Happy National Diabetes MONTH!!

Today is the kick start to National Diabetes Month!! I love it!! (okay, not really. BUT if we are going to have to deal with diabetes why not have an ENTIRE month dedicated to it and have some fun with it, right?!?!)

Here at Blue Heel Society we have lots of fun things planned all month long. One of them includes another Blog Month from WEGO health. So EVERYDAY in November we will be blogging our little Blue heels off! (Note to self: gonna need a pedicure after all this!!) Be sure to check back to see what we are blogging about daily AND all the fun events we have planned!

Now...to the post...

Today's challenge is:

"My favorite thing about social media/internet/online health communities". 

Easy! 

It's all of YOU!!

I've talked about the DOC (diabetes online community) before...I couldn't do it without YOU and I know you feel the same way. 

We are FAMILY!! 

We get IT! 

I can't even call my daughters' Endo office (and I LOVE them) and get a question answered as fast as if I post it to Facebook or one of the many online diabetes groups. And I love that! I want answers NOW not in an hour or whenever they get back to me. If I'm up at 3am and need an opinion or to whine, GUARANTEED, another D parent is up too! 

So, I will thank you, again, DOC, for your unwavering friendship and loyalty. 

Thank you for getting me and "IT"! 

Walk a mile in Blue Heels? Nah....Rebel Race in 'em.

Since the inception of Blue Heel Society....almost a year ago ( our baby is getting soooo big!!), I have had the privilege of meeting a compliment of wonderful people who totally get what it is we do here! I see so many of our allies out there raising tons of money and awareness for all the right causes. Makes me well up with tears most days, because it's very personal to me and to know so many people want to see diabetes eradicated means more than words can ever describe.

Most of my days are not spent training in a gym, or cycling through the continent, or blogging or anything not centered around caring for my four kids.....yeah...that's my glamorous life...and I love it....

HOWEVER....I was recently beaten at thumb-rasslin' by *you know who* and agreed to do something called a Rebel Race...I was fairly certain that regardless of that unflattering sounding title...eh, I was in. We were doing it under the Blue Heel Society, recruited some really amazing friends and family to join us, raising awareness for diabetes....yada yada.

Ho. Lee. Chit. NOT what I expected it to be.... This is quite different than scoring the Jessica Simpson wedge from a hoard of teenage girls in Marshall's...this is most certainly like boot camp before death.

For me, anyways.

Let me paint the picture here for you, lambs...the premise is that you run for like 500 miles uphill in Geisha shoes, then you have this obstacle course of most assured manicure ruining little stations like carrying a lion wrapped in barbed wire on your back through a sewer pipe....then, to finish off, you run some more....covered in mud, the kind not found in Serenity Day Spa...and potentially a gaping scrape or blister that will definitely require closed toe shoes for dinner given via a straw by what I can only assume will be a nurse in training....while I am on my death bed.  Sounds awesome right? Everyone is IN!!

This race ain't nuthin compared to what my child with diabetes, my family, my friends, and their loved ones do day in....day out....either with medications, diets, pumps, blood glucose meters, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears....and a whole lotta giggles, while having no other choice.

Rebel Race will be one moment in time for me to say, this sucks, I'm doing it anyways. My child pricks his little finger 15 times a day....changes a pump site every other day.....If I could move the diabetes *mountain* and my only tool was a teaspoonful of dirt at a time..... for him, I would do it every second of every day....and as I really began to think about it....this race ain't no different.

I will most definitely bring a Hello Kitty Band-aid kit. And the overwhelming support from you with me as I embarrass myself proper, in the name that is all too familiar. Diabetes.

Wanna come laugh your hiney off at me? Join our team, volunteer, come cheer Team Blue Heel Society on as we get a little mud on our heels.

Click your heels together three times...

Ahh wouldn't that just rock? Something so simple to manage diabetes?

 It is no secret that I am a fan of reality television...and all things related to E! TV...throw eggs...I love it! TONS of celebs these days are wearing blue heels!! Do we take credit for that? Did the DOC posting photos of all of us fab warriors wearing our best Blue Shoes have THAT kind of influence??

 I say yes....yes we do.

Would it matter if a celebrity fashionista had a diabetes platform to spread the good word?? Ummm...duh, yeah. But once I started noticing those shoes, I couldn't help but think, HEY?? Do they have a diabetes connection?? I literally let myself believe that yes, society having lunch on television was saying HEY...WE LOVE YOU DOC!!

Matters not. What happened was I realized that I no longer looked at Kim Kardashian as a train wreck....with great eyelashes. I started looking at her, and the lovelies on the red carpets as catalysts. What if your *platform*...heels and otherwise, isn't just diabetes??

Can you host a Pet adoption/spay neuter clinic as a Blue Heel Society advocate? You bet.

Can you host a monthly book club or dinner club wearing Blue shoes? Bingo!

Hanging out in the car show parking lot with your 1958 Porsche Speedster...wearing those blue babies.....Yes and Yes.

Because YOU aren't doing advocacy a disservice.....YOU are touching the lives of a people who like you love animals, or kids, or politics or *fill in your favorite past time* and CHANGING the way people look at diabetes. YOU are doing your passion and repping the DOC big time. 

While we don't raise money for any charity...we support you and if you want to use Blue Heel Society as your platform to raise awareness for your causes....we say try us on for size!!

Click here to join Blue Heel Society as we click our collective heels up and go change the way people see diabetes. One step at a time....

See you at the mall!

Scuffed White Shoes after Labor Day

I was a six year old girl, who even at that tender age....was way too fashion forward for my very traditional southern upbringing. My Aunt Judy used to say she could see me wearing a bed sheet, draped just so.... I was totally into not wearing what everyone else did....well, until "junior high"...but that's a blog for another day....

My mother bought me this little peachy chiffon number and I probably wore that dress 800 times. It became my all-occasion attire...and I loved it. Once, I got myself all dolled up to go to the *Time Saver* convenience store with mama to get the dreaded items we'd forgotten at the grocery store. Like I said, it was a special occasion dress and wearing it made me feel special. I ran into the store after my brother and caught the lace trim on a shelf and ripped that dress. Oh, the tears.

That isn't the only really impressionable memory of that dress for me.....this dress, I wore to my grandmother's funeral. There are the weird photos that my family took of all of the grandchildren around her casket. Yes, my family does that....I don't have a good reason why. Memories are memories...and that is how they preserved that one. I won't share *that* photo.

My grandmother died from of complications resulting of living with Type 2 Diabetes. At the age of 6, I knew diabetes killed people. It scared me then....and scares me now. Diabetes robbed my mother and her siblings of their mother. It robbed me and my brother, and the subsequent additions to our family of a grandmother. I knew about this disease my whole life. Never did I imagine how much I wish I could have started my efforts in advocating for the rights of people who live with or care for someone with this disease THEN. I was a somewhat bright child who was far from shy or demure. I could have been fighting the fight all along. Hindsight, no?

Fast forward a bit....I have worked most of my adult life in some form of healthcare....womb to tomb. I have embalmed bodies at a funeral home, and I have managed an endocrinology office.....irony..... in that I saw the before and after affects of what a person who lives with disease really REALLY lives with....the good, the bad, and the ugly. I saw families blame their loved ones for dying or being fat or being not proactive enough in dealing with this disease. I saw aging parents literally give up taking care of themselves because while no one could see the disease....the stigma of having *diabetes* was like wearing white shoes after labor day....white shoes with a giant black scuff. 

I will say this....until the day diabetes got personal in my life...and it did...in the worst way imaginable....I was not indifferent about this disease....I was aware. I was unsure about what it actually meant to live with but I knew that it was always popping up in my life....one little glimpse at a time. I saw physicians I worked with get very large bonuses from insurance companies if they could get a portion of their diabetes client panels to a *target* A1c. I watched nurses call those pesky non compliant diabetic patients and literally bribe them to just eat better for this month...or exercise....or fill in the blank. I was incredulous. I remember telling the nurse practitioner I worked with that those clinicians and nurses needed to go to Diabetes Rehab. Quit blaming, bribing or coercing these people and try understanding how they live and encourage them to care. Fell on deaf ears. They worked with the ones that would and the rest....well, they didn't. It was their disease....and they had to manage it. WHA??

About the dress....That dress made me feel special. People who love, live with, care for or advocate for someone with diabetes.....they are my dress now....and my perfect white shoes with the black scuff that I will wear after labor day...This family of strangers I lean on daily for compassion may lead very diverse lives... but at the end of it all, we are NOT okay with the stigmas....or the thought that someone has no fight in them because it's *just* diabetes. That's enough for me. 

Diabetes entered my family before I was born.....put it's self in my life in many manifestations....and then it preyed on my child. My D kiddo is six now, and he knows more about diabetes than ANY professional I ever worked for. And he rocks. Plain out rocks the world daily. No way in hell will I allow anyone who can be within earshot of me to not only hear about diabetes....but about how fabulous and special a community we are. Scuffed blue heels are still able to tell the story....the real one.

Nora's post #3...Children's Congress Application

Nora has finally finished writing all her answers for the Children's Congress application. Geez!! That was a crazy, long application process. Now it will be my turn to condense her paragraphs into no more than three pages or 1200 words. UGH!! But, I'm glad she has gone through this process...she's learned a lot, as have I. about the Special Diabetes Act and diabetes and my daughter. If you've missed the previous two posts you can find them here and here.

I'm going to combine this post with questions 3-5.

Question 3: What does the Special Diabetes Program mean to you?

The Special Diabetes Program is important to me because a cure could take longer to find. If there was no SDP then a lot of the technology wouldn't advance and help us diabetes live a better life. Without the SDP there would be no TrialNet. TrialNet is VERY important because it helped my sister get diagnosed earlier. If she hadn't been diagnosed earlier then she would've been really sick. The SDP is hope for a better future, earlier diagnosis, understanding complications, help, hope and a cure. This is what the Special Diabetes Program means to me.

Question 4: Why should the US Congress support diabetes research to help find a cure for T1D?

The US Congress should help support diabetes research because it would help diabetics have a normal life. Without the government help, these programs would not exist or they would have to spend more time fundraising instead of researching, preventing, advancing technology and finding a cure. The US Congress needs to help my sister, myself and the other 26 million diabetics have a better life!

Question 5: What have you done to promote awareness of T1D in your community?

 I have raised awareness for T1D in my community being featured as 1 of 3 diabetics in a JDRF video, Why We Joined the JDRF Advocacy Family. I have attended Promise to Remember Me Campaigns for JDRF with my local Congressmen. I celebrate, with my family, community and other T1D's, World Diabetes Day events in Downtown Cincinnati, that our local JDRF chapter hosts. I have been interviewed by local newspapers and morning news shows about T1D. I also blog about my life with diabetes at http://lovingnora.blogspot.com/. I love doing all these things because I get to meet other people just like me! I also like to mentor newly diagnosed kids. I have met a lot of new friends by spreading T1D awareness. I'm happy I know I'm not alone!

Guest post - "Greatness because of Diabetes"

Emma & Mini-Type1Rider 

Guest Post via http://Type1Rider.org

Type1Rider.org is pleased to present a Guest post from one of our favorite Dmom's, Author, Advocate, and Creator (with her Daughter Emma) of 'Diabetic Barbie'...Amy Ermel. We also would like to express our most profound gratitude for the masterpiece in creating BY HAND, the Mini-Type1Rider pictured above. 

First of all, I would like to say that I am honored to be writing a guest post for Type1Rider.org, thank you very much for the opportunity! My daughter, Emma is 8 years old and was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes 4 years ago. Since that day, I have learned so many things to say the least. I think I would like to dedicate this post to one in particular though...greatness.

When the doctor walked in the room and gave us the official diagnosis, I never would have thought that anything great or positive could have come of it. I thought that we were destined for a life of battles with food, needles, blood sugars, and insulin. I thought that it would consume us and take over every single aspect of our lives. I thought that there could never possibly be anything that would shine some light on our now darkened spirits. Boy was I wrong!

A mere 5 months after Emma was diagnosed, she approached me and asked if we could set up a lemonade stand out front of our house to raise money for "the people looking for a cure." She looked up at me with such innocent and determined eyes, that there was no way I could say no.

Seeing as how it was November, we convinced her to switch it to hot chocolate..contacted JDRF, made a few phone calls....and managed to raise $1200 in 3 hours time on November 14th (World Diabetes Day). As I sit here now thinking of that night, I can remember her face....her little 4 year old face...standing there with such hope in her eyes. She was on marshmallow duty naturally...what other job would a 4 year old want, right? She stood there for 3 hours filling cup after cup with marshmallows, chatting with hundreds of people about her diabetes, telling them that she was helping to find a cure. To say I was proud, would be the understatement of the century. That night was one of the first moments that I saw her "greatness". I saw the incredible amount of potential and drive and determination that lies within a person living with diabetes.

One day last year, Emma came home from school and told me that her friends had been talking about how there was going to be a bald version of a Barbie doll made to support kids dealing with cancer and other diseases involving hair loss. She once again looked up at me with those same innocent and determined eyes and asked me so matter of factly why there wasn't a doll out in the stores that had diabetes. I decided to make a toy insulin pump and blood sugar meter for her to play with on one of her own dolls. I thought there is no way that I could ever take on a toy manufacturer and help her make this dream a reality. I thought that it would just be left at that...a toy for only her to play with.

Well, Emma decided that she wanted other kids to be able to play with them too. She wanted other kids to have something that made them feel special. She wanted to keep going with this idea...and really, with that greatness and that drive that lies inside her....who was I to say no? So, we created a Facebook page to gain support for our campaign to make this a reality available in stores...and we have nearly 6,000 supporters.

I think back to that day of diagnosis and I want to wipe away the tears of that old me and force myself to look at my daughter through clear focused eyes. I want her to see that greatness...that drive...the flickering light that is the embers of hope that burns from her gaze. I see it now. I see it and I know that no matter what this life throws our way and no matter how many times diabetes tries to bring us to our knees.....we will make it. We will do better than just make it...we will leap over every hurdle with style and we will make things happen. We will make change happen all because of her greatness.

 You can visit Amy's Blog HERE

To purchase a "virtual cup of hot chocolate" to help Emma support JDRF, please click on the following link: http://www.canadahelps.org/GivingPages/GivingPage.aspx?gpID=21134

To support Emma in her dream of a Diabetic Barbie, or other doll[s],  please click on the following link and click "like" on her Facebook page and share with others to spread the word! : http://www.facebook.com/DiabeticBarbie 

A guest post from my daughter, Nora...

So apparently, I've passed on the blogging bug to my girls. I LOVE it!! Sometimes it's so much easier to write down how you feel and I respect that. We are all so busy living and putting on a brave face that sometimes we just need to get it out. And that's what my baby did...

Dear Diabetes,

It's me,Nora. Why do you have to make my life so miserable? Why can't I just be like most of the other 12 year olds in the world? You surely get in the way of a LOT but, it doesn't stop me though. I just walk right past you. I really hate you but...one thing I do like about you, is that you ONLY make me strong. So I guess no thank you but thank you? Goodness...you are complicated. Whenever I'm playing a sport you just HAVE to mess with me. I mean like excuse me but, when I play sports it's MY free time, not yours. I am not being selfish. If anyone is being selfish...it's you. You just take my life away and not in a good way. This past summer you just had to get into my sister. Is this a joke to you? It's not a joke to anyone else. Well...I'm not waisting anymore time on you right now.
Not Yours Truly,
Nora

p.s. to anyone else that is suffering with T1D ��STAY STRONG��

Nora's Post #2: What a Cure Would Mean to Me:

Here is part 2 of Nora's application to JDRF's Children's Congress. If you've missed any you can find the original post HERE and  read her post #1.

When I read her the question she had to answer she immediately said she didn't want a cure. Well...that won't work for Children's Congress! I mean, after all, it's about getting the Special Diabetes Fund renewed...which funds research, cure, preventing and improving the lives of T1D. So, I started talking to her about the complications that can come with having T1D. Kidney, liver, eye, feet problems, etc. She thinks about it and says, "but, Mom, I wouldn't be me without my diabetes!" And then I talked to her about when she gets her cure, she could go around talking about how life was with diabetes. How hard it was to take care of herself. That diabetes has made her strong and independent. So with my words of wisdom off she went to write her response.

And here it is:

Why a cure is important to me:

A cure is important to me because I wouldn’t have to worry about dying. I wouldn’t have to worry 

that much about my organs and body.  I would feel “normal”. A cure would be great! I could eat non 

stop without bolusing for my food. I would feel free and I could do more stuff with a cure. I wouldn’t 

be asked so many questions a day. I would love a cure BUT I wouldn’t be me. I wouldn’t be as strong 

or independent as I am now!  

Nora's Post #1: My Life

I wrote about Nora applying for JDRF's Children's Congress and some of the questions she has to answer you can read about it HERE. With her busy school/sport schedule we decided to break the questions down one at a time and then compile her answers into one long essay. However, that means multiple posts for you to view. With her permission here is HER answer to "Tell us your personal story living with T1D":

My Life

            It all started June 13, 2005. Why am I in a hospital? What is diabetes? Why are the doctors and nurses poking me with a needle? Why are people giving me all this attention? I didn’t get it. At four-years-old I had a LOTof questions and even some of the questions haven’t even been answered. I didn’t really know that there weren’t many four year olds without diabetes. I thought that everyone went through what I was going through like taking shots every time you eat and every time you blood sugar is high or drinking an apple juice when you blood sugar is low. I wish I still had the confidence I had when I was little. When I was seven I got the Medtronic Mini Med pump. I was so happy that I didn’t have to take shots anymore but to be honest, I had no clue what a pump was. Why was this purple thing attached to my stomach? This is when I started to feel “different”. Now at the age of almost twelve I know there are a ton of people my age that judge others. They shouldn’t, they shouldn’t at all. It’s just another way of pointing out the obvious that you wish you could change. I have to wake up in the morning check my blood glucose, eat breakfast, and plug my carbohydrates into my insulin pump (I have to do this every time I eat). At nine-o-clock I have to take my blood glucose and treat for it if it’s high or low. I have to check it AGAIN before lunch but I don’t treat for my blood sugar. Than after I eat lunch I correct for my food. At three-o-clock I have to test my blood glucose and treat for it and I do the same EVERY three hours. I also test when I don’t feel good which is plenty times a day. Did I tell you that during all this I am either in school or playing sports? Well it’s true. I am very active; I play basketball, softball, volleyball, and track. It’s so hard for me to stop playing whatever sport I’m doing at the time and test my blood glucose if I don’t feel very good. The number one question or being told from the referees or umpires is “What’s that thing around your waist” or “What is that,” pointing to my emergency alert bracelet or “You have to take that off” pointing to my pump or bracelet. It gets annoying, really annoying actually but, does that stop me from playing sports, NO! Now believe it or not I’m not the only person in my family that has T1D! My eighteen-year-old sister just got diagnosed this last summer. I busted out into tears once my dad told me. It was kind of weird because I got a flash back to when I was in the hospital. I felt like my life was just going to come to an end. I’m just happy it didn’t! So now my sister and I have diabetes and my little four-year-old brother has a bleeding disorder called hemophilia. Hemophilia is a disease in which if you start to bleed or get a bruise you cannot stop bleeding until you get a special type of medicine. I just pray and pray over and over again that he doesn’t get a bleed. I wish both diseases didn’t exist! I may be different but I can do everything you can do.

Blue Heel Society "Fan Of The Week' is Trish Prather

Thanks to the generosity of the Developers of our BHS Fan Of The Week (FOTW) Application, we have a full working version of their Top Fan Application that allows us to showcase our Bluetiful peeps, based on computer magic (Randomness) & multiple interaction factors on our Facebook Page.

This weeks Fan of the Week (FOTW) is Trish Prather, and we asked Ms. Prather to answer a few questions as to learn a little more about her.

BHS: Connection w/ diabetes?
TP: My son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was 12 months old, exactly 2 weeks after his birthday.

BHS: General geographic location?
TP: We are from the Atlanta, GA area but we live in Central FL since diagnosis in 2007

BHS: What blue shoe (Heel, sneaker, riding shoe, etc.) suits you & Why?
TP: Honestly, I'm a flip-flops girl all the way.

BHS: What does advocacy mean to you?
TP: The lack of advocacy and awareness almost cost me my son's life. I was so ignorant to the disease that I wasn't even sure how many types there are and had never heard of a child with it. My son was in severe DKA by the time I realized it wasn't "just a stomach virus", because I never knew all the symptoms that I noticed actually meant something like diabetes.

BHS: Blog/site/twitter/organization
TP: I shamefully haven't blogged in about a year. My Facebook DOC family is what keeps me sane. Without them I would be alone in this D battle.

BHS: Words of wisdom/encouraging statement/general statement about diabetes?
TP: I do not have a diabetic child, I have a child with diabetes. I treat the child first, the diabetes second.

Congrats again to Ms. Prather, and the BHS Team thanks each & every one of YOU for being a part of our Family.

Winning the Lottery?

After talking with Nora, we have decided to apply for JDRF's Children's Congress 2013. It is held every other year and gives 100 T1D's, aged 4-17, the opportunity to have Congress put a face to T1D. You can read more about it here. There is a very lengthy application process that once you sit down to fill it out on line there is no saving it or coming back later to finish it up. You sit down and fill it out now. So I took a look at the application and wrote down the things that would take us the longest to answer. Namely, the essay that Nora will need to write!! Not to exceed three typed pages or 1,200 words. I'm a little hesitant about this. What will she say? Will she say it eloquently? Will she get her point across? Will her words get her accepted into Children's Congress?? I promise that I will sit back and let her write her essay...as much as I will want to write it for her...I'm NOT going to do it. There...I said it out loud, y'all are my witness! Her essay needs to answer the following questions.

1. Your personal story living with T1D.

2. Why a cure is important to you?

3. What does the Special Diabetes Act mean to you?

4. Why the US Congress should support diabetes research to help find a cure for T1D?

5. What have you done to promote awareness of T1D in your community?

Quite frankly, I know the answers. Or at least I think I do. However, she may surprise me. And I'm looking forward to hearing her answers. We are so busy dealing with the day to day that I want to hear HER take on it. I know mine. All of you, know mine. She's almost 12, she's been living with it for 7 years. It's time to hear her story. And as soon as she writes it and we send it off I'll blog it here.

I printed off the Special Diabetes Act so that she could read about it and write about it. I also printed off some facts for her to use. I've read how much diabetes costs the US economy annually, how many American's have diabetes, the estimated growth of new diagnosis, you have read them too. But there is one statistic that stopped me dead in my tracks.

1 in 3: the number of American children born in 2000 that are likely to develop diabetes during their lifetime. (source http://advocacy.jdrf.org)

My Nora was born in 2000.

She is the 1 in 3.

That. Is. Sobering.

I guess knowing it and seeing it are different. When you hear it, it goes in one ear and out the other. You hear it but maybe don't process it like you should. Then you see it. Black and white. Right there just STARING at you. The year your baby was born and she IS the statistic. SUCKS.

In my odd way of thinking, she's always been "lucky". At the church festivals with the peel off Bingo tabs, she wins. Nothing big maybe $25 max. But she wins. Then there are those door prizes at events. She wins. Without a doubt. She wins. Wait till she's legal to gamble...I'm taking that girl to Vegas, baby!!

Anyway...if your reading this, chances are you also know a "lucky" 1 in 3. As I'm sitting here, I'm wondering what the odds are that you have more than the 1 in 3, (since I have 2 now). Then I'm thinking all three of my kids have chronic illnesses so that should count for something, right? A lottery win would be nice. Too bad we don't play. Damn.

Maybe my "lucky" 1 in 3 will be selected to go to Children's Congress. Who knows. But I will count myself as lucky to know all of you and that we are in this together.

Now, to go buy me a lottery ticket!

A Non D Day Post!

photo copied from Ninjabetic. check them out  here.

The title says it all...yep, No D Day. So...I'll share a story with you instead...that is appropriate for the Halloween season...

As I mentioned last week in a blog post, we live in a home that's 130 years old. And with that, weird things have been known to happen. We've heard some normal noises...ya know, unexplained men's footsteps walking in the upstairs bedroom. Lights have turned on that were left off. Just normal things...right?!?! Well, it's been kinda quite here. Although, with our crazy life and all the noise around here with two dogs and three kids I wouldn't necessarily hear anything or notice anything unless it was blatant.

And this time it was.

Nora only has about 4 more baby teeth that have to come out. She has been directed by her dentist to wiggle and move those suckers or they will be pulled. The other night she eats a Sugar Daddy. And with that gooey caramel out comes her tooth!! Yay!! She's excited! Not so much for the money...it's just one less she has to worry about getting pulled. She decides that she needs to pretty her lost tooth up...(I have no idea why! Insert eye roll here and a "you better hurry up and get it done because it is time for bed"!) And she decides it needs to be brushed. I gave her a warning that she may drop it down the sink but to no avail. She was set on doing it and she did withOUT losing her tooth! But then she has to go one step further. She needs to pick all the dried blood out of it. (Eww....shaking my head!!) She goes into the kitchen to get a toothpick. We have about a 1/2 inch gap between our counter and the stove. And yes, you know where I'm headed with this, right?!

It falls in the crack.

Well now we can't find a flashlight to save our lives as my son, Jackson, likes to hide them and leave the light on so not only do our batteries die the actual light bulb dies too. I told Nora that now it's lost as I am not fishing under the stove to find her tooth or any other hairy, creepy, yucky stuff that I am positive is under my stove. She goes on to bed.

Let me just state, for the record, that the ONLY people who knew of this tooth dropping were Nora, myself and Evy. Jackson and Joe had already gone to bed. Knowing this makes the next part of the story that much weirder!

The next day after everyone had left for school or work I cleaned up the kitchen. Putting the dried dishes away in the cabinets, etc. I had a paper towel on top of the counter, from the night before, but what was placed ever so nicely on that paper towel but Nora's tooth!! How in the world did it make it on top of the opposing counter???

Not sure.

Girls come home from school and I ask them about the tooth. They are freaking out. I'm dumbfounded. Can't explain it at all! Evy was thinking that this tooth must be pretty special if it was lost and then found. So she wrote the powers that be a little note.

Thank goodness the note was never answered! That would've been too crazy!

Fast forward to a few days after the initial incident and Nora finds a flashlight. She can't believe that was her tooth on the counter and wants to just make sure her tooth under the oven is really gone. But...it's NOT!! It's still under the oven!! So, who the He#@'s tooth is on my counter?!?!

It's a mystery that will probably never be solved.

And as a side note...this No D Day is really not a challenge for me as my family has enough weirdness to blog about as much as I blog about D!! That is really either very exciting or very sad!! No "normalcy" here!! Hope you enjoyed!! :)