Easter Eggs

Easter Sunday is in the books for 2010. I ended up feeling good about our baskets, our meals and our day. The kids were thrilled with their Easter baskets full of all sorts of things EXCEPT for a large amount of candy ~ I don't think they thought about it once. I did throw in some nerds and pop rocks just so it wasn't too weak. Now, don't get me wrong I adore candy and chocolate...but I thought this could work without it. I googled 'non-candy' Easter baskets and the suggestions were all the same same same and not entertaining for nearly 8 year old boys. Bubbles, swim toys, play dough and crayons were listed 100 times over. They both got new crocs for the summer in their baskets, jibbets to decorate them, both got a new dodge ball and what says "happy Easter" more than a cap grenade with very loud caps and a slingshot? Lindsey was sporting a new princess plastic watch and loved her pink baseball glove with ball. The key here was going to sporting stores like Academy and Sports Authority INSTEAD of the Wal-mart super junk aisle. We will use all this stuff all summer and I'm feeling good that we didn't have blood sugar highs and such.

Another challenge of yesterday is mealtime and random Easter treats. A good example of always being on guard with food allergy awareness ~ apparently companies are now adding dairy to jelly beans. We had an Easter egg hunt at a friends house and she was kind enough to read the label ahead of time and warn me. Not sure why jellybeans need milk in them ~ but now they do. Carter takes it in stride and just moves on....a feeling of disappointment hits me as I just want him to be able to act normally and devour treats he found in his eggs. I realize this doesn't matter to him remotely and he was beyond happy with the confetti eggs he was smashing on friends heads.

We navigated Lindsey testing her blood sugar at lunch in the bathroom at Luby's and then at our friends the Alvarez's. She had ONE high reading before dinner which was pretty great considering we ate strange portions of food at odd places. Small little things become a part of life as I debate recapping a needle and throwing it away in a normal trashcan, debating testing blood sugar in a stall with a public potty or at the counter in view of hand washers and others. Our pink 'kit' with pokers, needles, insulin and such follows us everywhere ~ but it still sticks out some. I think we will gradually move toward a less obvious kit as we get older.

So ~ this week we have a check up appointment with our diabetes physician. This is downtown essentially as the only pediatric endocrinologist group in the DFW area works out of children's hospital. The two in our hood only accept patients after 10 years of age. I yearn for that day as traveling to Children's literally can take up the entire day of wait and wait and wait. The big news this week though is enrolling in Kindergarten on Thursday ! Hurray. Lindsey is SO ready to hop out of the car with her brother in the morning and go find a locker and be a grown up girl at school. We are so fortunate as the school nurse is amazing and has a diabetic daughter herself ~ this will be very very good.