Princesses DO Wear Glasses!!!!!

and Patches too.

We visited the eye doctor in August and Isabelle's lazy eye has gotten stronger, but the other eye has gotten weaker. So now we have to patch. We are patching for 2 hours a day. When the doctor told us that she would have to wear a patch she got very excited. She wanted me to put her patch on right then. When we got home and I got the chance to put her patch on she realized quickly that she did NOT like it. It has been like pulling teeth every single day since then to get her to wear the patch. She has been doing better with her glasses though.




After our appointment last April I bought her new glasses because her prescription had become much stronger. I let her pick out her new glasses and of course she picked out a pink pair. They look adorable and she really likes them.





On another note...to all of the parents out there that found this blog looking for something to help their little princesses become more at ease with their glasses there is hope!





A while back I was contacted by Pam Calvert. She is an author that has written a book called "Princess Peepers" and it is about a little princess that wears glasses. It was due out on September 1. I haven't gotten a chance to see the book yet. I should have gone over to Border's today to check it out. It seems to be on sale at Borders, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, and Amazon (according to my online search). I can't wait to get my hands on it and read it with Isabelle.



Pam was kind enough to allow me to post a link to her website and the website for the book. She also sent along some pictures from the book and of her own little princess reading it. Enjoy!!!


This first picture is of Pam (the author) and her little Princess!

First Day of School

She wasn't excited at all. Can you tell?

Isabelle started her first day of Pre-K on Monday. She is at a new school. It was a really hard decision for Thomas and I to make. We had to decide weather to send her back to our Church Pre-school program for a 4 day, half day program or to send her to a lottery funded 5 day all day pre-k. We decided to go with the lottery funded pre-k for a few different reasons.

When we were getting close to pre-k I started to get excited because where I am from all of the lottery funded pre-k programs are run through the school system. Or at least they were when my nephew went though the program about 9 years ago. To me that meant that there was a possibility of a school nurse being there and that made me feel a little more comfortable. As I started the process of researching the pre-k programs in our area I found out that they are all in day care centers. I couldn't believe it. After calling the 2 centers closest to our house I found out that one of them had experience with Type 1. My goal was to get her into that program. Long story short, she ended up on their waiting list. I was bummed. I went ahead and secured her a position in our church pre-school that she has been in since she was 2.

Then when the kids were at my Mom's at the end of May I was driving past a lottery funded pre-k program that had a sign out front that said that they were enrolling. Not to mention that just under that sign they were advertising that they were NAEYC Accredited. I went in and looked around and talked to the Director and the Owner and signed her up. That is where she is now.

I went in the week before school started to meet with her teacher and her assistant teacher and to train everyone on what they would need to do to take care of Isabelle. This is the first time I have had to 'train' anyone on how to give Isabelle insulin and how to use our pump.

The meeting went well, but I could sense some apprehension. But I had to keep remembering that ANYONE would feel apprehension when they were learning how to take care of a child with d. God knows I did. They asked me to come to school with her the first day so that I would be there to work everything out. I agreed to do that but also warned them that I might have to bring Alex with me as babysitters are few and far between. Oh yeah...the director made a comment during the meeting that she didn't think that licensing would allow them to give insulin. I said that they would have to. The one thing that makes the whole situation more difficult is that they feed the children while they are there. Two snacks and lunch.

The first day went pretty well. One of my mommy friends B. kept Alex for me for the entire day. Thank you B!!! That definitely made things easier. I went in with her and we got started. Isabelle liked her new friends. I went and met with the women who prepares the food. I took the menu (they actually gave it to me when I signed her up) and we went over it together. I figured out carb counts as closely as I could and copied it for everyone. I walked her teachers through checking her finger and giving her boluses that day. Everything seemed to be working out OK, but when we came in from playing outside before lunch they missed Isabelle saying that she was very tired and hungry. That is Izzy speak for I am LOW. I had told them this verbally and in writing at our meeting. I told them that they needed to go ahead and check her now instead of waiting the 10 minutes until lunch. They did and she was low. We treated her and everything was fine. It did bug me that they didn't notice her feeling tired and hungry.

After that first day I told Isabelle that she would have to make sure that if she felt bad at all that she needed to take one of her teachers by the hand and tell them that she was not feeling well so that they could check her finger. She said that she would, but who wants to give a 4 year old that kind of responsibility? One of the things that I hate the most about D is that it makes my little girl grow up more quickly in ways that I don't want her to.

The second day was really her first day without Mommy. It went great!!! Ms. R. and I have quickly developed a system of her calling me whenever she checks Isabelle. That way I can help her decided how much insulin to give her and she gets confirmation on what she is doing so that she doesn't mess anything up (her words not mine).

Izzy has been in school for 4 days now and it is going really great! The teachers have had to handle a couple of lows and they did really great. I feel much more relaxed then I have in I don't even remember how long. I have spent my days with Alex which I think has helped me feel more relaxed because I feel that he is finally getting some of the mommy time that he has not been able to have because of Izzy having D. When she was in the church pre-school she was only there 3 days a week and only there 4 hours out of the day. We had so many problems last year that we ended up spending a LOT of time at the school so he really didn't get much time with me. That has all changed.

Now that I am a bit more relaxed maybe I will be able to get back to blogging on a semi-regular basis.

Snips and Snails and Puppydog tails

I grew up the middle of three children and the only girl. I was a tomboy, but as I grew I came to realize that boys are gross. They tend to get dirtier then girls, they always seem to 'accidentally' get yucky stuff everywhere. It was my experience that when you are sharing a bathroom with a boy there are going to be boogers and pee somewhere.

Alex is such a sweet little guy. Imagine my amazement when I realized that he is a stinky boy! LOL!

I went into his room the other afternoon to wake him up because I needed to pick Izzy up from school. He was hard to wake up and looked like he really wanted to stay asleep. I rolled him over and started to change his diaper. He passed some gas and we both laughed. I got his pants off and started removing his diaper. As soon as I got the diaper off he tooted again. This one really surprised me and because he had not pooped yet, it alarmed me. I jumped. Alex thought this was hilarious. We both ended up laughing.

Then comes the stinky boy part. He said "Watch this Mommy!" I saw his little body tense up and the little booger pooted at will! Then he did it again 3 more times! Geez...if he can do this at 2 what will he be like at 13????

Oh yeah...shouldn't I get bonus points for how many different words I used for passing gas? LOL!

Sweet nothings in my ear

My mornings have changed a little with the kids. Izzy wakes up and she usually comes and cuddles with me until we hear Alex. Then she runs in and lets him out of his room. Sometimes she just goes straight there.

This morning Izzy stopped by Alex's room and let him out before coming into my room. Alex was the first to wake me. He jumped up onto the bed next to me and put his head down on me in a hug. Then he said, "Hi Mommy! You look beautiful! I love you!"

So incredibly sweet. What a way to start the day.

Pumps are Ggggrrrreeeaaattt!

We finally got started on our pump. We choose the Omni Pod for Isabelle because it did not have any tubing and it seemed to offer everything else that we wanted in a pump.

We started a saline start on June 16 and then we went in on June 20 to do the insulin start. The saline start went smoothly. We had a good time learning the pump during the week and Isabelle didn't complain too much when we had to change the pod and believe it or not she didn't even complain about the insertion. She calls it the scary tickle because you never know when it is going to happen. She does not however like having to take the old pod off. It seems that removing the sticky tape that holds the pod on is the biggest issue. She says that it hurts.

When we were at the endo's office doing the insulin start Isabelle pitched the biggest fit because we had to take the old pod off and put a new one on. She did NOT like it and the whole office heard about it. It reminded me of our early days on insulin shots. I practically had to hold her down to get the new pod on her. We left the office feeling really excited and hopeful. But, I was dreading having to be up all night. We were told that we would have to check her BS's every 2 hours for the first 24 hours on the pump and then every 4 hours the second day on the pump including throughout the night.

I had planned to do something special with Isabelle to commemorate the new pump. She decided that she wanted to go to Krispy Kreme and watch them make donuts and have one. So off we went to KK. When we were at the endo's office she was in the low 200's. Nice number considering the major screaming and fit that was thrown. By the time we got to KK her blood sugar was in the low 300's. Still not too bad considering the emotions of the afternoon. So we bolused for the donut and the high and went home to give Daddy-O and Alex their donuts.

I decided to go to the mall and let the kids play in the fountain to kind of wind down the day. When we made it to the fountain I checked her BS to make sure that she wasn't low because she had a big bolus. Nope. Not a chance. She was in the low 400's. I checked for keytones, but luckily none. I decided to let her play and gave her lots of water. When we were leaving I checked her again. She was still in the low 400's. I bolused her again.

We get home and it was about 3 hours after we left the endo's office. I was trying not to freak out. It was time for dinner so I was in the process of making her a hotdog when my cell phone rang. It was Nurse T. from the endo's office just checking in on us. I have never been so relieved to hear from someone in my life! I was totally trying not to freak out and Thomas had been in a car accident the evening before and was upstairs asleep so I was on my own. T walked me through everything. And we decided to wait for another hour to see if she would come down or not. I was thinking at this point that I needed to change that pod. We finally decided an hour later to change the pod because obviously there was no insulin getting through. Amidst much shrieking and crying we got the pod changed, a bath, and she finally fell asleep. She was still in the 400's. After checking her every hour for the next three hours we were still not seeing any signs of the pump working. I was totally freaking out. T was calling to check in every hour. We finally decided around midnight that the pod was going to have to be disconnected and we were going to have to give her shots. So at midnight I was giving her Humalog and Lantus. She finally came down around 3 am. I can't believe that she made it through the night with no keytones. Towards the end of the night she was at moderate, but by the morning she was negative.

I was so incredibly nervous and feeling very discouraged. I didn't know what to do. We decided to just take a break from the pump on Saturday and try again either Saturday evening or Sunday.

Saturday came and we were having to give shots. Late in the afternoon we put on a new pod in a new spot. It worked! Later that evening I picked up the owner's manual to read over it again to see if there was something that we missed. It suggested pinching up the skin around the pod before insertion. Especially when being placed on a spot that is lean. Duh! I don't know how we missed that the first time through the book or if they mentioned it at the endo's how we missed it then. Izzy is lean everywhere. When we did our next pod change I pinched and it worked.

I think that from Friday night to Monday night I got maybe 8 hours of sleep. I'm still trying to catch up. Thomas let me get in a long nap yesterday so that has helped enormously.

The biggest problem that we are having now is that when we change a pod her numbers are going high. I think we might have gotten it figured out though. Now when I know that we are going to change a pod I give her a double bolus of her basel dosage. That has seemed to do the trick.

Isabelle is doing really great with her pump. She loves it. She has decided that she likes it much better then shots. By the time of our 4th pod change she quit screaming and complaining. Now she says that she is ready for the tickle and she is not scared anymore. She is soooo brave!!! I can't believe that she has done so well. One evening she was having some ice cream and Thomas told her that she could have more ice cream because she had a pump now. That seemed to change how she felt about the pump.

Izzy's BS numbers have been really great. It is amazing how much the pump has done for that. It has also relaxed our lives a great deal. I no longer have to stop whatever I am doing to sit down with a paper and calculator and figure out what she needs for her insulin. It makes a huge difference to just put in how many carbs she has eaten and push a button.

So, overall, even with the craziness at the beginning it is really great. We are really happy with the Omni Pod. We have had some issues with the pod falling off. But, I dare say that most of that is due to having a very active preschooler. She is learning to be more careful with it. The first week she pulled one off when she slid into a chair. It was on her lower back and just popped off part of it. The cannula stayed in so I just taped it onto her until we could get home and change it. Today she was playing with me and trying to run from me and knocked the entire pod off after hitting the wall. I guess that we have been lucky that on the days that she has had a pod fall off it has been a day to change the pod anyway. We also had an issue with the water and the pod. Seems we were only supposed to allow her to be in the water for 30 minutes at a time. I remember the cde telling me that but for some reason it went in one ear and out the other. So, it fell off. But, we won't let that happen again. :) Live and learn.

Sorry this post has been so long and crazy. I have been trying to find the time to post and have just been so exhausted from loosing so much sleep that I haven't done it.

Craziness

I have sooooo much to blog about diabetes wise, but to be honest I just don't have the words or the energy to find them.

Suffice it to say that starting on the pump did not go smoothly. Things are getting better, but I'm guarded. I will try to sit down tomorrow after I have dealt with the aftermath of a weekend without housework and write all of my thoughts down.

Finally, a MeMe post

Penny tagged me a while ago, and I have never gotten around to it. So here it is.

Once you’ve been tagged, you have to write a blog with 10 weird, random, facts, habits or goals about yourself. At the end, choose 6 people to be tagged, list their names & why you tagged them. Don’t forget to leave them a comment saying “You’re it!” & to go read your blog. You cannot tag the person that tagged you, so since you’re not allowed to tag me back; let me know when you are done so I can go read YOUR weird, random, facts, habits and goals. Have fun!


1. I used to be a portrait photographer. But, I rarely take pictures of my kids. I guess I'm kinda lazy that way.

2. We have the coolest new park near our house. It seriously makes me want to be a kid again.

3. I am a horrible housekeeper.

4. My favorite flavor is raspberry.

5. I cannot stand to go to bed without brushing my teeth.

6. The music from Final Fantasy X makes me want to scream. Literally. Ask my husband.

7. I am addicted to Guiding Light and I have been since spending the summer with my Lanny when I was in 3rd grade.

8. Before I had children I was actually quite intelligent. Lately I feel like all I use my brain for is counting carbs and figuring out how much insulin to give.

9. I love chic lit books. Anything that takes me out of my normal life and makes me not think too much is awesome.

10. I used to be a Resident Advisor in college.

Ok. That's about it. Off to tag some more people.