Good News Friday #s 17, 18, and 19: Three for the Price of One!

I haven’t put up a Good News Friday post for three weeks. In part, it’s because I went on holiday and so other things (good newsy things like excursions and family time) got in the way. To be frank, the first Friday of the holiday also coincided with a big upset in Boo Land, occasioned by The Grumposaur saying he never wants us all to go away again as a family for 2 weeks) and I got very upset and not in the mood to write upbeat stuff. Things improved dramatically by the following Friday, but by that point apprehension about getting back to normal kicked in and I couldn’t bring myself to write a GNF post then either.

What a little ray of sunshine I’ve been. And it’s such a vicious circle. I felt down so I prevented myself from thinking about all the good things going on in our lives, which made me more down, which … oh you know how it goes. I also really missed hearing the good news people share in response to the posts in the comments on Facebook or Twitter. So enough already. There have been done rough old moments in the past three weeks, but here are just a handful of the highlights:

1) Fun with the Boos. Yep it got hairy at times (and more sleep would’ve been nice) but I had some brilliant times during our trip away. We did some fabulous things and went to some lovely places. (More on some of those in my catch-up Play Agenda post coming soon). We laughed a lot. We were silly. We broke some of our rules and ditched our routine. It was great!

2) No work. I have tried not to work on holiday before. I have never entirely succeeded. The flip side of a job with flexibility where you can be at work at any time means you are usually at least partly at work most of the time. It doesn’t help that The Grumposaur always works when we’re away (a hazard of being self-employed) so we always stay in places with wi-fi and always have a laptop. But aside from a couple of emails, I did no work at all. And while this means I am rather in the doo-doo for the next three weeks, it was lovely and, to my surprise, I didn’t miss it much at all.

3) Finding a swing Boo could swing in. I’ve blogged about this in the past week, but I just have to mention it again, because the mere act of typing these words puts a smile on my face.

4) The kindness and knowledge of the Twittersphere and Blogosphere. Before we came back from our holidays my anxieties about us still not being seen by the OTs (health and Social Services) to get Boo some postural seating before he develops scoliosis really took hold. I wanted to do some more research on possible seats and how we might fund them without going bankrupt so as to be armed if, as has happened I got back to find that despite being urgent and both OT teams wanting to see him, they can’t yet because of the length of the ‘urgent’ waiting list. So I put up a tweet and a request for advice on Facebook. I was overwhelmed with dozens of responses in minutes. Folks I don’t know from Adam retweeted and shared and within an hour I felt better informed than all my hours on the internet desperately searching for information had made me. Thank you!

5) Boo’s posture. I am genuinely worried about him developing scoliosis. When all four of your limbs have a tendency to spasticity and dystonia and your trunk tone is low, well, let’s just say things are hard on your back. When you’re big too (at 14.5 months corrected he weighs 10.5 kilos) it’s even harder. But those worries aside, Boo is seating (supported of course still, but with much less support) without the persistent C-shape in his spine that I never thought we’d see the back of. He reaches for his toes in sitting now and when he inevitably bends double and his head hits the floor, much of the time (not all, but much) he can push himself back up. I remember his sister doing this days before she sitted unassisted. Now days in Sissyboo’s life can lasts months for her brother, but you know (shh, don’t jinx it, fingers crossed) he may be getting there. He may be heading towards sitting one day. Don’t worry I’ll tell you when he does. I may light beacons, ring every church bell in the land and streak down my high street too.

There have been other good things, too, but since many are tied up with the things we did while away and I want to blog about them separately, they can wait. But I can’t wait to hear your good news. So please do leave a comment, or send me a tweet (@premmeditations) or hop over to Facebook to let me know. I’ve missed hearing from you!