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.

In Which I Bike Nine Miles and I Do Not Die

 This is the last weekend of Kittygirl's Spring Break. Kittygirl and Mr. Engineer spent most of the week in the Boston area, where Mr. Engineer's brother lives. Squirrelboy and I did not go because he's taking dual credit classes at the local community college and had their spring break two weeks ago. However, he does not have any Friday classes, so we headed up to visit my parents in Michigan for the weekend. 

Squirrelboy always brings his mountain bike to Michigan because there are some really great trails here. I have a bike I can use here because my parents got bikes to keep here for my family a few years ago. My brother and sister in law are here too. They live just a few hours north, and have been taking some time here to relax after camping in Florida for a month in the converted van.

My brother and sister in law decided to bike to the nearest town this afternoon and invited Squirrelboy to go with them. Then they invited me to go with them. I internally debated it for a few minutes. I tried to think of reasons not to go. I told them I didn't have a helmet here, but then Squirrelboy pointed out that Mr. Engineer keeps an extra helmet here and it would probably fit me. It did. I had a zoom call from 1-3 this afternoon, and I told them not to wait for me, but that I would go if they hadn't left yet when my call was done.

As you likely guessed given the title of this post, they had not left. I went on the bike ride. It's 4.5 miles each way on a bike trail into town, so 9 miles total. Everyone else was faster than me. My brother is older than I am, but in better shape. My sister in law is younger than I am and in better shape. Squirrelboy, of course, is much younger than I am and in much better shape. 

But I made it. I did not turn around and go back to the house after the second difficult hill, though I was sorely tempted to do so. I did have to walk my bike about 1/3 of the way home, every time there was anything resembling an uphill climb. But I made it. I didn't die. I didn't even hate it. I would not actually recommend a fitness plan that consists in occasional 30 minute walks on the treadmill followed up with a 9 mile bike ride. But I'm proud of myself for not backing down.

There are some lessons for life in this. Life is hard. It often feels like a constant uphill battle. This has been especially true the past two years, I think. But persevering through the hard things is worth it. 

Also, life isn't a race. There are going to be people who get through things faster than you. Parenting is not a race, and parenting kids with special needs is definitely not a race. There are some things our kids will do more slowly. There are some things our kids will never be able to do at all. Especially for kids with disabilities that are much more life limiting than the ones my kids have, that can feel super sucky and unfair. And it is.

But if you get stuck in feeling the unfairness you never get anywhere. You need to move forward, in whatever way works for you. Some people can just put their bike in a low gear and fly up the hills. Others will ride up more slowly. Some will get off halfway and walk their bike. Some, like I did a few times today, will start the hill walking their bike and still have to pause for a breather halfway up the hill.

Guess what? All of those ways get you to the top of the hill, and that's what matters. Life isn't a race. Parenting isn't a race. Sometimes all you can do is survive each day, and that's okay. And sometimes you can survive a nine mile bike ride, even though you're middle aged, out of shape, and overweight.

In Which I Share a Valentine Reflection: Love and Perseverance

 It's Valentine's Day again, and time for my Valentine homily/reflection. For the one or two people who might just happen across this post, let me share some background.

More than a quarter century ago (wow, that makes me sound really old), on a college campus far away I was a woefully single student looking forward to celebrating Valentine's Day as Black [insert whatever day of the week it was going to be here]. However, at the last minute, I had a change of heart and vowed to reclaim the day as a day to celebrate the love of family, of friends, and especially of God. I sent an email to some friends and family members to that effect. They liked it, and thus an annual tradition was born. It has since evolved into a reflection on my faith and life, with some kind of tie in to love and Valentine's Day.

Last year, when I titled my post "Love in the Time of Covid" it did not occur to me that a year later we would still be in the time of Covid. I won't go into my feelings about all the things that went wrong to put us in this place. The fact is we are here, and going into year three of the pandemic, the theme in my mind is perseverance. It's well past the time when we can use "unprecedented" to describe what we're living through. There are now nearly two years full of precedent. I think the appropriate word to transition to is perseverance.

For students, teachers, and school staff, this can mean persevering through yet another incredibly stressful school year. Most students are back in school in person now, but all is not well. Many of the teachers I know are feeling crushed under the burden of being responsible to enforce Covid safety measures (or, in contrast, crushed under the feeling of terror that there are none). Teachers are reportedly retiring early or otherwise leaving the profession in droves. Those that remain are persevering because of their love of their students and what their job used to be and hopefully can be again in the future. I don't know many healthcare workers personally, but I know they are suffering under a burden as well. 

My hope and prayer is that our love for our fellow human beings will cause those of us who are outside these and other high pressure professions to continue to persevere in the changes we have had to make to try to keep Covid in check so that someday (hopefully sooner rather than later, maybe this spring or summer?) we can come out of pandemic mode and move into the long term stage of living with Covid-19 not as a constant threat but as one of many endemic respiratory diseases that are part of our lives but don't control them. 

We're all incredibly tired of this pandemic, so it's no longer seen as fashionable or heroic to make the choice to avoid large indoor gatherings (let alone cancel them or move them online) or even wear a mask inside. We all just want to be done. The sad fact, however, is that wanting something to be over or even pretending it's over doesn't actually change the situation.

So, how am I tying this into Valentine's Day? Is this just a rant about Covid thinly disguised as my annual homily? Don't you worry, there's a point to all of this. I think that, pandemic or not, all love requires perseverance. Long term romantic relationships require perseverance. My husband and I have been married for almost 19 years. I love him at least as much as I did the day I married him, in some ways more. however that doesn't mean every day is perfect. Some days are downright bad. A successful marriage requires work and perseverance on the part of both partners.

The same holds true with my kids. My kids are amazing. It's incredible to see them turning into productive, wonderful human beings. However, there are plenty of times they're incredibly annoying or their needs are inconvenient. Just today I had to run home after dropping Squirrelboy off at his internship instead of heading straight to the grocery store so I could bring him pants (don't worry, he was wearing shorts, but long pants are required). Just as I was about to pull out of the driveway for the second time, I got a text from Kittygirl, who forgot to bring a mask to school. The school provides disposable masks if a student forgets, but she wanted one of the good masks from home. Both of these things cut into my morning and changed my plans, but I did it because my situation allows for that kind of flexibility and I love my kids, even when their forgetfulness inconveniences me. 

Our faith requires perseverance as well. Especially when the world is on fire and it often feels like your prayers are just bouncing off the ceiling, it's seriously tempting to just throw in the towel and assume none of it was true to begin with. When I'm in a valley like this (and I'm not at this moment to be clear), I'm thankful that I can look back on times when I witness God answer my prayers and felt His presence. A similar principal can apply in marriage, in parenting, in friendship, and in any relationship.

Yes, there are relationships that are toxic and relationships that are truly abusive and dangerous. Let me be clear that I am not advocating remembering the good times and persevering in an abusive relationship. However, in the case that your relationship (with a spouse, with a friend, with God) is simply in a slump, it's worthwhile to put in the work and persevere. 

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you are able to celebrate love in some fashion today, whether it's the love you share with your romantic partner, with cherished friends, with your child(ren), or with God.

In Which All I Want for Christmas Is Diabetes Technology That Works Consistently

 It's almost Christmas, and my family is now at my parents' house in Michigan. It's nice to be back, after skipping last year due to Covid concerns. Of course, the pandemic is far from over, but at least everyone here has been vaccinated. However, I'm not going to subject you to a rant detailing my feelings about how this pandemic has been massively mismanaged, as much as I might like to. 

This year Kittygirl has take on more and more of her own diabetes management. Overall, she's done really well. We still handle nearly everything when we're with her, but she's in charge at school and when she's with friends, with support via text or phone from us when necessary. The only times things have gone really wrong have been when the technology has failed in some way.

Two Christmases ago I wrote that all I wanted for Christmas was a closed loop system. Kittygirl's doctor approved that about six months later. It's not perfect, but it really is helpful. We learned just how helpful this fall when Kittygirl's Dexcom sensor failed while she was at school. I told her to just check her blood sugar with her meter at lunch and we'd put on a new one after school. By the time school was out, her blood sugar was in the 300's. I'm still not sure what happened to drive it up, but if the system had been working her pump would have increased her insulin and it wouldn't have gone nearly so high.

If that was just an isolated incident it wouldn't seem so bad, but the fact is the sensors fail before the 10 day mark pretty regularly. The good news is the company has a nice replacement policy and will send you a brand new sensor if you report it. The bad news is we have to report it at least once a month. This means the pump doesn't get data from the sensor while the new one is warming up. Which isn't horrible if we can plan for it, but is super annoying if, say, the sensor has failed overnight and insulin dosing for breakfast doesn't work well.

Yesterday we experienced an example of what many people agree is the weak link in any closed loop system, the pump inset. That is, the little tiny part of the tubing that goes into the body and is replaced every three days. All the insulin the world won't bring down blood sugar if the inset fails. I don't know how it happened, but yesterday we noticed blood in the tubing when we changed the pump cartridge. We weren't due to change the site yet, and blood in the tubing has never happened before, so we just looked on it as a curiosity.

The sensor had been spotty all day, and we finally decided to stop it and put on a new one. At the time, the last point recorded was 208. Which is out of range, but not super, super high. We gave a correction with the pump and thought nothing of it. After a sensor is put on, there's a two hour warmup period during which there's not data. We sometimes check with a meter one hour in, but not always, and yesterday we didn't check. We regretted that when the first data point when the sensor came back was HIGH, which means over 400. On the meter, it was 447. We realized pretty quickly that it must be the site. We changed it, and Kittygirl's blood sugar came down overnight.

It wasn't the end of the world, but it was super annoying. There are systems being tested that will control insulin delivery without needing any input from the wearer. That sounds like a great idea and I'm sure it will be great most of the time, but it will still have the same problems the currently systems have. It will only be able to do its job when all of the components are doing their jobs, and those components fail way too often. I'm grateful that diabetes technology is constantly evolving and improving. It really does make the lives of diabetics easier.  What we really need is the next advance in biological treatment.

Just for fun, here's a picture of a gingerbread birdhouse that Kittygirl made with her aunt yesterday.

In Which My Luck Didn't Hold Out, But It's Okay

Well, the first quarter of the school year is over and it's almost Halloween. It simultaneously feels like yesterday that I wrote my last post in August and a year ago. I was looking forward to Squirrelboy and Kittygirl both returning to in-person school, but also terrified about potential Covid exposure, especially for Kittygirl.

Overall, they've both enjoyed school and it has gone well. Squirrelboy is taking two dual credit classes this semester. This means, in theory, that these are college level classes and he's earning both college and high school credit for them. One class is taught by a teacher at his school who is certified to teach college level classes using curriculum from the University of Kentucky. That class has been great. His dual credit Math class has been underwhelming because it's a self paced video class. The content is college level, but the actual teaching certainly isn't. However, next semester he'll start taking classes two days a week on an actual community college campus, so he's excited about that.

I'm very proud of how hard Squirrelboy works and how well he's doing in school. Ten and a half years ago his kindergarten teacher told us she thought he should be retained. We refused that and instead got him the help he needed to learn to read. Now he's getting excellent grades in dual credit classes. I kind of want to look up his old kindergarten teacher and send her an email, but my conscience has won out and I've decided that would be petty.

Despite the fact that he probably sees at least 60 different people every days, Squirrelboy has not yet been exposed to Covid at school. With the Delta variant surge finally going down, hopefully that will remain true. Because he's fully vaccinated, the school policy is that he would not need to quarantine, but we'd still get him tested.

Kittygirl is also loving school. Her fifth grade teachers are great and she's learning a lot and really enjoying being back with all of her friends instead of just one friend. She has joined the Battle of the Books Team (which makes me extremely proud because I did that back in the 1980's) and a club called Team Greenpower, which will build some kind of green powered car and race it with other teams near the end of the school year.

Unfortunately, Kittygirl, the one member of our family who can't be vaccinated and the one with a chronic illness, has been exposed to Covid at school. Not just once, but twice. Both times we had her tested even though all that's required is ten days of isolation unless the child has symptoms. The second time, she tested positive.

Thankfully, she only ever had one symptom and only for one day. There's a niggling fear at the back of my mind that the virus had some kind of long term effect we won't see for years, but I breathed a sigh of relief when she was cleared to return to the world with no apparent ill effects. Mostly she spent the time complaining that remote school was boring and she wanted to be allowed to leave the house. Especially since she was about to finish her ten days of isolation after her class exposure when we got the positive result, it felt onerous to add even more days of isolation.

The instruction she received the two times her class had to quarantine was great. Her teachers taught them over zoom and they followed the same schedule they would have followed in the classroom. When Kittygirl had to isolate without her class, however, the instruction was pretty pathetic. She just had google classroom assignments to do. Her teachers were supposedly checking email regularly to answer questions, but she went days without getting answers about some assignments.

I don't really blame the teachers for this. The fact is, teachers are stretched to their breaking points. This seemingly neverending pandemic has called on them to do more and more with less and less. Teach remotely. Teach in person with masks. Enforce mask wearing. Don't enforce mask wearing even though we know it's effective. And on and on. I do, however, wish the government had invested more in schools from the beginning. If every classroom were equipped with mics and cameras, students who had to isolate could participate via zoom. But apparently no one who has the resources to do it has thought about that. Or they decided it wasn't necessary who knows.

Early in the pandemic I was relatively chipper. I figured this couldn't last forever and we just needed to make the best of it. However, as it drags on, I find myself getting weary. I'm incredibly frustrated, sad, and even angry that so many people in our country who could be vaccinated have chosen not to be. I'm not talking about people who are "anti-vaxxers" in general. I'm talking about people who are generally accepting of vaccines but are suspicious of this particular vaccine, despite all the evidence being put forth that it's safe and effective.

It breaks my heart that so many people are dying or being permanently disabled by a pandemic that could have been tamed by now. An old friend, who was Squirrelboy's godfather, lost a month long battle with Covid earlier this fall. A high school student in our district died a few weeks ago. Sometimes it just feels like too much. I'm incredibly sick of telling my kids. "No, you can't do that thing." Or "Yes, you can do that but you have to wear a mask." Pandemic parenting is even more challenging than regular parenting.

All I can do, however, is to keep doing what I know is right. Keep masking in public indoor spaces. Get Kittygirl vaccinated as soon as it's approved for her age group. Keep saying no to some things I really want to say yes to. And keep praying that this plague will not actually be endless and that even those who make choices I disagree with won't have to pay the ultimate price.

And to end this on a lighter note, I recently got a pumpkin cat house for our kitties. Here's Shadow being the perfect Halloween cat. Happy Halloween!

In Which I Am Simultaneously Excited and Terrified

 Today is the first day of school for my kids. Kittygirl is back in the building for the first time since March 13 2020. Squirrelboy returned in person for the last quarter of last school year, but he's excited to be back and to be starting dual credit classes this semester. When school was ending last year, infection rates for going steadily down and vaccination rates were going steadily up. I had a lot of confidence that, though Covid wouldn't be a thing of the past by the fall, it would only be a minor concern. I even dared hope that masks in school wouldn't be necessary, or at least not for Squirrelboy since all high school students are old enough to be vaccinated.

However, that was not to be. At the same time mask mandates and other emergency orders were lifted, vaccination rates slowed down and case rates began to rise. Here in Kentucky, our case rates are now as high as they were back in January. Squirrelboy, Mr. Engineer, and I were all fully vaccinated by the end of April, but we continued to wear masks in public indoor environments to protect Kittygirl. Most people didn't, and, unsurprisingly, we now have yet another surge in the U.S. I'll breath a bit easier once a vaccine is approved for Kittygirl's age group, hopefully by October at last report. In the meantime, we've sent them back to school with masks and extra distancing and sanitizing in place and we hope and pray that that will be enough to protect them and all the other people in our schools. The fact, for the large majority of kids, in person learning is phenomenally better than virtual learning, and I'm glad Kittygirl is able to start her last year of elementary school in person. I just hope the calculated risk that most schools are taking by offering only in person learning with mitigation strategies pans out.

Speaking of calculated risks, I probably owe readers an update related to my last post. Even though it looked like a spike was beginning by the time Friends for Life Orlando rolled around the second week of July, Kittygirl and I headed to the Coronado Spring resort. We had an amazing time, both at the conference and at the parks. It was especially wonderful to reunite with Kittygirl's diabestie and her family, whom we met at our first conference in 2018. I was a bit nervous at the parks because, despite an official rule that unvaccinated guests should wear masks inside, cast members were not enforcing it, and there were plenty of unmasked kids under twelve indoors. Kittygirl and I wore our masks anytime we were inside or in crowded areas and we stayed safe.

We finished out the summer with a family trip to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. This felt pretty safe because we spent the large majority of our time outside when not in our rented cabin. Highlights including horseback riding, rafting, and multiple moose sightings.

As we move into yet another fall of this pandemic, I'm feeling tired. Not to disparage what people without kids have gone through, but I think this pandemic may be extra tiring for parents. Mr. Engineer and I have spent the past 17 months figuring out how to balance our children's physical health with their mental health. In the very early stages, when little was known about Covid 19, vaccination was a distant dream, and no treatments were available, that meant staying at home basically all the time. As it became clear that masks helped mitigate the spread of the virus, going out occasionally with masks became an option. As the pandemic put more of a strain on our kids' mental health we began to carefully open up our circle. We opened it up even more this summer, while never entirely going back to normal. 

Now that case levels are on the rise again, we have to go back to the drawing board when it comes to deciding how to balance our kids' needs. They're back in school in person because there was no other good choice. Our school did continue to offer a fully virtual academy, but since both kids are in magnet programs that was not a good solution for them. We burned out on virtual church this spring and started attending a church that was worshipping outside. When that church moved back inside in July, we went back to the church we're members of. However, as case numbers have continued to rise and many churches have started requiring masks, our church has not yet made the decision to do that. Looking at calculated risks, there is no reason to keep attending that church when there are options to worship in person at a church that requires masks. That makes our kids mad because they love our church. I'm sure there are others at our church who won't understand our decision because our kids are back in school so we're obviously not isolating. 

However, the fact that our kids are in school in person is a large part of the reason it doesn't make sense to attend worship in person at a church that's not requiring masks. If Kittygirl didn't have diabetes our decision would likely be the same, but that does in fact add an extra layer to our concern.

Pandemics are hard. I hope this is the only one I have to live through. Parenting is hard too. Parenting during a pandemic is extra hard. But I wouldn't trade it for not being a parent if I were given a chance.

In Which I Take a Calculated Risk and Hope I Don't Regret It

The past 14-ish months have been hard, haven't they? When my kids' schools closed in March of 2020, I had no idea the pandemic would be a very real thing that we were still dealing with in May of 2021. But the fact is that, while things are looking up in the U.S. we are not out of the woods yet and in many other countries the outlook is still very dire.

That's why I was incredibly upset yesterday when the CDC announced that it's okay for fully vaccinated people to be unmasked in nearly any situation. Since simultaneously we have decided as a society that we want to protect people's privacy and not make anyone reveal their vaccination status, this feels like a recipe for disaster. I hope I'm wrong. I hope that a combination of lowering cases and rising vaccinations means that vaccinated people plus unvaccinated people who never believed in masks going unmasks will not lead to a speak in cases. Obviously since this change was announced yesterday the jury is still out.

I have been fully vaccinated for over a month now. Mr. Engineer was fully vaccinated a week later and Squirrelboy (who turned 16 in March, just in time to qualify to be vaccinated when that age group came up) was fully vaccinated two weeks after that. At ten, however, Kittygirl does not qualify to be vaccinated. Vaccines are being tested for her age group and they'll hopefully be approved sometime this summer or early fall at the latest, but, in the meantime, with the new guidance only one member of our family is required to wear a mask.

I tell my kids life is unfair all the time, but this is one little bit of unfairness the rest of the family can rectify just a tiny little bit. Even if lots of other people in our community choose not to wear masks because of the new guidance, our whole family will continue to mask in all the places we have before. We're not going to make Kittygirl be the only one.

With vaccinations on the rise and cases on the decline in the U.S., in person events are starting to happen again. Most relevant to our family, the Friends for Life Orlando Conference, which I blogged about in 2019, is being held in person this summer. In summary, in case you don't want to read that whole post, this is a conference for people with type 1 diabetes of all ages and their families. It's an incredible place to find community with others who understand diabetes, learn new things, and simply have fun. The flagship conference is normally held every July at the Coronado Springs resort at Disney World. In 2020 the Orlando conference went virtual, and the parent organization, Children with Diabetes, has since held several other weekend virtual conferences. They have been well done, but nothing beats an in person experience.

As of the announcement, there was a promise that a ton of safety procedures would be in place. Those include masks for everyone except when eating (and only eating when seated), assigned seating for meals, and significantly reduced capacity allowing for social distancing. We had about a week to decide whether we wanted to take the risk of traveling to Florida at a time we knew the pandemic would still be going on before registration opened. I knew that if we wanted to do it, we should register as soon as possible after registration opened. For the children's programs in particularly, capacity was significantly reduced. There were only 60 spots available for Kittygirl's age group. Mr. Engineer and I talked about it and decided that the risk was small enough with the protocols in place that the experience was  worth it for me and Kittygirl. Unfortunately, it won't work for the whole family to attend this year because the dates overlap with Boy Scout camp. We also decided that our risk wasn't greatly increased by spending two days at Disney theme parks after the conference ends.

I'm hoping that the news from yesterday won't change the protocols that are in place in July. Either that or that case counts get so low it doesn't seem particularly risky to be around a bunch of unmasked people. I know some people whose kids have type 1 diabetes and/or other chronic health conditions who have hardly left their houses since March of 2020.  I know others who have had a much more nonchalant attitude than our family has had. As seems to happen often, I fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. We've been more careful than average, but we've allowed Kittygirl to go to stores with us, have outdoor playdates with friends outside our bubble, and play at public parks. This trip to Friends for Life and Disney World, however, will be by far the biggest risk we've taken during the pandemic.

My calculus is that the psychological benefit far outweighs the smallish health risk. Let's hope I'm right.

In Which I Share a Valentine Reflection: Love in the Time of Covid

Just in case someone happens across this who has never read one of my previous Valentine homilies, here's a quick recap. A long time ago and a few states away (really more than half my lifetime ago now, boy I'm getting old) I was a woefully single college student planning to celebrate Valentine's Day as "Black [insert day of the week here]". At the eleventh hour I did an about face in my attitude and decided to use the day as an excuse to celebrate the love of family, the love of friends, and the love of God. This was decades before "Galentine's Day" or "Palentine's Day" were trending, so clearly I'm a genius innovator :) (also, how did I get so old ?). I sent an email to some friends encouraging them to do the same. Then I sent a similar email the next year and a tradition was born. The tradition has since evolved into an annual reflection on my faith and life, with some kind of tie in to Valentine's Day. As always, feel free to share if you're so inclined. And on to the message.....

Last year at this time I was typing my Valentine Homily on my phone with one finger. Fourteen days earlier I had broken my wrist at Kittygirl's skating birthday party. The lesson it taught me was to rely on others in ways I don't usually like to do. I naively thought at the time that breaking a bone at my daughter's birthday part would be the most notable party of my year. Little did I know what 2020 had in store for the world. 

We're now 11 months and one day past the first of the stay at home orders here in Kentucky. The last time my kids attended school in person was March 13th of last year. The last time I ate at a restaurant was March 5th of last year. I don't even remember the last time I watched a movie in a theater. My purse now always has several cloth masks in it at all times, with spares in my car. I obsessively tell Kittygirl not to touch things on the rare occasions I bring her with me to the store. We lost spring and summer plans in 2020, and spring break travel this year isn't looking wise either. Even summer plans are very lightly penciled in. We really have no idea from day to day what's going to happen, it seems. Oh, and just for fun, our nation went through some pretty serious political turmoil too. You know, because 2021 had to show up 2020 or something :).

Even with all of that, though, this year has been filled with a lot of good. I fell back in love with writing middle grade fiction and started taking it seriously. I finished two manuscripts and learned how to query agents. I found a community of writers in a similar place on the journey and also began to interact with writers on social media and learned that even the famous ones are more often than not completely normal and really nice people. 

I've enjoyed our Covid-enforced reduced and/or virtualized schedule. Many of the meetings I used to have to drive kids to are now on Zoom. There's no more "Let's make sure to get dinner on the table in time for the guys to leave for Boys Scouts!" There's "Hey, it's 6:59, better log onto to Boy Scout zoom". School starts later, and there's no commute to that either. Mr. Engineer has started to go work in the lab for at least a few hours most weeks, but there are still many days when no one has to leave the house and it's pretty great after having spent years feeling like we were constantly going from one thing to the next.

At the same time, I haven't always enjoyed our Covid-enforced togetherness. My introverted soul is thirsting for more time alone. I survive by taking walks alone most weekdays and grabbing some alone time when the kids are otherwise engaged or after they've gone to bed (Which is often way too late. Did I mention remote school starts later than in person school?).

Loving your family during forced togetherness isn't always easy. Who am I kidding? It isn't usually easy. If I have to tell the kids not to touch each other's couch cushions during online worship one more time my head just might explode. Yet I guarantee I'll do it again next week. And then again. Maybe at some point they'll learn to respect each others' space, but I'm not counting on it. What I AM counting on is that the kids will come out of this pandemic not having hated the time. We've done our best to make this ridiculously unprecedented season not horrible and, dare I say, sometimes actually really good. Our big plans got cancelled, but we did little fun things instead. We played more games. We had more movie nights. And we'll continue doing our best to make this time as good as we can until it's over (because, as much as I hate to say it, it'll be awhile).

Back in another life, when I was a graduate student in Hispanic literature, one of the many books by the master Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez that I was required to read was Love in the Time of Cholera. It really has almost no relevance to what I'm writing about today, but every once in awhile I need to pull out the degrees I don't use and dust them off. The one comparison I can draw is that the protagonist has an awful lot of patience. He literally waits decades after the love of his life marries someone else so that he can declare his love again after her husband dies. Now that's dedication for you. Love in the Time of Covid also requires a lot of patience. You may be patiently waiting for a vaccine appointment so that you can be one step closer to being able to see the loved ones you've had to be apart from during the pandemic. You may be patiently (or not so patiently some days) helping your kids engage with online school even though they're totally over it. You may be patiently donning that mask you're really sick of to go into your job that can't be done remotely.

After all the turmoil of this past year, pandemic-related, politically related, or personal, what I've always come back to is that more than anything else we need to give our fellow human beings love and grace. That doesn't mean people who wrong your or wrong society shouldn't be held accountable. What it does mean is that you're only hurting yourself if you focus your energy on hating them. Grieve the wrongs that are done to you or others. Take action when appropriate. But also look for the good. Look for the love. Look for the joy. It's there, sometimes in the most unexpected places.

In Which I Play Catch Up

Remember back when I started this blog and I posted five days a week? Those were the good old days. You know, when the kids actually went to school somewhere other than our house, I could blithely run errands to six places during the day without thinking about it, and I didn't own a collection of masks. Ah, 2019, how we miss you. Who would have thought that breaking my wrist at Kittygirl's birthday party on the last day of January this year would not be the most eventful part of our our family's year?

Anyway, the pandemic isn't the only reason I haven't blogged recently. Life just has a bad habit of getting away from me. I suppose I can partly blame it on ADHD, but that's not the only reason. There are just so many immediate things to be accomplished on a daily basis that things like finally sitting down and blogging fall by the wayside. Who am I kidding? It's not just blogging. It's also important but not every day task things that fall by the wayside, like scooping the little boxes and cleaning the guinea pig cage. You do not want to know how much poop was in the litter box when I cleaned it this weekend.

To update you on my last post, Squirrelboy was super excited to receive a letter of acceptance to the National Honor Society a couple weeks ago. Looking back on his early school experience I'm just blown away by how far he's come. I'm regularly amazed by how much he cares about school and how hard he works to submit his best effort. Many of his teachers allow retakes of tests and quizzes. This weekend he retook a geometry quiz twice to get a perfect score. Reader, he got 18/20 the first time so it's not as if he absolutely needed to retake it at all.

I completely missed posting during Diabetes Awareness Month in November, so here's an executive summary of what you should know about type 1 diabetes if you're unfamiliar with it: It's an autoimmune disease. It is not caused by diet. It is lifelong unless a cure is found. It can strike at any age. In fact, about half of new diagnoses are in adults. It's relentless, and something you have to deal with 24 hours a day every.single.day. The one bright spot to having diabetes or having a child with diabetes is the diabetes community, which is amazing. See last November's daily posts for details about these statements and much more.

With this year being totally out of whack, our big summer vacation plans being cancelled, and more recently Thanksgiving and Christmas travel to Grandma and Grandpa's house being cancelled, it's been nice to immerse ourselves in our familiar Advent traditions. In case you don't know, Advent is celebrated beginning four Sundays before Christmas. The name comes from the Latin word "coming", and it is a time to step back, reflect, and prepare to celebrate the coming of Jesus at Christmas as well as to reflect on Jesus' eventual second coming.

We established a tradition when Squirrelboy was quite young of lighting an Advent wreath every evening as a family and reading both a Bible passage and a fun Christmas story. After the reading the kids get to open the Advent calendar. Our Advent setup is below. My ADHD brain, while it struggles to make routines happen, at the same time functions much better when they're in place and established as habits, so Advent, as a many years long habit, is a particularly meaningful time to me and a pleasant break from the chaos that December often brings to a family with school age kids. There's a lot less chaos this year what with the pandemic cancelling so many activities, but at the same time the pandemic causes its own chaos, even if it's just internal, so the break is still welcome.

Another of our Advent traditions is the annual visits of Sam, our Elf on the Shelf, and Isaiah John, our shepherd. I'm presuming you know what an Elf on the Shelf looks like, reader, and if you don't, I'll spare you his slightly creepy visage. I will, however, introduce you to Isaiah John, who is quite cute.

Isaiah John's visit reminds us to focus on Jesus during Advent, as he spends every night while we sleep searching for Baby Jesus, whom he always, conveniently, finds just in time for Christmas morning.  Isaiah John also returns just before Easter, looking for a sheep he seems to lose every year at about the same time. Silly Isaiah John.

Surprisingly, the pandemic hasn't been as bad for our family as you might think it would have been. I think following routines has been part of the key to that. Our kids have consistent places to do their schoolwork, I'm able to give them consistent supervision, one of their favorite activities (scouting) has continued with a mix of digital and outdoor meetings and activities, and we've been able to have unrushed family dinners nearly every night.

I'll be happy when the U.S. is able to get the pandemic under control (not until a decent portion of the population has received a vaccine is looking like the likely timeframe) and we can return to normal activities and normal life, but for the moment I'm choosing to focus on the things that are going well. For whatever reason, that doesn't seem to leave much time for blogging :).

 

In Which Squirrelboy is Nominated for the National Honor Society

 I was pretty much the ideal student all the way through school. I learned to read mostly on my own in kindergarten, even though reading wasn't formally taught until first grade back in the dark ages of the 1980's. I learned easily in the way that schools teach, and I was eager to learn. I was an excellent test taker. I was polite and never disruptive in the classroom. The only negative comments teachers ever had about me were that I could speak up a little bit more than I did. Even though I am certain I have ADHD, my ADHD had no apparent effect on my school performance at any level. I did miss or come late to class a handful of time in college when I was fully in charge of my schedule, but it's not like that's really weird for any college student. My ADHD didn't really become disruptive until I had lives other than mine to be concerned about (ie, until I became a parent).

Squirrelboy's school experience has not quite been the opposite of mine, but it has absolutely been very different. Because he's generally kind and polite (not always to me and Mr. Engineer, but, hey, he's a teenager) he has usually been well liked by his teachers. However, every single academic thing about school has always been hard for him thanks to his dyslexia and ADHD.

In kindergarten, as I've shared before, his teacher assured us for the first half of the year that he'd catch onto reading eventually. She told us it was common for kids, especially boys, to not really understand reading during the fall of kindergarten but suddenly make a big leap forward in the third quarter of the year. Spoiler alert: Squirrelboy never made that leap.

Once we got the official dyslexia diagnosis, it became abundantly clear that learning to read well would never be a process of leaping for him or of "the turning of a key" as is sometimes described. It would be a process of methodical, tiny steps up a steep hill toward the goal. Though there are schools out there that have the resources and the will to teach students with dyslexia in a way that works for their brains, Squirrelboy's school was not one of them. The way the school was teaching reading was never going to work with him.

Even when we came with this evidence in hand, however, Squirrelboy's kindergarten teacher was insistent that the best possible thing for him was to repeat kindergarten. This despite the overwhelming evidence that the way he was being taught was not appropriate for the way his brain worked. She still thought it would be best for him to spend another year being taught the same things in the same way. You know, the things that didn't work for him the first time.

Fortunately, our school system does not under normal circumstances for students to repeat a grade. They leave that choice up to the parents. We were blessed to be well educated, be native speakers of English, not be minorities, and have personal experience with dyslexia through Mr. Engineer. We insisted that Squirrelboy be passed on to first grade and it happened. First grade was a pretty miserable year learning-wise with a lot of tears, but by second grade, thanks to a lot of hours of tutoring outside of school by experts, Squirrelboy was beginning to catch up.

Even when he was mostly caught up, however, learning in the way the school expected was always an uphill battle for Squirrelboy. He worked ten times harder for any A or B he received than the average student. Homeschooling him for middle school provided a three year breather in which we could forget about grades entirely and focus on helping him enjoy learning again.

When he went off to high school, Mr. Engineer and I were nervous. He still had a serious problem paying attention to details, which showed up in his work. He also did not always seem to care about doing his best work. We thought his first semester of high school might need to serve as a wakeup call for him to always pay attention, do his best work, and ask for help when necessary. Since his school requires students to retake core courses if they don't earn an 83% or higher, we thought he might even have to retake one or two classes.

We were wrong. Squirrelboy immediately cared deeply both about his grades and about working hard to do his best work. He came out of the first semester with three A's and two high B's. He finished the second semester with all A's. So far in his sophomore year he has all A's. I would be among the first to tell you that it's not all about grades. Squirrelboy hasn't only earned good grades. He has invested in his learning, worked on becoming more independent, and learned to advocate and stand up for himself when he needs accommodations because of the way his brain works.

Because I was the perfect student, being nominated and then selected for the National Honor Society was not a surprise to me. It was, however, a huge surprise to Squirrelboy last week when he received an email with an invitation to apply to join the National Honor Society. He's been diligently working on the application, making sure it's his best work and represents not only his academic achievement but his service to his community, particularly through Boy Scouts. I have no idea how competitve the process of admission into his school's chapter of the National Honor Society is. Having the opportunity to fill out the application is not a guarantee that he will get in. However, just being nominated is a huge honor and shows just how far he's come. He's striding toward a successful future. I wish his kindergarten teacher could see him now.