As I sit in the hotel in Hershey I am reminded of something I always learned from having babies: you never brag when they sleep through the night because it will backfire on you. It happened with each of my kids, I would be so excited they slept I would tell the world and that same night they would be up. So you would think I would learn. Apparently bragging about a sleeping baby holds true for good blood sugar control as well. As I packed for our yearly trip to Hershey I worried about guessing how many carbs each meal would be. Dining out is difficult with three kids as it is but during the ciaos you also need to estimate how many carbs Tommy has eaten and hope for the best. So the days leading up to our trip caused me some stress. Tom is really good with estimating because he's had lots of experience but I'm new at the guessing game. So I thought ahead, I packed a measured out breakfast for each day so we would know that one meal would be accurate and we'd start the day on a good foot. Saturday went perfectly ...all good blood sugars...I was was so happy. By Sunday at lunch with more perfect numbers there were high fives exchanged. We had this! We were awesome! Dinner was going to be easy because Tommy wanted the same thing as the night before. I was so happy when he said that because I had written down everything from the prior night...yippy! Then they brought out the ice cream...now I know what you're thinking ...the boy has diabetes what are you giving him ice cream for. At home we have sugar free ice cream but it was his birthday and we wanted to be able to sing. So back to the ice cream - it looked like there was more than the night before so we adjusted his insulin accordingly. His pre bed number was on the boarder between giving him a 5 carb and 10 carb snack and we opted for the 10 because we didn't want him to go low and after all we have been right the whole weekend. Well we were WRONG! As per my diabetes mom contract I set my alarm for 3 am to check him just to make sure things are good and I found out what bragging got us. His blood sugar was 343 and his ketones were .9. Ugh. Ok what do you do...well 2 things bring down ketones and that is drinking and insulin. I had Tommy consume 50 carbs and drink lots of his juice. I gave him his insulin and now I sit and wait for all of that to go to work. It's peaceful to watch all the kids asleep, wonder what they're dreaming about, hoping in a few hours when they're up they will be kind to their very sleepy mom. I'm glad we are going home today. The kids miss their regular routine and I miss my kitchen scale and all my nutrition labels. I've learned two things on this trip: my daughter is old enough to go alone on a ride and you should never brag about good blood sugar!
