January’s hard, isn’t it?

The mornings all start the same. Knocking from River, followed by the inevitable:
“MUMMY.”

There’s no point setting an alarm. I lie there thinking it can’t possibly be morning, it’s pitch black, but of course it is. I check my phone. He’s right. Up I get.

Dragging Summer out of bed feels borderline cruel as I open the curtains and absolutely no light enters the room.

Kike hauls himself out of bed to inspect the weather. Cold, always. Wet? Possibly. You never quite know.

The after-school shuffle is back in full swing: science club, cooking, gymnastics: which day, which door, which pickup? Do we have umbrellas?

No. We never have umbrellas.

Tuesday afternoon was… fun. I had exactly five minutes to collect River from one side of the building and get to Summer on the other.

Side glances from the after-school club staff. What’s going on?

Oh no. He’s asleep.
Not today.

I’m handed a sweaty, heavy, sleeping boy, no shoes, no socks (standard) with now four minutes to leave. He did not want to wake up. He did not want shoes or socks. It started raining. There was a lot of screaming.

I did not make it on time.

And then comes the mum guilt, seeing your daughter sitting there, the last one waiting.

“Why are you late?”

River is still screaming, right in my ear, as I carry him home, sockless, coatless. I didn’t even attempt the jumper/coat we’ve recently managed to negotiate.

I am not in peak physical condition (not sure I ever have been) and carrying him was hard. But every time I put him down, the screaming intensified and he refused to move.

In the end, I called Kike. He rescued us with the pushchair.

Right now, I’m sitting outside Summer’s gymnastics waiting for the lesson to finish. Thursdays are always the longest. I’ll head home, swap with Kike so he can go to jiu-jitsu, it’ll be Scooby-Doo with River, TV with Summer and I won’t get any time to myself until well after 9pm which is also the time I want to be asleep.

Sleep. Repeat.

January is a marathon.

---

Some Good News (Held Gently)

And then, something rare. Some good news. Which feels important to acknowledge but also to hold carefully.

We had the meeting at school. The one that followed the misunderstood email.

River has been offered a place in the new unit at his school.

Now for the technical bit.

There are two types of provisions: (which I have been very confused by)

ARPs — for children who can access the mainstream curriculum for large parts of the day, with specialist support alongside it.

SRPs — for children who need higher levels of specialist support but can still access parts of the mainstream curriculum when appropriate.

We were initially told River had been categorised in a way that suggested he would need to attend a specialist school. I felt my body tense, but I remembered to breathe and not jump ahead.

They continued.

Based on River’s progress, they felt he would be an excellent candidate for an SRP meaning specialist education within his current school community.

And that is exactly what I had hoped for.

River will be in a small unit of eight children, with a personalised programme. He’ll join mainstream classes when it’s right for him and step back into the unit when it’s too much.

It’s not a perfect solution. There will be hiccups. The unit isn’t even open yet. River will be one of the first children to attend. It will take time to find its rhythm.

But it is a plan.

And right now, that feels huge.

---

Gratitude, With Perspective

I feel grateful. Deeply. That we spotted things early. That we pushed for assessments. That we were offered support. That, nearly three years on, something resembling a pathway exists and River isn’t even five yet.

I also know this is not the reality for many families.

There are parents right now with no plan, no clarity, no provision and no timeline. I know how lucky we are for me to be able to write this paragraph at all.

So this isn’t a victory lap. It doesn’t cancel out the hard mornings, the screaming, the rain, the exhaustion, or the uncertainty that still sits quietly in the background.

But it does mean both my children will stay at the same school. And that means everything to us.

January is still relentless. The darkness, the weather, the logistics, they don’t magically disappear.

But sometimes, in the middle of the marathon, you get handed a map.

And for now, I’ll take that and focus on getting faster at putting socks on while running between doors.