The Story of Rosie and Toby

This is the story of Rosie and Toby. We often go on amazing adventures and outings, or have stories to tell. We have life experiences to share; and much more. We started with a Blog in 2017, but unfortunately lots of things happened and we had to close it. We transferred some of the posts here. It is now 2019. Rosie is now ten years old. She’s a helpful, creative, musical, well behaved, thoughtful, hard working child. Pretty much a dream child to be honest. Rosie was diagnosed on exactly her 4 and a half year old Birthday with Type 1 Diabetes (T1). A routine blood test following the T1 diagnosis led to a diagnosis of coeliac disease. In the last few weeks Rosie has been given an Asperger’s diagnosis. Toby is nine years old. Right now this is bugging Rosie, because she doesn’t like there just being one years difference in age, but for two and a half months each year, there is just one year, the rest of the year there’s two! Toby is a huggable, cheeky, helpful, caring, engaging child. Toby also has an extra copy of the 21st chromosome in each of his cells which gives him Trisomy 21, or Down’s Syndrome. Both children bring huge challenges, but also huge rewards. This is the story of Rosie and Toby, but a little about me puts things in context. I am a qualified childcare professional with two degrees which I did through the Open University (OU) whilst working full time. OU really changed my life, gave me confidence and I loved it. I worked for nearly 20 years with young children, mainly as a private nanny for some fantastic families. Those children are now in their twenties and it’s been a joy to watch each of them grow up into fantastic adults, each with their own skills and interests. I have always worked alongside having the children, but have had to work from home doing SEO, marketing, PR etc. I own a review website and I love writing. However the children take up huge amounts of time - meetings, hospital appointments, paperwork, phone calls etc and I’ve been exceedingly fortunate to work for people who understand. I’m a single mum and it is exhausting, but I love my life and the children are the sunshine in every day. First Published 20.8.2019