morning routine

A step-by-step instructional guide for parents trying to get their type 1 child out the door each morning:

1.  Wake up bleary-eyed after 12am, 2am, and 4am bg testings.
2. Stumble to Peets in sweatpants that have been selected as pajamas for their multitasking abilities.
3.  Wake up kids.
4. Poke diabetic daughter’s finger, then realize you are out of test strips.
5. Go find test strips, re-poke finger. When reading comes back at 452 remember that you did not wash her hand first. 
6.  Get washcloth and go back to step 4, this time with test strips on hand.
7. Find previously purchased coffee and actually drink it.
8. Wake up youngest daughter, again.
9. Head downstairs to make breakfast. Crap! It’s Tuesday which means it’s pancake day. [note to self: simplify breakfast schedule.]
10.  Cook pancakes which appear to be 1.5” in diameter. Box says 36 grams for 3-4” pancakes. Try to get foggy brain to accurately calculate carb count. Give up and use food scale.
11. Call kids down for breakfast.
12. Pour 2 glasses of milk for daughters.
13. Call kids down to breakfast, again.
14. Pour one glass of milk into measuring cup, adjust amount and pour back into glass.
15. Go upstairs and wake up kids for the third time.
16. Add up carbs in pancakes again since you’ve already forgotten the first calculation.
17. Look through cupboard, drawers, pantry and fridge in an attempt to throw together a healthy lunch.
18. Measure and weight all items entering lunch box for diabetic daughter.
19. Go to calorieking.com to for carb conversion of 93g of strawberries. Internet not working!
20. Go down to basement and reset all computer looking parts that have reset buttons in hope that internet will come back on.
21. Dog starts barking. Realize you forgot to let him out of his crate.
22. “Wait! Did you bolus for those pancakes? How many carbs did we say?”
23. Finally get kids headed to the shower so that you can have 5 minutes to check email before packing up lunches and backpacks.
24. Get kids in car and dropped off at school.
25. On drive home think about the quietness that awaits you.
26. Walk in door and find meter on kitchen table.
27. Back to school…
28. Eventually, after dropping off meter and, if there are no calls about low bg’s and “I’m out of glucose tablets” you might get that second cup of coffee afterall.