Celebrate success

I had seen this on the Brit-mums web site and have thought about ti long and hard, whether to enter or not and if I do enter how will I write it. My children are all grown now, but my grandchildren are not, so I wanted to make it relevant to them. But they take after me in a lot of ways, about as musical as a cat on a hot tin roof,  a three year old with one hand tied behind their back would be more artistic, and apart from swimming they do not do much in the line of sports and whilst I appreciate Fifi is very good at this it is not something that has ever been made a big deal of.

But in their own ways my grandchildren are champions and this comes across on a day to day basis in the way that they live.

Bob is six and he has many medical issues but the one that impacts on him very highly is his food allergies. he is allergic to egg, dairy, peanuts and kiwi and intolerant to wheat, gluten and raw banana. His diet is very restricted and his social interaction with other children is limited due to a lot of parents being too scared of his condition to allow him into their houses and to play with their children. He has few friends and is really beginning to resent his restrictions and is now starting to say he does not want them and he wants Santa Claus not to leave him toys this year but to take away his allergies instead.

He takes his four inhalers, two different medicines and his tablet without ever really making a fuss or protesting. He is beginning to understand more about his restrictions and reads books about what can happen to him. He understands what happens to his lungs, how they get smaller and smaller until he cant breath and he has learnt what an epi-pen does and how it helps him, he really is in my eyes a gold medal winner.

His big sister is nine and she accepts that her life is restricted by his allergies, she is no longer allowed nuts since he became allergic to them, her diet is based round what Bob can eat and what he cant and every meal that is made is made to suit him. She does not moan or complain and is very protective of her brother and will read ingredients on food packets to see what is suitable for her brother and what is not.

The first week of the school holidays ( few weeks back now as we are in Scotland) Fifi was allowed to menu plan for a weeks meals in her house, she wrote the shopping list for all the ingredients that were going to be needed and went shopping with her mum to buy everything. She then cooked all the meals for the family for the week. She managed to do this and only on one night did she pick and make something not suitable for her brother, a pizza, as she really really loves them but never gets one. Not bad for a nine year old. She in my opinion also deserves a gold medal.

As a thank you for doing this her mum booked her a days cooking at the local cooking school who run classes suitable for children.

There are more ways that one to achieve greatness and these two certainly have ( but then I'm biased).



This is my entry for the Britmums  #PGRaisingOlympians Celebrate Their Success Linky, sponsored by P&G. 















I like the video best from Liam Tancocks mum, Kim, just because it is so down to earth and inspiring.