Today

Nolan has now officially retired from having diabetes. He is done, he has said, "I'm out!" and no longer wants to have anything to do with it.

And I dont blame him.

For almost five years, he was an ideal "diabetic" and endured all of the lameness of being sick and feeling crappy and shots and sites, and pokes, and lows and highs, and restrictions at times, and everything else a kid can go through.

Even when he was being diligent about his diabetes, with my help, he did still hear a lot about how he was maybe "faking" his low blood sugars, and "faking" feeling sick, or "playing games with his food" so that he could be high, or low, and go to the nurses office at school.
Because all of us know, there is no more rockin' place on earth than the nurses office.

If everyone accuses you of it... I guess, why not?
So it gave him a good idea. One night, when he was asleep, he somehow disconnected his pump, and consequently woke up at over 600 with ketones. Of course, he also had not eaten since dinner, so that did not help the case. I cant take him to school like that, and he had to stay home.

So, after that happened, he disconnected again, and again, and again. I dont know if he is doing it in his sleep, or if he is just doing it, but finally I started putting a tegaderm OVER the site at night before he goes to bed, which he despises, but it works.

He lies to me about what his blood sugars are, and wont show me his meter... I have to make him show me every time now, and he hates that.

I know that it stinks, and he really does understand why I need to do so much of that.... I would like to turn it over to him soon, but right now, he wont do anything.
He does not want to.

And why would you? when your parents ask what your bg is and you tell them 340, and then you get a myriad of questions as to why, and you dont really care, you just want to make the biggest lego airplane you can...
Did you eat something,
are you feeling ok?
Did you wash your hands first?
"I dont know, ma... I just want to be a kid"

And so, for now, I continue to sneak up on him and look at his pump, or I try to ask him when he is in a good mood, but often it is a fight. But, he is alive to fight with me.
And that is what is important.

SPANGST

Man alive! I love my son, but 5th grade has sone a number on his attitude. He is not only the whiniest kid on earth, he has also mastered the art of showing his exasperation with his incredibly stupid parents.

I remember that. I remember when I got so hip to the jive that my parents suddenly became the STEWPIDEST people roaming the earth. It was a miracle they were toilet trained, seeing that they spent thier entire lives in OBLIVION... and lucky for them, they had me to teach them. How did they fumble thier parts together TWICE in order to make my brother and I? Was it some moment of drunken clarity that they accidentally created life, I mean... these guys were dumb. I couldn't figure out how they managed anything, let alone both of them getting thier Masters Degrees.
(not to mention doing it BEFORE they got married ,and getting married BEFORE they had kids... now see, I did it exactly the opposite way around, first kids, then marriage, then a degree, no masters... not yet.. pine for that. smart me.

The new thing at my house is that whatever I go to tell my 11 year old, he already knows. He is showing a very astute psychic tendency, I will tell you that...

"Nolan, time to get up for school!"
"I KNOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWUH!"
Oh OK I didnt know.

"Nolan, I am going to pick you up a"- Interrupts- "I KNOWWWWWWWWWUHHHHH!"
"a new minibike after school" (i finish with a lie to get his attention)
"oh but you knew that already didnt you?"
"OH MY GOOODDDDDUUUHHHHHHH!"
He knows about my game.

"Nolan, could you put"--YES I KNOWWWWWWWWWWUHHHH!"
"your-" -"I KOWWWWW"
"socks-" -"YES I KNOOOOOOOOWWWWWWUUUHHHHHH!"
"in your-" -"I KNOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.. Im putting them in my dresser, GODDDDDDDDUHHHH!"
"MOUTH???? ALL OF THEM???? CAN YOU FIT THEM ALL IN THERE SO I DON'T HAVE TO HEAR YOUR CRAP?"

OK I dont say the last part, but I want to.
Dont even let me get started on when I ask for blood sugars.

Nolan is eleven. He is at the age that he wants to be with his friends more than with his family. He likes girls. Girls like him. They text him all night long. Zoe, Kaylee, Irelinn... constant phone flirting.
I will tell you that some of these girls are quite grown up in thier phone text conversations... When it gets out of hand, I take the phone away for awhile, and we talk.
I had taken it last week, with the unstated intent of keeping it for a couple of weeks to really teach him a lesson, but ended up giving it back to him on Friday.
On Friday, I went to his friends house, where Nolan was about to eat dinner, and go to a Hockey game... And I gave him his Glucagon, slipped it into his inside pocket, and his phone along with it, told him really quietly that I loved him, and said goodnight.

The next day, he spent a good amount of the day on the phone with a girl he'd met at the hockey game. We took a short road trip, and had a pretty laid back day.

I was feeding the baby in the kitchen when Nolan came downstairs. He sat across from her high chair in a high stool, with that silly look on his face, and a bit of a pallor.
"You Low?" I asked him... but he was busy texting. I imagined texting him..." u lo?" and chuckled to myself.
"Put the phone down and check your sugar." I told him.
His pump said 50 but the sensor was old, and who knows... it may be lower or higher and he would still look like that.
He did, but the lancet device broke, at that very moment, the poking mechanism did not work. I would have done a manual poke, but I knew he would not let me, so I started looking for another poker.
I pulled open the kit drawer, where we have nothing but blood glucose kits.
Kit after Kit after Kit I opened, and tossed over my shoulder-- NO POKER! some had nothing in them, some had only a meter that we never used, some had a meter strips and no poker... I handed him some candy.
I went to the other room to get Nolans backpack. He is supposed to always have everything in there... I felt around... nothing.........
No kit, and also.... it seemed like I felt the absence of something else... AH yes! The glucagon! I had put it into his coat pocket. So I checked the coat. No glucagon. Now, wait, I am still looking for a poker, I gave Nolan some more candy. I then continued my search.
"wheres your glucagon?" I asked him.
*shrug* he did not know. "maybe at the Tyson event center?" He said.
Now I was getting panicky. I left the room again to look one last place for a poker, and found one. My secret secret super secret stash of one kit plus poker.
I pulled it out of its hiding place, (a place so secret that it will not be named here.)Then I heard it. THUD!!!!
I took two steps back into the kitchen to see Nolan face down on the floor, pasty-white and in a stupor. He had fallen off of his stool.
I called for James, and starter crusing candy into a fine powder and gave it to Nolan, who was able to stand back up.
We poked and he was 42. It must have been lower than that before we treated with candy under the tongue.
The baby laughed and giggled at our silliness, and in his stupor, Nolan smiled at the baby and sang to her from his chair.
I read him the riot act about losing his glucagon.
I read him the riot act about not having a poker.
I mourned a little, that he is growing up and away from me a little. I mourned that he has to have diabetes as well as just being a pre-teen.
I mourned that he is not a tiny baby anymore, that I can fix all the worlds problems for.
I made him go to the pharmacy with me while I bought a new glucogen kit.
Today getting ready for school he checked his sugar, and I was just about to give him the standard lecture on keeping the kit in one place all the time, and just as I opened my mouth The stereo turned on.
My husband put in some Ska to get us all happy in the morning.
It is almost a religion for us. You cant be mad when there is ska music on.
So, we started dancing. I tried to teach Nolan to skank properly, but he wont get his elbows out quite right. But It was fun anyway. He does a really good job otherwise, and instead of fighting about diabetes today, we skanked in the living room while Patrick brushed his teeth, and James got Lily dressed.
And for once, we started off on a good note.
Nolan went to school laughing at my dancing.
And that, though I cannot fix all the worlds problems for him now, is maybe just what he needs.