Celebrating Our Special Sibs of D-Kids

Once again my beautiful seven year old daughter recognized Jenna’s symptoms of a low blood sugar, took the initiative to perform the check, then upon confirming her suspicion quickly reported her findings to me.

Those who follow me here or on Facebook will recall a time earlier this year when this very scenario played out once before.  I was so proud that I quickly shared the story online.  Jazmine was proud too, and rightfully so.  She was a hero that day and repeated that heroic act again yesterday.

And this isn’t the only heroic act worth celebrating, although it may be the most obvious one.  There are countless other times that I’ve become aware of Jazmine’s quiet patience and understanding when Jenna has, out of necessity, been in the spotlight for a prolonged period of time, perhaps due to persistent blood sugar problems.  Or maybe she’s been taking the brunt of Jenna’s hyperglycemia-induced foul mood and has had to show maturity and understanding in dealing with that.  In fact, Jazmine is a hero everyday just by being a loving, protective, big sister to Jenna.

So I got to thinking - shouldn’t there be a day when we, as a diabetes community collective, recognize and celebrate their awesomeness in its many various forms?  We all know that, out of necessity, our children with diabetes often require more attention to manage this disease.  But our non-diabetic kids are often expected to go above and beyond and because they are such great kids, that’s just what they do.

So another awesome D-Mom, Alexis from Justice’s Misbehaving Pancreas, and I got talking and we both agreed that our non-D kids deserve a day of recognition.  It could be celebrated in as many ways as there are D-families to celebrate it.  Maybe you make a favourite meal or dessert.  Perhaps it can be one big family fun day!

Or it might be as simple as telling your non-D kid, either with the spoken or written word, just how incredible you think he or she is.  Because, really, can you ever say stuff like that too much?  I don’t think so either.

So the date we decided on is November 28th.  However you decide to mark the occasion, we’d like to hear about it.  Perhaps you can share your ideas here or on Alexis’ blog in the comment section of our posts.  Or if you have a blog, grab the button and blog about your Special Sib of a D-Kid!

Let’s show our non-D kiddos that we know how awesome they are and we love them for it!