Holiday Carb Overload

Until C got diabetes, I didn't really think about what was in the food we ate as part of our traditional holiday meals. What I have become aware of is that we are heavy on the carbs around the holidays. Some people might cringe or be ashamed of this, but not me. This is what we eat, have always eaten, and will continue to eat.

To top it off, C was born on December 23, so we always take her out to eat since there is no way that her party will EVER be on her actual birthday. So far, for the past four years, she has chosen Red Robin as her birthday eatery. Is it for their creamy mac and cheese? Or maybe their tasty fries? No, although she does have huge portions of both of those. It is for the fact that on your birthday you get a ginormous sundae - chocolate sauce, whipped cream, sprinkles, and all. It's a carb-tastic meal. This year we figured she had eaten just over 100 carbs (she usually eats around 40 per meal). Sadly, we had underestimated the number of carbs, so it was more than that even. Diabetic caretakers of the year, right here.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, like I mentioned, do not give us a reprieve from the carbs. If we remove the turkey and the green beans, everything else has a bamillion carbs in it. It's pretty incredible the amount of carbs my ancestors managed to pack into one dish. I honestly am not sure how they did it, but they did. Luckily C doesn't eat a lot of this stuff as she's a pretty picky eater, but the stuff she does eat is loaded. We often have to call her plates her plates, and we don't always get them right.It's a fun game, really, if "fun" means totally stressful and not fun at all.

For 72 hours, C spends most of her time on a roller coaster of blood sugar numbers. She is usually too high or too low. Normally it would throw her for a loop, but her birthday and Christmas seem to take away the sting of being unstable. Any other day she would be an emotional mess, but these three days it's not a big deal ... she just keeps on going. And after those 72 hours, we start to see her numbers return to normal. Until New Year's Eve. But that's a tale for another day.