Christmas comes but once a year...

This year, we will be having two. We promised the girls a Christmas when William came home from the hospital. We were separated for the real thing last year and the thought of our special Christmas together really kept us all going through those long weeks after William's illeostomy operation when we were battling to get his fluids and electrolytes balanced.

We had a Christmas party on Friday complete with mulled wine. People were so generous in briging cards and gifts for us so there was an exciting pile under the tree to tease the children. William enjoyed the pary food too - it all smelled good. He carefully arranged two cherry tomatos on the table and announced to all that he had 'made an illeostomy'. He had a fab time playing engines with one of his friends. This was great to see as he is not very good at sharing, especially engines, and can find playing with other children a bit overwhelming.

Today was our 'Christmas Day' and we had the works; a real Christmas tree, bucks fizz and smoked salmon for breakfast, dinner with all the trimmings and lots of chocolate and mince pies. Father Christmas very kindly returned to fill the stockings we left hanging on the fire place over night. There were plenty of Thomas goodies, including a fantastic track table made by Paul. The girls had a mix of pink fluff and glitter and make-up, chemistry sets and pens and pencils. The icing on the cake for them was a laptop...each. They are combined Christmas and Birthday presents (although their birthdays are a way off) but will help them keep up with their school work and friends when they have to stay at Mum and Dad's next time William is in hospital. It is too much for Dad to move his life into our house any more so, in future, Hope and Ellie will go to them in Stoke-on-Trent with educational support to keep up with school. The lap tops are brand new ones, designed for children and a bit different to traditional ones. They are called EEEPC and I'm sure Paul will blog more on the technical info. They are arriving on Tuesday so the girls had to settle with IOU notes today. The laptops have built in web cams so we hope we can use those to chat live when we are separated again.

It was a fab day and felt very authentic. It was strange to go to church for a Lent service rather than carols. There was no Christmas TV either - that was not so missed. The girls made up for both the lack of festive entertainment and religious input with a rendition of the Nativity story complete with songs. Thankfuly for them, my camera was lost under the goegraphical layers of wrapping paper at that point in the day.

Back to normal tomorrow for the first time in 3 1/2 months. The girls are back at school. William has 3 sessions at playschool, a hospital appointment and a driving lesson on the power chair. I have a training day to do with some Brompton Fountain Area Co-ordinators and need to get back on track with work in general. It is going to be a busy week and challenging to get into routines to manage everything along side William's new needs. I'm sure there will be plenty of fun and mishaps along the way to post on here.