TEA PARTY AND DREAMS RE-VISITED

Cries of 'Mummy!' permeated the air. 'Come here Mummy!' It would seem a tea party was planned and I was the honoured guest.So I abandoned the laundry that was burying me alive in the kitchen and ventured upstairs towards the shrieks.

There, set up against a backdrop of fairies, unicorns, ponies and a princess world sat Pinky-White and Kiss-Me-Bear, valentines-day gifts, in pride of place position. I added to the table some biscuits and our own lunch and my Poppy was beside herself happy, real food alongside all her pretend set-up. She raced to the bathroom to fill teeny-tiny cups full of water.

And as we settled down the booming yells of Tilly reached us, 'WHERE ARE YOU!'.' ...we were about to be joined by another guest and hilarity levels were on the up.

Tilly joined us and I sat and watched my two beautiful girls play, soaking in every giggle, guffaw and joke. Sisters sharing life, laughter, play and loving each other unconditionally... music to my soul. There was delight before me and an ease that only comes with our nearest and dearest. I recognised this scene, this was a scene from a once abandoned dream. A scene from a dream once dreamt for sisters born only 14 months apart, a dream abandoned when Tilly was diagnosed with Smith Magenis Syndrome.

I was wrong to throw away a dream, I was wrong to let go of hope... before me, laughing and pouring pretend tea was the proof of just how wrong I had been.

Their laughter today reminded me...hope is a key for holding our dreams in play, it is the path we walk down in order to form our lives into shapes we love. I had thrown all hope away in that black time of diagnosis in late 2009. I had been so foolish, it had left me swimming in that blackness for such a long time.

And so today I soaked it all up and I grabbed back my dream and claimed it as mine, as ours! My beautiful girls, their sisterhood so precious, their time together not ruined by the challenges of disability, not wrecked by the extreme needs constantly in play, but simply theirs...unique and love-filled.

Life sometimes makes hope too scary to hold onto, too futile to strive for...but I will never throw hope away so easily again, my children's love for each other has taught me that lesson.