Why I don't Sleep Continued: 1st night away at camp

The rain pitter patters as I wait for the text alert to come through. Finally, someone responds and the nurse will go in to check on my girl because wifi up there "is spotty."  We rely so heavily on technology. It helps us be proactive and keep her alive in the middle of the night when the shit hits the fan.

Right now, I am unable to receive any alarms or data that follows her so I am completely at will and trust to complete strangers who care for her up at camp. I hold my phone like a ticking time bomb tonight. Normally, it is my relief because I can quickly glance at a number and see a trend. It is my lifeline to keeping her alive and well. Not tonight for the past hour and a half. So I wait until the next scheduled check at 3am and pray that God will keep her at safe numbers. I know I won't be sleeping tonight. and as much as I deserve a fucking break, I know I won't get it. She deserves to be at camp with the rest of her class. Three whole nights away....

What people don't understand is that the human body is truly a miraculous thing. They don't understand this until they find they are with a disease or illness that will never go away. My daughter's pancreas decided to bite the dust because of some unlucky cards dealt. And because she is dependent on synthetic insulin to be injected into her body to keep her alive...well, the body becomes not so miraculous with an imposter. It becomes out of synch, no longer the fine tuned machine functioning on it's own.

Night times with this disease are the worst. Sometimes her body reacts to the insulin perfectly and everything is in check and she sleeps through the night. Most times lately, alarms are going off in the middle of the night because maybe her own growth hormones are interfering and she is going dangerously high. The slow death...the kind of numbers that can cause retinopathy, neuropathy, and a slew of other deadly complications later in life that I cannot even say out loud. These are the things I think of when those numbers go too high.

Some nights, the insulin dose is too much, or her body is churning full speed ahead and she comes tumbling down....down, down....reminding us how fragile life is and how important it is to hear those alarms and react. Dead in bed...it's a thing....so help me God, I will not let this happen to my girl.

And so I sit here in the dark downstairs mindlessly typing on this laptop knowing tonight will be another notch in my sleepless nights....all because of shitty wifi at a camp.

She has never even been to a sleepover (not that I am a fan for regular mom reasons) but literally...what parent would volunteer to be her pancreas for the night? She rarely even has an overnight with family. It is not for the faint at heart. You have to be on your game, ready to respond even if it's multiple times during the night. I wouldn't volunteer if it wasn't my kid. 

But she deserves to have what other kids have, some normalcy: three nights away at camp with her class. And I will sit here until that 3am check comes through, and after, maybe I'll get a few hours of sleep before I am texting everyone up there on going through the technological roll call & getting things back online.

I miss my sleep, and I don't know if I will ever get it back....at least until they find a cure. I know it's out there, and at these hours in particular when I don't sleep, I wish all the people in the world would want a cure for this disease as badly as I do. She deserves to be at camp, and I deserve to sleep. 

Youth Sports: why we as parents should be cut from the team

There is a phenomenon going on with youth sports that just completely blows my mind. We as parents have all gone bat shit crazy and are to blame for this demented culture of what it means to play a youth sport. Our fixation on competitive youth sports has transcended to a whole new level of obsession, and our children are the ones who are going to lose. 

As parents we share Olympic dreams with our little ski racer who wants to be the next Mikaela. I mean she does podium often even if she is only 10, and even though we are in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire, it could happen. While we are at it, our son is likely to be the next Messi. He is only 11, but his skills and passion for the sport are beyond his age so he must be the next it, after all, he did make that development team and is "playing up."

I have three children who all play three sports (at least they still do thus far) so I have sat on many a bleachers, fields, turfs and stood at finishes. I am beginning to think we as parents have completely lost our sense of reality. I find myself more and more, standing alone because I cannot take the conversations and comments I hear from parents, and many are coming from some great parents.

What is scary is the statistics are out there for all to read, google or ask Alexa. About 7% of high school athletes will play a varsity sport in college and less than 2% will play at a NCAA Division 1 school. I am no mathematician but those percentages are pretty crystal clear. Either that, or we all have phenoms paving their way to a college scholarship...

Part of the problem is the shift in what it takes to play your sport in high school. The business models our coaches have created to make money (good for them, I am all for capitalism) funneling in our young athletes to every skills camp, development team and club team. I know in my town, if you want to play a particular sport (I won't name here) for the high school, you best be playing for that club team year round that oh by the way, the coach runs. There is always an exception of a good player who does not play the sport year round, but for the most part, the numbers are there. You start in the feeder system as a youth, and before you know it, you are playing year round, period or you don't play by the time you get to high school.  

Another shift is the model of the three sport athlete. They are an anomaly. If by chance your child still plays three sports, be prepared not only for the overlap but the pressure from the coaches on your child to fully commit if he/she wants to play for them or be stuck on the B team. I have fought this hard and for now, my girls have made out okay. They play soccer in the fall, ski race in the winter, and yes...when spring starts (& ski racing ends), they play Lacrosse. For me, this keeps them busy and active. For them, they love all three of their sports & being well rounded athletes, their preferred sport is usually the one they are in season for until it changes to the next. I actually think this is healthy but many people would disagree. 

What is most puzzling is that with all our resources and education, we seem to know less and less. On any given day on social media, a new article or blog is shared discussing youth sports and the downside of what is happening with our society. Yet we still have this culture of parents who fixate on sport and recreation at all costs.  I see many articles coming from different sources discussing in great depth how our young athletes are getting hurt with overuse injuries from playing one sport year round. I have also seen first hand kids who are getting emotionally burnt out by the time they enter high school and want nothing to do with the sport. There are also the parents putting all their pennies into their child's one focused sport, the whole pay anything at all costs to try to get their child ahead of the game. I just don't get it. 

Where are we going with this if we are not prepping our kids to play beyond high school? My answer to that is simple. We are keeping our kids busy and active so when they are teens, they are on their devices a little less, and we actually know that they aren't somewhere vaping, doing drugs and having sex because they are at practice or at a tournament or competition. Some of these kids may move on to play their sport in high school, but that is not a given either. 

Don't get me wrong, I love sports. I was a part of that small percentage who played in college. I wouldn't trade that for the world. But I know what I really love is watching my children be happy. If playing soccer, adds to their happiness, then, I want them playing. If ski racing is their love, and they still want to do it despite knowing they are not going to be the next Lindsay, then, that is cool too. 

There are so many life lessons that participating in a sports teach. It, however, appears that the parents are the ones who need a reminder of those important life lessons.

Maybe I am okay with participation trophies after all...because the whole point is to play because it is fun.