My Family

A little bit about my family, I think. I've been married, divorced and remarried. My second husband is my true soul mate. I knew we were meant to be together from our first date and we are about to celebrate fourteen, very happy, years together, on 13th Feb.

Me and John at Christmas 2006

I have four sons, all to my first marriage, Craig, Chris, Matt and Jamie, a grandson, Kalem, age 19 months, and a grandaughter, Lacey, age 7 weeks. They both belong to Chris.

My lovely lads

My youngest son has a genetic disorder, called Dubowitz Syndrome. It's one of those rare ones that nobody has ever heard of, including most health care workers. Jamie is very severely delayed in his development. He has the mind of a four year old in the body of a fifteen year old. He also has a physical disability with his feet turning in on an angle so finds walking difficult.

Life with Jamie is hard at times because he has no sense of danger or what's the right and wrong way to behave. An insight into that for you, if he burns his hand on an open flame, he would still go back and touch it again so has to be supervised constantly. And when he's just poured a full packet of wash powder into the sink it's real hard to be calm (we changed to wash tablets). Or he's blocked the toilet by putting a full roll of paper down it, or torn up the library book you left laying around, or sprayed shaving foam all round the bathroom. Get the picture?

But it also brings it's own special rewards. Every time he has achieved a new milestone like walking (at 3, after being told he probably never would) or his first intelligible word (at 6, again told it wouldn't happen) we have felt far more pride than usual. And when he hugs you and gives you a kiss, simply because he feels like it, well you just melt.

We have learned a lot about patience over the years. We also have learned that stressing out over things you can't change is useless, so just accept what you have and move on has become the philosophy we live by.

Yet Jamie has never held us back. We have always had holidays, days out and special treats. He has always been treated the same as his brothers and disciplined when naughty. He has rough and tumbled with his siblings and they have always loved and accepted him. Jamie has a wonderful personality, he laughs all the time and is very loving to others. He is friendly to everybody he meets and can't understand why not every one wants to be his friend. All in all, he is a blessing and a gift that, despite all the hard work, I wouldn't have missed for anything.

Jamie