Being a parent is hard!
Being a diabetic is hard!
Being both is really hard!
Ha ha ha ha.
I try to find the positive in everything though.
Having diabetes is like having a third child. It's always needing attention like a child. Always hungry or tired or crying.
My kids cry quite a bit.
In fact, Hunter is fake crying as I type this.
Grace is pretty emotional, which I think has a lot to do with her gender, but also her age.
Sometimes Jeff and I get annoyed with her crying, because it seems to be never ending and often over nothing.
The other day I felt for myself a glimpse of Grace's feelings and it changed my perspective a little bit.
I recently got an insulin pump (a first for me, woohoo!), which adds a whole ton of adjusting to my ever changing disease. Diabetes is a synonym to "change" by itself, but when you throw in a new method for treatment it takes awhile to get things figured out. Blood sugar can be all over the place. There is a lot of calculating of medicine involved.
I have to think like a pancreas, which is weird.
Over the past couple of weeks I have had some frustrating days with my blood sugar. This is hard when you have kids who need attention and love....food and sleep.....safety and structure. Don't get me wrong, my kids are extremely forgiving and cut me a break most of the time.
There was one particular day last week that I was nose diving low over and over and over all day.
The first couple of times I was fine....not too annoyed, because it's just my reality, just have to deal with it.
But by the end of the day, after this had happened several times... I was DONE.
I was dropping low AGAIN, which meant I needed to eat sugar AGAIN.
When a person is experiencing hyperglycemia a lot is going on. They can feel dizzy and shaky. They can be confused. After your blood sugar drops low enough the person can start to lose cognitive function.
Overall, low blood sugar just feels physical awful.
So on this day of low blood sugar, it was about 15 minutes before Jeff was going to be home and I started feeling shaky.
I went to the kitchen and grabbed a juice box. I sat down at our table and just started to cry.
I cried, primarily, because I physically felt spent, but I also was just emotionally done with diabetes for the day.
Grace found me, as she always does, ha ha....and asked me why I was crying. I told her that my blood sugar was low and I just didn't feel well.
She looked concerned and said: "It's okay, Mom. You can sit and eat food and feel better. You can just sit, Mom."
I really did not feel well and continued to cry for maybe 5 or 6 minutes. Grace sat and watched me very concerned and told me a couple more times that everything was okay.
After those five or so minutes she started to change a little bit. She started to get frustrated with me.
Grace never sees me cry. I cry a normal amount for a stressed out mom, but it's rarely in front of my children. So this whole scenario was new to her.
As she was getting frustrated she started saying things that I hear myself say to her all the time.
"You need to stop."
Or... "You are fine. Stop crying."
As I sat there feeling emotionally exhausted....physically ill.....I also feel what it is like for Grace when I tell her these things.
The things that Grace cries over don't matter in real life. They have little effect on anything or anyone.
....but they matter to her.
.....they effect her.
It means something to her when she cries.
I felt that.
I have been trying to be a nicer mom and more more understanding since this all happened. I have been trying to be more patient.
I hope I never make her feel like her feelings don't matter, while also trying to balance how to practically take on the world.
It's weird that diabetes would teach me how to be a better parent....but in odd ways, it is.
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