Birthday Bash

All I can say is, thank God for the Grands: Grandparents, grand aunts, honorary grand aunts. Without them, we might not have survived hosting our first kids' birthday party. As it is, I'm exhausted (shoe-in-the-fridge exhausted).

Partly, it was the worry over whether any kids would get hurt (only my own daughter almost fell off the high slide – mother of the year award, here I come! – and one mom got hurt; sorry!), or just get bored (don’t think so, thanks to the Grands). But also, I was just running around. We moms often don’t even realize how much we’re doing (we just go into “totally crazed” mode), but I have instant feedback about that, because of my insulin pump. When I clean house, if I forget to eat first or cut back on the insulin delivery temporarily, I go low in about 15 minutes. During the party, I was eating and drinking juice constantly, yet I didn’t need any of the extra insulin I usually take for food. How much exercise is that? About the equivalent of biking the whole time. No wonder I wanted spaghetti for dinner tonight.

It was worth it, though. Isn’t everything we do for our kids worth it? (Try not to think what will happen in the teenage years.) H was thrilled; how could she not be, getting to eat four big cupcakes? And no, she didn’t get sick from it – she makes up for all that I can’t eat! I’m just thrilled to give my daughter such a normal experience. And as my husband said, I’m not like the person he married: I have way more energy, since I stopped having migraines. (He’s feeling the pressure now!) Compared to that, even this level of exhaustion feels good.

I read a great blog post recently, by Dan Barry in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/health/01case.html). It’s essentially about how having a serious illness give you perspective (chemo brain of a different kind, as he frames it). It makes you not sweat the small stuff – some of the time. So sure, I worried and fretted and rushed around. But at the same time, I was watching the party unfold and notching the mental stick: Yup, got to do the classic party. (Will we get to the moonwalker and face paint stage? Oh, I hope not!) I guess we all do that with our kids, though. We want them to have the best of what we remember from our childhood, and more. But I’m totally surprised to be able to.

Here's another surprise: How a negative can turn into a positive. I changed out my pump infusion set this evening and my blood sugar started to go low (as it often does when I change out the set). I had to hand my daughter over my hubby for her bedtime story and go get some juice. I've been meaning to get him back into the story rotation - he fell out of it for a while, such that she hasn't wanted him to do it lately (kids love their routines). After a short protest, she settled in, and I got to watch them from the doorway, him asking her the book's questions, her smiling shyly when she remembered the asnwers. I jealously guard my time with her, and was starting to resent the blood sugar interrupting our routine (poor me and this dread disease, and all that...). But that scene will be prominent in the memory bank.