Christmas 2010-Christmas Day

The big day had finally arrived. As I mentioned in a previous post, this was our first Christmas at home with just our little family. I was very nervous about how I would feel on Christmas morning without all of the chaos and fun of spending the day with our families, but it was great day. The boys woke up to discover that Santa had made a delivery- Whew!

Tyler got several dragons from "How To Train Your Dragon" along with a few Lego sets. Robby received an Imaginext fire truck and station.

I love that Tyler's first reaction to his toys was a desire to share them with his daddy. So sweet.

Robby loved opening presents, and what could be more fun than watching a two year old unwrap presents? He loves all of his new toys, but especially loves his new Imaginext fire truck. We have several other toys from the Imaginext toy sets and Robby LOVES the little guys that come with the sets. Watching him play with those is so fun. It's kind of like Barbies- he moves the guys around and makes them do stuff and talk to each other (with deep voices) and they even have a few snap-on outfit accessories.

The rest of the day was spent playing with new toys and assembling lots of Legos. Tyler has become quite an expert at Lego construction.

We also ate more yummy food and watched a few Christmas videos, and by noon, EVERYONE took a two hour nap! Needless to say, the rest of the day was a little too quiet for my liking. I think next year we will need to up the chaos level a bit. Having such a quiet house made me miss being with family a lot. At one point, we so badly needed to get out of the house, that we jumped in the car and drove around playing "who's open on Christmas Day?" We actually found one ice cream place open for business and they actually had a few customers!

In spite of the quiet afternoon, we still had a lovely Christmas. I was glad that I was free of the stress of travel this year and was able to enjoy more of the moments with my precious little family.

Christmas 2010- Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was lovely! We invited our other good friends the Kotters over for dinner. We were hoping that Santa would keep with his tradition and secretly deliver a dinner of meats and cheeses directly to our family.

We were in luck! Just as we had settled on the couch to watch a movie, we heard a tap at our window along with the sound of jingle bells. Tyler nearly exploded with excitement- it was awesome! He ran to the back door and discovered that Santa had indeed left us dinner all wrapped in a box. The kids set to work unwrapping our food- they were very cute.

Santa did a great job of providing a wonderful dinner for us and we were beyond grateful that we had good friends to share our special evening with.

After dinner, we did a puppet reenactment of the Nativity (no pictures) and then sent the Kotters on their way so that they could visit their sweet baby boy who was staying in the NICU.

Tyler was insistent that we get to bed right away. He was very afraid that Santa would skip over our house if we weren't nestled all snug in our beds! So we placed our cookies and milk for Santa and a few carrots for the reindeer. I remember the year Tyler was Robby's age. He couldn't resist taking several bits out of the cookies he had left out for Santa. I was definitely expecting Robby to do the same thing at this age, but he had a different idea in mind and decided the carrots were the more desirable treat! Silly boy.

I love the magic of Christmas. Seeing that magic through the eyes of your my own children is priceless. I was also grateful that even though I missed our families terribly, we were able to take advantage of the quiet moments to reflect as a family on the true meaning of Christmas, and to savor and cherish every simple moment we spent together.

Christmas 2010- The North Pole Express

The North Pole Express! This was another family excursion that we had wanted to do for a while, but hadn't had the opportunity until this year. We figured this would be the perfect activity for our train-loving boys. It was fun, but not exactly the experience I was expecting. First off, we had some CRAZY heat wave come through that day. I think it got into the upper 80's-almost 90 degrees! There was no way I was going to make my boys wear their super cozy pj's in that kind of heat. That also made sipping hot chocolate out of the question. Secondly, I had pictured a cozy, quite ride on a "Polar Express" type train ride with Christmas melodies playing in the background as we chatted with our boys and rolled through town. Ummm...not so much. I could have very well done without all of the sing-alongs over the loud speaker- "Everybody sing along! Now stomp your feet and clap your hands! Now the right side of the train...and the left side! I say Santa...you say Claus!"

Really?!? We ended up calling this ride the Migraine Express.

In the end, it was a good memory and I'm glad we did it, but I don't think we'll be back next year. Watching Robby's face light up every time the whistle blew and seeing him wave excitedly as the train pulled into the station definitely made it worth it.

Christmas 2010- Frisco Town Center Lights Display

This was our first year where we didn't travel and visit family at Christmas. It was just us! We decided that we needed to do some fun activities here in Texas that we've never been able to do before because we've always been traveling. We also knew that it was important to surround ourselves with the "family" that we have here, so we decided to invite our dear friends the Hatchs to join us on a trip up to Frisco to see the town center lights display.

The light show was indeed impressive, and the kids seemed to enjoy it in spite of how cold it was

In addition to the light display, they had a model train exhibit- a huge hit with this little guy!

...and a hot air balloon display. Unfortunately, we missed Santa parachuting in from above.

Tyler with his favorite girl...
...and me with mine!

We are so grateful for good friends who turn simple outings into wonderful memories.

Christmas 2010- the gingerbread cookie train

This year instead of making basic gingerbread houses from a kit like we usually do, John headed up the construction of a gingerbread train, with each of us decorating our own car.

It was perfect!

Robby was thrilled at the sight of all that candy (love that face)

Early on in the holiday season, we found it best to go into activities like this one with a ton of insulin on board and just let him be a normal kid. We figure the worst that could happen is that he'll go a little low and get to eat a little more candy or a few extra sips of hot chocolate to pull out of it, but at least he gets to feel normal. We did this with any activity that involved Christmas treats...which is pretty much everything. I tried very hard to keep his blood sugar low so that he could participate in any type of food activity at any time. Let's face it- food is a major part of holiday celebrations, and I'd like to keep it that way!

Tyler was awesome. This was the first year where he was more interested in the actual construction than in the candy. Don't get me wrong, he still ate his fare share of skittles and m&m's, but he loved puting his Lego skills to good use on something else!

And in the end, I think the final product turned out pretty darn cute!

Update

Thanks for the words of support, advice, and prayers. Things have settled down a bit with the crazy blood sugars. We've had a few really good nights in the past week or so, and that has helped immensely. I'm pretty sure that the instability has had everything to do with the fact that in the past 2-3 months, Robby has had:



three ear infections

one bout of strep throat

one week of the stomach flu

one allergic reaction to penicillin

and four new molars

Throw in a couple major holidays and some pretty major changes in the weather patterns, and you have the perfect storm for a diabetic child's BG. I'm hopeful that all this illness is over and that we will see a few more regular patterns start to emerge again. We also adjusted several of his pump settings, which has helped a bit as well.

Anyway, we'll keep our fingers crossed for healthier days ahead and more stable blood sugars (and a little more sleep)!

Now with things settled down a bit AND we have a new computer that doesn't crash every time I try to use the Internet, I'm going to attempt to get caught up on posting a bit about our Christmas celebrations this year (I'll be lucky if I get it done before Valentine's Day!).

I need a little help from the DOC!

Due to some major computer problems (Santa should have brought a new hard drive), I can not access our pictures from Christmas. So I thought I'd take the opportunity to blog about what's really on my mind- that damn diabetes (pardon the language, but as long as my kiddo has diabetes, there are a few choice words that I can't seem to get out of my vocabulary).

Basically this post is a cry for help from my friends in the diabetic online community (the DOC), so if you don't know anything about basal rates, feel free to skip this post and come back later when I have pics of my little darlings at Christmas!

All right, so here's my frustration...NIGHT time basal rates. Killing me. I try VERY hard to keep diabetes in the background of our lives. We quietly go about our d-routines, not making a big deal out of it. We work hard, but try not to let our kids (and others for that matter) see our stress and worry. But at night times, diabetes RULES our universe. Here's the run down:

Day time basal rates, IC ratios, and corrections all seem to be dialed in almost to perfection. A few highs and lows here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary for a small kid like Robby (he's two), but at night time, there is not one ounce of predictability or regularity. We had three good months of fairly stable numbers, day and night, but these last two months have flipped everything upside down. He'll hit 350 with multiple corrections for several nights in a row and then for no reason at all, three nights later, he'll be low and we'll be feeding him several times to bring him back up. His insulin absorption rates seemed to have changed (much slower than normal), and he even metabolizes carbs slower as well.

We are frustrated beyond belief. A good night's rest doesn't exist. Thankfully, the Dexcom allows us to get a few hours of sleep here and there, but I'm exhausted and close to tears most nights. We feel like we've tried everything. We've dialed basal rates high, and then we've tried adjusting them lower, but with no predictability as to which nights he'll run high and which nights he'll be super low, it's impossible to get it just right. We even tried leveling out the entire night time basal program to .05/hour (he usually has three different rates throughout the night) to see if we could recognize any natural patterns or rhythms. Nothing. Nothing was ever the same. The only thing we know is that he's either SUPER high and seemingly insulin resistant (we'll give multiple corrections, set a higher temp basal, and on a few occasions have had to resort to a shot to bring him down) or he's drifting low all night (that's running on the same basal program. No changes). He's never in the middle. One night he'll use almost a total of 7 units at night and the next night, he'll use barely 3 units.

What gives??? What am I doing wrong??? How in the world can I get some sleep???

I know that there are a bizillion factors that can effect blood sugars, but sheesh! We eat early (about three hours before Robby goes to bed) and our meals are typically similar in their carb/fat/fiber make up. He's has had quite a bit of illness- one ear infection, two colds, one bout of the stomach flu (for sure without the Dex, we would have ended up in the ER with that one...mercy!), and just yesterday I noticed he's getting at least two new molars. During those times of illness, I expect crappy numbers, but even on days when he seems to be feeling well, we still can't seem to get any predictability with our night time numbers. Is this just the nature of the beast or is there something different I could be doing?

Help. This tired mommy needs a good night's rest.