A Day of Sweets

This morning, I volunteered in Jack’s classroom. I was the “Friday folder” mom, stuffing flyers into the kids’ take-home folders. On my way out of the classroom, I spied three boxes of chocolate-glazed doughnuts with sprinkles on top. They were a birthday treat for one of Jack’s friends, and they looked delicious. I knew Jack would want one. So on my way out of school, I stopped by the nurse’s office and warned her that Jack’s teacher would be sending him her way to cover the carbs with an insulin injection.


A few hours later, my cell phone rang. It was the school nurse. I figured she was calling about the doughnuts. I was wrong.

“Hi Heidi, sorry to bother you,” she began. “I think I already know the answer to this, but Jack’s class won an ice cream party from the school PTO, and today’s the day of the party. How do you feel about him eating ice cream after eating a doughnut?”

Ugh! This is the kind of situation that breaks my heart. I didn’t really want Jack to eat ice cream after he’d just consumed a super sugary snack. Not only that, but he’d also eaten the homemade chocolate chip cookie I packed in his lunch box. A cookie plus a doughnut plus ice cream is just not my idea of healthy eating, diabetes or not. I don’t really want any of my kids eating that much junk at school. With Madeline or Max, however, it’s not that big of a deal. With Jack, it’s a great way to have a kid, who physically feels miserable tonight…and tonight is the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby! I want him to feel great for that. Plus, I think the Scouts will be served desserts at the Derby, too.


If I denied Jack, however, I know he’d feel left out. Would you want to eat a piece of sugar-free chocolate or a package of peanuts while your friends were devouring dishes of ice cream? I have said over and over and over again that I don’t want diabetes to stop Jack from doing anything that he’d normally do. I don’t want him to feel excluded.


So I came up with a happy-medium solution. I gave Jack permission to eat the ice cream, provided he didn’t consume a massive amount. I gave the nurse a carb cut-off of 15 grams of carbohydrates. As it turned out, the ice cream cups contained only 14 grams, so that was perfect. Jack enjoyed his ice cream and came home with a story about how his class won this ice cream party.

He also came home with two pieces of candy: a box of Nerds and a package of Sweet Tarts. More junk! More carbs! More to mess with his system and cause him to feel poorly later on tonight! The candy came from the estimation jar. Each week, one child in the class fills this jar with a number of items. The kids in the class then estimate how many items are in the jar, and on Fridays, the items are divvied up among the students.


Of course, Jack wanted to eat the candy right away. “Come on, mom,” he pleaded. “You can just give me more insulin. Can’t I please eat the Nerds right now? I’ll give the Sweet Tarts to Max.”


I looked at my son, and I saw a child who simply wants to be like all the other kids. I saw a child, who wishes more than anything that he didn’t have this darned disease. I wanted to cry. I wanted more than anything to make this disease disappear. And I felt conflicted. I really didn’t want him eating more junk. He’s going to get his fill at the Pinewood Derby. But did it really matter right then and there? It’s not as if every day is like today. And then I wondered whether I was just rationalizing the situation. What to do, what to do, what to do... Parenting a child with diabetes is not easy.

Jack generally eats healthfully. All three of my kids do. And, Jack can have diabetes and his sweet treats, too. It’s a myth that people with diabetes can never eat sugar. It’s just that long-term, the more stable his blood sugar levels and the better we keep him in good range, the healthier he’ll be and the fewer the complications he'll have...or the longer he'll put off those complications. One day of sweets won’t harm him. It’s a balancing act.


“Okay,” I caved. “Let’s check your blood sugar level. If you’re below 250, you can have them. If you’re above, you’ll have to wait.”

He was 238. So he poured the Nerds into his hand and then shoved them into his mouth almost all at once. “Yum! Thanks, mom.”

A little while later, he called out to me. “Mom, I’m hungry. Can I have a granola bar?”


He knew I’d much prefer he ate a low-carb snack at that point. So he added, “I don’t want nuts, cheese, celery, peanut butter, turkey, sugar-free Jell-O, a sugar-free Popsicle, or a hard-boiled egg.”

Of course he didn’t. So off to the kitchen I went to grab the insulin, syringes and alcohol swabs. It’s just one of those days.