Sweet Sixteenth (of October)

Today my Facebook wall was bombarded with loving wellwishes, I got to eat an embarrassing array of junk food, and Ryan brought over his guitar for a live performance of Happy Birthday. This may have been my best birthday ever. Quiet. Unapologetic. I got to take a nap.

My little Sweetie and the Hubs and I are all fighting off colds, so it was a rough night last night. The baby was snotty and congested and we spent part of the night rocking in the rocking chair so she could breathe. Despite the stuffy nose, you can see that she was her usual precious self.

So we spent the day at home. Ordered take-out, watched Netflix. I swept the kitchen. And it was everything I thought it could be.

Mom and Dad, thank you so much for being amazing parents for the last 31 years. Friends, family, & students, thank you for making my life richer and for never failing to remind me that you care. K & B, thank you for spending today with me doing absolutely nothing special - it was special to me.

Whistler's Mother

Anyone can whistle, that's what they say. Easy.

Anyone can whistle, any old day. Easy.

It's all so simple. Relax, let go, let fly,

Then someone tell me why can't I?

---Stephen Sondheim

I can't whistle.

I remember one night during my freshman year of college, my roommate and I lay in our respective beds, attempting to whistle at one another in the dark, failing miserably, giggling incessantly. I've had so many talented whistlers try to coax a decent wheeeew out of these thin, useless little lips.

Though can't is not a word I use lightly, I can honestly say there are talents I do not possess. I'm okay with that. I can't do a cartwheel. I can't play piano. And I can't whistle.

But my 8 month old can.

I know what you're thinking. I've been hearing it and attempting to discount it for a couple weeks now, too. She must accidentally be making that noise. She is just breathing in too abruptly. Maybe it's the air through her two bottom teeth.

Then, a few days ago, I was in the kitchen cooking dinner and I heard distinct pitches coming from the living room. I came in to find her lying on the rug, whistling several notes together, as she played with her rubber ducky. Knowing no one would believe me, I pulled out my audio equipment and got a few samples:

I wouldn't find this one little random milestone particularly blog-worthy except that it's the first of so many things to come that my daughter will do that I won't. Another moment of otherness between Me and Mini-Me. And that struck me as funny...and (since this is me), of course, made me think of a different lyric from a different song:

"I hear babies cry. I watch them grow.

They'll learn much more than I'll ever know.

And I think to myself, 'What a wonderful world'."

---Louis Armstrong

I always get a little weepy at that verse, to tell you the truth. That's one of her father's and my great hopes for our little girl - that she will grow more than us, know more than us, try more than us. That she will be the best of us. And that it won't be a struggle for us to join her in the new technologies she discovers along the way.

In the meantime, I suspect he's just proud that she'll have the chops to play the trumpet.

Sweetly Skipped

I skipped out on the JDRF walk.

The alarm went off. I looked at the clock. I looked at the dark, rainy sky. I looked at my husband and child passed out next to me in bed. I thought of the night we'd had. And I said..."screw it."

3am had brought with it a baby asking for milk and a coinciding blood sugar of 46 mg/dL. I lay her back in bed after a good feeding, placed a foam pillow blockade where my body had been, and went to fetch a juice box.

My return was greeted with "PUH. Hey! Puh! PUH!" Apparently we learned a new consonant. Awesome. Let's stay up another HOUR practicing it. Let's get Daddy up, too, because this qualifies as quality family togetherness.

So I didn't have it in me to go walk. I claim my free pass.

Not to mention that I didn't raise ANY money this year.

Or that no one was expecting me because my D friends are all over the globe...except for in the great old Lone Star State. My D-twin George is making an enviable party of his 20 yr walk in SoCal. And for my 20 yr, I'm pulling the covers over my head in NorTex.

And lastly, need we mention that it's a walk for a cure I have never believed in?

I'm all for research. I'll support any technological advances that make my 3am's go more smoothly. But a cure is not really for those who currently have diabetes. I believe someday diabetes will be understood and eradicated, have its progression slowed in the newly diagnosed, perhaps, but no one has ever promised a cure for those of us who have the most tick marks on the prison walls. The cure is not for the veterans. That doesn't mean it's not worth pursuing - just that I don't always feel it's my fight. My place is here, now, advocating for patient rights, education, and support.

So I turned off the alarm and held my daughter a little tighter, feeling righteously that I deserved to get a little sleep.