But Wait...There's More...

I forgot to add to my list of things that have happened since Brian left for Scotland were a major, computer destroying virus (panicked texting to Scotland ensued - Brian's sister helped me fix it - thank you Karen!) and plugged to nearly overflowing toilets (how does one 5 year old boy manage to do that so many times? Seriously?)...

Two more days. Just two more days...

Calgon, Take Me Away...

Since Brian left for Scotland a week ago, this is what I have had to deal with:

- painters, hired by the condo board, destroyed my vegetable garden
- the kitchen was flooded by the children seeking to fill water guns
- Jamie woke up at 1am Sunday morning, only to stay awake until 9 pm that night
- the following night, both girls were up in shifts for the entire night
- in the pouring rain, standing in Costco's parking lot, the children and I found the keys to the van - locked inside
- there is a dent in the dining room wall - from where it was kicked
- the same children who desperately needed to play with water guns in the hour and a half of sunshine we've had in the last two weeks, and who got so wet with said guns their clothes had to be wrung out before going in the laundry hamper, played outside under a cloudy sky for 20 minutes and then began yelling at the top of their lungs that it was raining and they were getting wet
- I have seriously considered changing the front door to a revolving one so I don't have to listen to it slam shut one more time
- and finally, the near constant to-the-death-I-hate-you-I'm-going-to-kill-you!- fighting amongst the children...Ian vs Jamie, Jamie vs Avery, Avery vs Emma, Emma vs Jamie, Ian vs Avery, etc...

All I'm gonna say is, there had better be a damned good gift coming back from Scotland...

Your Menu, Madame...

Avery decided she wanted to run her own restaurant this morning, so she wrote up her own menu for the occasion...the spelling is all hers...

breakfast (ok, she asked how to spell that one)

-cerele
-tost
-bananas (I didn't help her spell this)
-watermole
-oranges (help was provided here)

lunch

-peanut butter sanwijs
-Hot Dogs
-Hambguers
-chese sanwijs
-butter sanwjs

Duiks

-milke (is she suddenly German?)
-water
-Jooos

Dusers

-Cookies

Eubonics lives on...

And for the record, I had tost and watermole...

How Many More Sleeps?

Brian is in Scotland for a week or so, visiting relatives and gearing up for his Gran's 100th birthday party on Saturday...and since it would cost close to $10,000 for all six of us to fly over, and we do not have that kind of cash just sitting around, that means I am home alone with four children on summer vacation.

It's only been two days since Brian left, but I know the kids are missing him (so am I, for the record), as can be witnessed from the following exchange...

Emma: "Is Daddy coming home today?"

Me: "No, honey, not today."

Emma: "What is the name of today?"

Me: "Um, Wednesday."

Emma: "Is Daddy coming home on a day called Wednesday?"

Me: "No, Emma, Daddy won't be home today. It'll be at least 5 more days before he comes home."

The big sigh that comes from her little mouth says it all...

What Every Dad Wants To Hear From His Daughter...

Last night after dinner, Avery was playing a game on Brian's laptop, when for some reason, it stopped working. She called out, asking for help. Brian headed down the hall to the living room, and as he got to the entrance to the room, he heard words that melted his heart:

"The hero that set me up is coming to fix it."

I admit to getting a little teary-eyed myself....

Cue Bette Midler...

Happy Anniversary, Happy Anniversary, Happy Anniversary, H-a-p-p-y Anniversary...

Thirty years ago today, I sat in a doctor's office waiting to hear the results of the blood tests I had had done weeks earlier. After a two hour wait with my mother, I was more than a little cranky and only wanted to go home. The doctor spoke the words that would change my life forever:

"Now I know someone who was just diagnosed with diabetes, and she leads a perfectly normal life."

I was eleven years old at the time, but even then I knew that living with diabetes meant I was far from normal.

I was in the hospital for two weeks that July, while I learned the ins and outs of testing my urine for sugar and ketones (home blood testing was at least four years away then) and how to give myself insulin shots.

One afternoon, while I sat on my bed killing time until I could take a quick walk around the hospital's duck pond, a nurse came into my room, sat on the end of my bed and told me in her faltering English that I would not live to an old age.

For years, when recounting the story, I gave that nurse the benefit of the doubt: I always told people that if her English had been better (or my French better), that she would have finished her sentence with words along the lines of "...if you don't look after yourself..."

But, she didn't and I spent the rest of the afternoon in a state of panic. I didn't tell my parents or the attending physicians about my fears. But for an 11 year old, 20 seemed like the eipitome of old age...and so I spent my adolescence knowing that I was going to die some day...and some day soon. I never had that teenage I'm-going-to-live-forever-nothing-can-touch-me-I'm-invincible attitude that many of my peers had. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, just how short my time on earth was.

And then in April of 1988, I turned 20. I spent months wondering just when the end was going to come. I never shared my fears with anyone, because I knew they would never understand that I was preparing for my death, just when I was supposed to be starting my life.

Five years later I turned 25. I have a journal from that time, and the entry for my birthday that year starts off like this: "Today I am 25. I never thought I would live this long."

At 28, I met the man who is now my husband. He was (well, is) three and a half years younger than I am, and I thought it unfair to plan a future with him, because by then I figured I was living on borrowed time and that 30 would be the year that I died. In the meantime, he wanted to get married and have children (something that I had been told while still a teenager would probably not be possible for me...oh, sure, I could try to get pregnant, but the odds of me delivering a healthy baby and living myself were not very good...apparently this is why we have a dog today-I told my then-boyfriend that I would probably never be able to have kids and so we should get a dog to compensate. I do not remember ever making this statement, but it is Brian's story too, and that's the line he's sticking with...).

In March of 1998, I started to freak out about the fact that I was turning 30. Many friends and family thought it was because of the year itself. What none of them knew, including the boyfriend who had by then become the fiance, was that my fears about my demise began to consume my thoughts. I was in the middle of planning a wedding and felt like a fraud, because I was sure that, having been given the grace of an extra ten years, the ride was about to end, and how could I subject my soon to be new husband to that pain? I should just end it with him, let him off the hook easy...rather than make him have to plan a funeral.

By the time my 30th year was up and I was celebrating the fact that I was 31, I had decided to stop worrying about it. Pregnant with our first child, despite the doomsday predictions of 20 years earlier, I finally decided to stop fighting diabetes. For two decades I had tried to ignore it and punish my body for its betrayal of me. I drank my way through my 20's just like everyone else I knew. I smoked pot and cigarettes (briefly) and not only inhaled, revelled in the fact that I was doing something that would speed up the process of death. I took no notice of my blood sugar and ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.

And yet, despite all the abuse I heaped upon myself, my body somehow managed to survive me. It gave my husband and I four beautiful children. It has laughed and loved for over four decades and even though it does not look like some supermodel's body, it is a beautiful thing and I am still learning what it is capable of doing.

Diabetes is a serious disease. The list of complications that can arise from having it is as long as my arm. But diabetes is not a cross for me. It is not a death sentence. Rather, for me, especially in the last ten years, it has become an affirmation of life...my life. Because of diabetes, I have actually stopped while walking down the street to smell the roses; I have lifted my face to the sky, just to feel the mist upon it; I have gazed in awe at the setting sun and realized just how small I am in the vastness of this wonderful world I live in...diabetes has made me appreciate the simple things in life...

The disease that was supposed to be my enemy and shorten my life has allowed me to live more fully than I ever thought possible and for that, I am eternally grateful.

Another phrase for the record book...

Last night after dinner, Jamie wanted me to play a round of "Snakes & Ladders". We still needed to clean up, so I told Jamie to go see Brian and tell him that if he would clean up the kitchen, then I would be able to play the game with Jamie.

Jamie came back and dutifully reported his father's response...

"Mama," he said. "Daddy says to stop using your children as barbecue chips."