Updates and FUN STUFF!!!

Well, it has been about 6 weeks since Super Girl's diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes. In that month we have been to a class, seen her new Endocrinologist, and changed insulin dosing 4 times! In fact, I think we are due for another change today! I will be calling the Juvenile Diabetes Nurse line to report blood sugars for the past few weeks, which usually means a change is coming! Just when you get your dosing schedule memorized, it changes! Oh well, I guess it's a good review for my math skills :) Anyway, things are slowly getting back to "normal". Summer is coming quickly (1 1/2 weeks away) and I am DREADING EVERY MINUTE OF IT!!! I wish we were on a year-round schedule where breaks were 3 weeks instead of 3 months! I have been trying to figure out how to keep everyone sane and safe throughout the summer, and I found an idea HERE to have activity jars with strips in it that each child gets to pick one for the day.So I have been assembling activities, places to go, things to eat etc. There are 81 days of summer break(including weekends) So I am trying to come up with 81 things for each jar. I am also making "homework" pages for both kids that they must do BEFORE we get to the fun! Anyway, here are some of the ideas I have come up with so far:

1.     Go on a photo scavenger hunt

2.     Make a masterpiece with sidewalk chalk

3.     Go on a bike ride

4.     Make a treasure map and go on a hunt

5.     Make your own Memory game and play

6.     Build a bird house

7.     Write and illustrate your own story

8.     Make a crayon/watercolor painting

9.     Write some thank you notes

10. Create artwork using your hand/footprints

11. Make old coins shiny w/ salt and vinegar

12. Play Red Light/Green Light

13. Play “Hot and Cold”

14. Play Hide and Seek

15. Make an obstacle course and time yourselves

16. Play Hopscotch

17. Make a collage of your favorite things

18. Make an ABC book

19. Go on a color hunt

20. Make masks from paper plates

21. Fingerpaint with pudding

22. Wash cars and bikes

23. Learn some origami

24. Have a pretend “drive-in” theater

25. Create puzzles from drawings/photos

26. Play a board game

27. Draw while blindfolded

28. Make slime

29. Play musical chairs or freeze dance

30. Play charades

31. Build a fort

32. Straw and cotton ball race on the kitchen table

33. Make a family tree

34. Do something nice for someone else

35. Memorize a scripture

36. Do a science experiment

37. Do the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment

38. Make up a secret code and write notes

39. Write messages with invisible ink

40. Go to a park

41. Check out books at the library

42. Go to the Church History Museum

43. Go to the Aquarium

44. Go to the Gateway fountains

45. Go to Liberty Park

46. Go to Raging Waters

47. Go to Discovery Gateway

48. Buy 3 things at the Dollar Store

49.Go to Jordan River Parkway

50. Go to Ogden Treehouse Museum

51. Go to Museum of Natural History

52. Go to Splash pads (Herriman)

53. Go to Olympic park

54. Go to Thanksgiving Point

55. Go to Clark Planetarium

56. Go to Timpanogos Cave

57. Go to Temple Square

58. Go to Wild West Jordan Park

59. Go to Boondocks

60. Go bowling

61. Go to Great Salt Lake

62. Bake a cake from scratch

63. Make Rice Krispy treats

64. Make indoor smores

65. Make popsicles

66. Make fruit kabobs

67. Bake cookies (and deliver them)

68. Bake cupcakes and decorate them

69. Make Muddy buddies

70. Make Smoothies

71. Take a picnic somewhere

72. Make sugar cookies and decorate

73. Try a new recipe together

74. Make brownies

75. Make an edible necklace—cheerios, fruit loops, etc.

76. Eat Graham Crackers and frosting

77. Use candy melts to make suckers

78. Eat at Arctic Circle

79. Eat at McDonalds

80. Eat at Subway

81. Eat at Burger King

As you can see it's a mixed bag of places to go, things to do, and what to eat. We also have our Pass of All Passes this summer, so we can go to Seven Peaks and Trafalga several times each.

This week, Super Girl has fun activities at school each day. Today is pet day where kids can bring their real pets, or a stuffed animal, or a drawing of a pet they would like to have. Since we have a fish, we decided to take a stuffed animal pet-the BIGGEST stuffed ELEPHANT we have! Tomorrow is picnic day where they get to bring lunch and play on the "big kids" playground equipment! Wednesday is bubble day where they clean the classroom and play with bubbles outside after they are done. Thursday the kids get to eat lunch in the cafeteria and after go to a"drive in movie" with cardboard box cars they have made. We finished Super Girl's today! She named it "Rainbow Racer" because we used EVERY color of paint we had!

 Isn't it awesome! Well, that's all for now!

The ways 1 week can change your world...

Things are pretty much back to normal...

Super Boy and Super Girl are fighting and arguing (like usual) over tiny things...

The house is somewhere between natural disaster area and spotless...

and Super Girl has 

TYPE 1 DIABETES...

WAIT...

WHAT???

Yes, you read that right! The last week has been monumental in our lives.

Thursday April 5, 2012 will go down in history as the day that changed our lives forever...again...

Instead of welcoming a new baby to our family (that was what changed our lives last time...), we welcomed nurses, doctors, and technicians at Primary Children's Hospital into our lives.

It all started a couple of weeks prior when Super Girl started wetting the bed EVERY NIGHT. I thought, "Oh, she is just drinking too much water at night" so I told her to stop drinking so much water. 

She kept wetting the bed, so I made her wear pull-up diapers at night...

which she peed through EVERY NIGHT, ATLEAST TWICE A NIGHT...

so I asked her if anything was upsetting her at home or at school, she said no...

and I am thinking "maybe she has a bladder infection or similar problem... 

then Thursday came around, and we had a nice SUGAR FILLED MORNING...

after eating a few jelly beans, Super Girl complained that her stomach felt ill...

and the red flags SMACKED ME IN THE FACE...

I remembered Super Girl's aunt who was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes a few years ago...

she told us how she had a soda and some cheesecake and felt so sick that she thought she had food poisoning from bad cheesecake...

and I remembered a Baby Sitters Club book in which one of the girls is up at night, super thirsty, and her mom tells her that she thinks they need to go to the doctor...

where they find out that the girl has Type 1 Diabetes...

I am a border-line hypoglycemic (my blood sugar gets low if I don't eat every 6 hours or so)...

so I decide to test her blood sugar on my meter, just to see...

and the number comes back as "HI", which means over 600...

so I tested again thinking maybe that that strip was bad...

and it was "HI" again...

so I tested myself to make sure the whole batch of strips wasn't bad...

and I was 87 (normal for me)...

so I did a control test just to make sure my reading was correct, and the control came back fine...

so I did 1 last test on Super Girl, using a different finger...

and it was "HI" again...

so I called her doctor and told him what was going on...

he said to bring her in a few hours later and to take her to the E.R. if she became drowsy...

so, NATURALLY, I FREAKED OUT!!!

Super Girl had a tummy ache, so she wanted to lay down...

so, NATURALLY, I FREAKED OUT!!!

I talked to Hot Mama and she said to follow my gut...

so I decided to take her to the hospital...

halfway there I thought "Grandma had to deal with diabetes, maybe she has an opinion"...

so we stopped there and she suggested calling the hospital...

so I talked with a WONDERFUL MAN who told me Super Girl was in no immediate danger, and to take her to her scheduled appointment later that day...

so when we got to the appointment, the doctor checked her blood sugar...

and it was "HI" again, over 600...AGAIN...3 hours after eating!!!

so, NATURALLY, I FREAKED OUT!!!

The doctor said there was no reason for her sugar to be that high unless she had diabetes...

so, NATURALLY, I FREAKED OUT!!!

Then he said she would need to be admitted to the hospital for a couple of days so we could get her sugar under control and be educated on how to deal with this new diagnosis...

so, NATURALLY, I FREAKED OUT!!!

The doctor left the room to make some arrangements...

and I LOST IT...

I started crying and couldn't stop...

I called Tall Boy to let him know what was going on, and he was SO CALM...

he helped me calm down and give him the information I had...

so we went home and packed a couple of bags and headed to Grandma's house to let Super Boy stay there while I picked up Tall Boy from work and drove Super Girl to Primary Children's Hospital to be admitted...

we arrived around 6:40p, got checked into the ER, and had super Girl's blood sugar taken...

it was 758, 6 hours after eating!!!

They gave her a shot of insulin and let us go eat dinner in the cafeteria...

my stomach was in knots from the stress, so this is all I could eat...

around 10:30 P.M., after being in the E.R. for HOURS...we FINALLY got Super Girl into a room in the hospital...

 they had really cute animals throughout the hospital...we were in the F(frog) wing...

 

but they also had an E (elephant), G (gorilla) & H (hippo) wing on our floor

we were in the lion room...

 

with an AWESOME view of the parking structure outside :)

 Super Boy only cared that they had a Play Station 2 in our room!

 

 and this is how Super Girl looked the whole time...just smiles!!!

 we were taught so many things about how the body works and how to manage diabetes...

I just cannot sing the praises of Primary Children's Hospital loud enough. They had wonderful staff to educate us, a great play room with free crafts and fun for all who needed a little break, and amazing services for bringing fun to the room when we couldn't leave. We had the world at our fingertips just by dialing our in-room phone.

 Now we are home, adjusting to a new carb-counting lifestyle, full of finger pokes and needle sticks, testing strips and LOTS of LOVE...

We love you SO MUCH Super Girl, we are so proud of the way you are handling all of this...we can all learn a lot from your attitude and smile!

Happy Birthday Super Boy!!!

 

10 years ago I was starting to have severe labor pains after 30 hours of pitocin (induction medicine) 6 HOURS later (3 of which were PUSHING) we finally had a C-section to deliver our baby boy....the one we thought was a girl...

Tall Boy was SO HAPPY!!! 

Although it was the most painful and difficult thing my body had ever done, we finally had a child to join our family! What a blessing he has been!

 

From a fun and mischievous infant...

 

... to being a great big brother to Super Girl!

He has become so self sufficient...

 

and so willing to serve others...

and respectful and appreciative of his family...

 

 

with his own hopes and beliefs...

 

likes and dislikes...

with so much potential for whatever he wants to be!

Happy Birthday Super Boy! You are loved so much more than you will ever know!

Yet another project DONE!!!

Remember in my previous post when I said I needed to figure out storage solutions for my sewing stash so it wouldn't look like this every time I had a project...

 

 

Well,I did it! I bought these carts at Target for $25 each... 

a little spendy, but 2 fit perfectly on the side of my big fabric bins, and slide out for easy access...

 And now when I close the curtain, it barely pokes out!!! TA DA!!!!

 Another project I finished Super Girl's Easter dress (everything but the poofy slip). It was inspired by this headband we found while on a mommy-daughter date...

Isn't it ADORABLE!!!???

And I have been working on some chore cards for the kiddos to start teaching them how to REALLY clean the house with as little supervision as possible! I got the idea from this blog, but I expanded on her idea for mine...

And each area has a bucket with all the cleaning supplies they will need for each room. The cards will be laminated and clipped on the handle of the bucket using a book ring! I am really excited to "EDUCATE" my children this Saturday!!!

That's all for now!!!