Pinch Hitter

Pinch Hitter:  (Baseball) To bat in place of a player scheduled to bat, especially when a hit is badly needed.

It was a dark dreary night…

Okay.  It wasn’t.  It was a warm pleasant night, and I was totally exhausted. (cough…understatement…cough)

My inlaws are in Germany…you know, the inlaws who feed us and help me with the kids.  So for the first time ever, I’ve been completely on my own.

Cooking every night?  WHHHHHAAA?  I know.  It’s crazy talk.  But I’ve been doing it.

Folding all my own laundry?  Dishes, cleaning, yard work, birthday parties, swim lessons, camp, driving, walking.   WHHHHHAAA?  I really don’t have a choice.  I’m the only parent in these parts willing to take care of these hooligans.

Working and then entertaining the boys when I get home?  Yup.  I gots to do that too.

So I’m completely exhausted at the end of the day, and last Saturday night was no exception.

Well, except…

I was even more exhausted than usual.  My oldest who is not T1 went out to the beach with his friends and than out to a late late movie the night before.  He wasn’t home until 3:00am, and I was up waiting for him.  The next morning I was up and at at‘em at 6:30am to bring my 15 year old to work.

Needless to say, when 11:00pm rolled around my forehead was on the keyboard.  I couldn’t keep my eyes open to save my life.  Or even my children’s lives as the case may be.

One of my boys was on the low side before bed and I knew he had to be rechecked in an hour.  I knew without a shadow of a doubt: My body could not stay up for that hour.  And I also knew, once I closed my eyes, no alarm clock in the world would wake me.

So as I was locking up the house, I saw my aforementioned 18 year old out of the corner of my eye, typing away on his computer. 

I knew he’d be up for another hour, at least.

I negotiated the facts in my head…he owed me.  Sure I didn’t have to wait up for him…but….

The idea formed in my hazy, tired, swelly brain and before I could think it through I said,  “Hey, M…what would you think if I asked you to test your brothers sugars at midnight?”

“Sure!” He said enthusiastically.

“Ummm…do you even know how to do it?”

“Mom.  THREE of my brothers have diabetes.  Yes.  I can figure it out.”

“But you have to put the strip in like this…”

“I know how to do it.  Go to sleep, I’ll take care of it.”

“But here’s the important part.  You need to wake me up and report back what the numbers are.”

“Done.”

Usually, I open my ipad to facebook and tinker around until I fall asleep.  This night I collapsed face-first into my pillow and fell asleep instantaneously. 

I vaguely remember M waking me up an hour later.  His face was a blur…he was spouting numbers.  I remember trying hard to compute what he was saying to me.  The synapses in my brain were firing like crazy, just not in any way that made sense. 

He could see I wasn’t responding properly as I slurred out a request for him to repeat the numbers.  He then said in a loud, slow tone…as if I was hard of hearing and couldn’t speak English well, “They are all good numbers. You. Can. Go. Back. To…”

And that’s all I heard because I feel asleep.

The next morning when I was lucid I looked back on the monitor history and saw that all the boys numbers were, as he promised, good.

The next night I asked him to do it again.  This idea was gold…I was running with it.

And he happily did.  Except when he woke me I remember nothing he said.  NOTHING.  I only remember that he woke me and repeated what were probably numbers back to me a few times.  A few hours later, it was 4am and I woke with a start.  In my hand I was clasping a piece of paper with three undesirable numbers scratched on it in M’s handwriting.  (Dang Grandma’s chocolate cake!)

I quickly jumped out of bed and tested and treated all three boys.

I asked M about the incident today. 

“Wow mom.  You were totally out of it.  I gave you the paper and you kept mumbling, ‘I got it.  I got it.’  I knew you didn’t, but I was like, OK.  If you say so.”

“Someday I need to teach you to bolus.”

“Why wait.  Teach me now.”

I called all three boys to do their dinnertime check and each was thrilled to have M enter their numbers into their pumps.

They have since been handing their pump to M for all their bolusing needs. 

My evil “Pinch Hitting” plan just might work! 

Can you hear my exhausted maniacal laugh?  Bwa hahahhaha!  Bwa hahahaha!

Yeah.  I need more sleep.