Today is my 17th birthday

17 years ago today, or round about today, I heard some news that made me a little sad and a little scared. The word "DIABETIC" was now attached to me forever. As an 11 year old little girl, I wondered what all that meant and why something so unfair had to happen to me and what on earth did being "diabetic" mean. And now...it's been 17 years and I don't know life without that phrase. To me, shots are like putting your glasses on or putting your socks and shoes on. The medicine makes me feel better so that's what I do. Diabetes will require my attention all day, every day, for the rest of my life. The other day the Diabetes Forcast magazine arrived at my home and it was an issue devouted to 60 years of diabetes. There is a picture of an older man on the cover who has been diabetic for 70 years. 70 years!!! He says, "The individual with diabetes can achieve almost anything that a person without diabetes can achieve. it takes a lot of effort to do it, but that effort is no different than any other effort." And that is the approach I've taken for 17 years. I learned to give shots the first day in the hospital and never really looked back. I get that the food I eat turns to sugar (energy for my body) and I need to manage it. Simple. I've been on a mission for my church, traveled to Australia and New Zealand and even packed 3 months worth of needles and insulin to Europe. I ran a marathon, have done triathalons, and worked and camped in extreme circumstances. I had a healthy baby and have weathered surgeries and illnesses. I've dealt with the misinformed, the judgmental, and the know-it-alls.
There are 2 types of diabetes. Type 1 (you give shots) and Type 2 (you can take pills, control your diet and exercise) Type 2 is largly, but not entirely preventable, but still accounts for more than 1/2 of the people who have diabetes. Type 1 diabetics (me) have a bum pancreas and it just doesn't work at all. When I was 11, my pancreas just decided to stop working...no fault of my own. Just genes. But, the cool thing is, Chloe is no higher risk of getting diabetes than any other child. That is why diabetes is such a mystery. They are working on determining how it is genetically linked. As it stands now, more than 10 percent of the US population has diabetes...that's 23.6 million people. Diabetes complicates many other functions in the body like the heart, the eyes, the kidney, and the limbs. It is the 3rd leading cause of death because of how it affects these other areas.
1. Insulin used to come from pigs and then in 1982 Eli Lily invented a synthetic insulin which means they produce it in a lab and it's a pretty wicked awesome invention. I think they got a noble prize for it. It makes living with diabetes much better because it replicates human insulin. They now have fast acting insulin and long acting insulin.
2. Several diabetics use what's called an insulin pump. This is a device attached to you via a soft needle and cording and you can adjust it within seconds whenever you eat or exercise. I choose not to have one of these devices, but still maintain good control by giving multiple shots.
3. When I was diagnosed my cute sister brought me a poster full of candy while I was at the hospital. Cute Emily. I think she took all the candy home and ate it.
4. One of my best friends is diabetic.
5. When I was younger I went and spoke to a medschool class at the Uof U about being diabetic. I think they gave me free movie coupons for being the presenter.6. I used to go to diabetic camp from ages 12-17. We went skiing in the winter and boating and waterskiing in the summer. It was a true boy/girl camp complete with romance and dances. It made you feel like having diabetes was not big deal for that week!
7. Until 1996, the FAA wouldn't issue a pilots license to you if you were insulin-dependent diabetic.
8. When people find out I'm diabetic, I still get the "you're diabetic? I would never have guessed." And that is how i hope it to stay.As for a cure?There will be one...hopefully in my lifetime.
Happy 17th to me, maybe I will go celebrate with a brownie.

She has my toes...

Today has just been one of those carefree gorgeous days so we decided to paint our nails. I made a really big deal about it and got Chloe really excited about it. She sat very still. Other than the fun of painting our nails, I might point out that she does have my feet! There may be only 2 people out there who will appreciate that foot comment: Jen and Emily. Jen calls my feet "flinstone" feet and my sister Em laughs at my little toes everytime she sees them. This one is for you guys.

Chloe Blue is 18 months today.

It is hard to believe she was only 6 months this time last year. Today, Chloe is 18 months and here is a little tribute to her.
One of our favorite things about Chloe, right now, is her little laugh. She really has a sense of humor and she loves to be wrestled with by dad and cuddled and tickled by mom. She loves sitting on our laps and reading books. She has a longer attention span now and she can get through most books 2 or 3 times!! She also really likes the cartoon Curious George. Thankfully, for us, it's on at 7am.
Some things about Chloe: she loves to be "up" as she puts it. Then of course she wants to be "down". We have notice she miraculously has the ability to get "up" and "down" by herself when we aren't in the room but when we are we get to help her. She has started to really speak. She immitates almost every word I say and she can now identify items if I name them. Like, "star", "dog", "cat", "cow", "train", to name the ones I thought of right away.

She loves shoes and who wouldn't with her collection. They are all colorful and snazzy. These little red ones squeek. Thanks grandma Chambers for these adorable shoes that alway turn heads and create smiles of nostalgia and/or happiness. When I ask her to go get her shoes she always comes with a matching pair. She can also put her shoes in our shoe basket along with ours if I ask her to.

She is all smiles. Every minute of pretty much the entire day she is smiling big. And aren't we lucky we get to start our day around 6am! How blessed we are to have such a happy and healthy baby.

I still love dressing her. I love picking her outfit out and doing her hair...still. She's my little buddy.
I had a picture below that didn't make it for some reason, but it was of Chloe and a piece of paper and a pen. She could draw or color all day if we let her. She loves to draw. Guess she takes after her mom!!
She had her first visit to nursery and you guessed it...it was like if she could talk she'd have asked, 'why were you taking me to class with you for so long? They got treats in here. They got toys in here!'

Our Halloween project

Brad loves Halloween. So about a month ago, he tells me he has this idea to make homemade trick or treat bags for our family. He even specified that he would like them to be lined so they would be "super nice". You have to know my cute Brad, when we got engaged we made each other our Christmas present that year and he made me 2 christmas stockings (with a little coaching from his mom) and then before Chloe was born he made her one. They are lined and "super nice". He is really good at projects and he learns really fast and he never says anything is "too girly". He even made me a homemade book one time-made the pages and binding and everything, but that's another story. Back to the project...I was at Walmart so I bought the material and brought it home with somewhat of a plan. And there the material lay for about a week. I wasn't sure if I was just going to make them because Brad is so busy or if we would actually find time to make them together. Then, on Sunday, B-rad and Mel turned out kitchen into a little sewing shop.

We each had our little tasks. I did most of the cutting, though we both hate it, I guess I hate it a little less. Brad did some of the basic stitching. His big feat was turning the straps inside out so the seem was on the inside (thanks momRuthie for the trick with the safety pin)

Here are our 3 bags. We're pretty sure our future kids will fight over them. Can you tell we're super proud!!

Here is the felt lining.

...and that is how the trick-or-treating bags came to be.

Tour de Missouri

On Friday, The Chambers and the Smiths took a little trip to catch a stage of the 2nd annual Tour de Missouri. This is a 7 day race covering parts of the state of Missouri. This stage ended in Jefferson City (the capital) and it was the closest stage to us-about 2 hours away. So the guys took off early from school and we went to see some of our favorite riders up close-the closest we will probably every see till we actually get to France or become personal friends with Al Trautwig.
Brad and Tyler with ear to ear grins. They were in a very happy place!!

We got to see the riders go around 3 times before they sprinted to the finish line.

You'd think the guy on the left would win because he is about 50 meters from the end. He didn't the guy to the right ended up winning and we were there to see it!!

The girls.

By the way, when we left Kirksville it was cold and rainy so we were all dressed for cold and rainy. Wouldn't you know, when we got to Jeff city the weather was a balmy 94 degrees and the sun was out. Nice. We made a quick stop at TJMaxx for some books and such and B-rad had to buy some flipflops or her was going to die of the heat. We were so glad it didn't rain, though.

More...

A picture of my happy Brad.

This guy is one of our favorites. Christian VandeVelde. He's in the yellow jersey which means he is in the overall lead. He is from our favorite team-Garmin Chipotle. After the race we even ate at Chipotle and it was really, really good. I'm still dreaming about it!

It was pretty cool to be right up close and see these guys. Gave us a taste of how extremly cool it will be when we get to France and watch the tour from the Alp D'Huez and from the Champs Elysees-Paris 2015!

And what would a blog entry be without our little girl. She finally fits in the dress I made for her last February. Love that girl!

And now...Brad is a 2nd year med student.

We've just ended our week of fun and vacation. Monday is here and Brad is back to school, but this time he is a 2nd year!! Wahoo. We made it through the 1st and are excited for the adventures this next year brings. I am so proud of Brad and the effort he put in and all that he accomplished. He constantly amazes me and our little family has truly been blessed. Here are some pictures from our week together.
THE ZOO.
We were so excited to take Chloe to the St. Louis Zoo. We waited to take Chloe to the zoo until she was a little older and it was worth the wait. She really had a great time and so did we.
She tried to get away from the Python, who could blame her.
We came upon the giraffes and everyone was feeding them so Brad joined. I have never seen giraffes this close before. This guy was looking old.
Awww...the mother elephant and her baby. I couldn't help but think of the cartoon voice of the baby elephant from The Jungle Book. "Wait for me mama!"
We were really excited to see the penguins.

The happy couple and the angry child. Let's see...does she want to leave, is she too tried, or does she not want to leave the zoo?? Honestly, we had the greatest time. The St. Louis zoo was AWESOME.
We borrowed our friends bike trailer and took some thrilling rides during the week. Chloe would giggle and squel when she saw me or her little friend in the other trailer. It makes me so happy to hear her happiness!

The guys pulling the kids.
And...we had to let Starsky have a fun day, so we took him to the doggy luau. I guess I didn't realize that the doggy luau would be in the public pool. The pool had closed the day before and so the pool was free game for the dogs. They swam and swam. Starksy is a little water shy so he just "got to know" the other dogs there. Starsky bubbled from the mouth and we knew he had a great time.
What a terrific time we had. Part 1 of Kirksville...complete. Part 2 of Kirksville to be continued.