Sweet, Sweet Sleep

We have been making great strides in our household. Isabelle has been sleeping through the night again!!!!! Yeah! She stopped sleeping through the night right after she was diagnosed last April. She still isn't doing it every night, but she has done it at least three times in the last week and a half. That is MAJOR progress. I know that I feel better. It is nice to get some uninterrupted sleep.



Things started to get better after Christmas. She HAD to sleep in her own bed because Meme and Pawpaw were sleeping in the Queen size bed. That got the ball rolling. After the holidays were over and everyone left, Isabelle stayed in her bed. I don't know exactly what happened to make her stay in her own bed all night long, but whatever it is I am very thankful!

Hmmmm...

Isabelle surprised me yesterday morning by telling me, "Mommy, I'm not scared of the pump anymore. Maybe I will get one."

What a brave girl. She has been scared of the idea of a pump for a couple of months now, really since I first mentioned it to her. There is a teenager at church who has Type 1 and is on a pump. C has shown Izzy her pump and talked to her about it trying to help her not be afraid. Maybe it is working. We have an Endo appointment on the 22nd of this month. Can't wait to talk to the doctor about a pump. Might help us get her numbers better under control.

Alex's hard day

Little Alex had a hard day today. He woke up cranky and I had to forcibly dress him. Loads of fun for both of us. After dropping Izzy off at pre-school I took him to his first eye doctor appointment. Of course they dialated his eyes. He did not like it. Who could blame him though. I don't like it much either. After waiting for 30 minutes for the dialation to take effect they took him back into the room and check him. They found that he is farsighted in his left eye so we may have to watch out for some eye crossing from him too. The doc wanted us to wait for another 15 minutes to make sure that the difference in his eyes wasn't due to the right eye not being dialated as much so we waited some more. Have I ever mentioned that he NEVER sits still? It was a long visit. We finally got finished and left. I had some sunglasses for him, but he wouldn't leave them on. Thankfully it was a little overcast today.



When we left we had to go to get Isabelle and take her something else for lunch. Her pre-school called just as we were going into Alex's appointment saying that her blood sugar was 301 and she was hungry. I told them to give her the pepperoni and cheese that I had packed for her lunch and that I would bring her something else for lunch. I stopped to get her something and Alex didn't want to get out of the car. He had a screaming fit about it and I just carried him into the grocery store and grabbed what I needed and checked out as quickly as possible. When we got back to the van he threw another fit because he didn't want to get in his seat. I strapped him in anyway as we were trying to beat the clock.



We finally got to the school a little later then we should have been there and he threw another fit about getting out of the van again. I think he just wanted to fall asleep. We went in and gave Isabelle her insulin and back out to the van again. Another screaming fit about getting back into the car seat. By this point I was really feeling sorry for him, but was also ready to scream myself. We made it home and I put him down for his nap after some cuddling and rocking. He slept for 2 1/2 hours. I didn't have the heart to wake him up. He woke up in a much better mood even though his beautiful blue eyes were still dialated.



Alex ended his day by telling his Daddy and I a joke.



Alex- Why chicken cross the road Mommy?





M-I don't know Alex, why did the chicken cross the road?



A- Get to the other side.



Repeat with Daddy and then again with Mommy at least 20 times before he went to bed.



LOL!!!! What a trooper. It is so nice to have a child that goes with the flow.

Quicky's Redemption

Major drama today. I was cleaning the kitchen and getting ready for dinner this evening and I decided that poor Quicky needed clean water. I didn't mention this out loud as the last few times Isabelle has wanted to 'help'. It makes things much harder when you are changing the water so I kept my mouth shut.

Things started smoothly. I transfered Quicky (yes...Isabelle named him) along with some very yucky water to another container and cleaned his tank and the rocks and plant in it. I filled the tank with clean water and put the water conditioner in. Then I got water started for spaghetti and continued tidying up the kitchen. When I thought that the clean water was at room temperature and Quicky would not go into shock I decided to put him into his freshly cleaned tank. This is when the drama truely began.

I emptied most of the gross yucky water into the sink and a horrible thought crossed my mind...what would happen if Quicky decided not to cooperate and he started flipping around? I shoudl really be doing this with the sink plugged. Stupid me didn't stop and plug the sink and wouldn't you know it, the darn fish started flipping around and he flipped out of my hand and down the drain!!!! I gasped in horror. Isabelle popped up and asked me what was wrong.

At this point I had my hand in the garbage disposal as far as it would go trying to find the darn fish. Izzy walked around the corner into the kitchen and saw me with my hand in the sink, looking frantic. After searching through the muck I finally gave up and told her that Quicky was in the sewer and he was finding new friends.

She totally freaked! She started crying and wailing and asked me what happened. I explained what had happened and she said that she wanted to talk to Daddy. NOW! I was trying to calm her down, she was almost hysterical at this point, so I grabbed the phone and using the speed dial called Thomas. Isabelle said that she wanted to tell him what happened so I put her on the phone. Of course he couldn't understand what she was saying because she was frantic. I took the phone and explained what had happened. He didn't quite know what to say. I gave the phone back to Isabelle planning our trip to Pet Smart to replace the fish.

I started to put the tank away and picked up the sponge that had been left on the counter and was about to put it back into the sponge basket that is on the side of my sink. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something strange in the basket and decided (thank God) to take the couple of seconds to see what it was. It was Quicky!!!! I grabbed that basket off of the sink and screamed, "It's Quicky!!!! He's here. I found him." I dumped him back into his tank and low and behold the darn fish started swimming around glad to be in the water again.

I have no idea how he lasted that long. The whole situation couldn't have takend longer then 3 minutes, but man, how long can a fish out of water last??? I'm still wondering if he will make it through the night. He is a fish with 9 lives.

By the way...Izzy took that picture of Quicky. :)

Brotherly Love

My kids are like every other set of siblings out there. Sometimes they just absolutely love each other and other times they can't stand the sight of one another. We have been having lots of sibling rivalry lately. Mostly consisting of screaming fits because Alex is in Isabelle's way and she can't watch the t.v.. Then there are the fights because Isabelle takes EVERYTHING that Alex ever picks up. One of those ended with Alex biting Isabelle on the arm. I felt bad that I had to punish him for that...Izzy really did have it coming.

After dealing with the fighting on a daily basis it is amazing when something like this happens.

First a little background. Those of you who know us know that we deal with Type 1 Diabetes on a daily basis since Isabelle has it. Alex was just over a year old when Isabelle was diagnosed. I have often felt like sweet little Alex has been put on the back burner the last 10 months while we have been dealing with learning the ins and outs of this disease. He has had a front row seat. He has often been in my lap as I draw up insulin or give Isabelle her injections or check her finger. I never realized how much he has taken in.

Recently as I stated before, there has been quite a bit of sibling rivalry going on around our house. I know that Alex really wants more of Mommy's attention. He is on my lap every chance he gets. I really even think that his recent interest in t.v. is because it is a time that he can sit in my lap and enjoy some time without inturruption. The other day I was sitting at the table writing down something to do with Izzy's diabetes when Alex climbed into my lap and grabbed Izzy's test kit off of the table and said "Check finger Mommy." I of course that it was charming and sweet. Isn't it nice to want to be so much like your sister that you want to have your finger checked too? Then, one evening we were in the living room and I was giving Izzy her insulin shot which was very trying since she was screaming and fighting me about it, Alex was sitting right next to her and when I got done Alex said, "Mommy insulin shot too!" I asked him to repeat what he said. He repeated it. I didn't know what to say. I told him that he didn't need insulin shots.

The next day Alex found the play doctor's kit. What does every kids doctors kit have in it? A shot. He pulled it out and put it to his little leg and said "Owww!!!!! Insulin shot Mommy! Hurt. Owwww!!!!" I almost fell over. I told him that they don't always hurt. He walked around with that shot for a few days.

Last weekend we were all in the car and Izzy's diabetes kit was on the seat next to Alex. I guess he was bored so he stared pulling things out. He grabbed the notebook that I write all of her meals, carbs, and insulin shots in and he was looking at it. I asked him what he was doing and he said, " Figuring out Mommy." That is what I say when I am trying to figure out how much insulin to give Isabelle. I can't freaking believe how smart and how sweet he is. He is so empathetic. I can't believe how much he worries about his sister. He often tells me in the morning that Izzy is crying if she has been up during the night crying.

I hope that Isabelle knows some day what a wonderful brother she has and how much he loves her. I have two brothers and it is hard for me to believe that either of them would want to take an insulin shot for me if I had to have them. I am so blessed to have two such wonderful children. Thank you God for my wonderful family.