New Year’s Survey: AK

Sooooo, hi? Remember us? Anybody still out there? Yeah, so we unintentionally took like a little break.  A little break that lasted a year.  Sorry? We thought the New Year’s Survey would be a great way to sorta explain things and get us back on track with being on the interwebs again.  We don’t promise as many posts as we once had, but we promise more than we did in 2012. Deal?

Here’s 2009 , 2010 and 2011.

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before? I went back and re-read last year’s survey and this is sorta laughable at this point. So much has happened. Please see #7.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? HA!!!! OMG, so I just went back and re-read my resolutions from last year: Stay in shape, wear more red nail polish, read more books.  UTTER FAIL! I wouldn’t say I’m out of shape, I just didn’t get to exercise as much as I would have liked this year. Nail polish? On what nails? The nails I bit off?  Read more books…I can’t even count an issue of InStyle magazine here… Does twitter count?
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Der gave birth to a beautiful baby girl!
4. Did anyone close to you die? No, thank goodness.
5. What countries did you visit? None, and honestly we didn’t get any sort of vacation at all this year.  Even date nights were few and far between.
6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012? Less hospital stays. 5-6 hospital stays with the little guy this year, one of which was 8 days.  Less of those, definitely less of those.
7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? February 9, 2012. The day we found out our 9 month old had hemophilia. We have no history of hemophilia in our family at all, so this was an utter shock. For those of you not familiar with hemophilia, it’s a bleeding disorder. Our little guy developed some rather large bruises that we couldn’t for the life of us remember how he might have gotten which led to an ER visit which resulted in a joint bleed. The doctors initially thought he had severe nursemaid’s elbow for which they put a cast on his arm for two weeks but was really a joint bleed.  We found that out on February 9th when a hematologist we’d seen called me while I was picking up my oldest from preschool that we were dealing with hemophilia and to not pass go and collect $100 but to come immediately to the hospital so they could begin treating, not for a dislocated elbow, but in fact a joint bleed.  And so our life changed forever.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Learning how to give my son the medicine he needs, along side my husband, without help from our home healthcare nurse. We are by no means medically inclined, I mean we come from software/web programming backgrounds.  If you had told us we’d be learning sterile procedure and sticking our son with a needle every single day I’d have been mortified. It’s very empowering to know you can take immediate action with a hemophilia kid if/when you need to.
9. What was your biggest failure? I was almost going to say we’ve had no failures this year, only learning experiences, but I need to document the 10lbs I gained since finding out our son’s diagnosis so it pushes me to lose it.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Not me personally, but in addition to my son being diagnosed we’ve also had a few family illnesses that have popped up this year. We’ve been sort of a mess this year.
11. What was the best thing you bought? Our second iPad was a lifesaver on that 8 day hospital stay, as was the two seasons of Bubble Guppies purchased on said iPad. Those Bubble Guppies are the gift that keep on giving. What time is it? It’s time for lunch! Whoops, sorry I got sidetracked.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? My family. My mom would come to the hospital with me and the little one and my husband was alternating between working and keeping up with our 4 year old’s schedule. My dad would alternate between all of us, shuttling things here and there. My in-laws helping out where we needed. And our friends keeping us sane and bringing us dinners or taking our older kiddo when needed.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? I’m going to go ahead and just say that one nurse that tried SEVEN times to find a vein on my child in the ER.  I will never forget.
14. Where did most of your money go? Medical expenses, a new roof, and a new A/C.  You know those really fun things! All in one year! Winning!
15. What did you get really excited about? Any and all nights that both children slept through the whole night–sleep is nice.
16. What song will always remind you of 2012? We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift. Our 4 yr old LOVES Taylor Swift and learned every single word to that song and damn if I didn’t become a fan of hers after that.  I mean that’s the problem you know? When your kid is singing something word for word and says he wants to meet Taylor Swift and have her go eat sushi with us on Fridays or come to his birthday party or go look at Christmas lights with us….after the year we’ve had….I say buy the boy all the Taylor Swift albums he can listen to! Shhhh don’t tell him he is going to see her in concert in May of this year 🙂
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a)happier or sadder? sadder b)thinner or fatter? fatter c)richer or poorer? poorer
18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Too many things to say here…exercise? date nights? gone to the movies? read books? There’s a ton of stuff that gladly took a backseat to learning a new normal. There’s always 2013 to do more right?
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? STRESS: stress eat, stress bite my nails. Have to SEE DOCTORS. Cry.
20. How did you spend Christmas? We had a surprisingly fantastic, free from medical intervention, surrounded by family Christmas. It was perfect and we are very blessed.
21. Did you fall in love in 2012? I’m the type of person that watches a show while I work out on the treadmill..preferably a tv series of some sort. So with that said, I re-fell in love with the Alias series. And let me tell you when Jennifer Garner starts running in those chase scenes, I apparently think that I’m Sydney Bristow on my treadmill and start running VERY quickly. This can be good and bad.
22. What was your favorite TV program? Parenthood and The Good Wife.  Those are the two shows that I watch live/real time, not tivo’d.
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? No.
24. What was the best book you read? Book? What are books?
25. What was your greatest musical discovery? “Long, Long Time Ago”-Bubble Guppies
26. What did you want and get? A new iPhone, mine was dying a slow death….thank you upgrade!!! I also got a couple of kiddos that love the pool and love swim lessons which made the summer so much more fun.
27. What did you want and not get? To keep my fantastic weight loss from last year off.
28. What was your favorite film of this year? I can’t at this point say Breaking Dawn 2 can I, that would be embarassing? Ok, then I’ll go with Life of Pi, that was pretty cool.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I think I did dinner with the girls? I turned 37. I’m officially old. Like old with wrinkles, old.
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? less stress, more smiles and less tears, and maybe more episodes of Parenthood and The Good Wife.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012? Plaid shirts and jeans.
32. What kept you sane? My husband, my family, my friends, doctors and nurses.
33. Who was the best new person you met? We’ve met a lot of good people this year that have taught us that everything is going to be ok with our little guy.
34. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012. God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.
35. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. Sometimes I’m afraid and I don’t feel that tough, But I’ll stand back up ~ Sugarland

Photo by Momma’s Gonna SNAP Photography

I hope that helps everyone partially understand why we haven’t been around. We’re coming back, I promise.