I was standing outside the other day talking with my neighbor. She was sitting in a chair and I was leaning against her car. Our kids were running around burning off energy before they had to settle in for the night.

We are at a point in the season here in Phoenix where the temperatures are hot during the day (in the low 100s) but nice enough in the evenings where you can sit outside and not feel like you're melting. Since I don't wear a watch (who needs to between my pump and my phone having clocks) I reached for my waistband, pressed "OK" on my pump to show the home screen (which has the clock) and saw that it was about time for my rugrats to go inside.

"What do you have there?" A asked. "What is that?"

"It's an insulin pump," I said as I unraveled the tubing from my waistband. "See my tether?"

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I am bad!  And I am busy!  Those are the reasons I haven't kept up with D-blog week and why I'm going to try to catch up today...  Soooooo...  Ahem!

First, meet a friend(s). 

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Today's DBlog Prompt: Yesterday we gave ourselves and our loved ones a big pat on the back for one thing we are great at.  Today let’s look at the flip-side.  We probably all have one thing we could try to do better.  Why not make today the day we start working on it.  No judgments, no scolding, just sharing one small thing we can improve so the DOC can cheer us on!

Isn't it sad that this post is so much easier to write than yesterday's praise post? Of course, none of us are perfect when it comes to management (show me that person and I'll show you a person who's lying through their teeth). But we're also facing a lot of challenges that make perfection an unreachable goal. Life throws curve balls every day that diabetes thrives on and makes our efforts often futile.

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Charlie doesn't often express his feelings about living with diabetes. Though he does let us know quite often that it's not fair that his brother and sister get to eat certain treats at certain times that he cannot.

"You have diabetes," we tell him bluntly, as if he didn't already know. "You're absolutely right, Charlie. Diabetes is not fair."

I Think They Forgot the Ketchup is not Charlie's real memoirs. Instead it is his would-be or could-be memoirs.  If Charlie did write memoirs, you could be sure it wouldn't be based on the heavy topic of living with type 1 diabetes. That's no fun for a 10 year old. Charlie would much rather compose disgusting poems about poop. 

Chapter 1 - I Think They Forgot the Ketchup

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Today's DBlog Week Prompt: Living with diabetes (or caring for someone who lives with it) sure does take a lot of work, and it’s easy to be hard on ourselves if we aren’t “perfect”.  But today it’s time to give ourselves some much deserved credit.  Tell us about just one diabetes thing you (or your loved one) does spectacularly!  Fasting blood sugar checks, oral meds sorted and ready, something always on hand to treat a low, or anything that you do for diabetes.  Nothing is too big or too small to celebrate doing well!

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When I embark on basal testing (never), I find that the best approach is to remove Charlie from the house.  It's not reasonable to expect him to fast for hours while being near the temptations residing inside the refrigerator or in the kitchen cabinets.  Not to mention siblings walking around with pretzels in their mouths or the glorious smell of English Muffins toasting to a perfect light-brown.

For morning basal testing, our procedure is this: Wake up. Check blood sugar. If blood sugar is decent, get him the hell out of the house as fast as possible. Sweeten the deal by taking him somewhere fun. Somewhere where hours will pass without him thinking about how hungry he might be.  

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