For all children with Type 1 diabetes....


T'was a Type 1 night before Christmas, by Lisa Lewis


T'was the Night before Christmas at our house this year
Mom, Dad and the boys were full of good cheer.

Both of the boy's blood sugars were stable
Diet soda and beef jerky were spread on the table

When what to my sleep deprived ears do I hear..
"mom, I don't feel good...my pump site's out I fear"

He dashed to the bathroom, to throw up a bit
While I searched through the house for the blood sugar kit

His ketones are large, we place a new site
and give extra insulin this christmas eve night.

Then tuck into bed and a wish for sweet dreams
and "don't worry, cause I'll check your sugar at three"

Then from down the hall another small voice
who says he feels low and quick sugars a must

The accucheck says 50 we must get something sweet
a small candy cane is the perfect christmas treat

He gets a small snack to keep blood sugars stable
while mom clears the used test strips from off of the table

So this Christmas eve one thing is for sure
What we want most for Christmas is ... a DIABETES CURE!
__________________

What not to say to the mother of a type one diabetic...

I found this on the children with diabetes website...

I am the mother of a type 1 diabetic. People say some pretty weird things to me. Here is a complilation of the greatest hits condensed into one conversation.


I noticed you were checking your son's blood sugar. Does he have diabetes?
Yes, he does.
Wow, he is so young, and skinny. Is it the bad kind?
I was not aware that there was a good kind of diabetes. he has Type 1 diabetes. he was diagnosed when he was only 7 yrs old.
I guess he probably shouldn't have had so much apple juice when he was a baby.
Actually, I used to force sugar down his throat just for the fun of it.
My Great Aunt Trudy had the bad kind of diabetes. She went blind and they had to cut off her leg.
That was such a nice thing for you to share with me in front of my child. Thank you for that.
I read in a magazine that there was a type of moss found growing on the Southern exposure side of the Kapok tree in Brazil that can cure diabetes. Have you tried it yet?
Like stupidity, there is no cure for Type 1 diabetes.
If Halle Berry can cure herself, why can you not cure your son?
Halle Berry was cat woman. Cat woman can do anything. My son is not cat woman.
I saw that you gave him a piece of candy a few minutes ago. Should he be eating that?
It's o.k. There are only two things my son cannot eat. Poison. And cookies. . . . made of poison.
Do you have to give him shots?
Yes, he gets at least three shots a day or wears an insulin pump attached to him 24/7.
I could never do that to my child?
You are right, it would be so much better if they died a slow, painful death.
I guess it is good that he got it so young. That way he'll never know anything else.
You are right. I am sure he will never notice that his sister does not have to poke herself ten times a day, get shots, or weigh her food. It will not occur to him that his friends can eat whatever they want, whenever they want, without having to count the carbs or get a shot. Maybe if he were as dimwitted as you seem to be that would be the case.
It has been nice talking to you. I hope he gets better soon. See if you can find out about the moss. I bet it will help.
O.k., and if I hear anything about a cure for stupid, I will let you know. Bye, bye.

DONE!!!!

I have finally finished the RN program! It has been a long and difficult 2 1/2 years, I look back over this time with wonder and awe in the ways the Lord has opened doors and led me.. I feel so grateful. Things are changing once again in our life, the boys have started back to public school. As much a I believe in homeschooling I had to take a real look and some issues we were struggling with for both boys, Harry and I both feel that school will provide them with benefits that they are needed at this time. They are doing very well.
Autumn is still at home, she is doing ok, still has several areas that need work but has been stable and making small steps in progress. I am hopeful for her future at this point. The Lord is opening doors for me in job areas, as of right now some things are "in the works", we will have to see..
Tonight we will be going to Branson for a few days of R&R, I am praying and plan to work very HARD on improving my attitude and speaking with softness and kindness. (anyone who feels lead to pray for my please do)
Z's blood sugars have been fairly stable, Cadens have not.. we are trying to find the right amount of basal insulin, he is out of the honeymoon. I know we are moving in the right direction but it has been slow and I am ready to see his numbers improve. He is worn out by school and has been cranky, the break over Christmas will be welcome.
Blessings

I have so little free time as I finish up nursing school and getting the childrens lessons done nothing has been left over for my blog.. but there is a light at the end of the tunnel with only 7 weeks left of college for me! I am looking forward to spending time enjoying my kids and home come December. I saw this on another site and found it so true that I just had to share. Lisa

Today, on Good Friday, the boys and I spent the morning preparing an Easter garden. Just a small container garden filled with items to remind us of the reason for the upcoming Easter Sunday. This small garden is meant to bring to mind another small garden over 2000 years ago, where he walked, where he knelt, where he felt the weight of this world (and you and me) on his shoulders. This small garden has a rough wooden cross in it, to remind us of what he gave for us, his very body broken and bleeding. And this small garden has a stone tomb in it, tonight Caden and I will seal up the tomb, but come Sunday morning the stone will be rolled away, to remind us of the hope we all can have because he is risen!

homeschool report

We are finishing up our second 12 weeks of school this year, we try to take april off for a spring break. Caden still has 2 weeks left to get him back on schedule as we have been behind 2 weeks almost from the start in his HOD. Reading and math are going well for him, we just started subtraction.

Z just finished lifepac # 5 covering factoring, GCF, LCM in math. He is working on a science project to show at the NACHO science fair on the 26th. Spelling continues to be a challenge but he had shown improvement, (we will be working on writing next year.) In geography we have finished Canda and are working on central America this week. In music he will be singing, playing guitar and doing some handbells in the end of year program with our homeschool group. His guitar teacher just loves him and they have become good friends. We have been struggling with teenage attitude as of late, I am seeking prayer and guidance on this issue of heart. Nothing major but I can see the seeds of rebellion at times and am faithfully plucking those weeds them when I find them.

Autumn continues doing well, this has been one of the longest stable periods of her life, I am thankful and hopeful for her future, she is reading Greek literature, she will finish her BJU lit. book early this year. She is slowly making progress in geometry, future plans for math include a heavy review of basic algebra and then shift of focus to life math skills. For history ( see above geography) She has almost completed her vocab. book, our focus will be on writing for the last 12 weeks this year. She has been riding horses almost every afternoon, she has made good friends with a couple of girls that live nearby and ride allot. I plan on including a 4H study on horses and management, also she is helping tend chicken houses this summer (yuck!) as a part time job, I am going to include some 4H workbooks on chicken farming and allow her 1/2 credit in animal keeping this year. Also in the next 12 weeks we will be adding windows PowerPoint & word.

Spring is here :) and everything is new... including my car! Well new to me anyway. After faithfully carrying us around for 7 yrs my durango gave out, my hubby found me a great 2007 impala, it is so nice.. I just love it. And the gas mileage is wonderful, much better then the durango or harry's work truck! I hope it lasts as well as the durango did, Autumn has set her mind on taking over the payment after I am out of school and able to get another car for myself, she wants this one..

It's been so busy I haven't posted in weeks.. I am happy to report that dd is out of the court system and her fins has been dropped at our request, we feel she is doing so much better right now. :) She has been allowed to go out on the weekends and she has came home on time! She has been doing well with her school work and helping out at home even without being asked! No cutting or unstable behavior for many weeks now. We are just thrilled with how well she is doing, I think this latest medication change has finally addressed some of the neuro chemicals she was lacking, it is like having the Autumn we knew was inside her, finally living with us.
Homeschooling is going well for all, it is most difficult for Z, he tends to be a bit lazy and get board easy, he needs a project to keep busy with but I haven't came up with anything yet..
RN school is HARD, but going well, It am counting the weeks until it's over!! We have decided that if at all possible we are going to take the family to Disney next year in celebration of my RN completion, of coarse it will depend on us being able to scrimp and save the money but it gives me something to look forword too.
I am ready for spring and have gotten my garden seeds ready to start indoors, this year I am trying sweet corn, my husband thinks this is a waste of time and that it will not work out but I am stubborn and am giving it a go anyways.. and I still want chickens... blessings Lisa

Filling the freezer day 1 -

Inspired by OAMC (once a month cooking) and baking day blogs, I decided to spend a day cooking and see how many meals I could ready for the next couple weeks. Wednesday I did the bulk of my cooking,
I started by putting beans in the crock pot to make refried beans,
next I put a whole chicken in my soup pot and added seasoning,
then 3 lbs (out of a 5 lb roll) of ground beef was browned and divided in half.
While things are cooking I mixed up dough for a loaf of bread and an extra large roll of Cinnamon rolls ( I plan on making for breakfast this weekend when Z's friends are here for a sleep over).
Half the burger I mixed with taco seasoning and bagged for the freezer for quick tacos
the other half I used to make a lasagna for the freezer.
The remaining 2 lbs of ground beef I made into 2 meatloaves and froze.
When the bread came out of the oven Caden and I made monster cookies, 1 dz we made to eat now and another 3 dz we flash froze before cooking and put in the freezer.
I mixed up the dry ingredients for pizza dough and put in a Ziploc in the pantry.
Then I cooled and shredded the chicken, bagged and froze for a quick chicken meal. I was able to freeze 2 lg containers of broth to use in soups and dumplings (homemade broth is so much better than canned).
Finally I finished the beans bagging some for the freezer and keeping some out for bean and cheese burritos.

Filling the freezer day 2 -

Yesterday I made pancakes for breakfast, I made a triple batch of batter and ended up with a dz pancakes to flash freeze and bag for quick breakfasts.
Then I cooked rice and when cool bagged to lg bags to freeze ( frozen rice works great added to casseroles or dishes ) I also use it to make rice pudding.
I made 3 banana breads (one is gone already, we love this banana bread).
Cut up a roast I had bought on sale, half Harry used for beef and noodles, the rest we froze to use for stew.

Today I will finish up by cooking chicken breast in the crock pot to chunk up, mix with mushroom soup and freeze for chicken and rice
I will also be cooking a deer roast in the dutch oven to shred, BBQ sauce and freeze for future BBQ sandwiches.
Finally today I will make tortillas and put together the bean and cheese burritos and freeze.

All said It went well, I spent about 5 hrs on day one and 2-3 hrs the other days, I think in the future I could do it all in just 2 days. It really helps having things fixed and ready for meals on the days that I am so busy and needing to study... Here is what I have for the next 2 weeks

1. taco meat, shredded cheese, refried beans (ready to go) just add shells and toppings
2. Chicken and rice (ready to dump in crock pot and go)
3. lasagna with garlic bread( ready to bake)
4. stew meat and veggies (ready to dump in pot and season) will need to add tomato sauce.
5. meatloaf x2
6. bean and cheese burritos
7. BBQ sandwich x2 (ready to heat and eat)
8. chicken and broth for chicken and dumplings
9. shells and cheese with garlic bread (ready to bake)
10. pizza

plus breakfast items of pancakes, banana bread, rice for rice pudding and Cinnamon rolls.
Done!

Home school report for January 30th -



The weeks are definitely going better without mom having to attend college classes 2 days a week. The online RN program is difficult, but worth it for us. This week we attended the home school co-op on Monday afternoon. Caden's class is studying honey bees, he is also participating in choir, Zach is in guitar classes and hand bells. Autumn is not involved in the co-op this year but she using the time to work on her independent work. The boys will be making valentines for a class party next week. This week at home we covered...



Autumn :

Math - a review of ch. 1-3 in geometry this week, she is having trouble remembering some of the concepts & we continue to go at her pace in this area.

Science - properties of water in chemistry

Literature - read Ilyas by Tolstoy, The Mansion by Henry Von Dyke, The Brothers by Bjornson. Ilyas was her favorite.

Vocab/ spelling review of roots; ven,vent,ali,alter,log,logy,omni and the prefixes; peri,ante,un,hypo,sur,ante.

Writing - continues with dictation exercises and free writing

geography - southern states, we plan to go out for Cajun food next week to wrap up our study of Louisiana.



Zach:

math - fractions/decimals

Science - plant kingdom studied molds, moss and mushrooms. We have a mold experiment in progress...

grammar - word usage ( lay/lie, set/sit ect..)

spelling - learning rules ( Z is such a poor speller, we are starting with the rules and phonic instruction to see if it helps)

writing - continues with dictation exercises and free writing

geography ( as above)

music - lesson each week and in home school group



Caden:

math - horizons finished lesson 20 ( doing great in math)

science - studying plants, attempted to a bean seed ( it never sprouted will try again this week, read aloud the trellis and the seed, & cactus hotel. We studied how water travels up a stem.

story time - we are reading a pioneer sampler (both boys love this book , so do I)

copy work - least favorite subject, we copy selections from poems, history, science, and spelling words.

history - continue with early life for the Pilgrims, made ice cream ( use HOD)

reading - phonics using Noah Webster's reading handbook



yesterday we added a small unit study on snowflakes to take advantage of the 6 inches + that fell here over the last 24hrs. We made snow cream, looked at snowflakes, learned why snowflakes form the way they do (hexagon shaped) and read the poem To a snow flake.


Blessings Lisa

The week has had it's ups and downs in the homeschooling area, even after almost 2 yr of algebra Autumn is still having some problems with the concepts..today's lessons were

math - review of midpoint formula, finding slope and intercept and solving equations.
In literature - this week she has read The Bells by Edgar Allen Poe, Lochinvar by Sir Walter Scott with discussion on rhythm and pattern in poetry. Also she read What men live by by Leo Tolstay.
in vocab - today's study was the latin root van/ vant, the prefixes peri & hydro, the suffix ment.
chemistry - the discovery of inert gases & Daltons atomic theory
geography - New York city & upstate.



Z - spelling - lesson on adding suffixes to words ending in ce, de, dge
grammar - subject verb agreement
math - radius, diameter, circumference of a circle
science - Hidden Treasure moody science video
geography - New York city and upstate.
reading - historical fiction, a pioneer sampler



Caden - copy work spelling rule on c/k sound
played the exclamation game
math - place value tens and ones plus review of number line, counting by 10's
science - Hidden treasure moody science video plus activity on building a bay (see below)
history - reading about the first winter at Plymouth
reading - historical fiction a pioneer sampler



This is a pic I snapped of Caden playing with his boat, we made a bay out of play dough after reading how the pilgrims sailed into the bay at Plymouth.





The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. Proverbs 9:10
blessings,
Lisa

First day back at homeschooling after our break,

I managed to get home from work this morning without any problems despite the snow covered roads, I am grateful the hospital let me use a sleeper room on sat. night but was so glad to get home... I missed my boys.
After sleeping for a few hours we started back at our schoolwork. Caden continues to study the pilgrims, todays reading was on the discovery of Plymouth rock and some of the hardships of that first year. In math he is working on number lines, he has no problem with the concept but was most curious about what went on the left of zero, so we discussed negative numbers in addition to our lesson. His copywork was from our phonics book today. In reading we started a historical fiction book on early settlers, I think we will all enjoy reading.

Z got our of doing school by sleeping over at grans tonight..

Autumn had a hard time settling down to do her work, her mood is better but she is more easily frustrated then normal, she did a math review lesson, chemistry lesson on the spectroscope & Newton's work with prisms. Reading was The Pied Piper of Hamelin (Browning), she failed to see the twist of fate in the children's probable imprisonment vs promised journey into paradise. She worked a lesson in vocab also. I am at wits end in getting her to apply herself a bit in her studies.. she would prefer to be let alone and every gain we have made in her education has been akin to pulling teeth for her and me. She sees no reason she needs to apply herself, as always punishments & rewards fail to motivate her. I am however very determined to give her at least the basics and instill in her the fact that she can learn if she so chooses too. sigh... I is difficult work... Maybe tomorrow will go better..

Oh yeah.. due to the extreme cold Moby the great dane has been shampoo'd and is staying IN MY HOUSE AGAIN....uggh.. Blessings, Lisa

Happy New Year & guess what?.....

I WON!!

The contest for the subscription to The Old Schoolhouse magazine. I am so thrilled, I love this magazine and I had not been able to renew my subscription this past year when it ended. This is the best homeschooling magazine I've found. There are still give aways to be won at Tamara's blog at Branch of Wisdom, so go sign up.

We are getting ready to start the second 12 weeks of homeschool. We made it through the last 12 weeks, but are a bit behind where we should be. I knew going into it while taking 4 college classes that it was possible we would not be able to keep up. We will have to make up time in geography, and science. I am looking foward to getting started again.

In other areas - Autumns mood has been awful the past 2 days. She is cutting again, one night was so bad I had to take her friend (was here for a sleepover) home at midnight and we had Autumn sleep on a mat beside out bed, after talking with the on call mental health therapist. We suspect this stems from problems with her 'boyfriend' or others. It is a very long and winding road we are on with her... we continue to pray and ask for prayer for her and for us in our way of dealing with her issues.

Blessings, Lisa