Numbers

My youngest son — for the purposes of this blog I’ll call him Z — is obsessed with numbers.

On Saturday night, he had a ball pressing the numbers on my phone’s calculator app. It kept him entertained for hours. He’d touch the digits and laugh as I recite what he just  pressed. He was hysterical when he tapped, and I said, “parentheses”.

He does love other things that are more appropriate for his age: like waffles, Elmo, hockey, and baked beans. But the whole numbers thing is a strange obsession. While I’m driving, he sits in his car seat in the back and counts to 20 (usually skipping a few numbers), over and over. And over. And… you get the picture

When I test my blood sugar, he likes to look at the digits displayed on my meter.

On Sunday night, I felt my pump vibrate at my hip and glanced at the “LOW PREDICTED” warning. Suddenly, Z demands “Me want see numbah!”. (“Me want” is cute the first twenty times, but then it gets really old, really fast).

My CGM read 92 with a downward arrow, I showed it to him, and he said “Elve”, which is his way of saying twelve. (Every two-digit number, to him, is in the teens – or in this case, pre-teens). He also said a few other digits, which I could only assume were the time.

Given his interest, I decided to show him how I set my temporary basal. I had him read the initial percentage, “un unded” (one hundred) and he watched as I scrolled down to the final setting, “ewo” (zero).

This whole event was, in my mind, meant as a lesson in numbers and nothing else. But seeing him recognize that daddy has these devices and that he responds to the numbers they tell him, is planting a seed for him to develop a real understanding and appreciation for what it takes to live with diabetes.

I’m still hoping he never has to deal with diabetes himself. But if he does, I think he’ll do okay.