making albuqueque: sadness

Today I

ate porridge and cranberry juice for breakfast
am slightly sad
hate sore ribs
love nupps, nupps were cool

So something happened yesterday that has left me with a vague underlying sadness that I can't shake. I just want to go in a corner and have a quiet little cry about it, and then let it go. I was dropping Bella off at nursery and the Russian lady that mainly looks after her asked if Bella ever laughs at home? I said yes, but not incredibly often. She replied that this week was the first time she'd heard Bella laugh since she'd been caring for her (roughly since her Guillain-Barre diagnosis). So in the last 8 months she's been kind of calm and sad, and I want to cry about it.

I always used to describe Bella as a happy little soul, and that not much bothered her, but I'm not sure that entirely applies anymore. For the last 8 months she's still had that fiercely independent and stubborn streak, but she's also incredibly shy and clingy as well. She gets upset by things a lot more easily than she used to, and while cry about things a lot more quickly too. I wonder if that happy little soul is still in there, just a bit less confident than she used to be. I don't know that anyone would understand why I'm sad about hearing she's calm and kind of sad, I'm not sure Matthew even gets it.

I worry about how her future is going to pan out. I don't know if she'll ever get to be as physically confident as other kids. Bella is 2 yrs 8 months now, she can almost run properly, but it's very slow. She doesn't jump, her reaction times seem slightly slower than other kids her age. She's just not as fast or as strong as other kids her age seem. I wonder how much of that is the Guillain-Barre, and how much it is that she was never destined to be a sports star anyway and is petite. I worry incessantly what this is going to mean for her when she hits school. Is she still going to be a bit slower and weaker than the other kids? Is she going to be the kid picked last for sports teams? Of course I'm going to worry about that, I was that kid standing, waiting, embarrassed. I don't want that for her at all. I guess I wouldn't worry so much if she wasn't showing signs of shyness as well.

Matthew would tell me not to worry, she's fine. And she is, to look at Bella you wouldn't know she'd been so ill, and how amazing her recovery has been, but I know and I do worry.

And now, enough with the melancholy, here's some recentish photos.

I love this photo, we both look happy. This was ready for the most insane birthday party we went to. Ask me about it sometime, my head is still reeling 2 weeks later.

On the bouncy castle at the insane birthday party. She didn't really want to go far from us, preferably still holding a hand, and not while there were many other kids on there, but she did want to have a go.