Free Insulin Winners

We have winners!

I was able to get 4 coupons for the Humalog KwikPen free trial offer. 

That means that all of you who wanted to win actually won!!!

Congratulations go to:

Please email me at diabetestales@gmail.com. Give me your mailing address, and I’ll send your coupon right away.

Hope this makes it a happy day for you all! :-)

Free Insulin Offer

I’m going to let you in on a little secret.

We’ve saved hundreds of dollars off of our insulin costs.

How?

With this cool coupon! 

Have you seen this free trial offer from Humalog for their KwikPen? With a new prescription, you can get a box of 5 free insulin pens, and you can take advantage of this offer twice a year.

That’s 10 free insulin pens!

What’s that you say? You or your child doesn’t use insulin pens? Well, guess what? Neither does Jack!

And you heard these pens can’t administer half units? No problem!

We get our freebie pens, and then we use them as we would insulin vials. We insert our syringes into their ports, draw out the insulin and then inject Jack using the syringe.

Nifty, eh? 

If I’m sounding like a salesman, it’s because this is seriously a great deal. I wasn’t kidding when I said we’ve saved hundreds of dollars.

Have I interested you yet?

Do you use Humalog and want to try these pens?

Well, I have an extra coupon!

And I’m going to give it to one of you!

But wait, that's not it! If you leave a comment, and you win the coupon contest, I'll toss in free shipping! :-)

Good luck!

Spookalicious Carbs

Boo!

My kids have caught the Halloween spirit! They can’t wait for October 31st to arrive.

Home on fall break today, they made ghost cookies. Fun, craptacular*, spookalicious ghost cookies.

An easy, kid-friendly project, these semi-homemade cookies consist of only three ingredients.

Creepy Ingredients:

     1 package Nutter Butter cookies**

     2 packages Wilton white candy melts (Almond bark or white chocolate would work too.)

     1 tube Wilton black decorating gel

Scary directions:

     1. Melt 1 package of candy melts. (Melt 2nd package after 1st is used up.)

     2. Dip Nutter Butters into melted candy. 

     3. Place on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper.

     4. Refrigerate until candy is set.

     5. Decorate with gel.

My goblins loved this project.

Look at their frightfully delightful creations!

Cute, huh? And tasty too!

According to Jack, "they're good carbs! Worthy of an insulin injection!"

I calculated that they're roughly 18g carbs each. The cookies are 9.5g each, and I added 8g for the candy coating, as my kids loaded on the coating. A thinner candy coating might result in a 15g ghost.

*Craptacular - meaning they’re pure crap. There’s nothing healthy about these cookies. But all things in moderation, right? A little artificial this and a little hydrogenated that created some serious excitement in my house today. 

**If you have nut allergies or celiac, these won’t work. But I’m guessing you could take two round, nut-free, gluten-free cookies or crackers and make a ghost shape with the candy coating.

Crafting with Test Strip Containers

Ever thought about repurposing those empty test strip containers?

Looking for a fun project to do with the kids?

Madeline, Jack, Max and I got crafty one day this past summer. Here’s what we did.

We bought some fun art supplies.

We grabbed our glue, tape, scissors and paper cutter.

We tapped into our creativity.

And we made tooth fairy containers!

A few weeks later, when the kids were swimming,
Max jumped out of the pool and exclaimed, "My tooth fell out!"
He was so excited. It was his first lost tooth.

We knew exactly where to put that tooth,

and later that night,

Mary the Tooth Fairy knew exactly where to find it. 

No D-Day - Boys Will Be Boys

Today is No D-Day, thanks to George at Ninjabetic. It’s a day “to talk about different parts of our lives.” Great idea, George!

I participated in 2010, and I’m happy to be back for year two.

---

Earlier this week, Holly wrote about her two boys’ latest antics, and her post had me reminiscing about some of the things my boys have done. 

I’ll never forget the day Jack decided to cut his own hair. He was five and not-so-skilled with the scissors.

Nice bangs, huh? We high-tailed it over to the barber after that.

When Max was a wee one-year-old, we used to call him “Messy Max,” as he was always getting into something. 

He loved our kitchen drawers.

Time and time again, what fun he had pulling out plates, emptying boxes of bags and unrolling aluminum foil!

There was the time that Jack gave him a jar of peanut butter. 

And then there was the time that he got a hold of my lip gloss.

I can't help but laugh when I look back at these photos. I love my boys!

The Blood Biotch

Wiped out kids showing their "battle wounds"

Madeline and Max needed to have blood drawn for some diagnostic tests and had lab appointments one recent afternoon.

During the car ride over to the lab, fear struck, and after we’d arrived, they were nervous wrecks in the waiting area. Max jumped onto my lap, wrapped his arms around me and whispered repeatedly, “I’m scared, mama.” All the while, Madeline was snuggling in under my arm and looking as though she was going to burst into tears at any moment.

By the time we were finally called out of the waiting area and into the phlebotomist’s room, Madeline and Max were having full-blown melt downs. Both were crying, and Max was trying to leave the room, bellowing “You’re not going to do this to me!”

Jack was super sweet, trying to comfort his brother and sister. “I have blood drawn every year, and I promise you that it doesn’t hurt that much. It’s not that bad. Stop crying. You’ll be okay. Needles don’t hurt that much.”

After hearing that, the phlebotomist spun around and glared at Jack as if he were a freak. “You’re weird!” she said.

Excuse me??? I instantly went into D mama bear protective mode. How dare she say that to my child, who must use a needle to draw blood from his fingers 10 to 12 times per day and who must get 4 to 8 insulin injections per day in order to survive! 

Could she have been any more rude, insulting and unprofessional? Who says stuff like that to a kid? 

She immediately realized what she’d just said and tried to cover up with “I mean that in the best way, of course.”

Yeah, sure you do, lady!

Fortunately, Jack was too busy trying to console Madeline and Max to hear what she’d said, but I heard it, and now I’m thinking her boss should hear it, too.

I am a D mama! Hear me roar!

"I want this thing off of me!"

The House with the Needles

You know you’re a D mama when...

One of Madeline’s classmates lives in our neighborhood. Today, that classmate came knocking on our door, and Madeline invited her in for a play date.

So this girl walks into our house for the first time, and I realized that roughly 20 used insulin syringes were sitting on the kitchen counter. 

I’m wondering what she thought of that!

I'm generally a neat-freak, but the past few days have been jam-packed, and I just hadn't gotten around to them yet. So I ran to the kitchen and cleared them from the counter.  If I'd known we were going to have a guest, I would have cleared them before she'd arrived, but I had no idea we'd be hosting a play date today.

This girl doesn’t know that Jack has diabetes.

A pile of syringes would seem strange to a kid, don’t you think?

I wonder what she went home and told her mom and dad! And I wonder whether her mom and dad will let her come over again!

For Justice

A few weeks ago, my fellow D mama Alexis asked for support for her son Justice here. 

That weekend, we were hosting a pool party for local D families, and I thought it would be fun to gather the kids together and make a video card for Justice.

So, at the party, we piled the kids onto the couch and asked them to help Justice. The kids were not coached. They had no script and no time to prepare. They simply spoke from their hearts.

When we shot the video, it was dark outside, and the lighting was poor. The adults were chatting nonstop in the background, too. So, please disregard the production values.

Just enjoy the message from this group of caring kids, which includes Jack, Sugar, Oldest, the Superhero, their siblings and friends. In case you're wondering, Oldest is the incredible spokesperson for the group. :)