The Good Shepherd

It was a very rough day even before I got the news that Reuben's right eye will need to be patched for two hours a day indefinitely. His tracking is off. Whenever diagnoses would come in the early days, loading one up upon the other for every single part of his body, I felt they would all fall down catastrophically under the weight, stripping away the whole. I haven't felt those feelings for a while and they are so very wrong.

There were snippets of loveliness like Callum helping me make tasty organic honey flapjacks and Reuben relearning to sign Christmas, Santa/Father Christmas, Christmas tree and happy new year, Reuben signing his ABCs in about 10 seconds flat perfectly, faster than I, his signing teacher can now do, and Callum helping me decorate the tree whilst Reuben sat patched with gentle acceptance watching Signing Time. I read four Christmas stories to Reuben before bed but I'm yet to find The Night Before Christmas in our little library. Callum sat by the tree reading a Christmas book and donned a Santa hat. It was too sweet a moment. One of the decorations went to Callum's bed with him, he wouldn't let it go, the gingerbread lady here he called Mama and fearing it to be a little delicate for a bedtime toy, I brought him along his little birthday cake decoration animals which he has taken under his wing, keeping them in order, lining them up, caring for them as a good shepherd minds his flock.