Midnight

So it’s just gone midnight on Christmas Eve. Thinking about it, it’s actually Christmas Day.

And I’m feeling a touch melancholic. (Which is one up from alcoholic, which is what I've been feeling for most of December, having approached 'social drinking' occasions in a professional capacity that I wish to downgrade to amateur status in the New Year).

My man is working nights, and is apparently in a control centre on the motorway somewhere (he’s normally in a van, so I hope for any motorists’ sake they don’t let him anywhere near any computer equipment).

Me and the kids have watched Gremlins. You wouldn’t get away with half of that shit in a kids’ film nowadays: it’s great.

We’ve also been out for our annual Christmas Eve curry (enlivened this year by my mate’s birthday cake candles actually setting off the restaurant’s smoke alarm. I’m not saying she’s old, etc).

My girl is fast asleep. My boy is very much awake. This is very much par for the course.

But something is very different this year: my children have both informed me (with no small element of delight), that they no longer believe in Father Christmas.

Seeing as my boy is a cheeky know-it-all, I’m surprised I got away with it until he was nine. (“I know it’s your parents. Santa couldn’t got round the world, and I’ve seen the paper, and you write all the labels. You try to change your handwriting, but it’s rubbish.”)

Seeing as my daughter is nineteen, I should count myself lucky that I’ve had these extra years of her believing. Special needs has some special advantages sometimes. But she’s decided she’s all grown-up. (“I don’t believe in Santa, Mummy, or Jesus. And you can celebrate Christmas how you want to. But I do still want presents.”)

So I'm feeling a bit pensive and a little misty-eyed at the end of an era.

Although I still put a mince pie out for Santa, for tradition’s sake. 

It is OK to leave Gizmo near the mince pie after midnight, isn’t it?

Song is Low - Some Hearts (At Christmas Time)

Mulling

We sat in A & E for an hour or three.

My daughter had returned from her residential trip with bruised knees where she'd stumbled over on some steps. It was the last day, and she’d got to her feet, reassured staff she was fine, and not mentioned any pain or problems.

It wasn’t until she got in the shower that night, and I saw the angry black and purple circles on her kneecaps, that I realised she might be hurting.

“They’re a bit sore,” she told me, that high pain threshhold thing explaining the seemingly impossibly understatement.

I gave her some painkillers, and she seemed OK, but a few days later, she started walking very stiffly. 

“My back hurts,” she told me. The back that she had an operation on in May to remove metalwork from an earlier spinal fusion. 

I starting mulling it over. When her stiffness seemed to increase, I mulled some more, and tried to reassure myself that she was probably just sore from walking gingerly, overcompensating for her bruised knees. And then on Sunday, when she was struggling to get out of bed, and after I’d mulled enough to turn my blood into a spicy festive wine, I took her along to A & E.

The doctor was satisfied that everything was OK. He gave us a prescription for stronger painkillers, and we returned home. I sneaked in the sneaky bag I’d sneakily stashed in the boot of my car earlier. I nipped upstairs and sneakily unpacked the spare clothes, nightthings, and toothbrushes I’d taken in case something had been really wrong and we’d had to stay in. By the way, I’m crap at being sneaky - my daughter clocked my attempts at subterfuge and I had to explain my workings. Several times.

So half term is turning out to be a restful one for my girl, who’s kind of enjoying her invalid status a little too much. She’s spent most of it sitting on the sofa in a nest of pillows, leafing through TV Choice magazine and catching up with Corrie and Eastenders. 

But I’ve left a phone message for her consultant from the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore though, to see if we can bring her check-up appointment forward. Because, well, you know...mulling.

Oh, and the song is not going to be Mull of Kintyre, you know. I just won’t do it.

Song is Low - To Our Knees

Knees

I found out something amazing today.

A friend’s son was due to come round to see us. He’s in his 20s, and has Asperger’s, and it’s quite fun listening to his conversations with my daughter. Their respective conditions mean they both have an idiosyncratic way of chatting and interacting. Josh is also a whiz on computer games, so my son was looking forward to having a PS3 session with him.

However, Josh’s plans changed: he texted us to say he was seeing his girlfriend. Unusually, my girl, was quite blasé about this. “Well, if he’s seeing his girlfriend he’ll have to come another day.” My mouth dropped open with astonishment (it’s rare that my girl is insouciant about a change of plans - frantic or distraught is more usual response). But my boy - at the age when he can’t imagine why anyone would choose a girlfriend over Lego Marvel Superheroes - was a bit confused.

“Why didn’t he come?” he asked.

“Well, he did something else instead. Yes, you were a bit disappointed, but you’ve got to remember, Josh has special needs, like your sister.”

I got the glare.

“He does not. He does not have special needs. He can walk really fast.”

“What’s walking got to do with it?”

“You said he’s got special needs.”

It was at this point, that I realised I was mishearing my son, and my son was mishearing me. What he was actually saying was “special knees.”

All this time, all these years that we’ve been saying that the reason his sister can’t run and climb as well as him, and that her muscles aren’t as strong as his, he thought it was because of her special KNEES.

Oh my giddy aunt. Oh my special knees.

Song is Low - To Our Knees