First Steps

The tickets were purchased in December. Joshua Redman, a favorite jazz artist, would be performing in a small theater half an hour from here.  They were a perfect Christmas gift for my husband.

The birthday invitation arrived a month ago.  The party would be in the private room of a pizza parlor, for a very good friend.  The girls would design t-shirts, eat pizza and enjoy a 'cookie cake.'  At the end, there would be a fashion show of their creations. 

Both big events were scheduled for last Friday night.  Could we pull it off?

The logistics were easy.  We took the front end of the carpool, dropping the girls off before a rare dinner out ahead of the concert.  Grandpa was happy to be asked to be here when my daughter was brought home. 

The diabetes part required a leap of faith.  The only other party my daughter has eaten at without me  involved one unfrosted cupcake for which I calculated the carbs when I dropped her off.  This party required checking before pizza, and bolusing for pizza and dessert. When she got home, she had to check again before bed and independently make a decision about what to do with that number, since by then our concert was underway.

In an effort to simplify, we negotiated a dessert alternative of packaged chocolate chip cookies. The birthday girl's mom had brought these for a guest who was allergic to an ingredient in the cookie cake. The comparative ease of counting these compared to a yet-to-be-cut square of frosted cookie cake made them a safer choice.  We armed my daughter with a carb count estimate for pizza and kissed her goodbye.

When we saw her again around 11:00, she was sound asleep with a blood sugar of about 170. 

Five years ago I thought this type of evening would be impossible.  It seemed like diabetes would always be way too much for her to handle by herself.  Yet a slow transition to independence is happening.  The expression on her face Saturday morning reminded me of the one after she took her first steps. Soon there will be no stopping her.