One of the best pieces of advice I could give any family faced with a medical condition in their child is so to find others like you! It is so nice to know you are not fighting a battle a lone, it is so nice to know that there are other kids who feel exactly like your child does. It is nice to know that you have someone you can count on to offer a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen or just a brain to bounce crazy ideas off of! We have been so lucky to meet some pretty cool Type 1 families through our journey so far. Some of which have become really good family friends of ours and I truly believe that THEY are the silver lining to this {sometimes} very dark cloud.
Every October we head up to Warm Beach (near Stanwood, WA) to attend a weekend Family Camp put on by an organization by the name of
ConnecT1d. This organization is wonderful - they don't raise money for research - there are already wonderful organizations out there that do that. This org's mission is to bring people and families together who are all fighting the same battle. They host a variety of events and one of which is Family Camp. We look forward to this every year, all of us do. The kids play all day and the parents listen to different lectures, break-out sessions, panels, and just get to know others doing what you do every.single.day.
This was the first year that we took Landon with us and he had a blast! I wondered how Zane would feel about Landon coming because in the years past we've always made it a big deal to Zane that this was HIS weekend with us and HIS weekend to enjoy. He told me he wanted Landon to come, but I wasn't sure if he really wanted that or just felt it was the right thing to say. But then on our long drive up there (Friday night traffic through Everett is not awesome) I received a random text from Zane's 1st grade teacher telling me to have a great time at camp this weekend and her exact words were "Zane was all smiles today when he told me that his brother was going for the first time" - can't help but smile myself reading that text! I knew he was excited if he brought it up on his own to his teacher!
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| Kid showed me just how much he loves apples...when he'd pick them for snack over Goldfish crackers! |
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| Wasn't going to let one ounce of that jelly go uneaten! |
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| He couldn't get enough apples! |
If you aren't in the Type 1 community, you very well may have missed a major event in the beauty pageant world this year.
Miss Idaho made headlines when she wore her insulin pump clipped to her bikini bottoms in the Miss Idaho (and later in the Miss America) pageant. This was HUGE, especially for little girls! This did nothing, but prove that Diabetes doesn't need to stop you from anything and you do not need to hide it...be who you are and be proud of who you are! Anyway - Miss Idaho, Sierra was at Family Camp all weekend! She spoke a couple times, but mainly was just there to hang out with the kids and families and make little girls' dreams come true when she brought out her crown and sash for them all to try on for pictures! Made me wish I had a little girl there for a minute...Zane had no interest...even though I asked if he'd do it just for me :) One of the campaigns that Sierra started because of showing off her pump was #showmeyourpump so Saturday night of camp, she held a Show Me Your Stuff parade with the kids. Each age group got to go up on stage and show their stuff. Zane was very excited about this - made sure we put his pump on his leg the night before, so it would be easy to show off the night...well, the night came and he froze, haha! He pulled out his CGM (continuous glucose monitor) receiver and held it up, but he had no interest in showing off his pump - silly boy!
One of Zane's best friends Luke also has Type 1 - thankfully they love camp too, so we look forward to seeing them every year (even though we are lucky enough to seem them other times throughout the year)! But these two have a great time together and I love watching their friendship grow. We've coined them "Diabesties"!
