Progress, I think

My daughter has begun to notice my diabetes a little bit. When I pull the pump from my pocket, she sometimes notices, and once asked "What that?" (This is a question we hear from her almost every minute, so it didn't seem strange at all.) When she wants a snack, she says, "I need juice [or whatever she desires at the moment]." Notice it's not "I want juice." When I have low blood sugar, I always say "I need juice." I suppose the parroting could reveal worse things, couldn't it? And of course, when I leave the room suddenly to change out my pump infusion set (too often these days), she gets mighty upset. I make sure someone else is around to do this, or else do as little as I can to get by, stepping into the little bathroom right off the living room. But she still doesn't like it.

Otherwise, though, the subject hasn't entered into her awareness much. I like it that way.

Meanwhile, I'm experimenting with my new slow cooker (thanks, Meg!). I've only cooked one meal in it so far, but it was great. My daughter decided she loves chicken because of it! It was a pretty complicated recipe and took more time than I would be able to spend on a regular week day. But I could see prepping it on a weekend morning and having it ready whenever my daughter (and, I hope, my hubby) is ready for dinner. I have a few lines on simpler recipes, so I'm optimistic the cooker will prove helpful in simplifying weekday cooking.

I - or rather, my husband - also found some packaged rice and spice combos that make for really easy dinners, are gluten-free (as far as my careful ingredient scanning can tell), and are somewhat appealing to a two-year-old , as well as very appealing to adults. Oh, and they're pretty healthy, too. One is a risotto with mushrooms (brand name Alessi)that we combine with lean ground beef. The other is a jambalaya mix (brand name Vigo) that I put with frozen peas and precooked, certified gluten-free chicken sausages (brand name Al Fresco; these come in a variety of flavors, like buffalo spice and garlic). I don't like to pitch particular brands, but it's so hard to find something gluten-free, I'm proving these. We found these in our regular super market (not at all high-end). My daughter finds the jambalaya a little spicy, but she'll eat it.

It doesn't get much simpler than boiling water, dumping a package in and chopping in a few sliced sausages and peas. I have to say, it places the bar pretty high (low?) for the slow cooker. My hubby is pleased, too, that he found these - after so many efforts to find easy, packaged meals that turned out to have wheat, or else too much fat or sugar. These meals avoid all of that, and they taste like real food!

Still, we'll need more meals that work for all of us. Spaghetti works, but I have to cook two different pastas (just part of my routine now). A whole chicken in the oven, with sweet potato or rice and a frozen veggie, is a boring but workable option for us all. We've had the best luck at family meals with this safe combo.

Stay tuned for crock pot creativity reports! And if I forget, remind me to recount the pancake experiments (gluten-free and all)...

My cupcake

instead of staying up late blogging, I've been staying up late the past couple of nights making a Halloween costume.

Mind you, I have a hand-me-down lion costume, a new bee costume from my mother-in-law, and a mermaid costume that I bought recently at a yard sale. But no, my daughter has her own ideas. She's barely two, but she has decided, definitively, that she wants to be a cupcake. Over the weeks since this idea formed in her head - perhaps after the four cupcakes she ate on her own birthday - it has become more elaborate; it's now a bear cupcake.

Now, I don't get offended or feel cravings, as you might think, when I see her eat cupcakes or talk about them. Cupcakes long ago ceased to be food to me. Oh, I have a sweet tooth, all right; I find a way to eat something chocolate almost daily. But in the early years, the traditional diabetes diet trained me to think of such delicacies as rare treats. Even with the pump - which allowed me a lot of freedom relative to before - I still can't manage the sweetness of most cupcake frostings (maybe the cupcake alone, but what's the fun of that?) Top that off with the problem with wheat, and it's just not worth it.

I do vaguely wonder whether it's a good thing for my daughter to consume so many sweets at once. I know that eating sugar doesn't cause type 1 diabetes (some misguided comments from strangers to the contrary). But I an still sensitive to how bad sugar is for health, even for a nondiabetic. I do try to ensure my daughter eats a healthy diet most of the time. And I like to let her enjoy the freedom that I don't have.

It certainly was strange when my daughter began eating real food instead of baby mush. It felt like I myself was cheating when I starting feeding her bread, and when she ate her first piece of cake. I had to work hard to remember what "normal" people eat, and I had to reassure myself that it was okay for her to eat, say, pasta. Oddly, she turns out not to like pasta much, but she does like crackers, and most definitely cupcakes! She doesn't like red meat yet, and I'm happy not to push it. She gets plenty of protein, and I've often thought that, if my diet weren't already so restricted in other ways, I might have become vegetarian (probably for humane reasons as much as for health).