52 weeks to simplify your life

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A friend mentioned this blog challenge during the week and I only just read about it after seeing someone else mention it too.  So what the heck, I am going to join in too!  I can't promise that anything I write will be interesting, or that I will stick to it for the entire year, but I will try.

So here we go........

Week #1 Challenge: Create a list of everything that went "right" in 2011

• I didn't forget any appointments! (I think?)  I bought myself a 'planner' so that I wouldn't forget everything I needed to do in 2011 appointment and activity wise.  I would have been absolutely lost without it! and yes, I have forgotten appointments in the past, oops!

• Miss T was able to start doing ballet and jazz!  And we found a podiatrist that we love (and not just because he said she could do dancing lol)  Her previous podiatrist said ballet would not be good for her :O

• Our not so baby boy finally started to walk!  I was worried about him and watching him closely, but about a week or so before his sister's birthday he started on his new journey of discovery with walking.  It has taken him a while to perfect it, but I am seeing improvement as time goes on.

• We finally got some answers on our daughters health that has really helped her alot.  We didn't actually know that anything was wrong at the time though.  But I followed my mummy instinct and took her to the Paediatrician.  This lead to blood tests, high antibodies for Coeliac Disease, seeing a Paed Gastro, small bowel biopsy and then the diagnosis of Coeliac Disease and Eosinophilic Oesophagitis.  I hate that she has more things to deal with, but, knowing about it is better than not knowing about it, so all is 'right' with having this diagnosed.

• My beautiful family had a successful road trip to Sydney and Melbourne a few months ago.  My husband and I were wanting to go to Bali with friends and leave the kids with family, but that wasn't to be.  So instead we decided to attend his Uncle's 70th Birthday Party (what a great party that was!) in Melbourne, but make a proper holiday of it instead of the usual fly in fly out gig.  I say successful in that, it was incident free allergy wise, woohoo and the places we stayed were perfect and had everything we needed (2 rooms, child friendly, full kitchen so that we could cook allergy friendly meals for Miss T).  I LOVED spending all that quality time with my family and wish that we could do it more often.

• I found an allergy friendly Kindy for Miss T for 2012.  What a load this took off my mind after being left feeling way too anxious when the first kindy turned out to be not suitable for her needs.  I am now looking forward to and feeling excited about the start of Pre-prep for Miss T.

• The biggest RIGHT of all for 2011 was no hospital admissions for my Miss T.  Yes we did have other health issues relating to what I mentioned above, yes there were coughs/colds that brought on asthma symptoms (but were totally controlled thanks to a wonderful action plan by Miss T's respiratory specialist), yes there was one anaphylactic reaction with Miss T (but she only had to stay in ED for 4 hours), BUT we had our entire family TOGETHER for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day.....the entire time my husband had off work.  See the last two years have seen Miss T in hospital for Christmas.  Christmas Day 2009 due to her first ever case of anaphylactic shock which occurred one hour after we arrived at my inlaws house and was followed by 5 or so hours in the ED.  Then Christmas morning 2010 at around 4am my husband and I made the decision that Miss T needed to go to hospital where she stayed for 4 days (due to virus induced asthma).  This was Master J's first Christmas, so not only did we not get to spend Christmas as a family, my husband never got to spend Christmas Day with his son.  I went to my parents with Master J on Christmas Day and then on Boxing Day I stayed in hospital with Miss T while my husband spent it with his family with Master J.

• I am grateful for my two beautiful children.  I won't go into detail, as what a dear friend and her family went through in 2010 is not 'right', but it has taught me to express my love for my family more than I ever have before.
  

If you would like to join this challenge too, head to Home Life Simplified