Yesterday my daughter and I went with my mother in law to the local garden centre, primarily with the purpose of buying me some wellies but also the weather was so rubbish that any outside activity was out of the question. I could not believe that they had the Christmas display up already. This certainly confused our daughter as we have not mentioned that Christmas is but three months away!! Anyway, when we went to pay for the aforementioned wellies (essential now I am part of the horse riding set!) my daughter who is very ataxic stumbled against the till. “Are you drunk?!” asked the cashier in a well meaning attempt at cracking a joke. “Oh yes” I quip back, as if I have not heard this before! It wasn’t until I had gone back to the car that I suddenly realised the significance of this innocuous exchange as it was not that long ago that such a comment would have really upset me and likely as not I would have gone back home and burst into tears.

We all know that our children are special needs but somehow when someone seems to recognise this, it can be really upsetting. A stupid analogy but it is almost as if we exist in our own bubble and any little comment or stare can wobble that bubble or on bad days make it go pop. When we first used to go out with our son on his K frame, the number of stares we used to get and stupid comments like “Oh I could do with one of them”. Yeh, right. I bet that you would really like to be unable to walk and keep on falling on your face because you cannot save yourself! At one point it got me so down, I remember walking along and only looking at the floor just so I could avoid eye contact. The relief in getting home and being able to pretend again that our family was the norm after all.
 
I know that largely I have resolved those feelings although on bad days I still want to stand in the middle of a shop and shout to everyone who wants to listen to stop judging me and my children. However I was really pleased coming home from the garden centre about how I felt about this tiny event. Silly cow - and fancy putting up the decorations in September!