So this is Christmas

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Every year during the first week of December, we take our kids out of school for an annual family holiday. Well, I guess more accurately an extended mini-break. And yes, we do manage to get schools to authorise the kids absence; funnily enough, pulling the exceptionally-complex-child-with-unknown-prognosis card works like a charm. I'm thankful there are still common sense people in the world.

The only place we've managed all together in recent years is Center Parcs. When I say together, I mean simultaneously inhabiting the same few square miles with the united intention of doing fun stuff. And for the last while, it's worked.. ish. B LOVES the swimming pool for all of an hour until his distinct lack of body fat lets him down in the temperature stakes. The girls are mature enough to go off and do their own thing. We used to be able to snuggle up and watch a Christmas movie once B was in bed.

But increasingly, year on year, this shit has got harder. Last year B was seizing every five minutes; being on high alert and on standby to fish your kid from the water during a head drop or tonic and prevent certain drowning was utterly exhausting. The year before that he had (still has, to be fair) a penchant for bare flesh, specifically the bare and wobbly kind, of which there is much on display at a Center Parcs tropical swimming paradise. Stopping him motorboating and/or pinching everyone in his vicinity became a little tiresome to say the least. And apologising for the times you weren't quite quick enough.....yeah, it's not up there on my list of fun things for a rainy day.

This year, our main issue was B's ADHD and sensory seeking behaviours. Let me just clarify what I mean by ADHD. We're not talking 'my child struggles to sit for storytime' here. We're talking 'my child literally cannot be still for more than three seconds. At all. Ever. The end'. This, combined with the sensory seeking and high pain threshold stuff* means he hits level 3000 on the insanity-inducing scale and is a walking A and E trip waiting to happen. It's incredibly difficult to keep him safe, you'd be forgiven for thinking we beat our kid given the number of bruises he cruises with, and it is frankly fucking exhausting.

*Fun side story, B recently trapped his hand in the hinge of a door at school and the caretaker had to take the door off its hinges to get him free. B did this purposely because he constantly craves strong sensations. At home he attempts shutting his fingers in drawers, throws himself headfirst into the sofa, licks the radiators, balances heavy toys on heavy books and slowly tips them off onto his face, and flicks through chunky books with his face right up close to the book, before tapping his teeth with the pages.

So we arrived at Center Parcs, all fresh and excited and ready for a week of Winterland Fun. Within a few hours it became pretty clear this wasn't the way it was going down. Despite loving it, he got cold and wanted to leave the pool after an hour. Back at the chalet, we had to bungee up the utilities cupboard and downstairs loo so he couldn't get himself stuck, flush toys down the toilet or soak himself. There was a green tick on the notice inside of the front door which he took a shine to. Cue dragging anyone he could to the door to admire aforementioned green tick while trying to tell us all about it. And when he tired of break-and-enter efforts to the cordoned off zones, and the riveting green tick, there was always the trusty drop-heavy-toys-on-the-hard-floor game to be played. He didn't sit, he grabbed everything in reach and tried to drop or spin it (including the half full glass of water which ended up all over the table and floor), and you couldn't hear yourself think. Being in the same space as B is a literal sensory assault; it's loud, you're on high alert, and at any given moment you might need to dodge an airborne toy. In our house, there are other rooms to get some respite in, and we all share B-watching duties so we can survive. In a teeny tiny Center Parcs chalet, there is no such escape.

As I stared at the strapped up doors to the soundtrack of smashing toys I had that sinking disappointment way down in the pit of my belly. That same feeling you get when you're really excited about the delicious risotto you just ordered, but on arrival it looks like someone just shook a baby upside down over your plate until they puked. In no one's universe did this even slightly resemble a holiday, and no manner of positive spinning or bullshit growth mindset stuff was going to change the bottom line fact that we couldn't do this anymore. Our one annual family break had become yet another stress survival exercise. And a change was definitely not, in this case, as good as a rest. I made a quick decision in my head, and chewed it over with S once we finally managed to get B down (significantly later than usual due to the unfamiliar surroundings).

If anyone was going to get anything positive out of this week, we needed to be ok with pulling out the divide and conquer strategy. It's a tactic we use regularly at home to make sure B gets his needs met while the other family members at least get an occasional shot at normal. The only time I actually hoped we'd manage some time all together was Center Parcs, but the reality just wasn't working out that way. So it was decided. I'd head home with B, do the week as usual with him in school, and S could stay with the girls. That way, they'd get to do a meal out without B flinging food across the table or needing to leave after 3 minutes. They'd get to play golf, and go bowling, and climb the high ropes. That way, their options for fun stuff just broadened exponentially.

And that sucks. I can't adequately express how much that juxtaposition hurts; the desperate desire to include everyone as part of the family, but the actuality that B's needs mean he's defaultedly excluded from most activities. Let's be clear here too; from what I can gather he gives precisely zero fucks about family dynamics. Most of the time he is more than happy on Planet B, licking radiators and giving himself a black eye from dropping toys on his face. But that whole stereotypical happy family crap that permeates everything somehow manages to worm its way into my outlook too; we're meant to enjoy smiley together time doing fun shit. You know, the happy hot-chocolate facilitated boardgames around the fire. The family photos from holidays in the sun. The bickering car journeys and endless are-we-there-yets. The way the world expands as the kids grow and you realise hiking along a cliff is not only doable, it's actually pretty fun. None of this is open to us.

I'm not a total dumbass. I realise the Sound of Music existence is not the reality for most. But our family doesn't look like that..it doesn't even come close. We're stuck in a relentless toddler phase, and to function, we have to exist in separate, fragmented chunks. Family holidays, even to Center Parcs for five days, have become impossible. Do I love B? Of course I do. But while I absolutely do not see *him* as a burden, his *needs* mean Parr life looks irreconcilably different to even the most liberal idea of family. I know we made the right call this week, and I am one hundred percent behind the girls and S having fun, despite not getting to be a part of it right now. Although to be fair, I'm getting to indulge in the well-established household sport of Heavy Toy Mattress Bouncing with B, so I really have nothing to complain about.

But fuck me, sometimes this journey sucks and stings and bites like a bitch. This week made me remember that all over again.


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