Sorry for the big delay in posting and for any anxiety caused and thank you for all the texts, emails and messages asking after Rose and all of us. ROSE IS FINE, FABULOUS, GORGEOUS AND WELL. She's doing loads better than all of the rest of us! Actually Felix is fine too - the cricket season has started. Say no more. Life is about getting grass stains out of whites in record time, wickets, runs, and getting him from fixture to fixture. This blog is not about me and is not the place for an undignified expose of just how badly I am coping but by way of an explanation of the long silence suffice to say I seem to have crashed rather badly. Totally overwhelmed by the day to day stuff. Thank god for the sisterhood - I'm getting lots of help personal and professional and am praying that I'm looking back on this very, very soon. In the meantime it's really SCARY.
Back to Rose. I really meant to have new photos of the Twiggy/Mia Farrow/Kylie look for the blog but it hasn't happened - will try to put some on this week. I think we have finally consigned the braids to the dressing up box although they keep making the odd re-appearance when her confidence dips! Take it from me and I am totally unbiased - she looks absolutely GORGEOUS. Big eyes and a little gamine hairstyle - adorable. After a shaky first week back at school with lots of return trips home and leg pain (hmmm) she seems to have got back into the stride of it all and has managed one week with four full days including lunch 8.30 to 3.30! (What to do with all that time - I know have a breakdown.)
Last week not so successful - swine flu came to Dulwich with local school closures just to ramp up stress levels even further and an entire day was spent liaising with the Marsden and the Health Protection Agency about whether Rose should be given Tamiflu. In the event not and her school so far has escaped closure. But she stayed home for a day while she decided whether she was ill or not, decided against and went back the next day! With a bank holiday and her usual Friday off she had managed to escape most of the week... Higher hopes for this week that she might actually go in long enough to learn something! She's back in the playground too and trying her best to join in with her friends at break times - with varying degrees of success. Breaking back into friendships that have moved on, finding herself a niche in the class and physically keeping up with what they are all doing is all really hard but I'm sure that in a few more weeks it will be better. And the new school year will bring new girls into the class and shake things up a bit for all of them.
Mandy and Tayo are still swimming with her on a Friday morning in the DC pool - giving up their time for free they are taking her in solitary splendour in the 25metre school pool which she thinks is absolutely wonderful. Getting her supersonic leg strong enough to hold her weight up in the water is still a bit of a struggle and the lovely technique she had before she was ill is gone. Now more of an unsightly scramble to stay afloat with arms and legs windmilling everywhere but she'll get there! If she can come on enough to rejoin her swimming class she will be thrilled. Moving her on and finding the things that she can/will be able to do is what it's about now for Rose - maybe Brownies next!
More pix and more adventures of Rose to follow soon I promise.
