a submissive's musings: December 2010

review of the year -2010

i'm going to do a quick summary of the main events of each month of 2010, like i have done in previous years, but i'm afraid i don't have time to trawl back through the logs to get relevant quotes from the blogposts (William is super cranky due to the injections we are giving him, so i'm having to hold and snuggle him pretty much all the time to soothe him, and it's difficult to post long entries on here whilst holding a baby at the same time). But i do want to get this post done, so that in the next post i can start looking forward to the new year as well as back to the old one. So here goes, if you're interested:

January

i started off the year very thoughtful and introspective, probably because it was the start to a new year and also i had recently found out i was pregnant again so was expecting big changes in my life before the year was out (and how right i was, though i could never have predicted what was going to actually happen). i remember writing quite a few 'thoughts' posts on subjects such as having a 'no matter what' clause and what that might mean in a relationship, what it would have been like to live in the 1950s as a housewife, things like that.

And i was still quite active in my BDSM training, due to the fact that i was only just pregnant so wasn't restricted by my growing belly yet - i continued and passed my 'play with Dommes' training both online and in real-life and remember a particular session in my humiliation training very well involving several other Doms.

Overall January was a good month, full of hope and promise and progress.

February

February was the first difficult month of the year - it started with problems with our gas at the beginning of the month, which led to us having no gas (and therefore no heating) for quite a while in the freezing weather, plus we found out that we had been slowly poisoned with carbon monoxide for several months previously (though luckily we were all OK). Then once we finally got the gas sorted out we had problems with our internet which left us cut off for a few weeks (very frustrating for me in particular, who is used to catching up with friends online on pretty much a daily basis).

So not a great month overall, though we did also find out that i was expecting twins (and Sir started me on the brewer diet), and we celebrated Sir's birthday and Valentine's day, so not all doom and gloom.

March

March was a very busy month with several 'big' events. i started doing nude life-modelling for an art class as part of my exhibitionism training, and Sir and i went to a BDSM-style dinner party for a friend's 50th birthday (during which i experienced some more humiliation training from another Dom and met a new subbie friend).

There was also Mothers' Day, which was very nice, and i received a 'pregnancy wellbeing' massage as one of my gifts (which is when the 'having my bewbies massaged by a man' thing happened! - it was lovely though and not at all pervy).

And work was rather stressful for a few days when OFSTED turned up to inspect our nursery, but we passed with flying colours and i was so proud when my special needs unit was graded 'outstanding'!.

So overall, a busy but productive and happy month for March.

April

i suppose it's natural for this time of the year, but April for me was a 'new beginnings' and 'changes' month. Many of the changes were stressful at the time, such as Poppy going to nursery full-time (and without me for the first time ever), her staying overnight with my parents to practice for when i went into hospital to give birth, and flame having an operation and me not knowing how it went for a few days. But we came out the other side of all of those just fine, and were able to move on and call them a success. i also got into the spirit of 'spring cleaning' by updating my blog and giving it a whole new look, which turned out to be more work than i anticipated but i'm pleased with the results.

April was also the month that i started to get to know Eloise (the sub i met) better, and i remember being hopeful that this would be the start of a beautiful new relationship, though sadly things didn't work out that way....

May

May was a month of contrasts - some very sad times and some very happy times with nothing really in between. my pet rabbit died after being with me (in 2 different houses) for over 8 years and i was very sad to lose him. This was also the month that we first found out there might be something wrong with William when his heart didn't look right on a routine ultrasound scan. We had to wait several weeks to have another scan to find out either way, which was very stressful and worrying for us (and didn't turn out to be good news in the end). i also finished work to go on maternity leave, and whilst at the time i was thinking that i'd probably return in a year or two, now it looks unlikely due to William's problems, so it's even more sad looking back on my last day with those wonderful little kiddies whom i'll never see again.

But there were good times too. Poppy celebrated her 2nd birthday with a party at the zoo which she thoroughly enjoyed, and it was great to see her interacting with the other children and chatting away so confidently - it reminded me that she is a little girl now, rather than a baby! She also made the transition into her new bedroom with a 'big girl's' bed and did it without any problems at all, which showed once again how she is growing up right before our eyes. In a way it is bittersweet because part of me wants to keep her as my baby girl forever, but the other part of me is keen to see her grow and develop and progress. i guess that's something that every mother experiences, and i'm sure i'll go through it again with the twins, though maybe in a different way with William, we'll see......

June

On the whole June wasn't a great month if i'm honest. The best part was Fathers' day which we celebrated together, but i can't even really remember much of what we did except that Poppy and i made cakes for her daddy but one got mysteriously eaten before it could be given to him (hence his message ended up reading 'Happy father's da'!). That was the only happy day i can remember in this month though, because we were trying to come to terms with William being diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis, and were just finding out what that could mean for him. And there was that whole awful business with being offered an abortion for him, and that dreadful nurse who made the hurtful comments about our decision, that i'd rather not dwell on here. i don't think it helped that i was getting huge by then, and tired and achy and generally fed up of being pregnant. Not a great time for any of us probably as i know my hormones were all over the place and must have affected Sir and Poppy too (though you wouldn't have known it from Sir's patient responses to me and Poppy's general happiness and enthusiasm - i'm so blessed with my family.)

July

A better month than June, but still not a great one and not much happened beyond waiting and preparing for the twins. i remember watching Big Brother a lot to try and take my mind off of things and i probably bored everyone in the chatrooms rigid with talk of babies, but i was just doing my best to make it through to whenever my labour day would turn out to be. Everyone was so supportive though, which was great because i really needed that. i remember having loads of ultrasounds, and discussing our options with the doctors, and making a birth plan (which made me more nervous than before we made it, though i couldn't explain why), and the babies moving position to get ready for the birth.

And somewhere in all of that we celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary, though again i don't remember much about it (i'll blame that on the preggie hormones!).

August

Once again a very busy month, and a month of contrasts - great highs and great lows. The big news of course is that i gave birth to twins on the 15th and it was a natural birth, which went according to plan and i couldn't have asked for it to go better. i fell in love with both boys instantly and there was also evidence of a special bond between them right from the start. It was easier to adjust to having 2 new babies at home than i thought it might be, and Poppy was so good with them, and Sir helped a lot (and took a couple of weeks as paternity leave), but still August just seemed to rush past as we were so busy and couldn't think of anything beyond the twins. We had some problems with William - initially he found breastfeeding difficult and needed help (and still does sometimes), and he was also hard to settle and soothe, but we worked on those and he started to make progress. Then the seizures began and we had to rush him to the hospital in the middle of the night, and it was very stressful not knowing what was going on with our little boy. And to top it all off we had problems with Sir's mum not accepting William, which further added to my worry and stress.

September

Another gloomy month i'm afraid, with William being subjected to all kinds of tests, and having his tuberous sclerosis diagnosis confirmed and being put on medication for his seizures. Sir had to go back to work, leaving me looking after both babies on my own all day, and i found the first few weeks of that quite stressful and difficult, though things have improved now. Life just seemed to be constant changing, feeding, dressing, undressing, washing, tending to, soothing and watching the boys, and having to witness multiple seizures daily from William, when he was so small and vulnerable, was particularly difficult and distressing.

Because of all that was happening with William, Sir and i didn't really celebrate our collaring anniversary this year, we just quietly acknowledged the date and carried on with things. And we had a long discussion about our lives and made the decision to reprioritise for the foreseeable future, and put our M/s relationship on the back-burner for a while in order to focus on the needs of our children. Hence no training or play sessions since. Which has been difficult, but very necessary.

October

Some things began to look up in October - i remember some really happy family days out together, such as our trip to the farm where William made a happy noise for the first time ever, and a lovely Halloween for Poppy as she went trick or treating for the first time. We also felt like we were doing something positive for William, because we managed to get him enrolled in an early intervention clinic, and he started to receive weekly physio sessions and i was able to meet up with other mums of special babies and swap stories and not feel so alone in all this. For the first time since William was diagnosed it felt like we were taking control of his condition and doing something positive about it, rather than letting it overwhelm and confuse us. Though we also got a glimpse of the discrimination which he is likely to face from various people, including his own family, and i realised just how strong i am going to have to be on William's behalf, as he grows up.

Sir and i also got our relationship back on track in some ways. i had an IUD fitted and Sir started to use me sexually again, which i hadn't realised how much i'd missed that type of connection until it was resumed, and things felt a lot more stable then. Sir also brought me back into line by punishing me when i got too lippy, and though it was horrible to endure it i felt better afterwards and more 'in my place' than i had done in quite a while.

November

A horrible month, in many ways the worst month of the year. William's seizures got worse and he was taken into hospital and then transferred to a specialist one where he (and Finn and i) stayed for 5 long days. And where he had test after test, and where we found out that his disabilities were more severe than we had previously understood, and where we were told that he was having a particularly bad type of seizure which needed to be stopped as soon as possible otherwise it would have a devasting impact on his development. We eventually arrived back home with another epilepsy med to give him and an 'emergency' med to be used for future seizures which get out of control to try to avoid hospitalisation again. And some (rather expensive by all accounts, though we get them free on the NHS) vials of a super-strong steroid which we would need to inject daily into our little boy and which could have some very serious side-effects, including death in some cases.

Yeah, November was awful.

December

A much better month to end the year on. Finn is making fantastic progress in all areas, and we started to see very small steps in William's development too (though he is already way behind where he should be). William's seizures are more under control now, and the injections seem to be working as he hasn't had any cluster spasms since Christmas Eve. Sir's mum has finally come around and is now accepting William as her grandchild, which has taken a huge weight off my mind. And we had a really lovely Christmas, just the 5 of us, celebrating together and enjoying time as a family.

i finish this year with renewed hope and strength, ready to face whatever battles we need to with William next year, and with so much pride and love in my 3 children and my wonderful husband/Sir.

Now to wait and see what the next year holds!

Survey of the year 2010

So as is now traditional, i'm using the last few days of the year to look back and reflect on the year just finishing and also to look forward and plan and hope for the year just about to begin. Starting today by answering my usual questions about the year just finishing up:

1. What did you do this year that you've never done before?

Carried and gave birth to twins! Breastfed twins! Life-modelled naked in front of a room full of strangers! Had my bewbies massaged by a man (other than Sir)! Lots of firsts for me this year.

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

As always, another post coming up about this soon, but the short answer is no i didn't manage to keep them all and no i won't be making more for next year. More to follow.....

3. Did anyone close to you give birth this year?

i did! And it all went as well as i could have hoped for, considering i was giving birth to twins and had extra complications because of William's problems.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

my rabbit Muffin did, and i was very sad about it.

5. What countries did you visit this year?

none - i was pregnant for most of the year, then we had 2 new babies to look after. Maybe in a couple of years' time we can go away on holiday again?

6. What would you like to have in the next year that you lacked this year?

a seizure-free William (or as close to that as we can get), because the doctors have told us that all these seizures are giving him virtually no chance to learn or develop, so i'm really hoping that we can get his seizures under a lot more control next year.

7. What date from this year will remain etched upon your memory and why?

15th August, the day my boys finally arrived!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

giving birth to twins naturally (no epidural, only a bit of gas and air), even after all my worries that something would go wrong.

9. Did you suffer illness or injury?

not that i can remember, i think i've been quite healthy this year.

10. What did you get really, really, really excited about this year?

meeting my twin boys for the first time, also having 3 children for Christmas! (Which, btw, was even better than i hoped it would be).

11. What song will always remind you of this year?

difficult to think of one song in particular, though whenever i hear any of the songs from the Baby Einstein CD it will remind me of massaging and playing with my baby boys this year. William in particular is very into music, so we use it a lot with him.

12. Compared to this time last year are you:- happier or sadder? :- richer or poorer? :- thinner or fatter?

hmmmm happier and sadder because my beautiful boys are here, but this time last year we didn't know anything was wrong with William and it's hard not to be sad because of that, neither richer nor poorer financially though we are about to remortgage the house to get some extra money for all the things William will need so that's going to change soon, and probably about the same weight wise.

13. What do you wish you'd done more of?

trips out with the kids, making memories with them, though it's been hard with William's seizures and getting used to breastfeeding 2 babies in public, but i hope we can do more of that next year.

14. What do you wish you'd done less of?

lay awake worrying about William, but i guess there's no way to help that.

15. Did you fall in love this year?

with my gorgeous twin boys :)

16. What was your favourite TV program for the year?

didn't watch much TV as usual, but i did enjoy the final series of Big Brother, and the last season of Lost on DVD.

17. What was the best book you read this year?

can't remember having enough time to read a book, but i've downloaded some onto my new ipad and intend to read those this year.

18. What was your favourite film of the year?

i enjoyed the latest Harry Potter film and am hoping to see the new Narnia and the new Fockers films (prolly on DVD).

19. Who was the best new person you met this year?

Eloise, though i haven't been able to spend as much time with her as i would have liked. Maybe next year?.....

20. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned for this year?

i am stronger than i think i am, and i am also a better mother than i (sometimes) give myself credit for - though on my bad days it is hard to remember this.

Thanks for reading, more review posts coming soon.

We had an absolutely fantastic Christmas, just the 5 of us snuggled in together in our little home all weekend! It started with a Poppy whirlwind bursting into our bedroom early on Christmas morning as i was dozing after nursing the boys a little bit earlier, then suddenly she's jumped into bed with us shouting "Ho Ho membered da bumster!" (Santa remembered the hamster) with such genuine excitement in her voice that i didn't mind being woken up and i was just so happy that she was happy.

Luckily that was the only present out of her stocking that she had opened so we got to see her unwrap the rest, and she was just as pleased with everything else she got, even the little things like crayons or hairbands, and by then William and Finn were awake again so we got some lovely family snuggle time in our bed. Then after breakfast we helped the boys unwrap the presents from their stockings, with Poppy being extra enthusiastic about each item "Look Finn, is a book!" which made the boys happy even if they didn't quite understand what all the fuss was about. We had a break then for the boys because i didn't want to overwhelm them with too many presents at once, but Poppy was already snooping at the gifts under the tree so we passed out some of the presents there to her and me and Sir and we took turns opening our gifts and finding out what we'd got, and again Poppy was just as excited for us at what we had as she was about her own presents, which was so sweet of her. i went to get the dinner started, with my heart swelling with joy as i looked back at the living room to see Poppy happily playing with her 'bumster' (a toy hamster that moves), Finn trying out one of his new kick toys and squealing at the results, and Sir helping William to explore one of his new musical toys. i was so proud of my little family at that moment.

We did more presents just before dinner and more in the afternoon, staggering things to let the boys catch up with what was going on, and Poppy was very patient at waiting for the next rounding of unwrapping, though she did keep asking "is time yet?", but she was perfectly content to play with the toys she had already opened when told it wasn't time for more presents just yet. In the end of course every single present had been opened and exclaimed over by Poppy and taken out of the box and explored (with help for the boys and William in particular as he doesn't really interact with things on his own yet). i'm really pleased with the choices we made for the kids' presents because they got a good variety of things to help them with their development as well as toys they will enjoy playing with, and in Poppy's case things she had asked for.

Poppy's main present was a 'Peppa Pig' trike which she was very pleased with, though it did mean that Sir had to go out and snovel the snow off the garden path so she could try it out after dinner! She got lots of other toys, games, books and clothes as well and was very very pleased with her stash. Finn got a variety of toys to help him practice his new skills such as kicking and develop new ones such as independent sitting and pulling to standing. He worked his way through all of them during the Christmas weekend, and has now tried them all out, though not quite ready for some features on some of them, and a couple of the toys have been put away until he has developed more so that he can use them. But on the whole Finn was very alert and engaged by the whole unwrapping process (though still finding the paper and the boxes just as exciting as their contents!) and squealed with delight when shown some of the features on his new toys. He was one happy little boy :) William also got toys to aid his development, but his were mainly simple cause and effect toys, light toys, musical toys and sensory toys as he needs lots of stimulation in order to help him achieve new skills. He was a little more sleepy than Finn during the unwrapping process, but there was one magical moment that i'll never forget when we opened a 'light spinner' toy for him and switched the lights off to test it out. As soon as we turned it on and the coloured lights started spinning, William become so alert and was absolutely entranced by the toy, gazing at it for the longest i have ever seen him look at anything. Sir tried to get him to track it with his eyes by moving it slowly from side to side and though he wasn't quite able to do that he would search for it when it moved out of his vision and then focus on it again once he found it in its new place. It was great to see him so engaged with a toy, and we are now planning to go ahead with converting the loft into a sensory room for him so that we can do lots more work on his visual skills and other sensory skills to help him develop and make progress. In the meantime i am going to look into buying other small light toys and work with him everyday to try to increase his visual competency. i'm so excited at the potential he has shown in this area and can't wait for his assessment with the specialist VI (visual impairment) teacher which he has scheduled in a couple of weeks' time at the early intervention clinic, because i'm sure she will be able to give us other ideas and stuff to try.

The Christmas dinner was a joint effort between me and Sir and it all came out brilliantly, except we could have done with more gravy! Poppy really enjoyed her meal and ate so much of it and the boys were at the table with us, happy and alert and part of the festivities. Poppy tried so hard to get their cracker hats to stay on, but gave up in the end! i was allowed to eat whatever i wanted during the weekend as my usual eating restrictions were lifted for Christmas, but to be honest i didn't abuse this privilege, though it was nice to be able to wander over and snag a handful of nuts or snack on some sweeties whenever i felt like it. We discovered that Poppy has quite the sweet tooth for Quality Street chocolates, so had to limit her to a certain number per day else she would have gobbled the whole tin! But again she was very good about the temptation of all the stuff on the snack table, and did not eat too much and accepted when we told her she had had enough. Infact i am so impressed with how she handled the whole holiday weekend this year, she has been so grown up about everything and very very sweet in wanting to make sure that the boys had a good time and were properly included in everything too.

And now for the best news of all....... on Christmas Eve William only had one cluster of spasms (seizures) when he first woke up in the morning, instead of having them everytime he woke from a sleep or a nap, as well as at other random times in the day, as he had been having before. Then on Christmas day and Boxing day he had no noticeable clusters at all! And so far this morning he hasn't had any either!! It is very exciting, though i don't want to get my hopes up too much incase it's only temporary and they come back, but it looks like the ACTH injections are working for him. We have an EEG booked for him on 7th January, and i'm really hopeful that the consultant will have good news for us on the IS (Infantile Spasms) front. i have been reading blogs about other children with IS and now realise what a huge effect it has on a baby's development to constantly have their brain interrupted with electrical activity, which leaves very little time for learning and processing information. i know that William has other problems beyond the IS - he has other types of seizures which will need to be got under control as best we can, and he has sensory processing difficulties and brain damage that we already know of, but i really think that if we can get rid of the IS his development will start to show more progress than it has already because his brain will be freer to learn. At the moment William is not very far beyond a newborn stage in his skills, in all areas - physical, sensory, social, cognitive, play, language, etc, etc, and i now believe this is largely due to the IS. So that's our first battle to win and then once we have these spasms defeated we will go on to tackle his other problems one by one.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

Looking back through the past few months of this blog it's clear that i'm running into the danger of making it "all about William". Which is understandable because he's on my mind so much, but that doesn't neglect the fact that actually i gave birth to 2 babies in August and i should be writing updates about both of them here. Finn is doing really really well with his development and has passed all his health checks and doctor's appointments with flying colours so far, so i just wanted to take some time and write a post about everything he has achieved in his short little life so far.

Finn is now just over 4 months old and he is making great progress. His head control is now very good and he only gets a little bit of a bobble head when he is tired, meaning that in the New Year i will be able to take him to swimming classes! He is very curious about the world around him and can now look at, focus on and track objects at different distances to him, and is able to reach out for and bat at or grasp those that are close enough to him with good accuracy. If he grasps an object or one is given to him, he can hold onto it with a good grip and is now using both hands and his mouth to explore it - he will bang objects onto a flat surface as well as shake them and mouth them. Finn recognises familiar faces and will make good eye contact and smile at people he knows, and he loves looking in a mirror and talking to 'the other baby' in there because we don't think he knows it is him yet! Though he will smile at my reflection in a mirror and reach out to try to touch it, and he is very attentive to 'copy me' games and will copy tongue and mouth movements, especially if using a mirror at the time.

Finn is also very vocal now and has a range of vowel and consonant noises which he is putting together into longer and longer phrases. He will also have a 'conversation' with an adult by babbling, then listening, then babbling, etc, for quite sustained amounts of time, at the end of which he will squeal with delight and then the game is over. He has a lovely little laugh which we get to hear regularly and he loves games such as blowing raspberries on his tummy and being bounced on someone's knee. He listens to and responds to rhymes, songs and stories, showing preferences for some over others and he also loves music, especially the Baby Einstein stuff which we play to him regularly.

Finn loves interacting with his mummy, daddy and big sister and has different games he likes to play with each of us. He also has a strong bond with his twin William and will often reach out for him when they are laying next to each other, and usually sleeps with one hand in contact with his brother. Finn seems to be aware that William has problems and will always wake up and cry when William has a big seizure, though not necessarily for the milder ones or the infantile spasms. Finn does his best to interact with William, looking at him and babbling away, even though he doesn't get much response. He has not yet developed stranger anxiety, so is quite happy to be passed round to different people and will babble at them and smile sweetly to capture their hearts. He does prefer spending time with his mummy and daddy though, but will wait patiently until they are free. Infact Finn is an extremely patient, easy-going little man in everything and will happily wait his turn so that William can go first in feeding, being changed or dressed or washed or bathed, which is good because William is the opposite and has very little patience for waiting at all!

Finn's leg strength and co-ordination has made huge progress recently and he will now kick for long bouts in order to activate toys on his bouncer chair or playgym. We have also got him some kick toys for Christmas, which we hope will further strengthen this skill. He is now pushing through his legs to 'stand' when held by someone and likes to bend then straighten his legs repeatedly when supported on someone's lap, especially if they are doing the 'horsey horsey' rhyme at the time! We have recently been putting Finn into Poppy's old jumperoo and exersaucer and he loves both of them, happily bouncing and standing for quite long periods of time and interacting with many of the features on the exersaucer, though he can't quite do the smaller buttons yet. He is also beginning to be able to turn himself by pushing through his feet, so that he can reach different parts of the toy, but sometimes turns his head and forgets to follow through with the rest of his body!

When on his tummy Finn is now much stronger than before and can hold his head up and push through his arms to raise his shoulders and upper torso for quite long periods of time. He can look around in this position and will reach out to interact with objects and features on his playgym. Recently he has also been trying to reach out and snag a slowly moving ball when it is rolled past him in this position, shouting with delight if he manages it, though sometimes the effort of trying to get it makes him fall onto his side. Finn can roll competently from his tummy to either side and onto his back, and also the other way round, and sometimes will roll over and over in order to get off his playmat and onto the carpet! He is also digging his feet in when on his tummy or his back and attempting to scoot upwards, but is only able to move a very short distance by doing this at the moment and soon gets tired.

Not bad progress for a 4 month old, huh? i am very very proud of my little peanut, and can't wait to watch him continue to flourish over the next 12 months until next Christmas! Thanks for listening to a proud mummy gush about her baby!

i hope other slaves/subs will understand what i mean by 'slave mojo' - it's that part of me that needs to be trained and disciplined and guided and molded, that craves to serve and please and be of use, the part that can only feel good by coming out to play regularly (and by play i don't mean just scening, but every type of interaction where i can let my slave side be apparent).

Unfortunately, through no fault of our own we haven't been able to let my slave side out very much recently, and i don't really see how this situation will be able to improve in the near future. Because of the demands on our time of having 3 young children, one of whom has special needs, we're not able to get much M/s time together and all the training and play has come to an abrupt stop. i don't blame anyone for this and to some extent we foresaw it coming when we knew i was carrying twins, but William's difficulties have added to it as i'm not able to leave him in the care of anyone else so we never get any time to ourselves at all - even when he's sleeping he needs to be watched incase he has a seizure, and both boys are exclusively breastfed which ties me to them every few hours. i don't resent either of them for the time and attention they need and i certainly don't regret having them as i wouldn't change my family for the world, but it has led to my slave mojo (or i guess my slave contentedness) dwindling.

It's hard for me to even imagine going through anymore training as a slave, because the amount of time, concentration and energy that requires just isn't in me to give right now. But at the same time i desperately want that type of task again, where the focus is solely on bettering myself as His slave and i can get deep satisfaction from knowing that i am progressing and improving and pleasing Him. i think those feelings are lacking in my life in general at the moment because it feels like i'm not making progress as a mother, or even doing a particularly good job of it - it just feels like we are stumbling from one thing to another with William and we barely have time to wrap our heads around one diagnosis and treatment plan before the next comes along. i certainly don't feel like i know what to do for the best for him, so instead we are operating partially on doctors' advice and partially on our own instincts to make decisions about his therapy and medications. And with no real idea of his prognosis or even if we are making any positive difference at all for him, it brings my slave side down even more, because i am used to being useful and making a difference to Sir's life, and all those other positive things. And as well as that i *need* to be useful and make a difference in people's lives, and it's unclear how much i am able to do that with William. Maybe some of the decisions we have made could even be detrimental to him because of the side-effects, or perhaps we are holding him back by not allowing a different treatment option to go ahead, and the thought of that keeps me awake some nights because he is so little and vulnerable and completely dependent on us to make all these big decisions which ultimately could influence the outcome of his life.

i know that my slave side would suffer even more if i didn't have frequent access to other Doms and subs on the chatrooms - the chance to slip into my slave side and chat and interact with others who understand that part of me is the only thing keeping me going sometimes, because i feel that otherwise an important part of me is being completely neglected. Again not through anyone's fault and certainly not Sir's as He has devised my rules and routines to enhance the slave side of me as much as possible, but it's just not enough. i'm even finding that my attitude towards the chatroom is changing, and i no longer have the desire to scene or even flirt with others on there much - i just need to soak in the company of other kinksters and feel acknowledged and accepted as one of them without having to hide that side of me away. That's another indication of how low my slave esteem/mojo is right now.

Sorry for the slightly depressing post, not really looking for sympathy, just wanting to express my feelings right now.

i know that seems like an obvious thing to say, but this year more than any other i am finding out how true it is. i am still constantly amazed whenever i stop to think about the fact that i will have 3 children to celebrate Christmas with this year, and i know how incredibly lucky i am to have my gorgeous family. We have put up a Christmas tree and lots of sparkly lights which the boys especially love to look at (lights are one of the few things that William will focus on) and we've been busy buying them some nice presents which are already wrapped and hidden in a cupboard ready for 'Santa' to deliver next Friday night. Poppy is so excited, and asks everyday when 'Ho Ho' is coming, but at least she understands the concept of her Advent calendar better this year so she has some idea of how much longer left (though we have to keep it downstairs, else she would eat all the chocolates in the night and expect Christmas to be the next day!).

We're planning to visit friends and family before or after Christmas and spend the day itself as just the 5 of us at home. me and Sir will share the cooking, so i'm not feeling stressed about that, and we'll probably take things nice and slowly on the day with opening presents, etc. so as not to overwhelm the kiddies, especially the babies who are experiencing the whirlwind of Christmas for the first time ever! Just as we did with Poppy we've bought special baubles to commemorate the twins' first Christmas, and i got them really cute little outfits (a reindeer suit and an elf suit) to take photos to make into thank-you cards. Poppy wants to dress up as a 'fairy' so that should be nice and simple with a tutu and wings. i think this is the first year that Poppy can truly appreciate Christmas, so it will be lovely to share it with her, as well as our boys' first one ever! i can hardly wait to see them playing with their new toys, and i'm looking forward to snuggling inside with my family for the whole Christmas weekend and just enjoying spending time together.

Poppy made me cry the other day when Santa visited her nursery. She sat on his lap and asked him for a 'bumster' (hamster) and then without any prompting she added 'and a happy head for Willum'. She knows that William has a 'poorly' head which makes him ill a lot and even at the age of 2 1/2 she is able to wish that he didn't have it and that some magic could make him better. She is just so sweet! So they were happy tears shed by me at the gorgeousness of my daughter, but also sad tears that there is no magic Santa out there to make her (and our) wish come true. William has just been diagnosed with additional problems to those we already know about - apparently his brain damage means that he doesn't process sensory information properly, especially visual and tactile, so we have been referred to a baby sensory class starting in the New Year and have been recommended to do as much sensory work with him as we can. Sir has decided to have our loft converted into an extra bedroom plus a sensory/soft play room for William so that we can provide him with as much stimulation as he needs, so we are hopeful that this will help his development. He also has indications of sensory integration disorder, but they can't properly diagnose this until he is older, but basically it means he will need therapy for it and they are going to start it now and show us some techniques to use with him at home too. This is the weekend that we start his ACTH injections and we have to take him to the doctors for monitoring every other day, because of the risk of side-effects, so i am worried about that and hope that it won't spoil Christmas for him.

Finn ia doing great and is now using a Bumbo chair to help him sit up. He is pushing and kicking with his legs lots too and has really good control over his head and neck, so i am looking to start taking him swimming in the New Year. i need to get my mum confident with looking after William first though, as he doesn't have the head control required to go swimming yet, but he is going to start hydrotherapy sessions at the early intervention clinic, so he won't be missing out. It's so hard trying to keep the needs of both babies balanced, as well as Poppy's but i think we are doing well so far. In a way it is hard having a 'normal' twin with a disabled one, because it makes it more obvious how behind William is already with his development, but in another way it makes us appreciate both boys as unique individuals and celebrate every achievement no matter how small. And i really do believe that Finn is Joshua (our angel baby) returned to help out his twin brother, because he is so patient and so in-tune with the needs of William. He really is a special little boy, and William is just a gorgeous little bean.

And of course we can now enjoy Christmas with the support of Sir's mum, now that she has accepted the fact that William is disabled and is loving him despite this. i am so glad because it was stressing me out quite a lot not having her on our side, but now she is being a lot more supportive and there doesn't seem to be any prejudice at all in her treatment of any of the children, so i am very relieved. She will be coming round just before Christmas to give the kiddies their presents and to spend time with us. That's what's important to me this year - spending time with my family, and everyone being happy and as healthy as possible. i know that i'm probably getting an ipad for Christmas, and i am excited and grateful about that, but to be honest if i didn't end up getting it, infact if i ended up getting nothing it wouldn't bother me so long as the children enjoy themselves and i can be with those i love. That's what's important to me this year and i hope that everyone can have that for their Christmas too.

If i don't get to post again this week, have a very Happy Christmas with those you love.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in with comments and messages and emails of support during the recent health problems with William. But to prevent this blog becoming too gloomy, i thought i'd balance it out and share some snippets of good news that have happened recently. Again, not BDSM-related, but as several people pointed out my blog should reflect my life, and my life is mostly taken up with family stuff right now so it's inevitable that bits of it will creep onto here. And i guess if you just want to read the BDSM stuff you can always skip past posts like this.

So, onto the good news:

1. Since being discharged from the hospital (and we were lucky to get him discharged so quickly because normally the doctors would have kept him in for a week to wean him onto his new med and monitor the effects, but since i am so experienced with seizures through my work with special children they were confident in letting me take him home sooner), William's seizures have shown some improvement - there have been noticeably less of them and the most severe ones have definitely become a lot less frequent and with less disruption to his breathing when they do occur. Also William has been more alert and more contented when he is awake since starting the combination of 2 meds (phenobarbitol and keppra), so we are hopeful that these improvements will continue.

2. William has learnt a new skill, which to be honest is probably only the 3rd skill he has learnt since being born (breastfeeding successfully and making any sound other than crying being the other 2). He receives daily physiotherapy from me and a more intensive weekly session with a qualified physiotherapist, concentrating on arm and leg stretches and movements and putting him onto his tummy propped over a pillow-roll and encouraging him to move his arms and lift his head. William really hates being on his tummy and protests very loudly, but we have persevered and during the past week we have started to see some results - he can now lift his own head without help and hold it up for approximately 1 second at a time, and he isn't crying when he does so! For William this is a really big step, and the physio says now that he has achieved this it is only a matter of building up the strength in his neck muscles, so that he can eventually support his own head at all times, just as Finn almost can already. i'm so proud of my little soldier (and also proud of Finn of course).

3. Regular readers will remember that we have had some problems with Sir's mum since William's diagnosis; namely that she thought we should have terminated William/sent him for adoption/given him away to a care home, and she has been manifesting these opinions in acts such as only bringing presents for Finn, which resulted in her being banned from our house and use refusing to take the children to visit her until such a time as she changed her attitude. Poppy has really been missing her 'gram', but Sir and i have stood firm knowing that it will be better for all our children in the long-run if we can get His mum to change her mind. And to be honest i would rather all 3 of my children missed out on seeing their grandma than were subjected to overtly prejudiced treatment with one of them being ostricized and ignored. But after our hospital scare with William, Sir's mum asked to come round to talk with Sir and i, and that meeting went well with her admitting that the problem lay with her and she just didn't know how to deal with a disabled grandchild. She is due to come round this afternoon to visit the children and she phoned up yesterday to say that she wanted to bring them each a little gift (even though it's Christmas soon!) and asked for ideas on what to get each of them - including William, AND she told me that she has already got Christmas presents for all 3 children and from what she described she has put a lot of thought into getting William something that will really benefit him! So it seems like we have finally properly turned the corner with Sir's mum and we can continue moving forwards with this now, hopefully with her fully on board with having 3 wonderful and unique grandchildren who all deserve love and attention.

So that's my good news for today - thank you for reading :)

That's a quote from Poppy when she came with Sir to visit William in the hospital, walked in and saw him with his head wrapped in bandages and loads of wires coming out of the top attached to a machine for his EEG test. i think it really helped her understand why mummy and the babies hadn't been home since she went to nursery on Monday morning, and having her and Sir there was a really great support to all 3 of us, as we were stuck at the hospital for 5 days, which felt like forever.

i know i'm kind of starting in the middle, but there's parts of what happened this week that i don't want to dwell on. What i do want to say here though is how nice it was to read the lovely supportive comments and emails from you all, especially Ben from P&H, and how much more i appreciate having such a strong supportive little family unit. Even Finn in his own little way has been fantastic this week, and really helped me out when things got tough, and William has shown awareness of Finn for the first time ever, becoming very distressed if he woke up without Finn being in the cot next to him, so that was lovely to see.

It was difficult for me to be apart from Poppy and Sir for so long, except for when they came to visit us, but i made the decision to stay at the hospital because William is so little and vulnerable and he needed his mummy there to comfort him and reassure him and stop him being so scared. Also because both boys are exclusively breastfed at the moment and neither of them have ever drunk from a bottle, so i had to be where they were so they could nurse regularly, and i felt it was important that William and Finn should not be separated. Luckily the hospital we were transferred to was really good and gave William a big enough cot that Finn could sleep in it with him, and they put a bed in the room so that i could sleep over. The nurses were great too about looking after Finn for me if i needed a shower or to get something to eat, and Sir was brilliant about bringing fresh clothes for me and the boys each day and taking away the dirty stuff to be washed.

William underwent lots of tests this week and me and Sir had a long talk with the consultant yesterday, when he explained everything to us the best he could. It is still quite difficult to be certain about the types of seizures William has because he is so little, but the consultant was able to give us quite an accurate assessment due to the number of tests performed; and i'll do my best to summarise the 'results' here: The MRI scan showed numerous tubers (lesions) on William's brain, as before, but this time they were easier to see and the consultant told us he has 50+ (apparently there is little point counting them exactly once they get beyond the 50-mark, they just classify it as 'numerous'), as well as 2 subependymal nodules which need to be monitored as they could grow in future and put pressure on his brain. It is likely that quite a few of these tubers are focal points for William's seizures, and because of this as well as the fact that they are present in every part of his brain except for the brain stem, William is not a candidate for brain surgery to try to relieve his epilepsy. (The good news is that there's no signs of the tubers in other parts of his body such as his kidneys, lungs or eyes, and his heart tumours are already shrinking).

The other tests (EEG and MEG) showed that William has clinical and subclinical seizures (ie. those which have obvious symptoms and those that show up on the tests without being obvious in his body) of many different types - the consultants were able to identify 'focal' (one part of the body twitching or spasming), 'tonic' (stiff), 'clonic' (shaking or convulsing), 'myoclonic' (repeated jerking movements with pauses between) and 'infantile spasms' (repeatedly bringing his arms out, and head and shoulders down, often upon waking), with many of his seizures comprising more than one of these at a time. Surprisingly it was the seemingly mild infantile spasms that caused the doctors the most concerns as these can lead to severe brain damage and developmental disabilities if allowed to continue - the treatment options have worrying side effects though and we had to choose between a course of ACTH injections (which can cause weight gain, high blood pressure, problems with blood sugar and heart failure) or vigabatrin (which can cause permanent loss of vision), we have opted for the injections but if they don't work we will have to go with the vigabatrin as the known effects from the infantile spasms are much worse for William than the possible side effects from the drug. The doctors also wanted to reduce the number of tonic/clonic seizures that William has been having and that ended up with him in the hospital because of breathing difficulties during a nasty spate of them on Monday morning - they have started him on a new drug to be taken in addition to the phenobarbitol he is already on, so we are to gradually wean him onto 'keppra' over the next few weeks, and will start giving him daily ACTH injections in a fortnight's time. He has to have his blood pressure, blood sugars and heart carefully monitored whilst on these injections, and if there has been no improvement in the infantile spasms within 3 weeks the doctors will recommend that we stop and consider the other option. Someone left a comment on here suggesting the ketogenic diet (which is a high fat, low carbs diet) but William is too young for that yet as he is still breastfeeding.

So a very stressful, difficult week, but one in which we pulled together as a family and came out the other side. And now it's just good to be home and have William settled again, and hopefully the new treatments will work for him.