2008 Easter Celebrations

Saturday we went to the Billmans for an egg hunt. It was such a fun time. We got to see the Homecs which is always a treat. But I can say that this easter is best summed up by the pictures. So enjoy!

Logan was happy with an easter egg in each hand.


There was a limit of 10 eggs per kid. As you can tell Luke multiplied his limit by 3.



McKee tried to push Mark into the pool.  Luckily Mark is a heavy weight.




The Easter Spirit put some air in Luke's step. Note... he is literally walking on air not the water.

McK and Luke got sunburned. Unfortunately that is inevitable when your kids skin is opaque.

What is Easter anyways without a good swordfight?

Our Little Helpers. Gotta Love em!

I went to bed at 6:00pm last night. I felt crummy and left the kids and the house up to Mark. Not to my surprise, I woke this morning to WWIII in the kitchen and family room. Now, for those of you know us, you know this is not an uncommon occurance and when I say it looked like WWIII, I am not exaggerating. I wish I had a before picture to prove it. Well, I had no energy to deal with it.  I complained a little and said "Mck and Luke, you guys have to clean the kitchen today". There was some weeping, wailing, and nashing of teeth.  I left to put Logan to bed, and Mark went to clean the car when I came back down the stairs I found the kitchen taped off. McK would not let me look in. One thing I love about McK is that he can be very creative in how he accomplishes some of his chores. I left again for about 20 min. It got a little to quiet so I went down to check and this is what I found.

 "Don't go in the kitchen and I'm at Donnys house, don't go in the kitchen"

McKee and Luke had cleaned the kitchen and family surprisingly well. They had vacuumed and mopped the floor, wiped of the counters taken dirty clothes to the laundry room, and put away all the toys.  Just look at how good it looks.
Thank you McKee and Luke for helping your mother stay sain today!

The results are back.

Over the years I started noticing that what he ate and how often he ate really affected his behavior. I've been really careful about not giving him treats and feeding him more often but it seems that lately nothing I was trying was working. Mark and I decided to have him tested to see if we could figure out what was up. He had to fast for 12 hours which all by itself was a trial because he is so emotional and defyant when he needs food. They had to test him 5 different times and each time I had to pin Luke down as the nurse took a vile of blood. This was one of the harder things I had to do in my life. It is extremely difficult to see your child in emotional stress and pain and know that you are helping out what he considers "the bad guys". We got the results the next day. He has hypoglycemia. This didn't come as a shock. Mark and I had suspected it for a while but it was good to know exactly what it was so we can learn how to treat it correctly. Hypoglycemia is basically low blood sugar. He pancreas overproduces insulin which creates the low blood sugar. This is the root of all (or most) of his rollercoaster emotions. He is on a special diet where he can't have any processed foods, or sugars, no white flours or simple carbs. It is the diabetic diet with 6 meals a day. Somedays I feel I do a pretty good job at keeping my head in the game, but there is the occasional day that I don't do a good job and then I'm quickly reminded that I can't slack. When I don't pay attention to what he is eating it seems those are the days he crashes. He gets hyper, then gets emotional, then he falls asleep....what we call the crash.

He is pretty good about what he can eat and what he can't.  At first when we took sugars out, he had a hard time understanding why other people could eat sugar and he couldn't.  You would often hear him say "dont' eat that, that's got sugar and it'll make you sick."  Now, he doesn't seem to mind so much anymore infact, today at Costco, he picked out some cookies and said "Mom, let's get cookies OK?  I won't eat any.  Lets get some for our friends. OK?"  (the friends he is refering to is Aunt Angie, and her friends Natalie and Tara).  At this point, I melted.  Even though I didn't want a box of cookies in my home (mostly because I thought I could eat them all) I couldn't help but say yes.  His is such a sweet and tender little one.  We sure do love our little Lukie.

Our dear "Lukie"

Luke is a very special little guy! 

He has one of the more tender and kind hearts I've ever seen in a boy, He can be so charming and loveable when we have his blood sugar in check, he basically gets away with everything because he is so darn cute. For example, on Monday, I was begging him to play a game with me. He refused.

"Do you want to play soccer with Mom?".

His reply...

"NO."

"Can we read a couple of books together?"

"NO."

"Do you want to watch a movie together?"

"NO."

"Write a letter to Grandma & Grandpa?"

"Play Cars?"

"NO."

At this point I was about ready to give up but I told him that he had to do something with me today and that he could pick anything he wanted to do. In desperation I asked "How about we make cookies together?" He suddenly perks up and asks "Can we make cookies at Lizzies house?"  I told him that was a good idea, but he needs to play with me and not Lizzie, so he needed to pick something that he and I could do together.  He then asked "How about I write a letter to Lizzie?"  "That sounds like a great idea."  He wrote Lizzie a letter that went something like this...

Lizzie,

I like to swim.

I love cookies.

I was so proud of him.  He wrote 90% of the letters himself. He put some of his "sugar-free" candy in an envelope.  He then ran upstairs and came down with a $10 bill from his savings jar.  I tried to convince him that he didn't need to do all of this for Lizzie but he said "Mom, I want to, it's OK, it only buys just toys."

It was all he could think about for the next day.  He asked every 20 minutes if Lizzie was home so he could give it to her.  He was so excited he could barely stand it.  Every time we would talk about it, he would wear his smirk which is something like pursing your lips so you can hold down a smile.  We keep telling him that its OK to smile, but he smirks anyway.

 

We were able to deliver the letter the next day.  He was squirming with joy.  His little spirit could barely contain himself.  I was pretty proud of him as well.