Stag beetles and chocolate ice cream

So, the day started well with Frank running a potato and apple shop from the front room, whilst munching on peanut butter (chunky please, Mummy) on toast. Budd and I sipped our tea and tried to wake up after being late to bed, being disturbed in the night and a rather early start. Apples and potatoes are quite expensive in Frank's shop and tend to cost a full pound each. Sometimes when I tell him I don't have much money things start to cost 1p instead. Seeing his language and awareness of money and numbers developing is fascinating. He went to the pantry to get us each a bag for our purchases and even scanned the items on his little till. What a great way to start the day!


We went into town in the late morning to pay a visit to the Natural History Museum. After running around there for a while looking at poor stuffed animals and the fantastic switch-activated stag beetle we went to the Love Bistro at the Minories for lunch. Frank chowed down on bacon, eggs and toast whilst I had the falafel burger and salad. A cappuccino might have slipped down too! We whiled away the few minutes waiting for our food taking photos of each other. The following two were the ones Frank took that weren't of his chair. Not a bad shot is he?


We also spent a good deal of time collecting conkers in the garden at the cafe and rolled home with about fifty more to add to the collection. I have been wokring on the idea of a nature table but have had to admit defeat in the face of a boy who loves to collect large numbers of one thing: CONKERS. So, we have a conker table.


Frank had a hypo yesterday and was at 3.0 when he was with Budd and he didn't eat any of his bread at lunchtime with me today, leaving his carefully-ordered meal (balancing carbs and protein) sadly out of whack. Thus we found ourselves sitting in The Little Ice Cream Company's cosy cafe on Eld Lane partaking of a (medicinal, you understand) chocolate (Frank) and Dime bar (myself) ice cream. As you can see he loved it and I treasure the days when we can do mother and son trips like this and enjoy food without worry. Since his diagnosis almost a year ago we have given him more sugar than I ever would have were he not diabetic. We need constant access to juice or fruit purees to bring him back from the brink of hypos. One never travels light with kids but we need juice boxes, smoothies, biscuits and his diabetes kit with us at all times. It's hard.

This afternoon Frank had one of the mini chocolate muffins I'd made on Sunday and some water. I thought I'd managed him just right but before dinner, when I tested his blood sugar, he was hypo again and at 3.2, although showing no symptoms and not mentioning he felt "wobbly". We both went into action making sure he had some juice and a small fruit yoghurt before his sausages, pesto mash and peas. He then tucked into fresh mango and pronounced himself fully full in his own special way by telling us his back was full as well as his tummy.

Budd was out at a football match this evening and before the now traditional recounting of The Enormous Turnip Frank and I had a huge amount of fun learning to throw conkers into a basket from across the room. Then bath and bed for cuddles and stories, as well as us taking turns to be a scary snail to frighten each other. This seems to involve hissing and jumping on the unfortunate victim. If my husband reads this post he is duly warned for tomorrow evening when he is on duty as I am out teaching.

And to bed with the new arrivals from best bud amazon: My Life as a Pancreas by Priscilla Call Essert and The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule. Crime and Punishment can wait another day or two.