Well - it's all over! There's nowhere left to hide, all the celebrations are over, nothing left to plan except the rest of our lives and normal life is coming back...
New year's eve was wonderful - we toasted the end of the worst year of our lives (or worst year SO FAR, as Homer Simpson would say) with the kids as planned in front of the fire with a bit of 007 escapism and a lot of champagne. All asleep hours before the new year dawned - fabulous. Way too soon for attempts at social interaction beyond small safe gatherings with family and good friends and for the last week we have holed up in front of the fire playing games, watching a lot of DVDs and eating almost all the time (apart from Rose - if only). Emotional convalescence all round.
Back into party mode today for south-east London's most celebrated seven year old! Eighteen little princesses - and one prince - celebrated with us with a suitably sedentary bit of pottery painting and a chocolate fountain. Seven year old heaven -and another truck load of presents to shoe horn into Rose's bedroom! Back home tonight and with the frenzy of unwrapping over for the third time in a week even Rose is overwhelmed by the focus and is looking forward now to moving on and to GOING BACK TO SCHOOL! This is definitely the next and exciting thing on Rose's horizon although it will be more short, supervised trips to start with and broken up by lots and lots and lots of physio, hydro etc. With Christmas and birthday behind her it's back to boot camp and the ceasefire is most definitely over - with more falls and near-falls throughout Christmas the need to get her weight-bearing is as urgent as ever. Without standing on her right leg she will never be safe and shadowing her for her every waking minute is going to get harder and harder - we have started the same old conversations with her that we have been having for six months but with the same stalemate. She can't or won't put weight through the leg and our brief moment of optimisim in early December hasn't been repeated - her leg is back to being permanently bent at an angle of about 10 to 15 degrees which makes it almost impossible to use. We are stuck in a vicious circle that only Rose can break us out of and frustration levels are rising once again.
It's not where we planned to be by January and the continual responsibility of keeping Rose safe on her crutches is overwhelming - her school are understandably nervous too of having her back and although she needs independence from me as much as I need it from her I can't see how we're ever going to get it. Perhaps the peer pressure of her friends will provide the eureka moment we are longing for - after that we are totally out of ideas! So Rose is going to start to be a regular(ish) seven year old and Simon is going back to work full time on Monday. This is huge for all of us and brings very mixed feelings and fears - optimism that we are all on our way back to where we were before and fear just in case we're not. Of all the dads in all the world Rose chose hers very wisely and we are going to miss him terribly - ironically Simon and I have never spent so much time apart up until this last Christmas fortnight but we have tag-parented our way through the last nine months and kept all our heads just about above water. More than anything I want to surprise him every day with the progress Rose is making and not to let him down - of all the (many and wornout) physios Rose has worked her way through this year Simon has been the best and most patient and has remained consistently optimistic and positive on our darkest days. New year's resolution - Rose WILL start to walk, she will start to eat, stay in remission, and all will go well for the Alloccas in 2009!
