08Sep07 - Saturday

I haven't blogged for a couple of days due to being in Germany and yesterday when I got home we went away for the night to celebrate our 16th anniversary. It was the first time this year that we have had time just to ourselves. Lucy was in good hands with my parents who stayed the night at our house. Unfortunately they are the only real babysitters we have and we do call on them too much really. My parents have been a crutch that we could not have done without. I know it is getting more difficult for them but even so they are always willing to do whatever they can. Fortunately now that Lucy is at school life will be a little easier for a while and we won't need as much help. We are hopefully also going to look into the possibilities of respite care. There are people in the area who volunteer there help to look after special children and our community nurse can arrange for us to meet them. We will see what happens.

It was great to get away but it is difficult to detach from everyday life and completely relax. Also when you spend most of the time being carers, physiotherapists, parents, wife and husband it is difficult to be individuals, just Dawn and Neil. It was lovely though just to be able to do nothing for a few hours, no timetable, no feeds, no chores, just nothing. Hopefully we can make more opportunities to be just Dawn and Neil.