Milestone: One Year Diaversary

Also, during our COVID illness quarantine, we hit a major milestone as a family. It has been a whole year since that fateful day Max was admitted to the hospital, and diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Sometimes I feel like the last year has been a total blur, and other times I have the most vivid memories filled with extreme emotion (both highs and lows). They call a diabetes diagnosis anniversary a "diaversary", and people in the T1D community have varied feelings about "celebrating" these milestones. There are people who feel like throwing huge parties, because they have overcome and shown massive strength and courage! There are others who feel like it feels very hard to "celebrate", because this disease sucks. Maybe they are still in a stage of grief (pointing to myself here). So a few weeks before, I sat down with Max and asked him what he thought. He felt like we should have a little celebration and said "maybe you can make a cake". I know my own journey with this is going to be different than his, and I want to honor him, because IT IS HIS ACTUAL LIFE for crying out loud. But... then... COVID... (like I said, it lasted an entire month, and as you have gathered from these last few posts, there were a lot of special events during this time period). Another celebration with friends coming to come to the rescue (side note... that expression "an embarrassment of riches" has rolled around in my head a lot after all of this - sometimes it seems absurd and amazing how many incredible people I have in my life). A friend asked me what she could do for me that day, and I felt somewhat sheepish asking her if she could go get me cake supplies from the store. No essential items, only cake supplies LOL. She dropped them off with a hot drink for, plus the cutest little plant and all I needed to make a very special Diaversary Cake. Maddie helped me big time, in fact she probably gets more creative credit here. Fondant is not my area of expertise, but we worked together on our design and delivery to give her brother the funniest cake ever: a "dead pancreas" cake. Max thrives in life partially because he can take dark situations and find the funny. Morbid humor makes diabetes a little less hard. The irony of this one year mark, is Max actually had COVID... a scenario we had worked very hard to avoid. I'm so thankful he only had this milder variant, and despite him being very sick (i.e. KETONES, YIKES!), he recovered and we took care of him. It was our first time seeing how he would do being sick. A learning experience, and one more thing off the list of firsts. 

In conclusion, the chaos of COVID was somewhat of a fitting situation to reflect the chaos of T1D. And yet, we overcame! And we have cakes to prove it! I sure love my boy, and his grit/humor/acceptance/ownership of everything during the last year has blown my socks off.

PS. Maddie told me yesterday she just now realized "diaversary" was a combination of diabetes+anniversary... she thought it actually WAS a reference to the dead pancreas (like die+anniversary). What did I tell you - morbid humor!

Happy 45th Birthday to Kyle

The second major event to happen during our month-long COVID stretch was Kyle's birthday. This birthday was a little trickier to make special, because all the preparations had not yet been done and I was down for the count. Once again, I am superbly blessed by friends who have come to the rescue. One friend dropped everything and took her four little kids all around town with her, shopping and birthday planning for me. Her sweet kids even bought him extra presents from the dollar store (their presents were PERFECT). The did not want "Mr. Kyle" to be sad if he didn't have a lot to unwrap. At this point, Kyle was healthy but I was very sick, so even the cozy home stuff I like to do was just not possible. People kept telling him "your best gift is you never got sick!" At this point it had been an entire week and he was doing well. Too bad that night, it hit him. I'm thankful he could feel good majority of the day, even if he was still working hard taking care of the rest of us. It's moments like these I remember that it is the people we love that are the most important things in this world. The traditions, gifts, celebrations, vacations, ability to leave our house (!!) are all things we cherish but they are not the most important thing. Happy birthday to the one I love!

Happy Sweet 16 to Marin

What a day, what a day... 16 years ago little Marin Elise was born to two first-time parents, who had planned and prepared and delighted in her arrival. She was then, and is still now, an enormous blessing to all of us. This year on Jan 16th, we celebrated her golden birthday. Oh the plans we made! A fancy dinner to her favorite gluten free sushi restaurant downtown, a pottery painting party with her closest friends. Unfortunately, after two years of successfully dodging it, COVID hit her brothers the morning of her special birthday weekend. This sad turn of events kicked off four weeks of COVID moving through all the members of our household, Marin being the only asymptomatic one of everyone. Ironically, this healthy girl maintained the best, most resilient, optimistic and grateful attitude through it all. Not once did she complain that her plans were ruined, or feel sorry for herself. Honestly, nobody would have blamed her if she did. But, after two years of constantly changing plans, she has learned to pivot. And, of course the special plans were not cancelled, but postponed. She got her fancy dinner, her time with friends, and you know we spoiled her rotten the best we could from home during our time in quarantine too! Lots of food cooked and presents given! Several of my friends even delivered her flowers and gifts on the doorstep. the morning of her birthday. 

What matters most to me on birthdays is that people feel special and loved. Marin is so special, and so loved. She is talented beyond belief in so many areas, but goes through life humbly and with a no-nonsense attitude. She works so hard, and she has such a positive spirit. She gives her sister a listening ear, solid advice, and a safe place to be crazy together. She shares with her brother her love of fantasy fiction and Japanese anime. She shares with her littlest brother the encouragement to overcome school stress (and doesn't feel embarrassed if they show up in matching shirts somewhere). She shares her newfound academic knowledge with her parents, and regularly invites us into her creative world of drawings and stories. She is a delight through and through. We love you Marin! You are our joy!

Merry Christmas 2021

It was beautiful time of year for our family - Kyle and the kids had the same two weeks off work and school, and we got to enjoy a little bit of return to normal festivities. We are thankful for the people we could see, the ways we could celebrate, the decorations, the music, the yummy food, worshiping Jesus through Advent and enjoying what the season offered. My kids cooperated with matching Xmas shirts (ha, who knew at this stage they would go for it again!). Marcus did "secret Santa" deliveries to all our neighbors. Our entire family was invited to help lead the Xmas Eve candle-lighting at our new small church we are attending. We had some grandparent, auntie/uncle and cousin time. We drove through Lightopia! We played lots of board games, video games, park games. We swam at the pool! Lots of fun and activities packed into these two weeks. Happy Birthday Jesus!