Donald Trump's got competition

Feeding Mark is an endless task; I spend half my days shopping for snacks to keep that child satiated. Everyone says growing boys are always hungry, and if that's the case, Mark is well on his way to becoming a 9-foot-tall man.

I sent him off to school yesterday with two packs of string cheese and instructions to take them to the nurse's office before school (she has a refrigerator in there). He was thrilled to have 24 cheese sticks all to himself.

"How many do you eat at recess?" I asked, curious.

"I eat three," he answered, then added, "And I take a fourth one out to recess for this other kid."

My heart swelled with maternal pride. Four years of relentless chiding to share were finally coming to fruition! I was so proud of my thoughtful little boy.

"Because then I get money!" Mark said.

...and my heart deflated.

"You what?" I asked.

"I get money," he explained. "I sell the extra cheese stick to this kid in my class."

I managed not to ask how much he ripped that kid off for, and instead phrased it in a more delicate manner. "How much does he pay you?" I asked, expecting to hear a price somewhere near a quarter.

"A dollar!" Mark told me gleefully. He rubbed his hands together and cackled--yes, cackled!--at the thought of his impending wealth.

I just sighed. Some days I don't know whether to be proud of his entrepreneurial spirit or worried about his penchant for scamming his fellow stu dents.

May the snacks be with you

Yesterday, I spent my lunch hour--yes, the whole hour--shopping for afterschool snacks. This seems like a pretty easy task, until you factor in Mark's diabetes.

Then, choosing snacks becomes a complicated math problem. I add up the various factors to get my final result (healthy + low-carb + no refrigeration - refined flour + will he eat it = good snack). Fresh fruit's out of the question because Mark tosses his backpack around like a football, and by snack time, he's left with bruised, brown fruit he refuses to eat. Nuts are a really good snack--low-carb, full of fiber, healthy, but there's a kid in afterschool care with a peanut allergy, so I've eliminated things Mark loves--peanut butter crackers, granola bars, trail mix--that contain peanuts. That put a big dent in my snack répertoire.

So now browsing the snack aisle takes a good hour. I pick boxes carefully, examining the contents. Oooh, goldfish crackers--until I remember how high they send Mark. Granola bars and bites, an old standby--until I read the label, which says they may contain peanuts. Raisins--maybe. A fruit, and he might eat them. Excitedly, I put two boxes in my cart, and then realize I'm getting ahead of myself. He's 8--I may convince him to eat one package of raisins, but two is pushing it.

Cookies and chips--no. I don't mind the occasional treat, but I'm not sending them as a snack everyday. Likewise (fake) yogurt-covered anything, or rolled/gummy fruit snacks masquerading as dried fruit, but are really just gelatinous-shaped sugar bombs. Pretzels are an excellent choice--except that Mark hates them. South Beach bars and Scooby Snacks (little dog-bone shaped graham crackers) were good, but he ate so many, he burnt out on them. Yesterday I sent graham crackers, which came back uneaten, in a thousand crumbled pieces.

Last week, I thought I'd found the perfect snack--Sun Chips. They're full of multi grains, somewhat healthy, and labelled as chips, so Mark thought he was getting a treat. And he was, too, until he came home three days in a row with a blood sugar of almost 300, and another at 375. (His target range is between 70-150.) That officially ended our Sun Chips experiment, at least at school.

I eventually found enough semi-healthy, moderately low carb, yummy snacks I think Mark might eat, including:

• Popcorn
• Pudding cups
• Special K bars
• Raisins
• Teddy Grahams
• Granola bites (not the peanut butter ones)
• Crackers with cheese in the middle
• Chewy granola bars (not the peanut butter ones)

The crackers will send him high, and the granola bars MAY contain traces of peanuts, but I was tired of reading labels. Mark can suffer through the crackers in lieu of something tried and true, but boring, like Scooby Snacks. I'll warn the teachers of the granola bars--Mark can eat them outside and wash his hands afterwards. (The label says they may contain traces of peanuts.) Hopefully, he won't get close enough to the allergic kid to send him into anaphalactic shock.

I'm not complaining...things were a lot harder when Mark was on shots, and could only eat snacks under 15 grams of carbs. And he had to eat, whether he was hungry or not, or else the long-acting insulin would send him low. And he couldn't eat more, or he'd need a shot, which the afterschool counselors didn't feel comfortable giving him. Now, with the pump, it doesn't matter if he eats 15 carbs or 35 carbs, it's all one bolus. And he can work the pump himself (with adult supervision), which makes the adults less nervous than the needles did.

Anyway...this is what fills my head nowadays. Snacks that won't kill my kid, or any other kids. Carb counts. Insulin to carb ratios. Basal rates that change every couple hours, and are completely useless if Mark plays too hard or gets sick. And how to figure all that out silently, in my head, so that Mark doesn't have to worry about it, and can focus on being just like all the other kids.

So keep that in mind that the next time it seems like I'm not listening to you...I'm not being rude, I'm just worrying about how high those little cheese crackers will send Mark, or if I gave him a snack with enough protein to keep him from dropping low out on the playground!