In Which Squirrelboy is a College Student, And I'm Not Done Parenting, But Basically Done Blogging

Squirrelboy is now about halfway through his first semester of college. I won't give you details about how his experience has been because, well, he's an adult, and it just feels a little weird to post about his school experiences at this point.

When I started this blog my kids were in 3rd and 9th grade. Now Kittygirl is in 7th grade and Squirrelboy is a freshman in college. The blog was a great way to force myself to get back to writing regularly after a long hiatus. I was even able to help some people recognize dyslexia and/or ADHD in their kids. I helped some other people learn more about diabetes and get a taste of what it's like to live with diabetes.

But I think this blog has outlived its purpose. I may still post my Valentines Day reflections here because it's a nice way to share them with a wider range of people, but outside of that I don't plan to post anymore.

Here are my thoughts on signing off. Raising kids is hard. Raising kids with a disability of any kind is even harder. You know what's even harder, though? Actually having said disability. We can empathize with our kids. We can understand what they're going through in a way most outsiders can't. But in the end we still can't see into their hearts and minds. Even though I also have ADHD I still don't really know what it's like for Squirrelboy to have ADHD, let alone both ADHD and dyslexia. Even though I've done about a million site changes now and calculated about a billion carbs, I still don't actually know what it's like for Kittygirl to have diabetes. I, along with other parents of kids diagnosed at a young age, can relate better than any other nondiabetic but it's still not my body. 

As I said, parenting is hard. Life in general is hard if you get right down to it. But not every moment of every day. There's also a lot of joy if you look for it. Even the darkest night of the year eventually ends in dawn. Even the hardest time in your life eventually passes. It may leave you with scars, sort of akin to how you'll still have a bruise from running into the bed, post on said darkest night (ask me how I know), but it won't always be so dark.

And through all of it, God will still be good. I've been through my fair share of hard times, many (though not all) since becoming a parent. Sometimes I have seriously doubted that last sentence. I can see how you might. But I've held onto it and it's always proven true. It doesn't take away the hard stuff, but it's a tiny pinprick of light in what can sometimes be unbearably oppressive darkness.

So goodbye my five or six faithful readers. Maybe I'll see you next Valentines Day, maybe not. Take care, love your kids with all your might, and always remember the pinprick of light in the darkness. And just because I can't leave without a photo, here are Kittygirl and Squirrelboy on Parents Weekend at his college. Well, not actually at his college. We spent very little time on campus because we have no interest in football. We took a cave tour not far from campus, which is where this photo was taken.

In Which My Kids are Getting More and More Independent, and I Don't Love It

When I started this blog back in the fall of 2019, Kittygirl was 8 and in third grade and Squirrelboy was 14 and a freshman in high school. Now Kittygirl is 12 years old and 4 weeks from finishing 6th grade and Squirrelboy is 18 years old and 27 days from his high school graduation.

They've both grown a lot in independence this year. Kittygirl is handling more and more of her day to day diabetes tasks. When I sent her to a sleepover birthday party in March, Mr. Engineer just spent a few minutes chatting with the parents about food and diabetes tech. We didn't feel the need to give them a crash course in diabetes education or set them up on the Dexcom Follow app.

Squirrelboy has grown in maturity in leaps and bounds his senior year. He's gotten his drivers license and is a responsible driver for the most part. In fact, in some ways he's a better driver than I am. He's grown tremendously as a student as well. Up until this spring semester he always wanted me to go over papers he wrote and often help him get started with writing assignments. But this semester a) he had one class that required weekly papers and the constant practice really helped him up his writing game and b) he discovered the college writing center and now finishes his papers early and sends them there for suggestions on how to make them the best they can be.

Since he turned 18, we've given Squirrelboy a lot of control over his finances, and he's more mature about that than the average American adult. He did research on his own and chose a mutual fund in which to invest some of his money. Mr. Engineer set up a checking account and a savings account for him at our bank. Squirrelboy decided to set up a second savings account that he's using specifically to set aside money for big things, like his backpacking trip to Glacier National Park this July.

He's not perfect. He's only 18, and he's still going to make some mistakes and make some choices that an older adult might have the experience and knowledge to avoid. But overall I feel like he's set up better for life than many other kids I've heard about on the cusp of adulthood. Not that that means Mr. Engineer and I have done everything right. Squirrelboy would be happy to tell you about all the mistakes we've made over the years. But overall the evidence indicates that we've done well. Squirrelboy is a genuinely kind and caring person. He wants to make a difference in the world. He takes responsibility for his actions. He loves Jesus. Any or all of those things could have not happened, especially with all the challenges life has thrown at Squirrelboy.

I have to admit, though, while I'm proud that Squirrelboy is becoming more and more responsible, I'm  a bit sad (okay, sometimes even really sad) that he doesn't need me like he did even six months ago. He used to often want me to come into his room while he did his work for "moral support". At the time I found it kind of annoying. Now I regret having that perspective because he doesn't want that anymore and I really miss it. I'm thankful though that he still regularly gives me hugs and tells me he loves me.

Kittygirl is so social I'm not sure she'll ever not want someone in the room when she's doing her schoolwork, but she's also quite independent already about completing it and, as I said at the beginning, she's taken over a lot of the responsibility for diabetes management. I still play a role, but I'm more of a coach at this point. In the early years I was basically a player on Team Diabetes despite not being diabetic myself.

Parenting is both joyful and challenging at all stages. This past fall I started working three days a week as a teacher in the 2s/3s classroom at a Mother's Day Out program. I love the MDO kids, but I'm really glad I only have them for five hours at a time three days a week. I would not want to be parenting littles at this stage in my life. That said, I would not have been ready to parent young adolescents and young adults ten years ago.

I don't think there's one easiest or hardest stage of parenting. Especially not one easy stage. They're pretty much all hard. And it doesn't magically end when they turn 18, especially not if they turn 18 when they're still in high school, as most often happens. But in addition to being hard, all the stages are also wonderful in some way. It's such a gift watching my kids figure out who they are and embrace it. It's hard too. Some of the things they have to embrace are things I wish they could escape the challenge of, like diabetes for Kittygirl and ADHD and dyslexia for Squirrelboy. But at the same time the things they've learned from living with their disabilities are part of what makes them the wonderful people they're becoming, and I wouldn't trade those people for the world.

Because I always like to include a photo, I'm including a photo of Kittygirl and Mr. Engineer packed for a scout campout this weekend. Squirrelboy is also camping, in a different place. He's testing out his new boots and backpack in preparation for a big backpacking trip this summer. 

In Which I Write Another Valentine's Day Reflection

Back in my youth last millennium, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and we walked uphill both ways to school in a blizzard, Valentine's Day activities fit in one of two categories. There was little kid Valentine's Day and there was couples Valentine's Day. If you were in preschool or elementary school, Valentine's Day was a day to decorate a cardboard "mailbox" and receive cute little valentines and maybe some candy from your classmates. If you were really lucky, the room mom might even organize a party with red punch and heart shaped cookies.  Once you left elementary school, Valentines Day was no longer for you until you were part of a couple.

If you don't count one blind double date with a friend, her boyfriend, and her boyfriend's best friend and one guy I asked to a school dance, I didn't date in high school. I had two short lived relationships in college, and neither of them overlapped Valentines Day. That's why I decided to send out the first Valentines email over a quarter century ago, reclaiming the day as a day to celebrate love of all kinds including the love of friends, the love of family, and the love of God.

All these years later it turns out I wasn't so much an outside the box thinker as an ahead of the curve thinker. "Gal-entines Day" and "Pal-entines Day", celebrating friendships between women and friendships in general, respectively, are all the rage now. I have yet to see a "Family-entines Day" ad (how would you make that one rhyme? Fal-entines Day?, but it's probably just a matter of time.

Though our society still puts romantic love up on a pedestal it doesn't really belong on, I'm happy to see attitudes changing to recognize that other relationships are also extremely valuable. I love seeing homecoming and prom pictures that, instead of just a couple, often have groups of friends going together, some of whom may or may not be romantically involved with each other. 

We're finally recognizing that romance isn't the be all and end all of relationships. Now, don't get me wrong here. I love being married. My husband is amazing and I'm thankful for him every day. My romantic love story remains an important part of my life. However, we need to recognize that life can be just as fulfilling without a romantic love story, and that even those in a solid romantic relationship need the different things that a close friendship will give you.

Some people, whether they feel called to celibacy, they identify as aromantic or asexual, or some other reason, will never pursue a romantic relationship. Others will remain open to the idea, and perhaps even have some false starts, but never find someone who's right for them. And not all who find romance get to keep it long term. Not all relationships work out, even if one party is willing to put in the work to try. Once burned, some people are wary of trying again. Others lose their spouses way too young and either never seek another romantic relationship or never find another one.

We need to remember not to look at these people as unfulfilled adults. I am pro-romance, but I am not pro-"romance fulfills everything and makes your life perfect". Even with the very best spouse in the world who is the very best fit for you, you need friends. If you don't have a romantic partner, you need friends even more. If you're part of a couple, great. Don't be an isolated couple turned always toward each other and away from the world. Let the world in. Build a community. Noah and I have actually done a pretty mediocre job at that, what with both being introverts, but we have enough of a community that we've always had people to turn to in times of crisis (like when I was hospitalized when pregnant with Ronia and when I broke my wrist a Ronia's birthday party - anyone sensing a theme here?).

I've built a great online community of fellow writers, mostly women, from around the country and world, and last weekend 14 of us had what you might call an early "Galentines Day" gathering in Nashville. Though most of us were meeting in person for the first time, we chatted, laughed, and cried together like old friends. It was just what my soul needed and I left reenergized for life and writing. While Mr. Engineer is amazing, what he can't give me is any understanding of what it's like to craft a story and send it out to be battered to bits by the publishing industry. These women can.

Whatever your own needs are, don't seek to fulfill all of them in a romantic relationship, whether that's a relationship you're in right now or a future relationship you dream of.  Pursue romance if that's something you desire, but don't let desire for that eclipse every other type of love.

And the greatest love of all? You didn't think I could get through my homily without this, did you?  Is the love of the One who created us and loved us first. The One who loves us even when we insist on turning away from Him time after time. 

On this Valentine's Day, embrace love in all its forms.

With love (but not romantic love unless you're Mr. Engineer),

Misfit Mom

P.S. Mr. Engineer and I bought Valentine cards for each other at different stores at different times, but we managed to choose the same card.

In Which Graphic Novels Make My Kid Into a Bookworm (And Count As Real Books)

Over three years ago, I wrote a post lamenting the fact that I was unable to turn my kids into bookworms despite the fact that I did everything the experts say you should do to turn kids into reading. That includes reading to them, modeling reading, taking them to the library often, owning a lot of books, letting them choose books they read, and more.

Since that post, Squirrelboy, who is now a senior in high school, has basically stopped reading or listening to books for pleasure. I think a large part of the reason for this is that he is now taking dual credit classes at the local community college and he has to do a lot of reading for school. His dyslexic brain doesn't have a lot of energy left to read for pleasure after that. He doesn't listen to audiobooks much anymore, either. He prefers short form listening, he says. He listens to a lot of podcasts. I'm hoping he'll rediscover reading or listening to books for pleasure at some point during adulthood. 

Kittygirl, meanwhile, has turned into a regular bookworm. She does still prefer spending time with people, but she doesn't have to exhaust every other option before turning to a book. When we go to the library, she usually comes out with a huge pile of books and reads one of them on the way home. She sometimes even chooses reading a book over interacting with people.

So what turned the tide for her? Graphic novels are what did it. She is obsessed with graphic novels. She's still a picky reader. With a few notable exceptions, she reads realistic fiction graphic novels. Every once in awhile she crosses into fantasy, but she doesn't like most fantasy graphic novels. She's also picky about the style of art. She's turned down some books I thought she would like because she doesn't like the style of art.

There are a lot of graphic novels of the style she likes, but she would have run out of reading material long ago if she weren't a re-reader. She's read many of her favorite books dozens of times. This year, for Christmas she asked mostly for graphic novels.

As you can see, her Christmas wishes came true.

Kittygirl is still classed as an advanced reader. On tests, her reading level is past high school. Her teachers encourage her to read closer to her grade level, and she'll do it if she has to, but she prefers to read the graphic novels that she loves. Since her reading level goes up on every test, it doesn't seem to be hurting her.

Kittygirl has a lot of friends whose parents don't think graphic novels are "real books". I can understand their hesitation in a way. It did take me awhile to warm up to graphic novels. But when you tell your kids they can't read the books they want to read, what you usually end up with is not a kid who loves to read high quality literature but rather a kid who hates reading. I've seen this happen to quite a few kids in my circle now that my youngest has reached middle school.

So what's the lesson here? Let your kids read what they want to read, even if they're books you don't like. This is much more likely to result in the loving books long term. But also, if you do everything right, it's not a foolproof formula to "raise a reader".  

In Which I Almost Let ADHD and Dyslexia Awareness Month Pass Me By

I find it convenient that ADHD and Dyslexia Awareness month are exactly the same month. Since the two conditions are often comorbid, it gives people less to keep track of. How thoughtful of the awareness month planning people! Okay, so maybe it just happened since there are a lot more than 12 things to be aware of and only 12 months in the year, but anyway it's nice. I nearly let the month pass by without a post, but never fear, here I am writing at the 11th hour, as fitting for a blogger with ADHD.

Squirrelboy is well into his last year of high school now, which is completely crazy because my baby boy should not be allowed to be that old. But anyway, time has a crazy way of passing and he's now taking four dual credit classes at the community college, doing an internship at our church with the media person, and applying to colleges.

When Squirrelboy was diagnosed with dyslexia at the end of kindergarten I knew school would be a struggle for him, and that played out all the way through elementary school. After the dyslexia focused tutoring helped him learn to read it got better, but I still often had to drag him through his work. Looking back, I'm sure the undiagnosed ADHD played into that.

Things got better at the end of 6th grade when Squirrelboy was diagnosed with ADHD and we found a medication that was helpful for him, but middle school was still a struggle. Writing was especially hard. Just writing a paragraph could take him hours.

Before he started high school, I warned him that it would be an adjustment, would likely be hard, and he might get some bad grades while he got his feet under him. I assured him that that wasn't a big deal and that all we cared about was that he tried his best. To my great surprise, none of that happened. He thrived in high school right way.

Sophomore year he was inducted into the National Honor Society. Junior year he started taking dual credit classes and got A's. Senior year he's applying to colleges and his GPA qualifies him for generous scholarships.

He has designed his own system of writing the things he needs to accomplish on notecards, breaking them down step by step. Not just "take a shower" but "get a towel", "take a shower,"  "hang up the towel". It works brilliantly for everything from a smooth morning routine to finishing a long list of assignments.

I'm sure he still has challenges ahead of him, but I've seen Squirrelboy really come into his own this year and I'm so thankful. He's come a long way from the little boy who cried every Sunday night during first grade because school was so hard. 

For so many kids and adults, , ADHD and/or dyslexia are serious roadblocks that they never really overcome. I don't know exactly what needs to change or how to change it, but our schools need to do a better job of identifying these disorders early and giving these kids the intervention they need before they're bitter teenagers who hate everything about school. 

Squirrelboy is blessed to have had parents who have personal experience with ADHD and dyslexia, have access to private testing, and are in a position to advocate for him within the school system. Way too many kids don't have this, and this is a tragedy. This is what we really need to be aware of. Not that ADHD and dyslexia exist, but that we are failing so many kids with our current system.

I don't have a photo to express the theme of this post, so instead I'll leave you with a pile of black kittens that I saw at the pet store today and was really tempted to adopt. I refrained, because Mr. Engineer would never forgive me and also five more cats would be a big expense, but just look at the perfect Halloween cuteness.

In Which Diabetics Can't Actually "Do Anything Except Make Insulin"

There's a large, or at a least a loud, segment of the diabetes community (mostly consisting of parents of young type 1 diabetics) who are very adamant that diabetes doesn't stop people from doing anything, it just adds extra steps. There are shirts old and proudly worn with the slogan "I can do anything except make insulin".

I think the intent behind this is very good, and I fully bought into it when Kittygirl was first diagnosed. Diabetes should not stop kids from doing well in school, making friends, going to parties and sleepovers, or pursuing their dream career (unless their dream is to join the U.S. Military, since that's a no go at least for now).

However, the longer I spend in the diabetes community and the more I talk with diabetics who have successfully managed their condition for a long time, the more I realized that there are some things diabetics can do but maybe shouldn't, or should at least pursue with extreme caution.

Technically, diabetics can eat any diet they want. However, eating a high carb diet does make it much harder to manage diabetes than eating a low carb diet. Thanks to the dynamic management techniques we've learned combined with a hybrid closed loop system, Kittygirl eats a pretty high carb diet and maintains an A1C her doctor is thrilled with an an above average time in range.

That said, her time in range is only above average because the average is so abysmal. As she gets older and makes more of her own food choices and also has a bigger appetite I'm trying to gently point out times her food choices make her blood sugar go way out of range, which does sometimes stop her from doing things she wants to (like if a high blood sugar leads to a rebound low and she has to sit out of an activity, or she never has to sit out but she keeps getting distracting and annoying Dexcom alarms that she has to deal with).

Ultimately, she will have to manage her disease on her own and make her own choices about what she eats and what activities she does. My hope is that we're able to provide her with a foundation that will allow her to make choices that make her not feel left out while still not having roller coaster blood sugars. This is hard, and I don't doubt that she'll have some roller coaster days that make any roller coaster days she has right now look like small peanuts when she hits the teen years. 

No matter what diet they choose, diabetics also can't eat carbs without bolusing insulin. Kittygirl needs to look at her plate before she eats, figure out the carbs, enter them into her pump, and deliver the insulin. Mr. Engineer is now trying to leave that all up to her on scout campouts, with mixed results. She's busy talking with her friends and hungry from a day of constant activity and she has forgotten to bolus until she goes high later more than once.

Finally, sometimes diabetes technology makes certain activities inadvisable. This past weekend Kittygirl and I visited a science museum. During a show about electricity she raised her hand as a volunteer to be shocked with static electricity by one of those big metal balls. However, when the presenter said you should leave anything with batteries at your seat I paused to think. She can take her pump off, but she can't take off her Dexcom sensor and transmitter. Probably nine times out of ten doing an activity like that wouldn't hurt diabetes tech, but it would have been super sucky if she killed her transmitter when we were three hours from home and only one month into its three months of use. I explained the situation and she was put on the docket as the next volunteer. 

In the end she got to ride a bike to power some lightbulbs, which was actually cooler than the thing she originally volunteered for so it worked out. However, it's sucky that we even had to think about it.

The fact is, diabetics can do most of what nondiabetics can do, sometimes with no extra thought and often with extra thought and planning. The more I understand diabetes, however, the more I think we're doing parents and newly diagnosed young children a disservice by presenting the idea that they can do literally anything.

The flip side is that without that message parents might be afraid to let their kids do a bunch or normal childhood stuff that they can absolutely do. I think there's probably a happy medium, but I don't have a cute slogan to go with it. If I come up with one, maybe I'll make some t-shirts.

In Which Kittygirl Goes to Camp

It's been over three months, so I suppose it's time for a new post if I'm not going to admit I've entirely abandoned this blog, isn't it? As I write this, summer vacation is about 2/3 over. It's July 15, and the kids go back to school on August 10. Which is a travesty. Summer should not be over on August 10. But I digress.

Kittygirl has done day camps many summers, though not in 2020 or 2021 thanks to Covid, but this summer she had her first sleepaway camp experience. At the end of June she spent a week at Camp Hendon, a diabetes camp. And as I write this she's enjoying her last night at Camp Crooked Creek with her Scouts BSA troop.

In case you aren't aware, diabetes camps have been in existence for many decades. Actually, nearly a century according to the quick google search I did just now (as you see, I believe in thoroughly researching things before I write a blog post about them). The first diabetes camp was started by a doctor in Michigan in 1925, just a few years after the discovery of insulin. The longest running diabetes camp is Camp Ho Mita Koda in Newbury, Ohio, which was established in 1929.

Some camps, like Ho Mita Koda in Ohio, Camp Sweeney in Texas, and Camps Clara Barton (for girls) and Joslin (for boys) in Massachusetts, have their own property and run sessions all summer long. Many more, like Camp Hendon, are mostly volunteer run operations that borrow another camp facility for a week or two at a time. Some camps welcome friends or siblings of kids with type 1 diabetes for one or more sessions during the summer, but my impression is that the majority of diabetes camps are just for kids with diabetes.

Camp Hendon is hosted at two different camps in Kentucky, both of which are owned by the United Methodist Church. Our family is United Methodist, and we've been to events at both camp facilities. In fact, Mr. Engineer and I actually met at a Sunday School retreat at Camp Loucon, where Kittygirl attended Camp Hendon this year. It was a fun bonus to revisit the place where I met my husband when I dropped off Kittygirl. Though I regret to say that, 24 years on, I didn't really recognize the place. 

Some kids are nervous when they go away to sleepaway camp for the first time, no matter what type of camp it is. Kittygirl was not one of those kids. She was so excited for camp to start she barely had time to hug me goodbye.

At Camp Hendon, and most diabetes camps as I understand it, the medical staff will ask if you have a diabetes goal you'd like your child to try to accomplish during their camp session. This might be testing their blood sugar on their own, counting carbs, or learning to change their diabetes tech. I told the nurse I'd love to have Kittygirl learn to change her pump site. Five years on, she still has a lot of anxiety around site changes. In fact, she was on the verge of signing up for diabetes camp last summer but decided she couldn't handle having anyone other than me or Mr. Engineer change her sites. She's had so much anxiety around pump site changes I doubted she'd actually achieve it.

Not only did she achieve her goal, she totally rocked it. She has wanted to help with every site change since. She hasn't actually put a site on at home, but she's filled the cartridge and the tubing, something she was never the least bit interested in learning how to do before camp.

A lot of campers have reportedly never met another kid with diabetes before they go to a diabetes camp. That was, of course, not the case for Kittygirl. To begin with, we knew another local family with two type 1 kids before she was diagnosed. But, more importantly, as I've posted about before, we've found an amazing diabetes community at the Friends for Life conference. However, even with her FFL experience, Kittygirl thought diabetes camp was special. The first thing she said to me when I picked her up from camp was "I'm definitely going back next year".

I have no problem sending her back. Her self care skills have continued to increase as time has gone on, and diabetes camp pushed her over one big hurdle. She'd really like to be able to attend a regular sleepaway camp next summer in addition to diabetes camp (scout camp is in a different category because Mr. Engineer is a leader in the troop so he'll always be on site if she needs him), but in order to do so she'll have to be entirely independent in her diabetes care. We'll make sure the staff is able to respond in an emergency if and when she goes to a regular camp, of course, but day to day diabetes tasks will be up to her.

Because of the push and the boost of confidence her week at Camp Hendon gave her, I think there's a very real possibility she'll be able to do it.

If you're reading this and your kid doesn't have diabetes but does have some other type of disability or chronic medical condition, I highly recommend searching for a camp for that condition. There's a good chance there is one. Out of curiosity, because Kittygirl has a good friend with life-threatening food allergies, I searched and confirmed that there are summer camps for kids with food allergies.

Spending time with people who understand what you're going through is incredible. That's why our whole family loves Friends for Life (Which Scout Camp overlapped with this year. Boo!) and why Kittygirl and so many other kids love diabetes camp.