The Mom Crowd

In August 2008, our three year old son, Andrew, was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. For weeks he had been drinking tons of water, urinating much more than he was taking in and was eating everything in sight. We knew something was going on and when we got his diagnosis we weren’t really sure what we were up against.

The first week was awful. Andrew spent the first day after diagnosis in the ICU because his blood sugar had been so high for so long that he was in Diabetic Ketoacidosis and had to be stabilized. (Diabetic Ketoacidosis occurs when the body cannot break down glucose for energy and in turn starts to burn fat. Ketones are an acid that results from this fat breakdown and an accumulation of these acids in the body can be dangerous and at times deadly.) The following three days in the hospital were spent learning how to care for him once we got home. We learned how to check his blood sugar levels, how to draw up and inject his insulin, how to calculate how much insulin he needs and to recognize danger signs of lows and highs.

We did not get much support from those in our lives we had hoped and thought would be there for us. I realized that a lot of it was due to the fact that people just didn’t understand what we were really dealing with. So, in my attempt to educate people in order to prevent someone else feeling what we felt, I compiled this list of things I wish everyone knew about Type 1 Diabetes.

1. Type 1 Diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the body attacks and destroys all of the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. No one knows for sure what exactly triggers this autoimmune response, but it is currently not anything that can be prevented and is NOT caused by poor eating, lack of exercise or bad parenting.

2. INSULIN IS NOT A CURE!!! There is currently no proven cure for Type 1 Diabetes. Unlike Type 2 Diabetes (the more commonly discussed type), eating better and exercising won’t reverse it.

3. People with Type 1Diabetes will be dependent on insulin for their entire lives and must take it to survive.

4. Monitoring blood sugar levels is a must! Some people check their children’s blood sugar levels 10 or more times a day.

5. Exercise can cause high blood sugars or low blood sugars – and lows can happen up to 12 hours after exercise.

6. Children with Type 1 Diabetes CAN have things with sugar! In fact, they, like everyone else, need sugars to produce energy. While foods with rapid acting sugars like juice, candy and frostings are to be used sparingly, they can still be had.

7. Parents of children with diabetes NEED other people in their lives to learn how to monitor and care for their children in case there is an emergency or in the rare event they actually have a date night!

Please take the last thing to heart and when you hear of a family affected by Type 1 Diabetes don’t hesitate to ask questions and if possible learn the basics to help. The parents will love you and appreciate you more than you’ll ever know!!!

Sharon M is a full-time mom with two children, ages 4 and 18 months.  She and her family live in the Middle East, where her husband is a teacher.

Packing Boxes.  Shuffling through papers and toys, trying to decide what should stay and what should go.  Finding new friends, new work, new EVERYTHING.  Where do I shop?  Where should my kids go to school?

Most of us have experienced the stress of moving to a new place.  Now, imagine that you’re not only going away from the place you call home, but you’re also diving headfirst into an entirely new country, usually complete with a new language and new culture for you to experience.  Sound insane?  Scary?  Exciting?  Welcome to the life of an ex-pat.

We’re all living abroad for different reasons.  Some of us work for religious or non-profit organizations, a few of us have husbands who work for international companies, and many are working for the US government and are stationed overseas.  I’d like to talk a little bit about my corner of the world, the Middle East.  And what it’s like to raise what we call “third culture kids.”

These kids (TCKs for the rest of this article) have grown up a significant portion of their lives overseas outside their parents’ culture; they build relationships within all of the cultures they come in contact with, while never really having full ownership of any.  Translation: Someone asks you, “Where are you from?” and you answer, “Uhhhh… (thoughtful silence)… America?” They tend to connect best with other kids that have had a similar childhood, and they are generally more mature than American kids their age.  Mave, a mom of five (with #6 on the way), lived overseas for nine years with her family before returning to the States.  She said:

Four of my children are settling into school in the US now.  Three of the four have been naturally drawn to the “internationals” in their classes.  My eldest son enjoys his friend from India.  My second daughter enjoys a Korean- American and my youngest son plays with a boy from the Netherlands.  I don’t know if this would be the case if we had not lived overseas.

Initially, language acquisition is the biggest concern for us as parents, because there is no way that these kids will ever feel connected to the locals if there isn’t some proficiency in the local language.  One of my friends (a mom with three children ranging from 11 to 4) expressed frustration with a local private school – she had to “fight the schools to accept [her] children and school them as though they are nationals” when she first moved here.  The kids have tutors every day, but she is so proud of them because they have learned the language.  Her eldest sounds just like a local kid!  Another friend of mine has a six year-old son who is rather shy and understands Arabic, but rarely speaks; he gets embarrassed when he doesn’t know what to say, and in a culture where boys are encouraged to be bold and aggressive, it can be a struggle for him.

As Americans living in the Middle East, our children stick out; the light-colored eyes, fair hair and fair skin practically scream “I AM NOT FROM AROUND HERE!”  When the kids are young, it’s actually a wonderful way to meet people.  I remember meeting one of my neighbors through my son.  He saw her children playing on the patio, walked in the gate, said “Marhaba!” (hello) and joined them!  And since people in general here are very hospitable and love children dearly, it wasn’t at all odd or rude.  However, as the children get older, it is more and more obvious that they don’t look like everyone else, and it can be uncomfortable for the kids.  Every mom I spoke with said that it is so important to have a strong family life, not too burdened with extra-curricular activities, and to connect with other moms who are living like you are (I call it “the sympathy circle”).   This is important whether you live abroad or not, but as a mom who has lived in the US and overseas, I can tell you, it’s a necessity for my sanity!

We all love to see our kids eat “weird” things and like them.  And when you’re outside your home country, it’s guaranteed that your kids are going to have to try the local food at one point or another.  My fellow blogger Um Tulip said this about her son:

He likes foods that American boys wouldn’t touch.  I remember taking him to a Middle Eastern restaurant with friends when we were back in America and he gobbled up the grape leaves.  Our friends were astounded but it’s one of his favorite foods.

And remember, these TCKs are also growing up in the USA.  They tend to be the children of immigrants or diplomats; they are Hispanic, Indian, Middle Eastern, African.  While they might grow up to look and even to sound American, they have parents with a different set of cultural values, and who (often times) have built a little “home away from home” with other people from the same ethnic background.   Many of them are grateful when, say, a co-worker invites them over for dinner or a mother they meet at the park arranges a play date.   Being among strangers in a new country can be intimidating, and a simple gesture by you can make a world of difference in their lives.

For more information on this topic, I highly recommend Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing up Among Worlds by David Pollock.

Have you experienced the life of an ex-pat, either as a child or an adult?  Have you been able to reach out to the ex-pats in your community, make them feel more at home where they live?  If you’ve lived overseas, what sort of advice or encouragement would you give to other moms in a new cultural and linguistic environment?

One of every mother’s worst fears is watching their child choke or stop breathing.  That is definitely on my top three list of worries.  This evening, as I was cutting up grapes for my son, I was thinking about the choking threat grapes pose and how unprepared for a choking situation I feel.  I’ve been CPR and First Aid certified a few times in my life, but the most recent class I’ve attended was four and a half years and three children ago.  I certainly could use a refresher course on what to do in a choking situation and am probably not the only mom out there who is not CPR confident.  One thing I do feel confident about is that the best way to stop a child from choking is to prevent it from ever happening.  The American Pediatrics Association has a whole list of the top food and nonfood choking hazards and ways to prevent your child from choking that I think every parent needs to read.

That being said, not all emergencies are preventable. However simple training in CPR and First Aid can be the difference between a scary event and a tragedy and the training is not difficult to obtain.  Most cities or hospitals offer free classes parents and babysitters can take. I found some online instructional videos on what to do if your infant or toddler is choking.  Hopefully, these videos will inspire you to seek out a children’s CPR and First Aid class near you so that you can be prepared in case of an emergency.

Infant Choking Part One (click on the links to parts 2 and 3 below)

• Infant Choking Part Two
• Infant Choking Part Three

Toddler Choking Part One (click on the link to part 2 below)

• Toddler Choking Part Two

Have you gone through children’s CPR/First Aid training as a mother or mother-to-be?  Do you feel confident that you could perform CPR on your child or handle a choking situation with your child if necessary?

Jennifer is a stay-at-home mom to two great boys: Bailey (age 6) and Riley (age 5), and wife to her wonderful husband of 10 years.  She enjoys scrapbooking, reading, going to her discipleship group, and endlessly discussing Star Wars with her children.

When my family moved to a new city 3 years ago, we lived in a 2-bedroom apartment for six months.  We had no choice but to have our 3 1/2 year old and 20-month old sons share a room.  It worked out fine at first, but after a few weeks, they realized, “Hey, we are in a room together with our bed and crib very close to each other.  Let’s party all night!”  This culminated with our son climbing out of his crib for the first time at 23 months and making a regular habit out of it.  My husband and I ended up taking turns sitting in their room at night, trying to make sure they did not interact with one another.  This often took awhile and cut into our own time together at night.  We were very excited to finally move into our house and give each boy his own room.

After we had been in the house for about 18 months, my oldest son was sick with strep throat one night.  My youngest son, then 3, wanted to sleep in the room with my sick, older child.  We pulled out the trundle under my 5-year old’s bed.  They ended up sleeping that way for a week before we finally asked the two of them if they wanted to share a room.  We got an enthusiastic “yes!” from both of them.  It has been 16 months now, and our arrangement is still working great. 

Some of the things we love about our children sharing a room are:

• They are so darn cute together!  We have caught them many mornings scrunched together in one bed playing their hand-held games or reading books.  Often times at night, we hear them talking softly to each other before they fall asleep.  My hope is that this will start them on the road to a lasting friendship and brotherhood.  I know many grown-up people who have a hostile relationship or no relationship at all with their siblings.  It saddens me to think of my children’s relationship turning out this way.
• It has helped them be more considerate to each other.  They are also more willing to compromise.  If one of them gets hurt, is crying, or needs something after we have put them to bed, the other one will come get us and make sure we attend to the distraught.  Most nights, they will fight over who gets to sit by the spout in the tub if we are bathing them together.  I was shocked the other night to see my youngest sit against the back of the tub and say, “You can sit by the water tonight and I can sit there tomorrow,” to which my older son nodded his head and hugged his brother.  And one day last week, my youngest was playing with a toy that his older brother got for Christmas.  My older son saw this, and instead of snatching it away with a subsequent physical fight, said, “That’s okay, Riley.  You can have it.”  He actually gave it to him to keep!
• We now have an extra bedroom to use as a playroom.  Their toys are in the back of the house and the clutter is contained for the most part.  They like having a space where they can set up their superheroes on the ground and they can leave them up to play with the next day.  We just shut the door and they come back to it in the morning.

My boys have definitely gotten along better in the past 16 months.  I don’t know if this is from sharing a room or the fact that they are just getting older, or both.  Someday they may decide that they need or want their own space again, and that will be fine.  But for now, I see bunk beds in our future – and the argument over who will get to sleep on the top bunk!

Do your children share a room?  Does this improve their relationship or make it more challenging? 

I was sent a copy of Jean Blackmer’s book, BOY-STEROUS LIVING, to read and write a review.  I have to tell you that I really enjoyed reading this book.  I read it in one evening cover to cover.  Jean Blackmer is a mother of 3 sons, just like me.  She is a writer and publishing manager for MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) International.

 I don’t assume that everyone who reads The Mom Crowd is a Christian, but I do need to tell you that this book is written from a Christian perspective. Each chapter begins with an anecdote and usually points to a passage of the Bible for a small bit of teaching. All the chapters end with a “deeper note” which suggests some fun things you can do to connect with your boys or has some questions to get you thinking about your relationship with them. The chapters are short and easy to read. It is one of those books that you can flip through and read whatever chapter title jumps out at you. One thing I appreciated about this book was that it wasn’t all about how you need to make yourself a better Christian or mother–it wasn’t about meeting standards that are impossible to achieve. It is simply a practical, funny look about what life is like when you have a house full of boys.

I found many of the topics she writes about to be true, for example, in Chapter 2 she talks about how boys and risk taking go hand in hand. And how us mothers worry. A lot. She points out that risk taking or fearlessness isn’t bad–but foolish risk taking is. We can teach our boys the difference between being fearless and foolish. Another thing she talks about in Chapter 7 is how important it is for us mommies to spend time with other women. That is so true in my life, and I predict that it will become even more true as my boys grow up to be teenagers. So far my 4 and 5 year old like to sit around and talk about the things that interest them. If I am lucky they will still enjoy sitting around with their mom and talking about fun stuff–but from what I understand (and she mentions this in the book) boys may hit an age where they run out of words and don’t want to answer a bunch of my questions about their friends, what they learned at school, who they talked to, or didn’t talk to–you get the point. I’ll have to give them more space to be themselves and not expect them to relate to me in the same way my girlfriends do.

As I was reading the book, I was inspired to spend more time DOING things with my boys like playing legos, looking for bugs, pretending to talk with a certain action figure, riding bikes, playing soccer, hockey, and being with them while they play on the computer. My boys (husband included) love adventure and even though I’d sometimes rather hang out inside and read, I know that DOING things with them will help us to bond together and create memories. I get tired (okay, and sometimes bored) when I am pretending to be Yoda or Bumblebee (shout out to Star Wars and Transformers!) but for now it is a way to connect with them. 

  In Chapter 15 Blackmer talks about the importance of letting Dads be Dads without interfering. If you are the primary caretaker of your children then you know the ins and outs of all the daily things in life (he likes mustard, NOT mayonaise…she takes a nap with the puppy but sleeps with the bear at bedtime…he’s been scared of Barney for weeks, why did you let him watch THAT?!…she naps at 12:30 not 1…) and when we leave our children with their daddies sometimes we have a tendency to communicate that they don’t know how to take care of their own children. It is true, sometimes they don’t but when we criticize and don’t let them doing things differently without freaking out can you blame them when they give up trying? Or get upset with us for telling them they are doing it wrong and then don’t give them a chance to figure it out themselves? This is not as hard for me as it used to be but I still struggle with it somtimes. She points out that every father and son need a chance to develop their own relationship (I know it is true for girls too but this post is about boys) and sometimes, as hard as it can be, we need to step aside and let them figure it out.

As I read the book I laughed and cried. My husband was sitting next to me on the couch and enjoyed the excerpts I read to him. Having boys is a blast and I appreciated a reminder of all the reasons why as I read this book. It could make a great gift to a mom that has boys!

 Do you have any “boy” stories? How do you manage to be surrounded by boys in your house? What about you moms that have teenage boys?  How do you relate to them?  What about you that have both boys and girls–what differences do you notice?