Surviving: Kindergarten evaluation, shots, and diabetes

Phew.

I survived Rachel's kindergarten evaluation, which included her receiving two shots (that was the traumatic part). We brought our paperwork for North Carolina and our doctor filled that out—she passed everything (hearing, vision, developmental). She's 36.8 lbs (34th percentile) and 43.5 inches (79th percentile), putting her BMI at 13.7 (7th percentile). She's borderline underweight but just barely on the healthy side so we don't have to go see a nutritionist. Lucky us, though if she ends up taking after my side of the family I reckon she'll be tossed into the underweight category soon.

My mom was lucky because I don't think they cared so much about BMI scores when her kids were little or we'd have been at the nutritionist all the time. When I was four I was only in the 2nd percentile for BMI.

Whatever; Rachel's growing nicely. She's grown 2.5 inches and gained 2 lbs. since last year!

She has been nervous about getting shots for several weeks now and even asked to be homeschooled because then she wouldn't have to get any more shots (though she still would because we're a vaccinating family). This morning we were coaching her on how to cope with getting shots—just take a deep breath, look away, and count to ten. I read her my cousin Erin's post about her son Gareth getting his kindergarten shots and being surprised with how little it actually hurt. Rachel was pinching herself in the waiting room to "practice" dealing with pain. I told her to stop because pinching herself probably hurt more than getting a shot and she was making red marks all over her arm. She brought baby Nora so that she could hold her while getting shots and I brought some candy as bribery.

All our preparation was for naught.


When the nurses walked in with the needles Rachel flipped out. She was caterwauling and shaking and holding onto her pants for dear life (they're still insisting on giving her shots in her thighs because they say her arms are too skinny). I was trying to hold her on my lap on the examination table but it was taking quite a lot of effort just to keep her sitting, let alone controlling her arms and legs and getting her to let us gain access to her thighs. It was a little ridiculous—I should have had Andrew come because he's much stronger than I am.

I gave her three seconds to choose to either sit nicely in my lap or I'd have to lie her down on the table and hold her down. She didn't sit nicely so I put her down on the table and she started screaming louder about not wanting to be on the table by herself.

In the end we sat on a chair and, though she screamed and protested all the while, the nurses were able jab her.

Then we sat in the room while Rachel screamed for about ten minutes about being unable to pull her pants up because her legs were too swollen and sore.

She was being a little melodramatic but eventually recovered and the nurses gave her some prizes for being...uh...brave.

The nurses assured Rachel (and me) that she won't have to get any more shots until she's in grade seven. Hopefully by then she'll be a little more stoic about it or we'll have to bring shackles with us to her appointment.

She was able to walk all the way home and has been just fine so apparently the shots weren't that bad.

In other news: Rachel and Miriam are just about over the colds they had last week. Instead I'm suffering through a cold. Pregnancy + gestational diabetes + cold = so bad. I can't drink ridiculous amounts of orange juice. I can't even suck on cough drops (unless we go out and find sugar-free ones). But I think I can have tylenol still...

Andrew's been being wonderful. He did all the laundry when we came home from Grover and he took over doing laundry when I started sorting it yesterday (and though we've both been doing it we're still not finished). He ground some wheat to make whole-wheat waffles the other day (which everyone else had with syrup while I had them with frozen (non-sugared) raspberries and cream cheese) and on Sunday he wanted to make pasta con fagioli (pasta with beans) but we forgot to get more whole wheat pasta so he ground up some wheat and made pasta from scratch just for me. Well, for everyone, but the reason he made it was for me.

I've been trying to eat only whole-wheat things because it's more filling so I don't have to eat as many servings of carbohydrates to feel full. And then I try to make sure I have protein at every meal. And I'm trying to eat more vegetables instead of fruit. My blood glucose level was 121 after dinner yesterday (the highest I'm supposed to get is 120) but that's probably because I had too much watermelon and cantaloupe. It was Memorial Day...what can I say? I can say that I said no to ice cream.

Other than that my glucose levels have been fabulous (if not a little low...my fasting levels (in the morning) are consistently super low and usually two hours after eating my levels are within fasting range instead of post-meal range (my doctor didn't seem concerned about this)).

I may just survive the next seven weeks after all.

Tomorrow both the girls have dentist appointments. We'll see if we survive that...