I think. I'm pretty sure it's mine. Except I also feel all I've done is shift from place to place over the last few months and I'm not entirely sure this is where I'm supposed to be. On the one hand, it's my lovely house and oh my goodness there is so much space we just run around and up stairs when there are only 16 of them and not 75 and we can just walk out the front door and we can move from room to room if we need some space or a change of scene; it's amazing. On the other hand, it's far from the hospital and the Liaison Team and the people who know what they're doing with Sam who are my safety net and here, I'm the one who knows what I'm doing and it is FREAKING ME OUT. Obviously, this is just because our first visit to the Countess is today and I'm going to have to be all: "Have you washed your hands/put on an apron/don't touch my kid" with the staff there and it's me taking charge instead of the RVI nurses. I'll be totally OVER this tomorrow.
In other news, it is so nice to be home. People have been kind and welcoming and I've sort of sidled back in so we're chugging along nicely. Sam is quite over-awed by his bedroom wall with all the sea creatures and also the garden. Watching the snow and the hail yesterday took quite a bit of his time, time otherwise best spent, he has found, banging on his drum (Truly he earns Sam-Sam the Bam-Bam nickname).
It's not just Sam who's been living in a bubble since December, we've found. The bubble has been family-size, enveloping us all, isolating us, yes, but also holding us and Sam safe, away from potential danger and within that bubble it has been quite comforting and sheltered. Out here, in the wide open world with people and children and our garage, it feels a tiny bit fraught. We are in the slow process of sorting out our junk; living in such straitened, pared-down circumstances makes you come home and just want to chuck 80% of everything you own away. I get out old toys for Sam and immediately box up half for the charity shop because I don't think I could clean them properly. The quotidian burden of guilt and anxiety over Sam being exposed to something he may not be able to handle and send us "scidding" back to Newcastle is fairly heavy. I want people to see him and admire his pink round cheery chubbiness, but I can't bear for them to touch him JUST IN CASE. It's really quite exhausting. At some point I might be able to let that go, but right now it's probably the best protection he could have.
But there is also life and the school run and being normal so we all have to carry on and just do it. I just haven't gotten round to popping the bubble yet.
