An angel at my table...

Half term. A phrase that makes the blood of many mums run cold. Especially at this time of year when it's still too cold to depend on being outside and the purse strings are still tight after Christmas. Add an autistic child who needs constant supervision into the equation and you can imagine how I feel in the run up to half term. The last year has had its fair share of horrors and pitfalls and most of them revolved around holidays. Looking after James is a 24 hour job - I usually wake up in the morning having dreamt about him or an incident that involved him. Our nights are often broken with a wide awake child at 3am or our evenings are taken up calming him down enough to get him to sleep before 10pm. And then there's all the extra housework and cleaning he creates (on a good day he has one change of clothes, today it was three...) So I count my blessings that we found Charlie. She is an angel who has stumbled across our chaos and somehow blinkered her eyes to the mess and helped us in our hour of need. She looks after Bea every Friday and helps me over the holidays. I honestly don't know if I could manage a whole week of half term without her help.

Most mothers of two or more know what it's like to juggle their children, working out whose need is greater and somehow managing to meet the needs of everyone. I remember finding my first weeks after James was born so very difficult and challenging, yet when Bea was born I didn't have time to wallow in the difficulties of a newborn as I had a full blooded toddler to deal with. What I didn't realise was that Bea was always going to have to be second best if I was on my own with them. James has no awareness of danger, no understanding of the world around him and his behaviour is often dangerous and inappropriate. It has now got to the point where I cannot go out with the two of them on my own, unless our trip involves a trolley with two seats (ie Tesco, Ikea and Costco!!!). My idea of hell is taking the two of them to a soft play venue but even just venturing to the local park is challenging. I don't do it any more, although we do have a reasonably big garden so they can both run off a bit of steam there.

But today I had Charlie with me so I took the opportunity to take the children to Ruislip Lido. Charlie walked from the car with James and Bea insisted on walking round the lake too. We were the slower party and by the time we reached the "beach" and children's play area Charlie looked a little harrassed - James had run straight to the water as soon as she took his safety rucksack off and was soaking wet (he had sat down in about 6 inches of water). Luckily, it was a lovely sunny day and he soon dried off and enjoyed the roundabout and swings. I hadn't realised that the train would be running so we will come back soon to use the railway.

It's funny how despite having extra help today I feel more tired than usual. Even with another pair of hands around it's still exhausting having a full week with no let up - roll on next week!