It's A Very Diabetic Halloween, Charlie Brown!

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! *evil laugh, duh* 

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Less pressure than Thanksgiving and Christmas plus spookiness, gore, campy horror movies, and costumes. 

So what's not to love?

Well, this year it's all the candy. Needless to say, Trick or Treating wont ever be the same again for Ryan. No longer can he pick through his loot and immediately gobble down whatever sugary goodness he has collected from our neighbors. 

When he was diagnosed at the beginning of September, I have to admit that Halloween didn't even cross my mind...And I plan for October 31st early.  Thankfully, I have a couple of lovely Facebook friends that messaged me some really great ideas to make the holiday fun for him and still keep his blood sugar in check. 

One idea was delivering a letter to houses you plan on visiting and letting them know that your child is diabetic. Attached to the letter is a small toy like a match box car, some vampire teeth, or temporary tattoos...that kind of thing. The letter asks the home owner to give the diabetic child the toy instead of candy and describes what  he/she will have on for a costume. 

While this idea is brilliant, it didn't work for our situation since our neighborhood has so many houses and because kids come from all over the city to Trick or Treat around here. It is well known for being a safe location and the streets are flooded with people. I didn't want to add any extra trouble for our neighbors, not that they would have minded, most likely. But also to be quite honest I didn't feel like putting in the time or effort to get toys, print out letters, and deliver them. I'm lazy and socially awkward. Those are my reasons and I'm sticking to them. Nobody's perfect. 

If your neighborhood is smaller and you actually know those that live around you then this would be a perfect idea for you and your diabetic child. 

Another idea that was given to me was the Halloween Fairy. This one struck me right in the part of my soul that loves magic and lying to my kid. HAHAHA-kidding about the last part...mostly ;) 

It's really a very simple idea. Instead of eating all that junk, you let your child pick a few pieces that he really wants to keep and the rest goes into a bucket for the Halloween Fairy. 

At night, after the child has gone to bed, the fairy visits your home and trades the candy for a special gift. It has to be something better than a pile of candy so don't be stingy about it, parents. You don't have to spend a lot but make it something that your child will really enjoy. 

That's it. When your kid wakes up the next morning he has a present from the Halloween Fairy and the candy has either been hidden (very well), given away, or thrown in the trash. 

If you have a child that really, REALLY loves candy just remind him that the more candy he leaves for the fairy, the better his gift will be. 

This is actually a good idea for any kid, not just a diabetic child. Everyone knows the fun part about Halloween is dressing up and Trick or Treating. No kid needs ALL the candy that comes from a large haul on Halloween night. And if you are like most parents you really don't want to deal with the hyperactive aftermath of all that sugar anyway. 

I got Ryan a little nerf gun ('Merica) with extra ammo (Yee-Haw) and my mom got him a DVD of Monsters University. This more than makes up for a bunch of candy. 

Another disturbance in the force this year was Ryan's classroom Halloween "party" which, I've been told, isn't actually a party but more of an extended snack time. I got a note last week from his teacher asking for cookies, cupcakes, goody bags, etc for Halloween day. 

My heart sank a little. I really didn't know what I was going to do. So far I have been able to play bait and switch with a lot of activities at school that involve things he can't eat. But this is the first holiday party (I'm calling it a party, folks...deal with it). 

Ultimately I decided that the best idea would be to check him out of school. I didn't lie about the party to him. I let him know what would be going on and he did get a little upset that he had to miss out. There were tears and that hurt to watch...a lot. 

I asked him if he would rather stay at school and not be able to eat the snacks or if he would like to leave school with me and go do something extra fun.  Eventually, he agreed that getting out of nap time would be far better than staying and watching other kids eat pure sugar. 

So instead of the classroom party I checked him out before lunchtime and we went to Chick-Fil-A. He got to play on the inside playground with some other kids. He pretended he was a zombie and soon all the kids inside the play area were stumbling around with their arms outstretched. It was like an honest to goodness infectious outbreak. I loved watching him play even though some of the other moms kept shooting me looks because now their Precious Wittle Babies were moaning, drooling, walking dead. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...next step...world domination. 

After that we went to the book store and I let him pick out a couple new books. Ninja Turtles and Doc McStuffins if any of you are curious. He also got a photo with Uncle Si from Duck Dynasty.

I think it was a successful day. He kept asking me what the kids in his class were doing right at that moment and I would say, "Probably taking a nap."

 Then he would do his own evil laugh. 

School Daze

  Since Ryan's diagnosis a little over a month ago, I have become very familiar with his elementary school and a lot of the staff. All the teachers and other admin have been really wonderful during this craziness that has become my day to day life.
  I have been going up there every day to administer his lunch time insulin and blood sugar reading. That will soon change after certified staff is trained to give him his injections without me being there.
  What I have found interesting from my short visits into Ryan's Kindergarten classroom is the sheer curiosity from the other kids about diabetes. They all want to know about the shots and if they hurt or not. They also ask about food Ryan can eat and what he can't eat. They ask why I pack him a different snack than what everyone else eats and wonder about all the water he drinks... not juice.
  Food was the secondary reason I visited Ryan at school today. Every now and then they have a special treat day and today was Italian ice.
  Even though they offer a sugar free version that doesn't give Ryan a green light to eat all he wants. In fact, and I might be off about this, but from what I have googled and researched, the sugar free ice contains more carbs than he is allowed in a whole meal.
  Needless to say, that is a no go. The other hang up was that the treat is served directly following lunch where he would have already consumed some carbs to be eaten immediately after taking his insulin so his sugar doesn't plummet.
  So I found myself smack in the middle of a moment where having a diabetic child can become really heartbreaking due to something that may seem so trivial to others. The bottom line is that he can't have the special treat like the other kids.
  I broke the news to him yesterday and he cried. Not because he couldn't have something he wanted. But because of the reason he couldn't have it.
  In Kidville it really sucks when you can't have a treat because of something you can't help while everyone else around you gets to enjoy it. In Grownupville it sucks too but at least we can rationalize it better.
  So I wiped his tears and I told him that I was going to bring him his own special treat, one that he could have, and one that nobody else could get.
  He loves those little angel food cake fruit cups that the grocery stores sell in the produce section. They are only 11 grams of carbs. I added a couple strawberries, a few blueberries, and some whipped cream. It looked way better than the Italian ice and a group of kids from his class gathered around us to drool at the fruit as they ate their ice.
  Did I have to pack a can of whip cream in a lunchbox with ice packs and bring it up there so the cream would be nice and fluffy when I put it on the cake? Yep.
  Did I have to pre-cut all the strawberries? Yes.
  Did I have to dirty up some tupperware and dig through the cabinets to find the last plastic fork? Uh huh.
  Was it harder to plan all this out than it would be to hand him a dollar for "sugar free" ice and just cross my fingers that his sugar wouldn't sky rocket. You bet.
   Did I adore the grin Ryan got when all the other kids jealously talked about how much they loved strawberries, as they peered over his shoulder to look at his delicious cake?  Big time. So? Sue me.
  The fact that I ate lunch with him and sat with him and his classmates on the ground during special treat time was also pretty cool... from a Kindergartners point of view anyway.
  That will pass soon I'm sure and he won't even want his friends to see me picking him up from school in the afternoons much less hanging out with him at lunch.
  I am totally taking the time to appreciate that right now.

I'll end this post with a list of things I learned today from Ryan's classmates:


1.) Addison's dog threw up yesterday (probably months ago but it's still big news) and her brother was grossed out about it.
2.) Ally likes Tinkerbell and sparkles.
3.) Ryan got in trouble for drawing on the floor (and he wasn't thrilled about being ratted out).
4.) Three kids knew (and were happy to tell me) exactly how many times Ryan has been "clicked down" on the behavior chart since starting school. Twice. (They were accurate.)
5.) Madison loooooved my purse.
6.) My name isn't Ashley with his class. It's "Ryan's Mom"
7.) Ally liked my hair (even though it was styled in "that big fuzzy ball on the back of your head" as Ryan calls it.)
8.) My shirt today is pretty...Ally said so.
9.) I need to hang out with Kindergarteners more often for the ego boost.
10.) They are all totally accepting of Ryan being a little different due to the diabetes. They ask questions and move on, treating him the same as they treat any other kid. There is a lesson in that, folks.