It’s 3 o'clock in the afternoon and I have managed to get both Oscar and Neil to have a nap. I have a baby monitor and a walkie talkie with me. I was reminded yesterday morning, of the many parallels between the two of them is, for want of a better word, their 'progression'. As I was feeding Oscar his morning Weetabix, he decided that I was being a bit slow, so worked out that he should just grab the spoon and feed himself. Two days before, Neil stopped struggling to hold his fork in his bad hand and lift it to his mouth with his good hand. The effort was just making him exhausted, and resulted in him losing his appetite.
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At the stage where Neil was able to walk with crutches, Oscar was just beginning to try to crawl and then when the wheelchair arrived, so did the baby walker. I also remember the day Neil and his brother Matt were learning how to use the hoist, Oscar was standing up holding the edge of his playpen for the first time, right next to them.
Oscar had been sleeping beautifully through the night, just as Neil’s time in bed became unbearably uncomfortable, so with just one of them having interrupted sleep we were able to cope. Unfortunately though, Oscar is a baby, and completely unpredictable!
My time is up… one of them is awake!
Reading this post brings me right back to the day I wrote it. It was a beautiful sunny day and I had managed to get the two of them down for a nap and hang the laundry out in the garden.
A previous attempt at hanging the laundry out in the garden had not been so successful. I had been outside long enough for Neil to start panicking when I didn't reply to his call. It was one of those moments where he realised his vulnerability and his first reaction was anger in the wrong direction. But this day, we had discovered walkie talkies and they contributed hugely to our day.
I'm sure when we started using the walkie talkies we could speak to each other but before long he couldn't lift the radio to his mouth so he just pressed the call button. I would make sure it was in his hand before he fell asleep. They were great while he could still push that button, although I was in trouble a couple of times when I forgot to clip mine on to my jeans and left it in a different room. (I might have said something about it being knocked onto a different channel!)
Neil being Neil though, liked his butler's bell a bit too much, and often I would go running down the hall to find a grin on his face. There was always a long list of chores but sometimes he would remind me that he wasn't dead yet, and I would benefit from spending more time with him. He was bored while I was busy. – Louise (2013)
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