Have you ever sat back, you know all that free time parents seem to possess, and just pondered “How did I get to this place, how did I get here?”  I am sitting here this morning, watching my three girls eating breakfast, waiting to fully get into our home-school day and I am wondering how we got here, from where it is we started.  My husband, my two boys and I were living a normal life when everything changed with the arrival of a  beautiful blue-eyed, blonde haired baby girl who altered everything that was normal and easy, into something very different.  What we transitioned into was a difficult, frustrating, yet beautiful adventure that I could not have imagined would transform my life.  Her journey fraught with difficulties due to eczema, asthma, and our never-ending food adventures (maybe misadventures is more apropos) could be an amazing way to connect with others and be a help in my church and in my community.  I am so blessed with my two food allergen, eczema plagued daughters, one who is asthmatic.  These two beautiful people brought out the protector in me,  a drive to know as much as I could to protect them and the ability to  help others I have met along the way that are also navigating this sometimes very trying journey.  If you are also on this journey; whether at the beginning, at it for some time, or an old pro in any of these individual issues or all of them (or sometimes even more than this), welcome.  This can be a place for all of us; to be able to find help, a safe place to be angry, sad or scared about a diagnosis, and a place to encourage and strengthen one another as we travel on this journey together.  So then on those days like today, when I find myself pondering those life questions, I can look around my kitchen table and see the faces of my beautiful children that remind me exactly how it was I got here…and I smile.