School is Back in Session!

I've been waiting for this day for YEARS!  It's a bittersweet thing - seeing my babies grow up, but wanting them to stay young longer. I didn't want to wish time away but yet here we are anyways. Most importantly, my baby is in KINDERGARTEN you guys!! We've officially closed the chapter in our lives where little babies and toddlers keep us preoccupied and said farewell to paying for childcare. There's still the occasional camp here and there, but nothing too serious!

We were supposed to start school the last Wednesday in August, but the teachers went on strike. I was okay with a delayed start because a) I had the day off anyways b) we were going on vacation on Thursday and Friday (sorry perfect attendance!) and c) I wasn't mentally prepared for school to start.

Ms. Gail is in a bi-lingual kindergarten class where she'll be taught half the day in English, and half the day in Spanish. I'm already impressed with what she's learned. She came home after a week counting to 10 in Spanish, and the next week to 20. Her Spanish alphabet is almost there, but she's practicing hard! 

On her first day of school, I attempted to dress her up really cute, and have adorable hair but she was having none of it. It was imperative she wore her cat pants, cat socks, and cat shoes. We compromised on the shirt. She needed it to be a cat shirt so her friends would know she liked cats (because the extra backpack, lunchbox, and water bottle weren't telling enough) but I told her she could wear whatever she wants tomorrow, as long as I pick out her top. She reluctantly agreed, but wasn't too happy about it. I could feel the eye rolls as she said, "Oh fine." 

We agreed in the morning I would take her to school so she knew where to go but she decided at the last minute she actually wanted to ride the bus with her brothers. I hadn't gotten my photos of her yet so we quickly snapped a few and hustled to the bus stop. It was early. GO FIGURE. I wanted to take her school anyways. 

I met her at the bus stop after her second day of school and she was SO EXCITED to tell me she found HD's lunchbox (that he forgot at school the day before.) I asked her if she was sure it was his, and she happily replied, "Oh yes! It's his Star Wars one! I saw it sitting by the fence so I asked my teacher if I could go get my brothers lunchbox and he said I could!" Imagine my surprise when it was not his. I had her return it to school the next day and she was afraid the bus driver wouldn't let her on the bus because it had food in it. (Wha??)

Picking out clothes for my boys is clearly coming to an end. I was able to recommend he wear his new green shirt, and suggested shorts to go with, but the shorts were vetoed and replaced with these. I strongly don't like them... But he likes them, so whatever. I can't save you from yourself. JP was a little disappointed to not have any of his friends in class with him but I think still being able to play with them at recess makes it better. He's a quiet guy so I didn't get much out of him. 

Middle child problems right here: He's just a good kid so I don't have much to say about him. I'm not forgetting about him though!

My first born is a 4th grader! Say what?!?! He's wayyy too cool for school now. You can't really tell in the picture, but he's got a nice red ring around his mouth. I'm not sure if he was sucking on something or sucking his lips, but seriously, could he have better timing? Things went as good as expected with him. He came home with a crappy attitude because school is boring. "Recess is the only thing I'll ever like."

As school has progressed, he's taken a strong interest in the Titanic. In fact, I came home from work one afternoon to find him staring at the tv watching the Titanic sink, in real time. It was a computer rendering of the ship sinking, popping up timeline facts along every so often. He was an HOUR in. I let him finish it, but in fast forward. I was not about to have him spend 2 hours and 40 minutes watching that. When I sat down with him on the couch, I asked the obvious mom question, "What are you watching." "The Titanic." My heart stopped for a second. At a quick glance of the screen, I could see the Titanic sinking and immediately thought it was the movie. I casually asked, "Did you happen to see any naked women?" "Mom! I'M WATCHING THE TITANIC SINK! WHAT DO YOU THINK?!" Such relief washed over me as I watched screen for a little longer. Phew! 

Since then, he's finished the book, 'I Survived: The Titanic' and has moved on to a 'Rescuing from the Titanic' series, or something similar. I've never seen him more enthralled with a book before! He thinks it would be a lot of fun to scuba dive down to the Titanic to see it. I don't want to be the bearer of bad news for another career path he can't realistically do because of diabetes. No sense killing his curiosity now. 

Now that school is back in full session, I'm going to be over here relaxing on my days off, but only after I frantically pack lunches in the morning and herd kids around in the morning. WALK FASTER THAN WHAT YOU'RE GOING! GET YOUR SHOES ON! I ALREADY TOLD YOU TO GO BRUSH YOUR TEETH. WHY AREN'T YOUR SHOES ON?! Some day I'll miss this. Some day. Not today though. 

Seriously, where all are the freaking shoes?!

Let’s Talk About the Lows

It has been a long 5 months but then I stop to think and have a hard time realizing it’s *only* been 5 months since HD was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. A year ago I would not have guessed this to be my new focus in life. A year ago, we were elbows deep in occupational therapy. I thought that was stressful, dealing with insurance not paying. I never knew how easy I had it.

I feel on a day to day basis we have a good system in place for managing his diabetes. We are beginning to understand which foods are better to dose for after he eats, and which ones we should dose before and then wait a hot minute before eating to avoid a spike in his blood sugar. We’re getting there but it’s far from easy.

After calling back and forth between our insurance, our doctor’s office and our medical supply company, we finally received our Dexcom starter kit in the mail at the very beginning of July. A Dexcom is a continuous glucose monitor, in other words, it’s a sensor HD wears that takes blood sugar readings approximately every five minutes. Previously, to get a blood sugar reading, we had to poke his finger, put a drop of blood on a test strip and the meter would spit us out a number. With his Dexcom, as long as he has his phone near him, I just need to look at my phone to see what his blood sugar is AND where it’s trending to go AND how quickly it’s guessed to changed. A finger poke is like lighting a match, you can see where you are at that moment. A Dexcom is like turning on a flashlight, you can see where you are, where you’ve been and where you’re going. Sounds pretty legit, right? It was very reassuring to have when we were on vacation, out in the sun all day. I felt very helicopter-y as I followed him around with his medical bag, just so I could get a reading on him.

 

We received his Dexcom with enough time to insert his first sensor and then head out for vacation. The sensors last 10 days before they need to be replaced so his next ones were handled by Grandma and Nanny. I handed over all the things, and said, “Here’s the directions- I’ve only done it once. I can’t troubleshoot yet...” It was reassuring to me to be able to see his numbers anytime I wanted to, even at 1:00 am.

His Dexcom isn’t fool proof though. The first one Grandma inserted ended up with a sensor failure so another one needed inserted after only a few days. ( The company is good a replacing failures!) The Grandmas had an extra task, since they were caring for him during the summer - swimming. He can wear it to swim but it needed a little bandaging to make sure it didn’t fall off and get lost on accident. Due to it being submerged, it’s sticky adhesive tends to weaken.

This was the first time I heard European sirens go off on my phone. I set his urgent low alarms to European sirens so I would know it was a medical emergency, as opposed to, “what did that beep mean?” (I have the option to have alerts on my phone when his blood sugar is too high, too low, increasing quickly, dropping rapidly, or if there is no data being received.) At 1:30 am while at the dome home, I had sirens blaring into my ear. Not exactly how one wants to wake up... I quickly grabbed my phone and looked at HD’s blood sugar number via Dexcom. 39 with an arrow pointing  down. My heart sank as I dialed up Nanny. She answered rather quickly, so I explained that she needed to go down and wake HD up because he was needing medical attention. Long story short, his sensor fell off and wasn’t able to get a reading. Phew! I was calmly panicking inside. My mom was impressed with how calm I was despite the circumstances. (For those not familiar with diabetes, too low of a blood sugar, and he’s at risk for passing out or having a seizure. If unresponsive, he has an emergency medication to jump start his system. Left untreated, and he’s a goner 😐)

While at my soster’ wedding the other weekend, I had a similar heart stopping experience. Throughout the day, we just let him roam free with the other kids. My dress didn’t have pockets so for a good part of the day, I wasn’t able to check on him by glancing at my phone. Perry has the app on his phone so he kept an eye on him. He had pretty decent numbers all day (especially considering all the food out for snacking on!) That evening all the adults gathered on the dance floor to celebrate. Around 8 pm I found raced him to the house we were staying at 50 yards away. He was a little high and wanted a snack, so I gave him a correcting dose to bring him back down, and added in units to cover the carbs he was about to eat. Once that was done, I gave him his nighttime insulin and off we went.

Half an hour later Aunt Bobby snagged HD for a dance, but he insisted he wasn’t feeling well so he and I sat down and together we checked his phone. 69 with an arrow angling down. I loaded up his shirt pocket with a large handful of gummy worms and he proceeded to finish dancing with his aunt, all the while diving into his pocket for worms. Fifteen minutes go by and we sit down to recheck his numbers. 39 with the arrow pointing down. My heart sank. HD knew that wasn’t good. He calmly looked at me and said, “Mom, I think we need to get the emergency stuff ready.” He’s not a particularly heavy kid, but after a few glasses of wine, and heels, he’s not the lightest thing ever either. I scooped that kid up so quickly, dove past a few people, and sprinted to the house. I laid him down on the bed, and gave him an “old fashioned” blood test. I’ve never get so much relief pass over me. 169. We discovered his sensor was falling off. He was fine. I was in a little shock, but we both managed to enjoy the rest of our evening. Crisis averted.

Not all the problems we’ve had are from failing Dexcoms. Early into our diagnosis, HD started his honeymoon period. Essentially after not working for a while, his pancreas starts producing insulin again. When we left the hospital, we were giving him 1 unit for ever 15 carbs consumed. After about a week, he would start crashing with low lows right after eating until we realized this phenomenon. We’re now using a 1:30 ratio, so in therory we were unknowingly overdosing him. This happened to my sister once when she was watching them. She knew we changed his breakfast ratio, but didn’t realize his dinner one was changing too. Luckily I called to check in with her and caught the error in time so she could give him extra carbs to even it all out.

That situation was just me not being clear on his dosing. We haven’t had any changes lately, but I still managed to overdose him the other night and I felt terrible. I don’t know if he had a cookie at school and wasn’t dosed for it, or if he had it one the bus, but regardless, he had a cookie without taking insu, so by dinner his numbers were through the roof. While Perry and I debated about who was at fault, the school or HD for not getting insulin (I would fault the school, but am happy to see he at least wasn’t left out  of having one), I was calculating how much of a correction to give him and then how much for dinner. AND I COUNTED HALF UNITS AS ONE. As soon as he pressed the button, my heart sank and I immediately told everyone to stop talking as I recounted. He should have had 3 units, but he took 5.

If I hadn’t caught it, he could have died. I had to take Ms. Gail to gymnastics so Perry watched him like a hawk. After two extra chocolate cups of milk, two spoonfuls of honey, and an orange he was perfect at 116. Thank you to Dexcom for tracking all that. I watched it unfold while at gymnastics. Thank you for technology! But seriously this diabetes stuff is no joke.

As his primary caregiver, this has been my worst fear, overdosing my kid. Why if I didn’t realize my error? Also equally as terrifying is my kid overdosing himself. Kids with diabetes are 50 percent more likely to deal with depression. That statistic is staggering. (I go through bouts of depression myself so I’m no stranger to it.) While overdosing can happen innocently enough- miscalculations and such, it can also be purposeful. I have seen stories posted in the mom’s group I’m in about their child deliberately giving themselves too much insulin and the mom’s are thankful they found them in time. I pray that thought never passes through his mind. But in just two short years, he’ll be in middle school, managing his diabetes on his own, carrying his supplies with him through the halls. At least that’s how it sounds anyway. But at this point, a half a unit too much of insulin (think the size of a the head of a pin) can send him low.

It’s hard not to be anxious and worried about it all the time. There have been more days than I can think of where I show up to work with puffy eyes from crying. There are days when I’m exhausted from staying up to check his blood sugar. The morning tend to be frantic, making sure he’s dosed for breakfast, he has his phone, and his carb counts are in his lunch box. It’s not big stuff, but it adds up to a lot of stuff to constantly be thinking about. I don’t wish this upon anyone.

Now I’m going to go wake him up from his slumber to force a cup of milk down his throat to perk his numbers back up so we don’t end up with sirens again like this morning.

A Wedding in Missoula, MT

Over the Labor Day weekend, we packed up the kids and traveled back to Montana to celebrate my sister, Kim, who was marrying her best friend of five years. We had been waiting in anticipation for this day for quite a while. I now have four brothers!! Yahoo!!

We were planning on sending the kids to school for a little bit Thursday morning while we packed the van up, but because the teachers were on strike I didn’t have to worry about breaking their perfect attendance in the first week of school. We were able to leave earlier than planned so there wasn’t a big rush to get there, though we had to do it all in one day regardless.

There were several stops for food breaks but we didn’t really take a big break until we made it to the Washington-Idaho state line. After a few attempts, we found an actual park to to run around in. (Turns out google maps can be a little deceiving!)

If I lived in the area, this would be my go-to-park. I don't recall there being playground equipment, but it was perfect for walking around, throwing a football, and just relaxing by the river. It was a gold mine! We spent far too long playing the football catching game "500". It was PAINFUL! Perry was the designated quarterback, and no one could catch a darn thing. If they were on track to catch it, it ended up bouncing off their face or going straight through their arms. Painful but comical.

 In between naps, we listened to a few audio books. On our way home from Newport, we listened to Hank the Cowdog and only had a little bit left in that one. Perry was annoyed we had to finish it just as he was closing his eyes for a nap. Between Idaho and Montana, we listened to James and the Giant Peach. I thought JP would like it.

 Even with all the sleeping on the way, the kids were zonked by the time we pulled in to Missoula, around 10pm. I don't blame them!

 While Perry and I ran off to a meeting first thing Friday morning, Nanny took the kids to the nearby park and ended up burying one of my children. The cousins thought this was pretty funny! JP is clearly missing the beach life.

 We had a little bit of time to spare before heading out to Kim house, so I opted for us to head to the golf course. This was probably the last course we had golfed, and that was two years ago! We've been meaning to get out, but I haven't been able to find a course that will allow kids to ride along.

 Each time we take HD golfing I am blown away by his hand eye coordination. Seriously. This kid is a rock star at golf. I struggled and he kept right up.

 Like, I mean I really struggled. HD nearly BEAT ME. I'm going to blame it all on my bad muscle memory.

 Saturday morning, Perry took the boys out to the golf course with the groom, his groomsmen, brother-in-law, and Papa Craig. I'm not entirely sure how the morning went because the girls were getting their nails done. Ms. Gail was spending quality time with her aunts and her newest cousin, who we just now finally met!

Ms. Gail was so patient the entire time we were there so the owner gave her a free manicure. SHE WAS IN LOVE WITH HER NAILS! I myself was slightly jealous.... 

 After a little diabetic heart attack that afternoon, I was reunited with HD. He was fine, but when those sirens go off on my phone...oh Lord help me! We spent the entire Saturday evening at Kim's house practicing for the wedding. The rehearsal was very straight forward, but my sister Kile panicked us thinking Kim didn't have a marriage license ready to sign. 

 After staying up a little too late baking and decorating the wedding cake, I made it out to the "White Raven" to start getting ready for the day. It was nice to hang out and just relax that morning.

 When my hair was completed I left the bridal room to go grab Kim so her hair could start getting curled. As soon as I opened the door, Kim went jogging past on her way outside, panic on her face as she just realized her dogs had arrived and immediately jumped into the pond. Luckily the photographer caught it all on film! (He shot my wedding, Kile's wedding, Perry's sister's wedding, now Kim's and next year he'll shoot Robin's too! Perry and I hold a record for reoccurring wedding guests he's photographed. #winning)

 Aren't we just so cute? I made him kiss me. I think I could feel his eyes rolling into his head. Hahahaha!

 I didn't snag a picture when the cake was done, but here was final cake, less one piece.

 Look at all of us grown up! Kim was such a beautiful bride! It's no wonder my co-workers referred to her as "the pretty one!" She's a bombshell!

 I had so much fun at the wedding. I'm glad Robin is getting married soon because I think wedding are so much fun! Honestly, I wish I could re-marry Perry just for the good times. My wedding was the first one I had really been to as an adult. They keep getting more and more fun!

Those boys of my just melt my heart!! And Ms. Gail <3 p="">

We made it home relatively early Monday evening so we had a movie night and watched "Indian in the Cupboard" because we had finished that audio book on our way to Newport earlier in the summer. Ms. Gail was soooo exhausted she couldn't make it through the movie. Is there anything sweeter than a child falling asleep on you? <3 p="">

Family Reunion in Newport, Oregon

I was going to start out by saying last month, but it’s been nearly two months now! Typically for Christmas we alternate between who’s family we spend the holiday with but as our kids grew older and nieces and nephews were added to the family, it became harder to get everyone together for the holidays. Instead of meeting for Christmas, we all agreed to meet at a different time for a nice, stress-free vacation. After some deliberation on dates and location, the decision was made to meet sometime in July in Newport, Oregon for about 5 days. We rented a beautiful home which had an amazing view of the Pacific Ocean. (You can check it out here!) It was so relaxing to watch the sunset over the ocean and very entertaining to watch the whales come out of the water. 

The house had a trail leading from the backyard down to the beach. It was about a 5 minute walk to Beverley Beach. We didn’t spend a ton of time there, but it was nice to be able to have the beach a short jaunt away. On our first full day, we spent the entire day exploring around near the Devil’s Punchbowl at low tide.

All the kids had fun looking for crabs, starfish, clams and whatever else the could find.

Do you even know how hard I had to work for this group selfie? Those kids were too excited to stand in one place for more than 3 seconds!

This is a panorama taken right outside the Devil's Punchbowl. It was beautiful! And the weather was amazing too! I was worried about it being cold and windy the whole trip, since every time I had been to the ocean before, I was miserable. Of the several days at the coast, we only had one windy day!

I think HD would have held every creature if we would have let him. He loves hunting for critters that's for sure! While he was playing in the tide pools, JP and his cousin were buried in sand, while Ms.Gail and their other cousin dumped water on them. It was so fun to watch!

The next day we spent a good portion of the morning/afternoon at Agate Beach. When we first arrived, most of the kids ran off with Grandma to see if they could find any agates (Grandma likes to collect them!) so Perry and I were left alone on a nearly empty beach. I had never made a sand castle before and this seemed like the perfect time and spot to do so! We spent at least two hours on this monstrosity! The kids helped a little. Just a little. We were very protective of it!

Perry and I were both proud of how it turned out. I was mainly the moat digger :)

Another fun activity the kids and I took part in was jump roping! Or kelp jumping as the case may be. I forgot how much fun jumping rope can be! It was a nice break from the castle building!

This was our view of the ocean from the deck. No need to zoom or anything. Simply beautiful! Makes me want to move to the coast!

And my handsome JP. He was pretty quite the whole trip - most every beach we explored, he insisted on being buried.

In good fun, I had the boys pose like this for me. I love it so much. We had some passer-bys giving me strange looks, so when I was done, I ran over to them and showed them the result. They loved it too!

It wouldn't be a vacation without s'mores! I just love this little girly!

After a windy morning at the Devil Punchbowl (we went back because we enjoyed it so much the first time!) the mom's stopped in for a wine tasting at the Flying Dutchman Winery. I have never done a wine tasting so this was a first for me, and it was wonderful! I ended up purchasing a bottle of raspberry wine and a new stemless wine glass for my itty-bitty collection.

For our last dinner on the coast, Perry, his sister and I went to town to see if we could find live crab to cook. We lucked out on our search by running into an old fisherman who gave us directions to find the boat "Chelsea Rose". If there's any to be had, that's where they'll be, and he was right! Thankfully we snagged a cooler before we left and managed to fit 6 live crabs inside. I believe we paid about $120 for the group of them. Not too shabby! HD was in HEAVEN when we brought them back!

Uncle Colin taught Perry the ins and outs of cooking crab. We had a little incident with one crab not fitting in the pot. Unfortunately HD was in the perfect spot, with his shirt off, to get a nice splash of boiling water on his chest when Perry tried to flick the crab down. Panic in the kitchen!

We ended up with *so*much*crab* but boy was it tasty! I already want to go back and do it again! Ms. Gail slept through most of dinner prep. I woke her up when we took the crabs out to fight on the floor. All the cousins (except for Ms. Gail) had a blast with the crabs shuffling around the kitchen. 

It was so so nice to see everyone again. We hadn't seen Perry's brother's family for almost two years, and at least half a year had gone by without seeing his sisters family too. It was a bittersweet vacation! I loved spending time with everyone, but goodbyes were hard, especially for me because the boys then went alllll the way back to spend the summer in MT with Grandma and Nanny.