Thursday, June 3, 2010

My Peeps

So, to continue the intros, I have three kids, one dog, and a husband who - even though I hate this phrase - is my soul mate. Really, there's no one else on this planet who could be married to me. He loves me, supports me, puts up with my moods, and tells me I'm beautiful. There is absolutely no other man in the world for me.

The dog and I have a less emotional connection. She's cute - a yellow lab. Great with the kids, loves to go on walks. But she sheds A LOT, and she had this nasty habit of barking at the leaves outside right when one of the kids went down for a nap. I've never quite forgiven her for that. And now she's getting so old that my husband almost ran over her in the driveway where she was sleeping because she didn't hear the car. I like the dog, but she's not my soul mate.

Grace is my oldest, then comes little sister and little brother. I'm not quite sure yet how much I want to reveal about them, but man are they cute! You'll see them throughout the JDRF video on the sidebar.

What I haven't yet mastered is the balance between attention given to Grace due to her special circumstances, and attention given to all the kids. Glucose Tabs have become the "forbidden fruit" of the house for my son. Since I don't let him have them (okay, I admit I've let all the kids have one a few times when Grace needed them) he wants one every time they come out of the cabinet, then cries when I try to explain how they're more like medicine than candy.

And my middle daughter has said to me, "You love Grace because she has diabetes, and XXX because he's the baby and you don't love me!" Ouch. That one hurt. So I do my best to spend special time with each of my kids. I try to employ the "fair but not equal" rule. I'll treat all my children fairly at all times, but that doesn't mean that they all get treated equally the same.

How do you all find the balance? When all the kids at the pool are having a slushy (couldn't even begin to figure out how to bolus for that one!) do you say no to just your D kid, or all your children. Is it fair to the diabetic? Is it fair to the non-d's?

(For the record, so far slushies are only aloud when Grace isn't at the pool that day.)

2 comments:

  1. First, welcome. I hope you find something of what you need here. It is very difficult to find the right balance in any of this. You try, you love, you make them all feel special as best you can, but children will think what they think, regardless their age.

    In our family we have a teenage daughter and a son who is almost twenty. They both have said they feel guilty about being healthy, about not having diabetes. They say we have made them feel that way at some point or another in the last couple of months. But what can you say to them? They are wrong, yes, but then feelings are not facts, so you can't change them with argument, especially with children. So we are back to doing the best we can.

    I wish there was some golden rule, but there's not. Fortunately, every parent has their instincts and their children's best interests in mind. Almost always that works in our favor. For those times it does not, there are slushies.

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  2. Oh the ole life isn't fair, huh. I always tell my 3 kiddos - I'm not sure who told you life is fair cause it isn't. I also tell them, repeatedly, 'Fair is not everyone getting the same thing.. Fair is everyone getting what they need.' It's so hard finding the balance of it all. I hear the same comments from my middle daughter, that between the oldest and the youngest, it's hard to be the typical one.

    When all the kids are at the pool and everyone has a slushy, I would give my Grace a portion of it in a cup and random bolus for it. Then I get to learn how much carbs a slushy is. Then she can start to have it as a treat. I figure she wants the slushy, go ahead and have it, let's try to work a carb amount on that in a reasonable fashion. She will have to do it her entire life with foods she would like, so why not start now. Then she doesn't feel deprived and frankly, diabetes doesn't make us feel awful too. I just won't let it win every damn time.

    Balance. So hard all the time. I think we get through the best we can and hope that we don't mess it up totally and require our kids to be in therapy. :0)

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