Speedo & I Head South

Speedo and I took our first vacation ever from all 6 children this past weekend. We had a long weekend trip to Florida to visit my brother, Metro, his beautiful wife Lactose, and their super sweet little babies! My brother, and his wife were very gracious hosts and made our visit very comfortable and relaxing. We basked in the warm Florida sunshine, ate out almost every single meal until we couldn't button our pants, swam in the Gulf of Mexico, jet skied in the Sarasota Bay with dolphins and manatees, laughed often, and thoroughly relished in our days away from all those little people. It was a slice of heaven. A well deserved and much needed trip alone.

Even though we were 1300 miles from home, sans any little people, we were still connected. Still had a line of communication wide open for any emergency calls. And of course, for Betsey.

The preparation for us to go away (for only 4 days) was exhausting to say the least and the 2 days prior to leaving, I actually had several people say to me, Kinda makes you want to just faggettaboutit and stay home, huh? Don't worry, it'll be worth it.

I'm pretty organized when it comes to the children, pretty regimented. I have to be to make it run smoothly. And I am a fan of lists. I can not get through a week, let alone a day without lists. Squeezing in the amount of time it took to organize my thinking and preparation for all 6 littles, middles and big-uns for 4 short days was a ginormous mind hurting task.

(supplies needed for Betsey to stay 4 days without me...just in case...)

I really wanted all the children to be together while we were away; I felt better about it that way and I know they did too. The sleeping issue was my main concern - children tend to fall into sleeping habits that make or break the night. Our children sleep with noise, white noise. A light is optional, but noise is mandatory. Speedo and I sleep with the TV on for light and noise. Jen's family sleeps the same way we do, and I knew, if she agreed to having them all, a total of 11 kids under 1 roof for several days, that that would be a perfect match.

She agreed. And I love her for that.

Planning out Betsey's 4 days without me was so fine tuned, I almost felt like a robot. Jen came over one day, notebook in hand, pencil in ear, ready to take notes as I talked to her about diabetes. Diabetes 101. We went over about 70% of what it was going to take to get her through the days she'd have Betsey in her care. Everything from low blood sugars needing the glucagon to pump failure and who to call. I had the school nurse, 1 mom from town with a diabetic child, Yale, and a few close friends "on call" in the event of an emergency with Betsey.

Jen typed up her notes, in outline form, emailed them to me to proofread and make any corrections, and then she was good to go! I felt comfortable leaving Betsey with her. And she was confident to be able to handle what diabetes threw her.

Betsey's numbers couldn't have been any more fluctuated than when we were away. High, high numbers, 300+ to lows right before bed. It just happened to be a quirky couple of days, go figure. But I was only a phone call away. Communication by cell phone was a constant and of course, crucial to making sure Betsey did as she should to keep things relatively simple for everyone else. One night I actually called our eldest cell phone knowing she was just back from a school dance and had her wake Betsey to test her "just in case." It was a group effort to keep Betsey in a safe spot diabetes wise. If you had asked me a year ago, even 6 months ago if I'd leave Betsey, I would have quickly said No way. What a difference a year makes.

Everything turned out fine.

Betsey survived. I survived.

All the prep was worth it. The hours and hours it took me to get it all together... it was all good.

Metro - keep working hard, my friend....

Next summer... can't wait!