A lot of fun yesterday

We started off the day bringing Sam to the Country Mile Day School for two hours. While he was there Kailyn and I cleaned together. We had to get ready because
the kids had a play date with their good friends the Warehams. There are four kids in the family, but only 3 come because the youngest is only two. So there were 2 six year old girls, 1 eight year old girl and 2 four year old boys here.(5 total) This was the first play date with people outside the family since Kailyn's diagnosis and it went really well. I only had to referee a little bit and there was no major damage done. We thought they might have ruined the heating system for a bit after we realized we had no heat this morning, but we figured out that they had flicked the heating switch by the stairs off. Kailyn and Isabelle even picked up her room without me asking.

We attempted a visit to Grammie's chickens in the wind and the rain, but ended up looking really quick and then coming back home because the wind was really strong. All I could think of was seeing 5 kids being blown across the field. That was an adventure that they thought was cool though.

Kailyn was extremely excited to show her friends how she pricked her finger and how she took her shots. She also bragged about how she got to have soda. She got to demonstrate that she was the only kid that got soda when she was low one time. She went low a couple of times because she was burning up so much energy and eating the same amount she usually does.

After the playdate they ate at 4 (they still have not turned back time) and then quickly called Grammie and Grampa to see if they could go over to see their Great Nana who was staying the night en route to New York for Thanksgiving. They had fun playing with her for about an hour.

They basically did not stop yesterday, but it was a huge success with no major dramatics. Kailyn still went to bed at 10pm because she worked on a magazine with pictures.(she has endless energy) Sam crashed a little before 8pm.

Diabetes in remission?

Well, at least I know they are working on it. Rumors have it that they want to start human trials within a year.

http://news.ucsf.edu/releases/cancer-drugs-type-1-diabetes/

Sam was just chasing

Kailyn, growling like a monster and she was screaching. When she got to me he stopped dead in his tracks and looks at her and says, "It ok Kaiyn (he does not say the L) I just pretending. I not a monster."

My artist

Kailyn has been using some stickers that Nanie gave us a while ago to decorate her room. The sports one were supposed to be for Sam, but she likes basketball, soccer and skating so she thought they were appropriate for her. She also has been using supplies that her Great Nana gave her to use for projects. She took my camera and took some pictures tonight. I tried to perk her up because she said her stomach hurt and this means she is either sick or something is bothering her. Using my camera takes her mind off of it and the stomach aches go away. Above are a couple of her pictures. She was so proud of her Diabetes sign. I made that Kailyn sign before she was born. Both of the kids have them in their rooms. Sam's is Blue. The wrapping paper artwork is from her Great Nana's project stuff. The red lines on the molding to her closet door are where she measured both the height of herself and Samuel.(In washable marker)

Sam is so funny lately

He is having another language burst and is coming out with things I remember telling people he did not understand.
Tonight he was faking being sick and wanted to go to the Doctor with Kailyn and I so bad. He said, "My tummy hurt, my throat hurt, my head hurt". I checked his throat and it was fine so we went off while he cried. When we got home he poked his head out the door to the garage with a big grin and said, "Mommy, me not sick anymore, me not crying" Kailyn was crying at that point and whenever she is crying or misbehaving (in his opinion) he LOVES to point out that he is behaving and not crying.

We went to Nanie and Grampa's yesterday and he stayed with Nanie while I went to the Doctor. He had a great time having one on one with her. On the way down he told me, "Nanie live far away, Aunt Katie live close and we live with Grammie Grandpa". I remember telling his teacher who was asking him that question last year that he did not understand that concept. He also was telling Nanie about all the different trucks names. Specifically the difference between Monster trucks and regular ones. I did not know that he knew this. Nanie gave him a pamphlet book from one of the toys she opened up that had lots of different trucks in it. He insists that he is going to get them all and told Nanie to go to the store and buy them for him ;) Nanie also gave us a gingerbread house to make for Christmas. Sam remembered this from last year. He wanted to do it that day, but I told him we had to wait until it snows. Hopefully it won't snow until after Thanksgiving. We actually ended up doing two last year. When we got home from Nanie's he kept asking about it. I have it safely hidden away until the appropriate time.

He is doing well at both schools and has started to draw pictures that are recognizable. Today he brought home a picture that looked like a big dinosaur and he had his name prominently written on it. (He is REALLY good at writing his name now). He tried to tell me the name of it, but I had no idea because it was some sort of dinosaur. His favorite thing to do at home is to make houses out of the chairs, cushions and pillows. It takes up most of the living room and he even makes a bed. Kailyn does this with him too. They both were playing school the other day and Kailyn was teaching him about question marks, exclamation points and periods. He copied what she wrote perfectly. We are so happy for Sam. Our only sticking point is bedtime, but even tonight he went without a battle. We shall see. He makes me smile all the time.

We had a good two week run.

Where Kailyn had pretty good stable numbers, was not ill and made it through school all week. That ended Monday. Its ok though. I expect it and as the Doctor tonight pointed out. Diabetics have to fight the viruses off harder. We had a waffle incident on Monday, where the kids ate bad waffles. Both got sick simultaneously. They were bad waffles and all seemed fine by the afternoon, although Kailyn's numbers were all over the place. Don't ask me how we got bad waffles. I really don't know. I just know that we are getting a bunch of coupons in the mail to replace them because I called the company. The blood glucose numbers were the same yesterday 60-470 and she said her throat was scratchy. The nurse and I new something was brewing because the last time her numbers were as high as they are now she got sick.

I got the call late this afternoon that she could not stay in class and was laying on the bed in the clinic. She was crying basically the whole afternoon over things that normally don't bother her, wanted me to hold her and by 5 was asking to go see the doctor so we went. She has white patches all over her throat, but the test came back negative. The doctor said to wait a week. I will wait until Monday at the latest. They put diabetics on antibiotics regardless if it has been a week. Right now she is in my bed and will stay there. She went low early the other night and that stresses Seth and I both out. I wrote the teacher an e-mail and will get her work to work on next week. She has the whole week off. Kailyn was sitting next to me and was reading the letter as I typed. I had to help her with a few words and she had me add a line in for her. "staying up late makes me grumpy and tired".

Besides being sick Kailyn seems to be doing a lot better psychologically. She loves her new routine and is still making a list a MILE long for Santa. She still wants money for Boston too. She can NOT wait until Christmas so she can get the American girl doll. Nanie got her the Kit movie to get her even more hyped up and we got an American girl magazine in the mail for her to drool over. Her and Sam now get on all the toy websites and pick out toys for themselves. They get the addresses from the flyer's and get on themselves. Kailyn and I have fun on the American girl website playing games and on Facebook playing Tetris. She wants me to beat everyone on there.:) The kids are learning a lot about how much things cost and that Santa has a budget. Sam yells at me when I tell him he has to pick three and can't have it all. Kailyn says, "then you can get it" and I let her know that she will be lucky if she gets 3 things on her list.

Kailyn was begging Grammie to make her a dress for Thanksgiving a few days ago. A little too late and I let her know that it was not going to happen. I could tell that Grammie wanted to at first, but she agreed and they decided to start working on a design for Christmas. Kailyn is now all excited about that. She also can't wait for it to start to snow. I could do without the snow this winter. We got plenty last winter. We are going to try and have a play date with old friends. This will be the first since diagnosis so Kailyn is excited. Unless she is throwing up they are coming. My friend never cares if they are sick and brings her kids over anyway. LOL
Overall Kailyn is getting older. She likes cool clothes, older kid toys and getting on the computer. We have a lot of fun chatting about these things, but she also still wants her Mommy and loves to cuddle :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRAMPA!!!

I wanted to take pictures of the kids with their cards and the books that Sam wanted to give him, but I could not find my memory card for the camera. :( Of course I found it without looking a few hours later.
Right before we read books this evening the kids called Grampa. Sam was the first caller and when Grampa picked up he said. "It you birfday" and told him about how he wanted to give him some books. Kailyn understood that we could not make a trip down to see him, but was happy to make him some cards. Sam is happy about making cards, but insisted that we were going to see Nanie and Grampa at bedtime so he could give Grampa his (Sam's) favorite books. "Go dogs go" and "Polar Bear, Polar Bear" He read the books and then was ready to go. He was not happy when I told him it was not happening. He said, "But it Grampa Birfday today"! My kids don't realize that there is not always a big party when it is someones birthday.
However, I heard that this was a big one for you Dad numbers wise and you might have gotten up a little earlier today because you were excited :) We made sure to call you before you went to bed, which is right around the time that Sam goes (6:30-7:00 pm) LOL
So, Happy Birthday Dad/Grampa!! WE love you bunches!! :)

We are still here

Things are really starting to calm down and I am trying to get us into some type of a groove or routine. My house needs an overhaul, but I have been concentrating on just the kids. When I have not been attending to their needs I have been in bed. When I thought I was getting better I actually got worse and ended up with an ear infection and a viral infection that could not be helped by the anti-biotics. I was getting to the point that I thought I would never feel well again, but then it happened. Yesterday, I woke up without a throat that hurt so bad that I wanted to rip it out of my neck. So far, no one else in the house has gotten this and hopefully it stays that way. It had me out of commission for two weeks. I did not leave my bed at all last weekend. I have finally been able to get out and do my walking/running the past two days.

Kailyn still goes to bed later and has a hard time getting up in the morning, but once she gets to school she seems genuinely happy to be there. She made it through the ENTIRE week last week. The first time since school started in August. Her nerves have really started to calm down. She loves the fact that I bring her all the way into the school and help her unpack her huge bag and get her set up at her desk. We are just going to forget that fitness fun exists until she starts showing an interest that she wants to go. She is also not going to take the bus. Since we are finally getting into a good groove we want to keep it that way and avoid bringing the anxiety level back up again in any way. I am now officially volunteering once a week Thanks to Grammie. The only time they had left was when Sam was not in school. Kailyn wishes I could spend the whole day, but I keep reminding her that that was a very special day that will never happen again ;)

Kailyn's latest obsession is American Girl dolls. She is on the website picking out clothing and playing games every day. She wants the doll Kit for Christmas. I told her that after Christmas we could go to the store in Boston (which is actually in Natick) if she gets the doll. I also told her she could use any money she has to buy stuff for the doll. I told her we would go to Boston even if she did not get the doll and would go to the Aquarium. She is excited beyond belief. Aunt Alice said she would come too so that makes her even more excited. Neither of the kids have been to Boston. Don't be surprised if she asks some of you for money for Christmas. LOL We will eat lunch at the American girl Bistro and then go to the Aquarium for the afternoon. I need to make reservations soon for the Bistro. I am sure every little girl in New England is going to want to go to the store after Christmas. It is going to be a long month and a half.

Sam is still absolutely thrilled about his "new school". He wants to go everyday. He actually begs and gets mad at me when I tell him that he is going to the "old school" that day. However, once I bring him into the old school (developmental one)and play with him for a bit he is very happy to be there and happily gives me hugs and kisses goodbye. I think one of the reasons he likes the regular preschool better is because he only goes for 2 hours and then has the rest of the day with me to himself. Sam hit a major milestone today and answered a why question unprompted. I asked him, "Why does Kailyn have to get out of bed? and he said, "She needs to go to cool (school)":) Now we just need to get him to ASK the Why questions. Even though he does not ask why questions I notice improvements in his vocab and speech every day. He also has decided he likes to write his name a lot. He wrote it on his pillow, his comforter and his cork board. We had to explain to him that we only write our names on paper. It reminded me of when Kailyn wrote her name on the back of her Jacket using my lipstick.

Seth decided to take a leave of absence from the MSW program at UNE. It was absolutely WAY to much and his work was not doing what they agreed to do. I am not exactly sure how he is going to get this internship done now, but I will let him worry about that. We are both dealing with getting used to having a child with diabetes in different ways. Right now I go between pissed off, sad and acceptance. Seth seems to just go with the flow. (Lets me worry about it, typical man ;)) No actually, he is a fabulous husband and one of the reasons he stopped doing the UNE program was because he felt that he needed to put more time into our family. The healing and getting used to our new lifestyle process. I have asked others that have been through the diagnosis and getting used to it process and they all say that it takes about 5-6 months for everything to become second nature. If that is the case then we have 2-3 months to go.

So at this point, we are not where we should be, but we are getting there. However, we are not living our lives in complete and utter chaos and that feels really good.

Election Day 2008

I have not written in a few days. Between Halloween, visiting family and being sick I have not had much time. I think I have turned a corner today. It does not hurt to swallow and I am not in constant pain. Kailyn and Sam have seemed to avoid this or have already had it. Hopefully, they won't get anything else either way. We did really well with Kailyn and Halloween. It was not the nightmare I thought it would be and we actually ended up begging her to finish her candy. She did reach the 300's on Saturday night, but that was one time. Most of the time she was within range or in the low 200's. So far her levels have been almost in range or in range at school this week too. I went in and volunteered today. Kailyn LOVES this. They certainly keep those kids busy. I remember learning a lot of the stuff they are doing in first grade in 2nd grade and most kids could not read when they started 1st grade. At the rate they are going she will be doing Algebra in 4th grade.
Sam loves going to his "new school" as he calls it and is now at home happily building blocks while relaxing and watching Little Bill on the tv. We will go to get Kailyn at 10 of 3. After I went and dropped Sam off at school, I went and voted. It was busy, but it looked like they anticipated a high turnout so they were stocked full of booths and there were no lines. I called Katie and offered to watch her kids when she got home so she could try to avoid the after work rush. Then I asked to make sure she was voting for the same people as me so I was not aiding her in wiping out my vote ;)
So, things are relatively calm and I like it that way. We are beginning to not live in a state of panic all the time, which is good for everyone in the family. Our goal for the week is to get Kailyn to school every single day. I will let you know;)