A whole new year.

(and yes, I am singing the song from Aladdin in my mind while I type this…)

A whole new blank calendar lies stretched before us.

what will we fill it up with? what is yours filled up with?

For us, i am sure I will have many more dates with the therapists and the 10 or so specialists who keep Kendall’s body running. We will have Kaylen’s “big girl birthday party” this year (they only get one every 4th birthday, so 4, 8, 12, etc.). We will have Kendall’s transition out of Early Intervention and into the school system. We will have dance competitions and playdates and birthday parties and sleepovers galore I am sure.  And along with all the good fun things, I am sure we’ll have some not so good things. It happens in every life. The question is, how will you respond to them.

I didn’t really do a year in review post yet. Probably because even as I write this one, we are 6 days in to the New Year, and I am obviously woefully behind. Why review the past when I can hardly keep up with the present? Needless to say, it was a crazy year. I could never have predicted the many winding roads that 2010 led us down. I daresay it was one of the hardest years we have had in the past few years, but then that might be to invite even more craziness in the year ahead. So I will just say that it was a good year, because we all made it out alive. We have our house, we have each other, and we have food on the shelves and clothes on our backs. (and in the closets. and the drawers. and the floor. and the laundry basket…) Ok so we’re pretty good on the clothes thing. And at least so far, our fridge is still working.

And once again, it is full because of YOU. Because of the overwhelming love and support that so very many of you have shown.

THAT is what is going to make this year good.

It was kicked off by such an outpouring of love, support, gift cards, hugs, words of encouragement….how can anything go wrong with all of you on our side?

In actual medical news, it was a good day for kendall. she is definitely still recovering from whatever made her crash last week. As usual, she still can’t really walk. (she loses the ability to walk every time she is sick/inpatient for more than a day or two. We don’t know if its an energy thing, a neuro thing, or just the overall weakness of being that sick.) So she’s a pretty pitiful little sight – oxygen on with 50 feet of tubing trailing behind her, her little backpack with her pump going to attempt to fight the losing hydration battle, and she’s crawling around trying to keep up with her sissies who she is SO excited to see again. anyways, she finally gets enough oomph up to try walking on Saturday afternoon and she trips on the O2 tube, goes down hard and just has a cry that is very different from her normal. She absolutely refused to walk on it at all the rest of the night, but we thought maybe she’d be fine after she went to bed.

Poor Kealey was still recovering from ANOTHER tummy bug (the one that apparently all of the southwestern suburbs have had, and everyone else in the family got – but kealey’s hit harder than the others, and came so close on the heels of the last bug she had right before christmas break).

It feels like my major resolution for the year will be to build a bubble for my children to live in. So, ok maybe that won’t work. But I am hopeful that very soon we will return to a state of HEALTH.

there are so many great challenges out there, ways to really start off with a clean slate – picture a day, word of the year, weekly this, daily that. Ugh. i want to do them all, enjoy them all – but right now i am so tired, and overwhelmed at the thought! Maybe soon. I am good about backdating, right??? Which reminds me, i have five more posts to catch up on right now!

Till the next post –

T.