Decisions..

My daughter was stalking a site I love tonight, and reading all about a computer-friend who has diabetes.  It was a little surreal having Mary Claire read her diagnosis story, compare it to her own, with me crying all the while.  Ugh.  It's hard!  It was the best talk, reminiscing about her own diabetes drama almost seven years ago.  Bless her heart-and we think we just move on after a couple years.  Nope, it's still here.  It says it's here to stay.

She also watched her video placing a site on her daughter, and she's considering making her own video for other kids.  She's not allowing the site (well, the camera!) on her bottom, so it'll have to be a tummy site, and she has to work up the nerve to do it on video.  I think as you get older, you change.  She's never been really ashamed of diabetes but never really proud either.  She's okay with me explaining what I'm doing, but sometimes she is super-bashful when I pull out her pump in public!  I can't imagine it differently, actually, but it's how we keep her alive.


No one understands our life (unless they have Type 1 diabetes in their family!), so it's hard to talk about.  It seems like if we start talking basal or bolus ratios, or sites or checks, or even carbs or reduced basals, even our closest friends can glaze over.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry it's part of our language, and that there's no language class available.  I try to explain, but I think I make it worse.

Forgive her for being the "special" kid in class, the one with the bent-down mommy checking on her, the one who gets a special plate with counted snacks, the one who carries a bag around, the one who gets attention if she starts to mumble and not make sense.  We really wish she wasn't the special kid, we want her to be like the other kids.  Or are they just special in their own way?


This week has been Benchmark Testing.  She's had testing, and questions, and writing every morning, and she's making it.  I've been trying so hard to keep her blood sugar constant and even.  She loves her breakfast cereal, so I've added a peanut butter "popsicle" (just a long teaspoon full of peanut butter!) every morning.  She's hitting 140-146 every morning about 9:40, but it's not too bad.  I just don't want her to go low and mess up her test that means so much to the school.  She really needs her site changed tonight, but I know that it would mean a low tomorrow morning with new insulin.  I have to decide whether to let her skin go another day..or to risk low blood sugars and her test scores.  Such a dilemma.


I've also sent snacks every day for her morning break.  Since we didn't want to throw in a snack with carbs (thus another blood sugar check, bolus, and monitoring), we made up meat/veggie snack bags.  Every day she gets a snack baggie with salami, turkey, and sugar snap peas.  She's happy, I'm happy.  And she can keep going on her testing.


She is currently 130, so I think we are going to hold out to site change till tomorrow.  She had dance tonight, so that will keep her blood sugar at bay for another couple hours, and we'll watch it tonight.  Decision point comes in the morning when we face the music: was it a good decision, or rapid-change time? : )

Swimming Fish

Gonna get fancy on you again! heehee
We have video of our little fish!  Ethan can jump, swim underwater, just amazing for a three-year-old.  He's made sooo much progress this summer-from falling in and panicking in April to swimming like a fish underwater! : )  I started working with him in the spa to swim across the four or five feet, then Ches has been working with him each night to perfect his swimming across the pool! I didn't get that video, but I'll work on it tomorrow night. What will we do when summer's over?

And Mary Claire did some showing off-her Twirling Cannonball, silly Balance Walk, and front and back flips.
Clay was in great form showing off his Dead Man and Throw-Up.  Yeah, I know-he's a boy of that age. : )  Just wait till he has a girlfriend (at 21..or 25), and I show her the videos!

ps-I totally meant fancy as in attaching a video-not fancy swimming.  We do the best we can-show outs included. : )

Musical Painting

I'm trying something new: posting a short video to this post. It's taking me a while..I think I have it edited (in iMovie)-you know, all the parts where I'm telling Ethan not to play with the blinds..
They painted birdhouses today, and it was so peaceful-then in the quiet, Mary Claire was singing and humming so beautifully!  I got my camera as quickly as I could, and tried to video her.  Did the beautiful painting make her sing, does she just do it as she works, or did the singing help her painting?  Notice, she even continues humming, never even taking notice of Ethan "licking" at her paint!  Ok, so it's not working so well..I figured out how to add it above!  Here is the link to the video on youtube anyway. : )
Here are the kids painting:

And I'm still debating on the school thing.  If I register for fall, I have to get on it really fast.  The one thing I was thinking about registering for has a deadline of the second week in June...so I'd have to call and request a late admission already.  I'm still thinking.
Here are the birdhouses outside, right after a light summer rain.

We saw the two most beautiful yellow finches outside this window a couple days ago-they looked like they could have been caged just moments before-too beautiful to be just flying around!  They both landed-together-on a shepherd's hook right outside the window.  We wanted them to come back, so we bought birdhouses.  We'll buy feed, but where do we put it exactly?  So the big mean birds don't get it all?  And so the wild cats that come and go through our fence don't get the birds?

Interrupting Cow!

Benadryl-induced funk. That's me. Dizzy and weird hours later.
I had a horrible (but probably funny) allergy attack around 10:30 this morning. I haven't had a bad one in quite a few years! But about two weeks ago, I accidentally took two Zyrtecs (10 mg each!), and my world hasn't been the same since. (I saw one laying out, and thought Ches had left it out for me, but later realized I'd gotten my own out with my vitamin earlier that morning, so I'd already downed the laying-out one. Yes, I have rapid (or short term-) memory loss. And Zyrtec does cause drowsiness. I take naps, but enjoy not having a runny nose. All. Day. Long.) So, for the drowsiness.. I took one measured teaspoon of Children's Benadryl in a little measuring cup (the one that comes on the lid), and passed out. I was making a video of the kids (at their request) of them being generally goofy and silly (6 "chapters" of entertainment, folks!) and almost fell asleep. I couldn't hold my eyelids open. I made a deal with them. If they let me sleep off my Benadryl (time estimate: 30 minutes), they could watch their new video (only 11 minutes). I barely made it to the end of the video, and I was dropping the camera. Ok, fast-forward: I crawled in bed an hour later when Ethan and Ches came back from their bike ride, got up 30 minutes later for lunch, was too dizzy to walk or make sense, or open my eyes, so back to bed, and I just got up-it's 3:30pm!!
So, 1 tsp. Benadryl + 10 mg of Zyrtec = one big lost day!

Except that we're getting ready to go out and swim since Ches has been heating the pool all day! It was down around a chilly 70 degrees, which is out of my swimming range! So, maybe we'll grill and I'll pretend we've had a nice, lazy day outside (except my LaZy took place inside!). Just think of the tan I couldn've had! Well, burn maybe?

Did I mention last week the horror that was church? Ethan being Awful and me holding on to him in the Cry Room (no crawling/walking around if you were naughty!), then sitting in the van (no video, buckled up, and quiet)? Yes, I always keep good, new magazines in the van just for this reason!! Well. I'll say Buck-o learned a lesson last week! This week he was "pretty" good, which is an amazing improvement! I was proud of my little man. I mean, no Indian (Native American?) drumming on his mouth, "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah", no screaming, no yelling, just pretty darn good! He even stood on the kneeler (due to him being height-challenged), and folded his hands together (granted, he DID NOT want me to show him how!), he sat when we sat, and we survived. So, if you need a good way that (might) work for your wayward child (no lawsuits needed here), try sitting in the car with them (in quiet-don't talk to them!, buckled up, motor running-again, no lawsuits!, and no video or toys) for the rest of church. It's agonizing for them (well, there were no tears-it's like he knew he'd been naughty!), but works! Ok, I'll work on fewer parenthetical phrases. It's how I talk, interrupting myself.

Which reminds me of Mary Claire's favorite joke:
Knock, Knock
Who's There?
Interrupting Cow.
Interrupti (Moo!) ng Cow Who?
See moo above.

Ok, it's not so funny in writing. But she interrupts you with a moo while you are asking Interrupting Cow Who? It's so funny! And she always gets the timing right. : ) My smart baby.

Which leads me to my sweetie's video. I uploaded it to YouTube yesterday, and it took over 6 hours! Is that normal? It was over 750mb, so maybe that was it? It's not as clear as my version on iMovie, but good nonetheless. Here is the link, if you haven't seen it yet:

Mary Claire's Video

And for all of you, go to the upper right hand corner of my blog, to the little writing, and click to register to WALK with us in the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes!! It is not a hard thing to do (as we always take a short cut that makes us cross the finish nearly first) (hey! we have small children!!), but MAKES A DIFFERENCE IN MY CHILD'S LIFE!! She, first of all, thinks it's a massive party given in honor of her (and it..kinda is). It's the one day she's happy to have diabetes. We have jumpy things, photo ops with Scooby Doo, the Arkansas Razorback mascots, cheerleaders, and last year we had Sponge Bob. There is a ton of free food afterwards (involving the most delicious steamy bun-hot dogs) and chips and drinks, and fruit, and tons of snacky stuff, that they try to stuff into your pockets and bags at the end since they always have way too much! And booths with free stuff and face painting, crafts, etc. But it's all about the cure, and my baby. We raise money to fund research for Type I Diabetes-and we've heard the cure is close. There are tons of trials, transplants with immune-suppressing drugs afterwards, prevention research, good stuff, but we want a CURE! so we can say "Bye-Bye" to insulin and that sweet new pink pump.

Need another link to register to walk with us? heehee : )

Click on these words to register to walk!
and click at the top, Join This Team!

Alrighty, my kiddos are waiting to swim. Good thing my hair isn't all cutsey today. I do hate to mess up a Good Hair Day!

ps-Avoid the Benadryl, if you can help it. (Unless you are watery-eyed, sneezing your head off, looking for an effective inner-eyelid scratcher, itchy-scratchy, and generally useless)