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.