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Last I wrote, I was still in the hospital with my darling little girl and we were learning how to deal with juvenile diabetes. We were discharged a week ago and it things have gone pretty well. The Tater Tot doesn’t put up too much of a fight although she has started saying “No needle. No needle.” sometimes at dinner. And she doesn’t seem to want her insulin anywhere but her arm (for those of you who don’t know because I didn’t before this whole ordeal: injecting in the same place all the time builds up scar tissue which does not allow the insulin to absorb as well so you have to vary the injection site). So I have to convince…oh heck, let’s be real: I have to bribe her to take her injection somewhere else. She has only had one concerningly high reading but she’s been a little low more than I’m comfortable with. In terms of managing her diabetes, it has gone well. However, The Mommy hit an emotional wall yesterday. Actually, it was more of a crash than a hit. Hit implies less force. This thing just about knocked me flat.

I know that everything will be okay. I know that I am a good, attentive, nurturing Mommy who will do a good job raising her child. But my job just got harder. The sheer enormity of being directly responsible for whether or not she goes into a life-threatening low or high and the rigidity with which we must live our lives at least for now just got to be a bit much yesterday. We have been trying to keep things as normal as possible and The Tot has gone to all her regular classes and a few play dates even though we have been home only a week. But things are not normal. At least not the normal that we have known ’til now. It is not normal to have to stick a needle in your child’s appendages even when she doesn’t want you to. It is not normal to have to ask 4 or more times a day “Which finger?” and take action to get blood from that finger to make sure she is okay. It is not normal to see bruises on her tiny toddler arms where IV’s were stuck and veins were prodded to get blood for labs. Or to hear her say to convince herself every time you go to give her the shot “It doesn’t hurt.” Or to toss and turn and eventually give up and go test her again in the middle of the night because you’re not sure the snack you gave her before bed raised her blood sugar enough to not be dangerously low in the morning. And it’s just not normal for this sweet little angel to willingly hand over her finger every time I ask her to in order to get stuck yet again.

I am grateful that she is still enamored of her “new pink thingy” that tests her blood even though it means pricking her finger and that she, at least so far, is still cooperative. Because if/when she starts to resist more than the mild resistance we’ve seen so far, it is going to break my heart. And I know that I will do what I have to do even though she doesn’t want me to because those actions will save her life. I also know that this will get easier. And harder. All at the same time.

Life has just been plugging right along. I find that with this blog, as well as with my personal journal-writing, when things are good, I don’t write as much. There’s not much angst or stuff to work out nor as much humor, self-deprecating or otherwise. A sense of humor is key to dealing with the stress of motherhood and I find that my sense of humor feels at home in this stress.

Lately things just haven’t been as stressful. Yes, Tater Tot loooves her a tantrum on a daily basis and likes to “step the envelope” (push the envelope) with Mommy but it’s just not the same kind of stress I felt when she was younger. The doubt-myself-daily kind of stress where I wondered if I was doing something (or everything) wrong and if/when I would scar her for life. I have become very comfortable in motherhood.

Well, this week, my comfort level was dealt a major blow. It started last week when I noticed that Princess Tater Tot was drinking everything she could get her hands on. Then she started peeing through her Huggies in record time and I started to be concerned. It had been 80 degrees or near that here in lovely San Diego, though, so I chalked it up to being thirsty because it was hot. She was also super-duper cranky, which I chalked up to being almost-three. But then, Saturday morning I saw some symptoms that I couldn’t ignore. She was shaky at breakfast and her speech seemed a little thick. The Daddy didn’t notice it as much as I did but I knew that something was just off. It went away, though, so I decided to just keep an eye on it. By Tuesday morning at Mommy and Me I knew I had to call the doc because, although she had periods of normalcy, the lethargy and crankiness had ratcheted up a notch and something was just not right. We couldn’t get an appointment with her regular doc so we made one at the after-hours clinic for his pediatrics group. At 7:30 that night we found out that she is diabetic and were directed immediately to Children’s Hospital for a minimum three-day stay. We’ve been at Chez Children’s ever since and, I’ll tell you, I’m ready to go home but terrified to do so.

Going home means that I am totally responsible for my child’s health. Not that I wasn’t before. Obviously I was. But that was when there was nothing wrong, or so we thought. That was before I knew I needed to measure and restrict and say “no you can’t have some of Mommy’s pizza” or stick my child with a needle and poke her finger 4 times a day. Before our lives changed forever.

So far I have not fallen apart but I can’t guarantee what will happen when we get home. I am tired and the hospital, while so necessary and helpful, has sapped all of my energy. I have not exercised or sewn in 4 days (the things I do to deal with stress) and I just want to sleep in my own bed. If you can’t tell, my sense of humor has not quite found a home in this yet. But it will. I have no doubt. Just like with any other challenge, I will find a way to make it funny and take the edge off. But not yet. For now, all of my energy is focused on learning how to live our new lifestyle and how not to let it limit us. I know we can do it. It will just take some adjustment. Par for the course with motherhood, right?

The doctors and nurses keep remarking that I’m so calm and I can’t help but reply to them “What’s my alternative, really?” There isn’t one. Falling apart isn’t an option for This Mommy, at least not right now.

Because I know you’re on the edge of your seat. *Sarcasm* This past week I have noticed Princess Tater Tot walking funny and making comments like “It won’t get pee-pee on the slide” and “It won’t get poopies on your booster seat”. I guessed (not too hard to do) that she was peeing and pooping when she was walking funny and asked. “Yes.” was, of course, her answer. Same with the “It won’t get…” comments. I assured her that it wouldn’t get pee-pee or poopie on whatever it was about which she was concerned because she was wearing a diaper. She seemed satisfied and continued with what she was doing (going to the bathroom, as it turns out). When I offered to whisk her off to the potty seat she just said “no.”

Toddlers have the amazing ability to go to the bathroom while doing something else completely unrelated. This ability is different, of course, from a baby who is not really aware that they have to go. I marvel at this ability because it took me quite a while to figure out how to pee in my wet suit when I surf. Yeah, I know, that probably says something about my compulsive personality but, whatever.

The body language showing that she is going to the bathroom and telling me she is going when she does are both signs that she’s getting ready. She has also just about mastered getting her pants on and off by herself quickly which is another sign of readiness. And she likes to take her own diaper off. I’d say we’re getting there but she’s still just not interested in actually doing the deed on the potty seat. Baby steps. As long as she’s potty trained by Fall so she can go to preschool!

So I volunteered to research alternatives to plastic for our Mommy and Me class and it sent me running for the cupboards. The topic is one of those that, the more you look, the more you find in terms of information, controversy, and outright fear. At least that’s how it was for me. I found opinions that cited BPA as safe for humans, opinions that vilified it as akin to the devil and much in between. Many opinions that I found were much like my own: “better safe than sorry”. So this weekend I got rid of all of our #7 plastic, plastic of indeterminate origin, and old, scratched or cloudy plastic. Gone. The areas that I have focused on for us right now are feeding and drinking for The Tot, water consumption for me and food storage as these are the areas we use plastic mostly. I’ve starting using our regular plates for Tater Tot, now that she is of the age that she generally doesn’t throw plates. I went out and bought a few glass food storage containers that have #5 plastic tops and will be buying more as the finances allow. Phasing out the plastic food storage altogether.

As it turns out, there are quite a few readily available alternatives to harmful plastics that leach BPA. To cut to the chase, if your plastics have the numbers 1, 2, or 5 on them they are okay but still should not be heated. If they have been heated or are scratched and/or cloudy, they may be leaching chemicals and you should toss ‘em and get new ones. Better yet, use glass baby bottles and food storage. There are several good stainless steel sippy cup options that only have a few #5 parts. If you do still use plastics with the “safer” numbers on them, my recommendation would be to hand wash them as the dishwasher can get pretty darned hot. Not fun but “safer”. I’ve seen some discussion about Corelle since it is heartier than regular dishware and some toddlers can be kinda hard on regular dishware. I bought a few little Corelle bowls for The Tot and use them instead of the plastic or melamine ones.

Some of my favorite products for The Tot and myself include:

The Thermos Foogo sippy which can be found at Target for $15. It has a #5 plastic spout and “inner workings” but the body of the cup is stainless steel and it’s not hard to wash by hand. Thermos also makes a stainless steel straw sippy made of the same materials. We haven’t tried that one yet but the reviews I read were good.

Klean Kanteen Stainless Steel Colored Water Bottles with Poly Loop Cap which has a sippy adapter and an option for a stainless steel cap instead of the #5 one included. I got myself a pink one and I loooove it!

Anchor Hocking and Pyrex glass food storage which both have #5 plastic tops (just don’t microwave with the tops on) and can be found at Target and WalMart for a range of prices.

Corelle “berry bowls” can be used for cereal, soup, pasta…anything you’d put in a bowl! Found at WalMart for inexpensive.

For utensils, I have found that The Tot is past the point of using plastic-tipped spoons so I just tossed those out anyway. The rest that we had were metal. If you’re still using soft-tipped spoons, Munchkin’s Soft-Tip Infant Spoons are BPA-free.

These are just a few of the adjustments that we have made to keep The Tot and ourselves safer. It’s an ongoing process, though, and it can be overwhelming. It seems like everything is hazardous these days. However, I do encourage you to start your own journey, if you haven’t already. Anything you can do to minimize long-term exposure to hazardous chemicals for you and your family is good! Baby steps! Now, go! Get started!

SafeMama.com has a great, thorough list of those plastic cups and baby/toddler products that are BPA free here