Parenting 101 ... :) No Perfect Recipe

All of the effort that we mom's put into keeping our children healthy...  by testing blood sugars  throughout the day (and the countless sleepless nights), counting carbohydrates in everything that they consume..., not to mention the "guesstimating"  on the foods which we are unsure of. Oops..., I almost forgot to bring up how we follow the kids around (when they are little) at birthday parties and family gatherings trying to keep track of what goes in their mouths as they graze on just about every food there is to be offered.  I remember the knots that I would get in my stomach when we would receive a birthday party invitation. Occasions that were meant to be fun can become some serious work for mom's of Type1 D children.  Somewhere between "tweenager to teenager"  some of the most responsible children may revert back to being six again, wanting their parents to take care of everything from testing all of the blood sugars, bolusing and carb.counting... Many of these tasks which they had been begun to take on for themselves suddenly stop completely.  Type1 is constant. The kids tell me all the time,  "It gets old mom"..  I get that..  I really do:(  Everyone needs a break sometime...  although with Type1 there seems to be no break.  We have experienced our own children wanting to take on their diabetes care all by themselves to wanting nothing at all to do with it.  When this first began happening it was very difficult to accept.  I had seen other parents struggle with this situation and I was one of those mom's that said..  "Not my daughter, not my son ...  that will not happen with them." Well parents....  guess what..  It happened, right in front of my eyes!  Thankfully, I am seeing signs of a turn around with wanting to take on more responsibility..  but there was a period of time that I had felt all of my effort in teaching the "in's" an "out's" of healthy diabetes care only went "in" one ear and "out" the other.  I have learned a great lesson through that experience....  No judging and no being a "know-it-all" in the world of diabetic parenting.  I applaud every one of you mom's that is walking though this and sometimes it takes all that we can do just to get through the day.  Please know that there is a mom out there backing you up and cheering you on without judgement...  ME!!  I have learned over the years that you need to do what works for your family.  It is not the same recipe for every household.  We try our best to teach our children (diabetic or non-diabetic) to be responsible adults.  As much as I would like to believe that they will take as good of care of themselves as I do of them.. the doubts do creep up on me from time to time.  I mean really ladies, you all know that we take much better care of our children than we do of ourselves.  There is a lesson to be learned here....  Kids model their parents...  maybe if we take a little more time in caring for our own selves our children will follow the same example...  I haven't exactly come close to perfecting this yet.  Just one more thing to add on my "to do" list of what I need to improve on!