Sometimes it happens by accident

From the moment we found out I was carrying identical twin girls, it has weighed on my mind to make sure that each girl grew to be strong, independent, and completely herself.  No rhyming names. Embrace their differences while acknowledging that being a twin is very cool.  Close but not co-dependent.

It was obvious from the get-go that the girls had very different personalities.  Of course, there are some striking similarities (after all, they are sisters), but they are also very different, unique individuals. 

Lately I've been trying to figure out how to parent them separately.  Sometimes you can (and have to) parent them as a duo, and I feel confident in that.  Any parent of more than one child knows that at some point, each child demands their very own brand of parenting, and I was feeling it with the girls.

Last semester Thursdays were drum days.  It's kind of a special 5th grade thing to get to take a drum class after school, and both girls wanted to participate.  About Thanksgiving, Brooke started telling me that she didn't want to continue with drum during the spring semester.  I ignored her, humored her, listed all the reasons why she might miss it, reminded her of how excited she was to start...she stuck to her guns.

In January, when it was time to make her final decision, I let her stop.  I pick her up after school every Thursday and leave Mary Tutu to go to drum class.  For 2 hours every week, it's just her and me. 

At first I thought this time had to be structured and packed with "just you and me stuff".  We unboxed her very own, brand new sewing machine that she got 2 Christmases ago.   We baked cookies, watched the DVR, cooked new recipes for supper...all stuff that I had planned.  

And then I began to realize I had it all wrong with all the structure and the organizing.  What she really needed was some space...no partner, no agenda, no activity.  Just some room to breathe in her own Brooke air.

She has the run of the house, the TV remote, and room to stretch.  I don't make her start homework right away.  Sometimes she wants to go to the library, sometimes she watches TV, sometimes she hangs out in the sun room and chats with me, sometimes she wants to sew, sometimes she draws pictures of what her handmade gifts and sandwich shop will look like someday. 

In her own way, she let me know what she needed. 

So now, Thursdays after school are Brooke days.  I make sure my schedule allows me to say yes as much as possible.  We play it by ear.  Whatever she's feeling that day. 

It's been good for her.  Quitting drums was a good idea.  I'm so glad I listened to her.

Remembering

Today is Brooke's diaversary.  Four years ago today we were told that Brooke has Type 1 Diabetes, and that our lives, and especially Brooke's life, would never be the same.

She blows me away with her willingness to deal with it all.  She's a rock star.  The tantrums and bits of sadness are few and far between.  She just rolls with it.  She's one of my heroes.

Brooke was diagnosed pretty early, before she got too awfully sick.  Don't get me wrong, she was still very sick.  But because we caught it early, she was able to avoid some of the scariest, most debilitating parts.

Read the list of symptoms below.  Really look at them.  Be familiar with them.  File them away.  I'm convinced that somewhere in the back of my head I knew most of these symptoms added up to Type 1 Diabetes.  I believe us realizing what was going on was the first step to an early, accurate diagnosis.

It was the first step to getting help.  It was the first step to Brooke feeling better.

Symptoms of Type 1 Diabetes:

• Extreme thirst
• Frequent urination
• Drowsiness and lethargy
• Sugar in urine
• Sudden vision changes
• Increased appetite
• Sudden weight loss
• Fruity, sweet, or wine-like odor on breath
• Heavy, labored breathing
• Stupor or unconsciousness

Call your doctor immediately if one or more of these symptoms occurs in you or your loved one. It is extremely important to receive medical attention—misdiagnosis or leaving your condition untreated can have tragic consequences, including death.    Source: JDRF


Today, I'm reposting what I wrote 4 years ago.  It tells the story of how Brooke was diagnosed. 

**Repost from Feb 18, 2011**

Well, hello insulin.

Remember when all the kids had the flu a few weeks ago? Remember how I declared Tamiflu dead to me because Brooke was so sick with it? Well, turns out, maybe it wasn't the Tamiflu.


It had been three weeks and Brooke still wasn't over the flu. She wasn't back to herself. She had no energy. The little Brooke spark was gone from her eyes.


Then we started noticing that she was drinking. Alot. And going to the bathroom. Alot.


And the emotional roller coaster was getting a little rough. One minute fine...the next minute snipping...the next minute fighting with her sister over nothing...the next minute...sobbing.


Her appetite was crazy. This, the child I felt lucky to get 2 good meals in her tummy, was eating me out of house and home. She was finishing her lunch and if I happened to be subbing that day, digging in to my lunch.


And then the headaches started. Severe. Making her feel so awful she didn't want to participate. Even if it was fun. And the vomit came with the headaches.


And even though her appetite rivaled her 11 year old brother's, she was loosing weight. Her clothes were hanging on her.


Wednesday night at church she had another sudden headache with vomiting. I had an appointment to see the doctor next week, but decided that since the headache was so bad, she needed to go in the next day. I had to work, but Honey was in town, so he was going to take her. He wanted a list of symptoms from me to make sure he didn't forget anything. I sat down Thursday morning to write down everything I'd noticed.


When I saw it all in writing, I knew what the doctor would tell us.


I cancelled my day and headed to the doctor at 9:15am. It didn't take long for them to tell us that she had Type 1 Diabetes and refer us to an endocrinologist. (Which, by the way, I spelled that without using spell check.) We were sent straight to the hospital and Brooke was admitted immediately.


It's been 36 hours since her diagnosis. 36 hours makes a huge difference. Her lab numbers are back to where they need to be. Her blood sugar is being tweaked and managed. The color in her cheeks is normal. Her body is being re hydrated. The Brooke spark is back in her eyes.
Honey and I know more than we ever wanted to know about insulin and pancreases and carbs. And we still have a lot to learn.
But for now we'll just take it one finger prick at a time.

The reasons I'm a hot mess...at least this month.

February...wears me out. We have a love/hate relationship. It blows in, parties me up, twists my nerves in a knot, and then leaves me completely empty and most of the time sick.

Bubba's birthday was a couple of days ago. He's 12.

My oldest is twelve! We let him get a F#ceb**k for his birthday. (See what I did there? I disguised how I typed F#ceb**k to keep them from finding out that we let Bubba get a page before he was "officially" old enough. I know, I'm pretty sneaky.)

I'm friends with my son on F#ceb**k. I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around that.

Yep, that cute little Spidey is turning 12. I should put that picture on F#ceb**k.

It was the first time in 7 years that I didn't bake treats to take to school to share with his friends. We're down to 6 years until he goes to college. I got a little weepy just now typing that.

Last year he had a friend party in addition to the traditional family party. This year we just did the family thing.

Last year, for the friend party, I made my SIL's Milky Way Cake. It sounds exactly like what it is...a cake made of several Milky Way candy bars.

Bubba's birthday falls right before Valentine's Day. On top of all the birthday celebrating there is Valentine celebrating. Friday the girls had their Valentine parties at school. This was the first year Bubba hasn't had a Valentine party in 7 years.

I missed Bubba's last Vday party last year.

Here's a picture of the girls the morning of their Vday party last year. It was 6 days before Brooke's T1D diagnosis. Can you tell which one is Brooke?

Last year Brooke wanted a special dress to wear to her Vday party. My mom agreed to make it, so they shopped together for fabric and a pattern. Once Mom got the dress ready for a fitting, Brooke tried it on and Mom needed to take it in...a lot. It was waaay too big.

She was so excited to wear her special dress. I stopped by her party first and she was loving every minute of it, eating every treat she could get her hands on. I left her party and went next door to Mary Tutu's.

When I left Mary Tutu's party to go to Bubba's, Brooke stopped me in the hall and told me she had a headache and her stomach hurt. I thought she was mad that I wasn't checking them out of school after the party. I told her she was fine and to get happy. She couldn't even hold it together for a class picture.

I headed to Bubba's party. As I was walking in the door of his classroom, the phone was ringing. It was the nurse. Brooke was throwing up in her office.

She hasn't worn her special dress since.

We thought it was a bug. In fact, Bubba was nauseous a few days later so I kept him home from school thinking it was the same bug. It wasn't.

Five days after the Vday parties, Brooke had another episode at church during Bible Class. She couldn't pull it together enough to perform her puppet show.

The next morning, February 17, was her diagnosis day.

Here she is with Will. He was the nurse that admitted her and stayed with us during those first hours. He was wonderful!

We were lucky. The IV fluids and beginning her insulin treatment did wonders for our little starving, dehydrated, weak, out-of-sorts Brooke. She was poked, and poked, and poked some more. It took 3 days to clean out the keytones. She never complained.

Eventually, she gained 11 lbs. Eventually, the spark came back to her eyes. Eventually, she gained some fat so we would have places to inject her insulin. Eventually, she was able to return to her mostly normal life.

This February is already better than last February. It kinda' snowed this morning. If I don't think about it too much, I can enjoy less baking for school parties as Bubba gets older. I made it through this year's Vday parties. I wasn't sure I would be able to hold it together. I just jumped in and stayed busy enough I didn't have time to reflect on last year's parties.

Life is good February, take it easy on us this year.

Stuff I don't want to forget.

1. Last night Brooke told us that at the end of EVERY SINGLE RECESS her teacher "wiggles her lip gloss and puts some on her lips". EVERY SINGLE DAY.

2. We pretty openly joke about how Brooke's pancreas is "lazy" or "dumb" at our house. (Occasionally I even allow the 's' word,'stupid', to be used. I'm cool like that.) It adds fun and blows off steam in an otherwise crummy situation.

A couple of days ago when Mary Tutu was home sick we went to Barnes and Noble for coffee/hot chocolate and sick day reading. Mary Tutu got a new coloring book and I picked up a copy of Think Like a Pancreas.

After school, Mary Tutu was telling the others about her sick day (trying to make them jealous, I suspect) and she told Brooke that Mommy got a new book called Think Like a Pancreas.

Brooke snorted and said, "All that's gonna do is make her dumber."

3. Second grade seems to be the magic year for us when it comes to filling our kids in on the birds and the bees. This summer, right before 2nd grade started, we tackled that issue with the girls. They were ready and handled it great, but it was different with them than it was with Bubba.

Bubba NEVER talks about it. The girls? ALWAYS have questions.

This morning on the way to school, Brooke wanted to talk about honeymoons. Mary Tutu was very indignant and insisted that there are SOME things we should keep PRIVATE. Brooke was quick to specify that she just wanted to talk about where she wanted to go on her honeymoon...Great Wolf Lodge.

Mary Tutu couldn't decide between Paris or Disney World.

The Girls' Summer Journal

I dont' really know what's with me and scrapbook posts lately, but...

This summer was the year for the girls to do their summer after Kindergarten journal. We love reading and re-reading Bubba's and the girls were super excited to make theirs.

I worked theirs a little differently than Bubba's. His was less focused on the scrapbooking part and more focused on the journaling part.

The girls are loving anything having to do with crafts right now, so I bought a couple of 8x8 scrapbook kits at Hobby Lobby. The kits came with a book, page covers, and everything you need to make 10 really cute scrapbook pages.

And directions...with pictures...

It was really easy to find all the pieces for each page. Then I just let the girls go to town recreating the pages they saw on the directions. Once the pages were done, they chose the pictures they wanted on each page, cropped, and journaled. It was a fun craft and perfect for the hot afternoons in West Texas.

Brooke wrote about our vacation to Sea World.

"The man was funy. The cil wels wr sand up. Thay wr osum." (The man was funny. The killer whales were standing up. They were awesome.)

Brooke also wrote about our summer scavenger hunt.

"The presis wR Big. Pool wus osum. we capt insid. it w osum." (The presnets were big. The pool was awesome. We camped inside. It was awesome.)

Mary TuTu also wrote about our vacation.

"I wit to LOST LAGOON. It was fun. I Fed The Dyphin. Hlding The fis was dsgsding." (I went to Lost Lagoon. It was fun. I fed the dolphin. Holding the fish was disgusting.)

More Sea World...

"I loved The sooz. 1 one of The sooz was Auz and Believe! one of The Thranr was Doing a thrick with one of The Dyphins." (I love the shows. One of the shows was Azul and Believe! One of the trainers was doing a trick with one of the dolphins.)

And one more about San Antonio...

"Thes picxshrs are jest radm. I Am standing in Fnt uF The Alamo!" (These pictures are just random. I am standing in front of the Alamo!)

At Last!

I didn't even have to look at the calendar. I knew today was the day. I knew because as I stumbled to the kitchen to pour my first cup of coffee, Brooke bounced in, informed me that she'd been up since "6 something", and asked, "Can we change my earrings now? Can we, can we, can we? Pleeeeeeease?"



Knowing myself as well as I do, I politely put her off until I'd finished my first cup of coffee. It was in every one's best interest. Before coffee is not the best time to attempt to use fine motor skills . . . especially on something so monumental as changing the 6 year old's earrings for the first time.



As soon as the last drop of coffee had touched my tongue, Brooke was in my face ready to go. I still maintain that 1 cup of coffee was not sufficient because she cried. She said taking the first one out hurt and absolutely, under no circumstances, wanted another earring in her ear.



At that point, being 1 cup of coffee short, I had no patience to list all the reasons why she really did want earrings in her ear. I just man-handled her. Cleaned the ear really well, and put the new earring in.



Then I focused my eyes on the second earring and realized that there were some crusties keeping me from slipping the post out easily. It's probably why the first one was a little more difficult than Brooke would have liked.



Well, it's her own fault. I tried to tell her that I needed a little more time to wake up before we changed earrings.



After the crusties were cleared away, the second earring was changed without a hitch.




We've come so far in such a short time. Six weeks ago, this was our little Brooke . . .

And today, she's showing off her first set of Mickey earrings.

Because of reasons that we are no longer allowed to speak of, Mary TuTu did not get her ears pierced at the same time that Brooke had hers done. The phrase "chickened out" has been banned from our house. And, word to the wise, if you have twins, take the other one out of the store and walk around while the first one is wailing and gnashing her teeth. Then when the first one is smiling and so excited about the sparkles in her ears, put the second one in the chair.



For goodness sakes . . . don't let the second one watch the first one.



If you do, you'll have two freaking out, estrogen-filled girls on your hands and you will walk out of the store with only one set of pierced ears. And 4 days later, on a busy Saturday afternoon, you will find yourself back at the mall, fighting all the crazed teens, gearing up for round two.



And then you will have to explain to your 6 year old girls and your 10 year old son why the 50 year old man is getting his ears pierced. Because Saturday is the day when all the freaks go to the mall.



Just suffice it to say that Mary TuTu waited 4 days. So now, she has to wait 4 more days.

There is a point to this story

I'm not sure why I felt the need to confess our little Mouse Scam to the whole www yesterday. I hope no one at The Mouse Estate reads this. Grampy made me do it.

Anyway, the whole reason I started telling you about the shoes is to tell you that we have a few empty shoe boxes at our house now. And Adventure Girl made a computer out of her box. She made the keyboard on the bottom and cut pictures to make the screen. I asked her what all the words were and she said that it was all the stuff she was working on typing. Do we have a future blogger on our hands?

So, ummm. . .

Brooke got a "Doodle Bear" from Santa.

I was tempted to throw her into the washer with the bear. Knowing this one, she would have loved it! I was, however, thankful that she limited her artwork to her own face. I need a Dr. Pepper!