WifeMomPancreas

It is robbing me of my brain.

Our diabetes educator keeps talking about not letting diabetes run our life, but rather work our life around diabetes. Well, that is really hard to do…..especially for a control freak like me.  Caring for a child with a chronic illness is, in short, exhausting. Round the clock blood sugar checks, carb counting at every meal or snack, lots of math….I hate math.  Having to always be two steps ahead of diabetes is draining. Boy scouts would make good diabetics, you always have to be prepared.  Prepared for highs, prepared for lows, prepared for pump malfunctions, etc. And then there’s the constant worry. They have a continuous glucose monitor for diabetics, they should have a continuous worry monitor for us moms of diabetics that automatically dispenses Xanax, caffeine, wine….whatever your drug of choice is based on your reading.  Yeah, I’m going to invent that….in my spare time.

But that invention will have to wait.  I can barely remember to put shoes on before I leave the house these days. I forgot to account for Small after school one day and had to leave work abruptly and race home to meet the bus (overlooked the fact that no one was going to be home to get him off the bus). I have mailed bills and forgot to put stamps on them. I forgot about a meeting at work. Small has not had his library book on library day, ever this year. (Okay that one I can’t blame on diabetes, it’s been happening since the beginning of school.)

But today was the mother of all blunders. Today I did something that twelve years ago when I was a naive new mother, I would have been downright appalled at witnessing. (Although it should be noted that as a naive new mother, lots of things I witnessed of other parents appalled me. Like picking up a pacifier that had fallen on the ground and putting it back in the baby’s mouth without boiling it first, or letting a 2 and 4 year-old have soda, or leaving a restaurant table looking like nuclear war had descended upon it during your dinner with your children–all things that I eventually did, when I wasn’t so naive anymore!)

Today I forgot to be the Easter bunny. (Enter horrified gasps here.)

Yep, not my proudest moment as a mother hearing my 5 year-old say, upon realizing the Easter bunny stiffed him, “I hate the Easter Bunny!”

How the hell could I forget to be the Easter bunny?  And I didn’t just forget to put the stuff out, I didn’t even buy anything.  Nothing. Nada. Zip, zero, zilch.

Now, you should know, Large performed as Edmund in Narnia the Musical at the beautiful, brand-new Kauffman Center for the Perfoming Arts this weekend, (which, coincidentally, is one of my proudest moments as a mother) so I have been a little pre-occupied with that, but still. How the hell do you forget to be the Easter bunny?

I’ll tell you how.

Diabetes.

There is only so much room in this noggin of mine to worry and remember things and now that diabetes has moved it’s big butt in, there ain’t much room for anything else.

But in true Warrior Mom fashion, I (and CVS) saved Easter.  The Easter bunny was running late this year and came by while we were at church. And I will say, the Easter bunny did a good job of putting together diabetic friendly Easter baskets for the whole family. Sure there was some chocolate and some Peeps (I’m sure I will regret that one), but there was also sugar free gum, lots of nuts, beef jerky and cheese and cool bottled water and Crystal light.

So you can suck it, diabetes. I win this one!