WOW WOW WOW. The Times They Are Achangin'

We'll either have the first black President in the history of the United States, or the first female Vice President in our nation's history.

The Downside Of Nanny 911

Jessica (age 6): Mom. Why do I want to watch Nanny 911?

Me: I don't know. Why?

Jessica: So I can learn how to be bad.

I Shouldn't Think About This While I'm Tired

Today was a "Meet Your Teacher Day" where parents and kids go to school to meet their teachers. We met Brendon's teacher in a new school with a new nurse. So explanations needed to be gone over with Mrs. S. She seemed very understanding and was willing to work with us. She was sweet. I'm meeting with the nurse tomorrow to give her supplies and a once over of the 504 Plan.

As we walked through the halls, I said hello to people we knew, stopped to talk for a while and was so envious at how carefree they were. They just had to breeze in, meet the teacher and walk out again.

I, on the otherhand, was tense about making sure the teacher knew everything she had to know about Brendon.
Make sure to send him to get tested at the nurse's office if you notice him to be very agitated. That could be a sign he's low. He generally knows he 's low, so make sure to have him tested if he complains he feels that way. He's to be tested before lunch, before and after recess, before and after gym. But I'm sure the nurse will go over everything with you and work out a plan for you two to follow. Don't worry. It will all be fine. I don't think there was ever a major problem that the other school had to deal with.

Ugh. One explanation after the next while hoping we weren't overwhelming the teacher with information.

I just wanted to go to the school and meet the teacher. That's all.

Drink Me. Eat Me.

He eats too much.

He doesn't eat enough.

He drinks too much.

He doesn't drink enough.

Demolishing the highs.

Building up the lows.

Round and round the carousel goes.

Too Much Anatomy

What is UP with banana hammocks?

The first beautiful day we had in a loooong time was spent at the beach, today. The beach was really crowded because everyone was taking advantage of the beautiful weather while they could.

We found a primo spot right next to the jetty so that it would be easy for our kids to find us and it’s a built in playground if they get sick of the sand.

We settle in nicely when who shows up but Banana Hammock Man. He was about 60 years old, tanned, leathery, and short. But not fat…just saggy.

He plants his reclining lawn chair right. next. to. my. chair. No buffer zone to speak of. Didn’t even try to even out the spacing between my chair and the people next to us.

OK, who the hell brings a lawn chair to the beach?

And then he just stands there….back to the sun….ass facing me….face level. It was fabulous to have a saggy ass smack dab in my facial space.

Jeff came over after playing catch with Brendon and mouthed to me to look behind me. I told him I was absolutely aware of the violation. I didn't want to come face to ass with the guy.

BHM stood there for an eternity. The kids started asking why he was standing there. Never moved. Never adjusted his footing. Ugh.

Finally he lays on his chair and begins his sun worship. He couldn’t get any tanner than he already was. He was a tanorexic.

So he’s laying there and every time I returned to my chair after being in the water, I had to witness his saggy ass. I have to tell you how ill I felt. I tried not to look, but it was right there. Damn…….

We finally started packing up to leave and he adjusted his positioning so that now he was laying on his back. Not only was he laying on his back, but his legs were spread wide open with his feet planted on the sand so that the insides of his saggy thighs could get some rays.

And his saggy ball sack was just laying there all lumpy and disgusting.

Jeff said the guy was a P-I-G. I thoroughly agreed.

The Idiot Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the F***ing Tree

The time has come when I must clean up my language. I know......I know.

When you hear "Jesus Christ" and "idiot", it's not so bad. But when they come out of an eight year old's mouth, it sounds pretty damn bad. Particularly when he's saying it to his friend in front of his friend's mother and grandfather....with me right there.

Those words come from this scenario everytime I'm out driving with them:

"What are you doing, you idiot?!", I ask through my windshield to an idiot driver.

"Jesus Christ. When is the light going to turn green?"

Fuck has the highest ranking of swear words. When it comes out of an eight year old's mouth, it makes me feel like a failure of a mother.

"Fuck!", Brendon exclaimed when his golf ball missed the hole when we were out playing miniature golf.

Yeah. It's time.

Our Meet And Greet With Carey And Family

I've tried to think of clever ways to write this post. I wrote versions in my head on the way back from meeting them. I wrote yet more versions in my gray matter on my 6 hour drive back home.

But let me get to the point:

Carey and Susanne, their kids, as well as Carey's mom are just the nicest goddamned people you ever want to meet.

Cases in point:

Originally, we were going to meet at a restaurant....6 kids and 4 adults. Need I say more?

But, Carey's mom suggested we all meet and have lunch at her place. Which I must say put my mind at ease that they didn't think I was a blogging weirdo... :D

That's nice, isn't it?

I shook hands with Carey who looks just like his pictures and did NOT sound like Mike Tyson at all. I had imagined that there has got to be something about him that blogging doesn't reveal and thought, well maybe he sounds like Mike Tyson. But, he has a very nice sounding man-voice.

Susanne is the nicest person and has the most gorgeous bone structure....as well as beautiful curly hair...(damn her!). We have much more in common than we'd like. We're the mothers of two boys with diabetes who like to negotiate the hell out of everything ;)

Carey's mom. What can I say about her other than she is no typical Nana. She had just gotten back from the gym when we got to her place. She's 30 going on 21. And she wants to get a tribal tattoo across her lower back. My kids pretty much adopted her as their own Nana. She's beyond cool.

So, I have admit there was some nervousness on my part. I have my 3 kids in someone's beautiful house...I prayed that they'd be on their best behavior. Jeff and I are meeting Carey and Susanne for the first time....I prayed that I would have plenty to talk about and not sit there staring at them trying to find things to talk about.

Well, I'll tell you that conversation flowed nicely (it's all about nice here). We felt comfortable and at ease.

The kids got along great. Other than Maeve coming to us saying the boys (meaning Charlie and Brendon) were wrestling with her for no reason, they became fast friends.

After lunch we walked to the boardwalk for fun and games. I talked with Carey's mom. Carey talked with Jeff. I talked with Susanne. Carey's mom talked with Jeff. I talked with Carey. Everyone mixed and mingled as we walked.

Since there were 6 kids, there was a natural pairing off.

I thought Charlie and Brendon would hit it off. They did. Being the only two girls in the bunch, Maeve and Jessica hit it off to my relief. Jessica can be a little shy sometimes (understatement). The age difference between Jacob and Ben isn't far, but with the ages that they are right now, they just couldn't relate to each other...yet. But, I see it happening in the future. They're the quintessential 3rd child...and they need each other ;)

I don't know at what point this happened, but there was a shift in the pairings. Brendon and Maeve drifted together. And Jessica and Charlie were connected at the shoulders. This was how it was basically the whole time we were at the boardwalk.

In fact, Brendon felt so comfortable with Maeve, that when Susanne asked if she felt like she was getting sunburned, Brendon...being oh so protective of his new friend, pulled away Maeve's spaghetti straps to check for signs of sunburn. "No", he said, inspecting her skin. "She doesn't look like she's burning." He's a smooth operator.

Brendon' s blood sugars started dropping while we taking them to the rides and he became uncertain about the speed of the Merry-Go-Round that he and Maeve were waiting to start on. So he got off the horse. We gave him juice, cut back his basal, and gathered the kids to get on the train together. But he was uncertain about the speed of that too. His blood sugar was messing with his head. He's cautious by nature, but being low exaggerated it to the Nth degree. Maeve asked Jeff if Brendon was going to be O.K. She was concerned. She was a good friend. He eventually snapped out of his low induced speed cautiousness and eventually was able to relax and have a great time.

Charlie wanted Jessica to go on the motorcycles with him. She happily went along. He wanted her to sit on the back of HIS motorcycle. Jessica wanted her own. But he insisted that it was important that she sit in the back of him and hold on. They were buddies and it was essential that they not leave each other's side.... But they were separated for all of 5 minutes. Jessica hopped onto her own bike.

Picture time came. I forgot my camera, but being the awesome blogger that he is, Carey brought his.

There is a picture you may see soon of Brendon and Charlie standing side by side. Before the picture was taken, Brendon's shirt was haphazardly showing off his pump pak. Charlie noticed this and said, "I want to show my pump too". He lifted his shirt and tucked it in back of his pump, put his arm around Brendon and smiled for the camera.

I turned to Susanne and told her what I saw and heard. I told her it was cute, but bittersweet. We both agreed that it was sad. The boys don't know any different. There is a 2 year age gap between them, but they were diagnosed as toddlers in the same month...different year, I believe. I think Charlie was happy to have something in common with another boy for the first time.....despite the meaning of it.

I don't know about them, but I honestly felt completely comfortable and at ease with every one of Carey's family members, Carey included of course ;)

I was happy we all got to meet and I hope we can do it again sometime soon.

If I Were A Hipster, I'd Be Diggin' The Irony

But when you have a kid who tells you his blood sugar is 30 and he has 3 units of insulin on board (meaning in his system), the irony sucks.

The other day, Brendon informed me of what his blood sugar was. Of course we had just run out of juice the day before and I keep junk food out to the house, so there were no foods with simple sugar. I had already given him honey that morning for a low and he could barely swallow it...he hates the stuff. So getting enough of it in him wasn't going to cut it.

I gave him what I thought was enough carb loaded foods...along with jelly to keep him from dropping any further. All was well in the end.

Here's where the irony comes in: This morning, I was refilling the sugar bowl with Splenda and when I took the big ol' bag of the stuff out of the cabinet, what do you think was behind it?

Two juice boxes.

Third Time's A Charm

Jessica lost a tooth on Thursday.

She received $3.....one dollar for every night the tooth fairy "forgot" to come. She almost received $4.

I think she knows the truth because cousin Elizabeth told her the tooth fairy isn't real.

I tried to convince her that she IS real.

Jessica seemed skeptical when, in the middle of the day after Jeff asked if I put money under her pillow and I raced up to do it, I asked if she checked under her pillow to see if the tooth fairy came.

"No, I looked when I woke up and my tooth was still there."

"Go check now."

She went upstairs and came down with $3.

She didn't seem excited about it.