now you're really thankful I don't share more I'm sure).

Sitting in a traffic jam with a screaming child to my left and a suspiciously silent child behind me (who will later turn out to have been scattering powdered multivitamins over the car and her powerchair), I find just the right turn of phrase, and in doing so, forget to get frustrated over the delays and distractions. And then the traffic moves on, and the child stops screaming, and the other inhales the loose powder and chokes so we have to stop anyway, but I'm doing my best to forget about that, and our life moves on and there's another post unpublished.



Sweetness from today; Little Fish doing a medical handover for Mog when we got to the hospital this morning. Bittersweet perhaps; how has she come to know so much about her sister's medical needs, and how has she become so used to hospital that she knows what info to give to the receptionist? And silliness too; the appointment was for Little Fish so her detailed information seriously confused the issue. Celebrations - Little Fish's hip has been declared healed and healthy and she can get back to doing everything she was doing before. And sadness; it looks as though she'll need surgery on her foot, the leg will stay shorter than the other, and although the registrar didn't say what was worrying him, he was very keen to know when our next spinal review was going to be.

Meanwhile on the home front, three loads of laundry all trying to dry out on one clothes horse, one house covered in playdough and breadcrumbs, but a garden which has been transformed in our absence. And a van which needs surgery again itself, Little Fish having crumpled the back door on the left again.

A mixed bag; a mixed blog. Here's to the next two years.
Tia