The Emergency Contact

We finally got the meeting.

The big one.

The one I’ve been chasing for what feels like my entire adult life.

A full, proper, all-stakeholders-in-one-room Educational Psychologist meeting.

I even put on clean jeans for it.

There were clipboards.

There were acronyms.

There was a moment where someone said “We all just want what’s best” and I didn’t throw anything, so that’s growth.

And finally someone said what I’ve been saying in increasingly polite tones for months:

“Maybe mainstream isn’t the right fit.”

No maybe about it.

So it’s decided: she’ll be moving to a special school after the Christmas break.

That sentence alone should have me sobbing into a tea towel.

But I’m mostly… relieved.

And a little hollow.

And tired.

And waiting for the guilt to catch up.

Because no one tells you how lonely it feels to finally get what your child needs.

To be validated.

And exhausted.

And silently fuming that it took this long and this many tears and this much paperwork.

And now, of course, it’s almost Christmas.

The actual worst time to have any kind of transition, let alone the kind that involves saying goodbye to the only school your child has ever known.

Also, in case the universe wasn’t having quite enough of a laugh, her birthday is on Christmas Eve.

Because of course it is.

Which means I now have the unenviable job of managing:

• The birthday expectations of a child who doesn’t really like surprises

• The sensory hellscape that is December

•. A move to a new school

•. And explaining all of it to a four-year-old who’s mostly non-verbal and thinks wrapping paper is a personal attack

People keep asking me, “Are they excited for Santa?”

And I smile. I nod.

I say, “Sure are.”

What I don’t say is: they don’t believe. They never really did.

We tried. We did the mince pie thing. We left out carrots. We wrapped the presents in different paper.

And both kids, at different ages, different stages, just kind of… shrugged.

So, no. No Santa.

Which honestly makes things easier, except for when other adults try to “whisper about the magic” in front of them and get met with very unimpressed stares.

This year, the seven-year-old asked for “a birthday that isn’t stressful” and “a school where I don’t feel wrong.”

Do you know how hard it is to gift wrap not feeling wrong?

I bought her a weighted blanket and a set of glow stars.

I’m trying.

Meanwhile, the house looks like a war zone where the opposing sides were glitter and executive dysfunction.

The toddler is somehow sticky despite not being near anything sticky.

I’ve lost the Sellotape. Twice.

And the entire bottom row of the tree is bare because it keeps getting raided for “important chewing objects.”

I’m wrapping presents on the floor, sitting cross-legged like an exhausted elf, and wondering if I should write a card to myself that just says:

“Dear Mum.

You didn’t get it all right.

But you got the big stuff.

And that counts.”

Because I’m not throwing a Pinterest birthday.

I’m not doing Elf on the Shelf.

I’m not baking anything from scratch or singing carols or crafting an emotional scrapbook of school memories.

But I am making a new start for her.

I am holding the line until the chaos softens.

And I am putting one foot in front of the other, through wrapping paper and overwhelm, and into a better year.

It’s not the Christmas I pictured when she was born.

But it’s the one she needs.

And yeah, I didn’t sleep from Christmas Eve until halfway through Christmas Day, not because I was baking or crafting or creating magic.

But because the kids were little Christmas goblins with the energy of caffeinated raccoons in glitter pyjamas.

They would 100% open every single present, piece of packaging, and half the recycling if I even blinked.

One year I had a friend sleep over and crash on a mattress in front of the tree like some kind of human tripwire.

He woke up to find the youngest, wide-eyed and determined, mid-crawl, just about to rip open the first thing her grubby little hand could grab.

So no. Not magical. Not restful.

But honest.

And real.

And full of love in the weird, wonky, overstimulated way only we could manage.

And somehow, under all the wrapping paper and cortisol, that still counts.