Friday, December 30, 2011

Ah, the Things Bug Says

My mother boarded a plane back to Georgia in the wee hours of the morning, much to the chagrin of the girls...and me!  It was fabulous having her here and we all look forward to our or her next visit, whichever comes first. :)

While she was here, Bug had a few choice things to say to her that I just had to share.

We were driving in the car...most likely going to Target because it seems for some reason or another we were there almost every day while she was here!...and Bug asks her if she has anymore of 'those orange string things.'

We looked at each other, trying to find some understanding of what she was asking about; neither of us had a clue.  I asked Bug what she was talking about and she further clarified something to the effect 'the orange string things you put in your mouth.'

Light Bulb...Tic Tacs!!!  My mother almost always has some in her pockets and Bug must have, at some point, seen them.

My mother told her that she had thought she had more, but couldn't find them in her suitcase.

Bug asked if she has some when she first got here, to which Mamaw answered, 'yes.'

Bug then said, 'Well then why didn't you share them with me when you had some?!"

~ ~ ~ ~

Another day, my mother was trying to escape the constant tea partying to go to the powder room.  She didn't turn the light on as there is a night light in there that provides enough light to get the job done.

Bug approached the folding door and asked if she was in there.  My mother said, 'yes.'

Bug then carefully opened the door, head down, announcing 'I'm not looking, I'm not looking.'  She made her way into the laundry room and turned on that light.

She then proceeded into the bathroom, head still down, back towards my mother, saying 'Still not looking' and turned that light on.

She then told Mamaw, 'You can't pee with the lights off, Mamaw!' and exited the bathroom, back still towards her, through the laundry room and shut the folding door, confident that she had spared Mamaw from the mistake of peeing in the dark!!


Ah, the mind of my almost three and a half year old!  She never ceases to entertain!!

Monday, December 26, 2011

Here, There, and Everywhere

Christmas was an exciting day around here.  Thankfully, we didn't have to travel farther than downstairs to enjoy all the day had to offer.  Ubergeek's parents came over and my mother is here for the holidays.  It was a day of celebrating, eating, unwrapping, eating, playing, eating....you get the picture! ;)

Bean got her "Just Like Me" doll from Santa...with a couple of custom additions.
"Bean" as the doll has been named, has an 'omnipod' 
on her tummy and 'dexcom' sensor on her arm.  
The real Bean was in total shock when she noticed them!
matching PJs courtesy of Grandma & Grandpa

Bug had asked Santa for a ladybug pillow pet.  She then announced to my mother the day before Christmas that she had, in fact, asked for a snowflake pillow pet.  Um, they don't exsist!  So we did our best to try to convince Bug of what she had actually said, but there's not much you can do to convince a three year old once they have set their mind of something.
So, Santa did the best he could with such last minute notice and put a name tag on the ladybug that said "Snowflake" and all was well with the world!


I was surprised with a Kindle Fire and was happily whisked away to the world of King Henry the 8th as I popped in earbuds and watched a couple of episodes of The Tudors once the chaos had settled down.


Diabetes, of course, was with us, as always.  Totally deserved coal in his (or her?) stocking that's for sure!!
Bean woke up at a lovely 121 after I had turned off her basal for an hour when I had checked her earlier and she was at 118. (insert only pat on the back for the day!)

An hour later (after a yogurt, which I've gotten pretty good at dosing for as of late) she was at 317!  Hello, Christmas excitement!!  We were downstairs, in full on present sorting and opening.

An hour later, as we settled in for brunch, she's at respectable 185.  She didn't fancy the quiche, but chowed down on the cheesy grits (totally a southern girl at heart!!).

We spent the rest of the morning and early part of the afternoon playing with our respective gifts...until the crash hit.  Thankfully it was caught at 67 and it wasn't stubborn and the playing resumed.  The girls were actually mostly nice to each other...a Christmas miracle in and of itself!

Dinner time rolled around, and Bean was at 129...beautiful!  Well, she balked at my homemade ravioli (OK, insert one more pat on the back for me as I made it from scratch!) because it had a little bit of mint in it, so we tried to make up for the carbs with a cupcake and it didn't quite work out so well since she ended up at 320 not quite two hours later.  UGH!

Thankfully she was back to a lovely 120 at bedtime, so I guess the day started and ended well enough.


I am glad that today has been a bit quieter.  
No food to cook...leftover quiche for breakfast; leftover sweet potato casserole for a snack; popcorn at the movie; and headed out to dinner shortly.

Saw this little guy as we were headed home from the movie and just had to share. :)

Saturday, December 24, 2011

The Light of Christmas

May the Light of Christmas bring peace, hope, and joy 
to you and yours this Eve.




Thursday, December 22, 2011

Monday, December 19, 2011

Rockin' the SWAG...and snow pics ;)

As is tradition in every school I've ever known, the last day before Winter Break brings the well anticipated holiday party.

Generally a fun, treat-filled hour of overly stimulated children who can't wait to start their two week vacation.

This past Thursday was no exception to that rule.

As I was trying to man the chaos in my room, I was mindful that Bean would be experiencing some similar chaos in her room and was waiting for the "need a carb count" call over the radio.

It didn't dawn on me that that call never came until I was retrieving Bean from her class's line after I helped with afternoon pick up.

As we made the trek up to my portable, I said something to the effect of 'Oh, I guess your class didn't have a party this afternoon, huh?'  To which she replied, 'yes, we did.'

Enter conversation about not getting a radio call for carb counts and her telling me that she did it herself.


Sound familiar to anyone?  She did this a few weeks ago with her Girl Scout party and way overshot the dose and was only 'saved' by the IOB feature that kept her from getting the full bolus.

Thankfully, 100 carbs isn't a terrible SWAG for two sugar cookies with lots of sprinkles and two brownies.  Granted, I have no idea how big these treats were, but a good guess none-the-less.

We had the obligatory "if you ever do that again you will not be allowed to have any, any, birthday or party treats for the rest of the school year" conversation in a relatively stern voice.  She got the picture, judging by the repentant look on her face and the tone of her 'I'm so, so sorry, Mommy.'

I kept an eye on Wilma (her dexcom) for the next hour or so and she held pretty steady, so all in all, it turned out OK.

Fast forward to that night, after the 'before I went to bed' check.

I was going over her numbers for the day and here is what I see:
I'd say she nailed it!  And yes, I did give her 'props' for the good job, with a reminder that she needs to double check with me before bolusing next time!!


Oh, and some overdue pictures of the snow...which, by the way, is melting and icing over due to our little pre-Christmas warm up over the weekend.  Don't mind mid 30s, but detest the icy mess they leave behind!!





Monday, December 12, 2011

Monday...this one I'll take!

Just as I had dosed Bean for her breakfast I hear Ubergeek talking on the phone in our bedroom.  This is not a completely uncommon occurrence for him at 6:30 in the morning, but he sounded a bit too happy about this particular conversation and that usually isn't the case.

I headed back into our room to see what was going on and he happily announces that schools are closed.  SNOW DAY!!!  I have to tell you that this is an extremely rare thing here in Alaska.  But, when you've gotten close to 18 inches of heavy, wet snow overnight it's a bit less rare.

Now, I would have been way happier to have gotten that phone call an hour earlier, BEFORE I was completely ready for the day, but whatever.  A day off is a day off!
Since Bean had been dosed, she downed a glass of milk and then settled back in bed for a bit more sleep.
Bug wasn't thrilled about having to stay in bed, but I convinced her that she had to and back to bed I went, too.
Unfortunately I was only there for about 45 minutes until the girls could no longer handle being in bed, but being able to hang out on the couch in sweats was a tolerable option. :)

During the day, I was able to get some stuff done in between playing referee with the girls.  They are so not used to being together all day like this!  I 'stored' some grown out of clothes in our nonworking shower.  I moved a ton of books from the room where my mother will be sleeping in 5 days so the futon will actually open into a bed.  (Hee Hee! SO excited she's coming!)  I put four loads of the girls' laundry away that had been folded and patiently waiting for about four days.  And I did a few other loads of laundry. I also sat my butt on the couch during Bug's nap and watch some 'me' shows...a treat anytime, but even more so in the middle of a MONDAY!

Then, I escaped for a few minutes to go pick up dinner.  Ubergeek has a meeting tonight and he came home for a bit in between work and the meeting and wanted to hang out with the girls, so I jumped at the chance to leave the house.

I hadn't checked the mail in a few days...just something that doesn't get done often for whatever reason...so I checked in on the way down the street.

SOOOO glad I did!!!  There were three wonderful things waiting for us there.

First ~ A petit paquet from Scully of Canadian D-gal.
  She had posted a while back about some 'wrong' strips she had gotten and was looking for a good home to send them to.  They are the ones we use, so I jumped at the chance to get them.  They arrived at the perfect time since we've been going through way more test strips lately because of some wonky numbers.  It's awesome to have 100 of those precious little butterflies on the shelf!  Thanks, Scully!!!
Oh, and she included the sweetest note for Bean which made Bean smile from ear to ear.

love the drawing of a bean at the top!


Second ~ Holly from Three Sweet Kids and a Seven-Year-Old Named Diabetes had this super give away of stinkin cute holiday towels that I won!  And they are just as stinkin cute as they looked in the picture!  I am always amazed at the stinkin cute stuff Holly comes up with and am in awe that she has the time to DO it!  Thanks, again, Holly!

embarrassed to say these are the only Christmas decorations up so far
hey, I still have time!!! 


Third ~  I was drooling over the awareness pendants that Lorriane over at This is Caleb had for WDD.  Again, even more beautiful than the pictures of them.  And, while I was checking the pendant out at Cari's etsy
shop, I found a beautiful awareness bracelet, too.  Love the smoky gray beads and 'hope' ribbon.

hoping there is school tomorrow so I can wear them!!


So, all in all, this Monday was pretty dang good.  And to top it all off, the girls will be going to bed early because I'm so done with their bickering, so I'll have a nice, quiet house very soon!


Oh, in case you are wondering, that rage double bolus did the trick...and then some.  That night brought three lows...one we caught at 73, the others were at 55 and 58.  But, the super stubborn highs went away and Bean is pretty dang good at drinking and eating while asleep, so whatever!

Saturday, December 10, 2011

The End of the Vial

HIGH, two arrows straight up.

Never what you want to see on a dexcom receiver, to state the blatantly obvious!  (And I totally should have taken a picture, but I just couldn't...you understand!)

Yesterday, Bean was at 176 for breakfast...leftovers from coming up from a 69 at 2:48am.  She was at 197 before recess...usually a 'respectable' number, but an uncovered cookie sent her up to 224 for lunch.  350 when she checked and corrected at 1:50.  Down to 195 for a late after school snack at 4:19, then 340 for dinner at 5:48, 435 at 7:32 (correction) and 343 for bedtime at 8:43.  I checked her at 10:59 and she was at 282 and I corrected, again.

We stayed up past 1am chatting with the T1 babysitter we had for the first time last night.  (AH-MAZING!  More on her later) so I totally slept through checking her (HATE that!).  At 6:17, she was at 250 and I corrected her because I knew she'd be sleeping for another two hours and I really wanted her at a nice place for breakfast.

No such luck.

This morning she begged for something other than yogurt for breakfast.  I've been making her have the same thing all this week as I've been testing out a 15-20 minute pre-bolus (thanks to a comment on Wendy's Candy Hearts by Alexis of The Chronicles of D-Boy and Ribbon...love my d-mammas!!) to try to lessen the god awful breakfast BG spike.  Yeah, she was at 229 (hello, how do you only come down 31 points with a correction?!?), but I gave in to her request for Nutella toast and milk.  Now, this breakfast isn't fabulous for her, but it's also not super terrible.  And it was a good test to see how the pre-bolus would work on a bigger, carb-heavier breakfast.

Two hours later, she's at 498.  CRAP on a STICK!  A hefty correction and almost an hour of ice skating brings her down to a pathetic 371.  UGH!

On the way home, Ubergeek and I discuss an early pod change (we generally don't think 'pod issue' when Bean's BG is high like this, but it was obvious something was up and something needed to be done!) and during this discussion I remember that this current pod was filled with the last of the insulin in the vial.  We had this same issue with the last of the last vial, when Bean had ketones for the first time.

So when we get home Bean did a quick ketone check and she's at 1.9.  More crap on a stick!  A pod change using a new vial of insulin is done, as well as a unit given by syringe just for good measure (it was W.E.I.R.D filling a syringe...something I haven't done in over a year ~ the ones to fill the pod don't count!)  She starts lunch at 333.

Three hours later the ketones are down to 0.1 (yeah!) and the BG is down to 323 (crapidty, crap, crap!).

I decide it's time to pull out the big guns.  She's hungry (duh, that lunch hasn't been effectively processed) and is begging for a snack.  I let her have carrots...pretty big bang for your carb buck when you can have a hefty 85g by weight for 8g carbs.  Guns blazing, I double her correction.

Yep, you read that right, double!  No more fiddily farting around with this stupid high BG.  Aim and SHOOT!

So, we'll see what happens in a couple of hours...hoping the bullet doesn't bite me in the butt, but honestly I'd rather have her sucking down a juice to bring her back up from a low than deal with this stupid, stubborn high any longer!!!

And what's crazier is that I was going to be doing some basal changes this weekend because she's been dipping low more often than she 'should.'  So much for that!!

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Kicking Off the Holidays, Family Link Style

On Saturday, Ubergeek and I helped our local ADA host a Family Link holiday event.

We provided lunch, bowling, ice skating, and painting a cookie plate at a pottery place at a local mall.

There were about 85 people who attended; all of which either had or were part of the family of a kid with Diabetes.

It was a BLAST!  Having all those people together, seeing all the kids pause to test, and getting to chat with those who have been doing this for year or for just a few short weeks was great.  Four hours of 'same' to kick off the holiday season...just amazing!!

At one point, Bean felt low and went to test.  I guess another boy (the one who had just been diagnosed five weeks ago) decided to test at the same time.  They were both at 72!  A juice box later for each of them and they headed back to the fun.

I was the one manning the 'party room' at the pottery place.  It was slow at first... manageable with just a handful of painters.  Then all of a sudden both tables filled up within five minutes and I had 20 painters to juggle.  Crazy!!  Especially since the paints are numbered, so they were all asking for this number and that number....and for a T1D-mom, having numbers bombard you nonstop got to be a bit much after a while!  But they all had a blast and the plates all turned out great.

Our local ADA office is amazing, I must say.  They made sure everyone had what they needed and supported us through the entire process from planning to clean up.  We are so lucky to have such an amazing group of people who are committed to supporting families living with Diabetes here in Alaska as well as supporting research for a cure.


To wrap the day up at the mall, we took the girls to visit Santa.  Last year, we waited until we were in Georgia with family to go, putting Santa in a bit of a crunch to make sure the requested items were ready in three days.  (Stupid, stupid, stupid idea!!)  I wasn't going to make that mistake again this year!!!  Plus, this way, the girls are 'locked in' to their choice and can't change their mind at the last minute...which also happened last year.  Santa was NOT a happy camper to say the least!!
They both did great.  Bug wasn't thrilled last year, but this year she walked right up to Santa and even gave him a hug!  Bean, of course, is a pro at the whole Santa thing by now.


Now I just need to get to the Christmas shopping.  UGH!  Running short on time to get things shipped to family in the lower 48, so I best find time this week to get everything for them.  I can do some 'last minute' shopping once my mother arrives....it will be a great excuse for us to leave Ubergeek with the girls!!