Birthday Day and Other Heavy Eating Occasions

My daughter's friend had a birthday last week.  It was on the same day as mine.  The kids have found a way to skirt the school nutrition policy of 'no outside food for celebrations' by bringing in treats to share at lunch. So lunch that day included oreos, hershey kisses, doritos and munchkins.  To her credit, she ate the sandwich and grapes I packed first, but she sampled the rest as well.

For dinner we went to a Thai restaurant and she had an uncountable portion of pineapple fried rice. We came home and had mini cupcakes and cannolis for dessert.

Our household diabetes philosophy (yours may vary) allows sweets, and even junk food.  Birthdays include cake.  S'mores over the fire pit or a trip for italian ice are part of summer fun.  A little bag of chips for the walk home is o.k.  Most days include cookies or a non-dairy frozen treat before bed. Taken one at a time, or even two in one day, we're o.k. with both the questionable nutrition of it and with the diabetes challenges.

'Everything in moderation' is the general idea. But on days when moderation goes out the window, I'm left feeling torn.  Should we ever let her eat this way?

"Yes!  You can eat anything except poison...or cookies made with poison..." is one side of the coin. But she really can't eat anything and maintain the same kind of blood sugar numbers she does when she eats healthy, countable things.  Twenty carbs of oreos and doritos is not the same as twenty grapes. Half a restaurant portion of pineapple fried rice and a bakery cupcake simply can't be counted and dosed for as accurately as portions prepared, weighed and measured at home. Add the 'one more dorito because everyone else is still eating,' or the picking all the pineapple out of the fried rice despite bringing home 'half,' and the challenge increases.

Still, I lean towards letting her learn from her mistakes over outright forbidding her from eating like this. She'll encounter days with heavy eating potential for the rest of her life, so perhaps helping her develop a healthy sense of how to handle them is the answer.  Last week's birthday day was an example of how not to handle it.  And she knew it.  She was upset that her blood sugar was high for hours.  Between that lengthy high and the general junk food overload, she had some lingering indigestion into the next day.

Sometimes she makes better choices.  Last weekend, she said no to lunch out with a friend before an evening birthday party because it would consist of too much uncountable food in one day.  She's come home from parties and told us she was the only one who ate the proffered grapes or salad to balance out the junk. She will report with alarm how many cookies or cupcakes some kids consume in one sitting.

I guess it's like all things diabetes, really.  We do our best.  We try to fit the diabetes stuff into what we consider a normal, healthy lifestyle.  We try not to let it ruin our fun.  We learn from our mistakes.  And we're never quite sure we're doing it right.

Snack Time

I hear a lot about teenage boys.  They're always hungry.  You can't keep anything in the house.  Buy out the snack aisle before you even consider inviting their friends over.

What nobody every clued me in to was that the same is apparently also true of teenage girls.  Maybe it doesn't last as long, or maybe I'm encountering a particularly hungry bunch.  But these kids are ravenous.

A bunch of friends came over on a recent half day.  Each one had bought a sandwich or a bagel at one of a couple of eateries on the way home from school.  They sat around our dining room table and ate them. Completely.  It wasn't long ago that I'd have 6 girls here for lunch and there'd be half bagels, large portions of sandwiches or the bulk of the pizza I'd ordered leftover.  On this day, there were napkins and crumbs.

Half an hour later my daughter emerged from the basement playroom (hang out room? rec room?  what do we call it now?).  "I'm bringing down the popcorn chips."

Within half an hour she returned with a bowl containing only a hint of popcorn dust and absconded with over a pound of grapes.

Pretzels were next, enough to fill a large sized salad bowl.  Crumbs and salt covered the bottom half an hour later when it was returned for a refill, and again when it was cleaned up as the girls went home.  Presumably they, like my kid, proceeded to eat full dinners and ask for dessert.

The whole experience felt like a cross between feeding cookie monster and a pack of wolves.  Food disappeared instantaneously.   Crumbs and dust were left in the wake.

The diabetes link in this post, you ask?  It's a challenge to bolus for this kind of grazing.  Up to a year or so ago, I just didn't allow it except at the occasional party.  Snack time involved a bowl, careful counting or measuring cups, and a nice solid bolus.  And on a regular basis, that is still the preferred procedure here.

Somehow, though, she managed to count and bolus enough of her snacks to end up with a very good blood sugar by the time her friends went home and she started asking what was for dinner.

The Buffet Table

Personally, I love a good appetizer and snack focused buffet table.  Interesting dips, meatballs, crackers with good cheese and foods encased in puff pastry are a few of my favorite things.  Top it off with a good cookie table and it's perfect.  If I'm there alone.

With my daughter around, a couple of hours of happy grazing turns into a couple of hours of math and negotiating.

When there is a buffet table, one is expected to graze.  You have a mini hot dog, meet the relative in from out of town, try a couple of dips, chat about the school play, make your way to the meatballs where you spend time with the party host; and on it goes.

The first problem with this scenario is that each snack requires a math problem and a bolus.  When every conversation is interrupted with 'I took 4 meatballs, mom,' or 'I just ate 7 corn chips,' it's hard to carry on a conversation. When I'm interrupted to nix the plea for a 4th cookie, my already limited cocktail party-related social skills take a big hit.

The second, but related problem is an extension of the standard regular-people buffet party challenge.  If I have a drink in one hand and a little plate in another, I already must find a third hand to eat.  Add the meter remote to that third hand and I'm out.  Even with the understanding that every mother develops a third hand (a.k.a. the ability to juggle well), this scenario becomes impossible and I remain hungry or thirsty so that my kid doesn't end up high.

So a buffet party turns into me with a drink OR food in one hand, following my kid with the meter remote while trying to make small talk and perform carbohydrate equations in my head at the same time.

Ironically, I suppose, we throw one of these parties every year.  The difference is that I painstakingly create a list of every food with its carbohydrate content and post it on the fridge.  My daughter takes the meter remote and is able to do her own juggling act while I play hostess and eat my fair share of mini quiches.

In a perfect world, we'd be handed a cheat sheet at the start of every party, and one of these cool plates .

Dinner?

Softball poses its own unique diabetes challenges.  For my daughter, game-related blood sugar fluctuations are predictable and we've learned how to manage those.  Her pump goes in a fanny pack and is nicely tucked under her uniform.  She's learned to find moments on the sidelines for quick blood sugar checks, and the roomy softball equipment bag has plenty of space for the meter, glucose tabs and a juice box.  At least one parent is always on the sidelines. We're cheering, but also ready to jump in should any diabetes needs arise.

The issue which seems unresolvable is the timing.  Weeknight games start at 5:30, which means warm-up begins by 5.  We're usually not home until 7:30 or 8.

I can only assume that every child plays better when fueled up.  Mine definitely needs something in her system before a 2-3 hour sporting event.  Ideally, she'll have a well-balanced combination of protein, and carbs with a healthy vegetable thrown in for good luck.  Ideally, we'll bolus this meal just right, leaving her a few carbs to burn off during the game until that nice bit of protein kicks in to sustain a lovely blood sugar through the 6th inning.  Ideally, this resulting steady blood sugar will provide her with the energy and focus she'll need to play well and have fun.

So, here's the question: does she eat dinner at 4:15 in the afternoon?

The answer has to be 'sometimes.'  Ideally, she'll eat dinner before the game, despite the early hour.  She feels better and plays better. Her blood sugar responds better throughout the game and into the evening.

Sometimes a pre-game dinner is just not possible. Today she has team pictures before the game, which would move dinner time to about 3:45.  Other days she has after school activities until game time, or homework which needs to be done before she's completely wiped out.  On these days she has to make do with a hearty snack such as yogurt and fruit or a quick pb&j in the car. 

Diabetes does not prefer 'sometimes.'  It prefers a set schedule.  Yet from time to time, we need to be flexible.  With a little planning we can be flexible and keep diabetes in its place at the same time.

Counting

Don't forget to count as you eat those goldfish crackers.

There were 20 pretzel sticks in there.  How many are left?

If you eat more than 12 cherries, come back.

People on diets count their calories and track how much of everything they consume.

Children, generally, do not.

It must stink to be sitting at the pool with friends, chatting about important things (or about nothing at all) while simultaneously having to keep a running tally of one's wheat thin consumption.

Where we lunched on Wednesday has the best thin, crispy french fries anywhere, and a generous portion came with my daughter's grilled cheese.  I have no idea how many I picked off of her plate.  I do know she ate 26 of them.

It takes a bit of the joy out of eating, this counting does.  Especially in the summer when there's nothing nicer than sitting in the shade eating cold grapes or berries.  Or sitting on the beach grabbing handfuls of goldfish crackers between hermit crab races.  Or sitting on a pier with a fresh-from-the-water basket of clam strips and fries.

It's part and parcel of this whole diabetes thing though.  And the glass-half-full part of me says 'well at least she can eat what she wants as long as she keeps track of it...it wasn't long ago when there were tons of restrictions on what people with diabetes were allowed to eat to begin with.'

And that's true.

But wouldn't it be fun to dive into that tray of chips and salsa at the next cookout without enumerating each one?