Clarissa Explains it All!

I know it's only June, but Clarissa is already thinking about Halloween costumes. The other night at dinner Clarissa looked at me and said "Mom, we need to go to the costume store and get a pancreas costume for you to wear for Halloween"

Obviously we have been thinking and talking about diabetes a lot recently, I'm still puzzled as to why she thinks a pancreas would be a good costume. I asked her if she wanted to be a pancreas, but she insisted that I need to be. Also, several times throughout the day I see her pretending to give Clayton "shots" and telling him that he has diabetes. He's a pretty good patient. On that note, Clarissa is getting really brave with her shots, and doesn't fight it as much anymore.

As soon as I can get the pictures on my computer, I will post about her 4th birthday.

Anonymity

Clarissa received an anonymous gift in the mail this week. It was a Playful Chef cooking kit. It comes with several kid sized kitchen utensils and a few recipes. It is meant to help children learn healthy eating habits and learn about cooking. Tonight Clarissa made us all a Chocolate Mountain Lava Cake using her kit.

By necessity, Clarissa has endured a significant increase in attention to food at our house. It was nice for her to have a food related experience that she could really look forward too and enjoy.

So, thank you anonymous gift giver. We appreciate the thoughtful gift.

Speaking of anonymity, would the owner of the blog, "amyandbrianpluskids" please leave a comment and let us know who you are. We've been racking our brains to think who you might be, but since your blog is private and we can't visit it, we can't seem to figure it out. We assume we must know you since you have a link to our blog on your blog. We don't mean to "out" a lurker, but we feel bad to be neglecting a friendship.

Crash Course: Diabetes 101

On Saturday, May 22nd, we got a call from our pediatrician concerning a lab test that they had taken for Clarissa the day before. That week she had not been feeling well, and was pretty lethargic. I took her to the doctor Friday afternoon, and got an antibiotic, and thought that things were hopefully going to get better. That night, and Saturday, she was still pretty lethargic. When the doctor called that afternoon, he said that the tests were negative for some other concerns they had, but she had extra glucose in her urine, and they said we needed to take her to the emergency room to have her tested for Diabetes. This was the last thing I was expecting, I had never known the symptoms for diabetes.

We rushed to the ER, and spent the next few hours getting blood drawn and tests done, and lots and lots of waiting. To keep Clarissa entertained, they kept giving her stickers, which she insisted that Quinn and I wear, too bad we didn't have our camera, but we were all covered in princess and Dora stickers by the end. One of the nicest things that happened, was that we knew the pediatric doctor that was on call that night. He is a friend from church. It was so nice to see a friendly face, and get some words of comfort from him.

Around 8 pm, they finally got the results, and told us that she did have diabetes, and that they were admitting her to the pediatric unit. She needed to stay until they got her blood sugar more under control, and Quinn and I needed to receive a lot of training.

For the next two days, Clarissa endured many pokes, shots, interrupted sleep, and IV's. She also got spoiled and could eat whatever she wanted, eat every meal in bed, play with tons of toys, watch movies, go for wagon rides, and she received a few new toys from the nurses. During this same time, Quinn and I were bombarded with tons of information on how to take care of Clarissa. It was pretty overwhelming, and I felt I got two days of training for a lifetime of changes!! Fortunately, we have had a lot more training since, and we have some great doctors and nurses that we can contact whenever we have questions.


Clarissa was so lucky to have some special visitors come to the hospital, some good friends from our stake came to visit her.

You are all probably wondering where Clayton was during all of this time. Luckily Quinn's parent's live close, so Judy was so wonderful and drove down Saturday night to help with Clayton and she took him home with her on Sunday, and kept him until Wednesday. We definitely missed him, but we were so grateful to not have to worry about him during this stressful time. When we went to pick him up, Clarissa took him a teddy bear that she got from one of the doctor's. He was so excited to get the bear, but he was also very excited to see her. I could tell that they both really missed each other during that time. Clarissa even mentioned to me several times how much she missed him and was excited to see him. I'm so glad that they love each other and love playing together.

This definitely is not an easy thing we have to deal with, it's something that needs constant attention, but at least she is back to normal now and we know why she was not feeling well that week. She is definitely more energetic and happier.

As you can probably guess, it is a little bit of a challenge to convince an almost 4 year old that she needs to get her finger poked and have shots at least 4 times a day. So we have had to do some incentive programs, and here is a picture of her riding the carousel, her first prize! You may also notice that she is sporting a new hair cut in this picture, we took her to get it cut the day after we got out of the hospital. She loves it, she had been asking to get her hair cut short for a couple of months.

We have definitely had to make a few adjustments the last couple of weeks, and it certainly isn't smooth sailing yet, but hopefully things will continue to get better and we will be able to learn better how to take care of Clarissa. We are so grateful for her, and hope she doesn't hate us too much for having to give her shots every day.

Crazy Green Eggs

One day in preschool a few months ago, Clarissa's class read the book "Green Eggs and Ham", and ever since then, she continually asked me to make green eggs, and I kept putting it off. She even asked my friend Bethany to make them for her one morning that they were visiting, and Bethany didn't make them either.


So, finally, about two weeks ago, I gave in and made her some. I know they do not look appetizing, but I was trying to make my 3 year old happy. She took one look at them and said "Mom, those are CRAZY green eggs, not regular green eggs." She barely ate two bites of them, and I don't blame her. Although, I do wonder what "regular" gree eggs are like, and still have not been able to figure it out. Fortunately, she has not asked for them again.

I wish I had a picture to post of my mom, but I don't have any on this computer, but Happy Birthday Mom (Grandma Connie), we love you!

Visitors from Philly

The weekend of May 8th, our good friends, David, Bethany, Gig, and Madeline came to visit us for a few days. We are such good friends, and unfortunately they live in Pennsylvania, but lucky for us they still have family in the area so they come visit occasionally.



Gigi and Clarissa are such good friends and absolutely love playing together. They hadn't played with each other for a year, but they started playing just like they did when they lived close to each other. Their personalities are so similar, they both especially love to imagine things, which makes for fun times.

This is the only picture I got of Madeline. It's probably because Clayton and Madeline didn't play so well together. They mainly stole toys from each other, and Clayton followed her around poking her. Maybe they will play better the next time we get together.

The same weekend they came to visit, our toddler bed was returned by our friends that had been borrowing it the past year. It made for a crowded living room, but was the perfect hospital bed for these girls. My favorite part of their doctors check ups was the flamingo sunglasses.

My favorite part of their visit was that we had a babysitter come over one night after all the kids were in bed, and we got to go to dinner together. I don't know if Quinn and I have ever gone out to dinner with another couple without children (since we have had them.) I have not enjoyed eating out that much in a long time. We actually got to eat our food when it first came and didn't have to worry about screaming children, cutting food, food being thrown on the floor, drinks spilled, etc. We had such a fun time, and can't wait until we can see them again.