Diababy and the teddy grahams

The other day my mom and I took a trip to Wal-Mart. Wahoo, right? We were in the snack section to procure work snacks. As we were leaving the aisle I spotted the boxes of teddy grahams. I had to stop and point them out. To a passer-by I might have seemed way too over excited. The passer-by might have wondered why in the world a 34-year-old woman would be pointing at the teddy grahams saying, “Ooo mom can we get the teddy grahams?!?!” Well, lemme tell you, there’s a story behind that.

You see, when I was a wee tot diagnosed at 3-almost-4-years-old with the Diababy, treatment was rather different than it is today. “They” (you know, the doctors who diagnosed me at the hospital) put me on a heart patient’s diet. No sugar. Low fat. Low sodium. Have you ever had fake salt? “No sodium salt?” I will tell you that taste is forever burned into my memory. I would not wish that on my worst enemy…well, ok maybe that one ex-boyfriend. Anyway, I’ve gotta tell you, over the last 30 years I’ve wondered, more than once, “How do they make no-sodium-salt?” I don’t really want to know. So anyway, given the choice of fake salt or bland food, I’ll take bland food all day every day. Vinegar was a better substitute than fake salt. I like vinegar. Can you imagine a 4-year-old liking vinegar? Yeah, that was me. And don’t get me started on sugar-free maple syrup.

•  On a side note, I did NOT like bananas for a looooong time. I didn’t know why until sometime during college when I’d started eating bananas again. I found that they did a much better job at raising my blood sugar than apples and were abundant at the dining commons (dc’s), easy to grab, and many would fit in my backpack. So one day, I mentioned to my mom, “Hey mom, it’s so strange, I used to HATE bananas, and now I like them. In fact, I eat them all the time.” And she says to me, “You know why you didn’t like bananas?” Me, “Noooo?” Her, “Well, when you were diagnosed, your potassium was too low. Our options were to give you potassium pills/supplements or feed you bananas. We force fed you bananas to get your potassium back up.” (I may or may not have paraphrased some of that conversation).

Where was I going? Oh yeah, the Teddy Grahams. So here’s this little 4-year-old-Abby eating boatloads of bananas, freaky-fake-salt on her pop-corn, and vinegar on her spinach. Somewhere along the way she must have seen a commercial for these new teddy-bear shaped snacks that kids could dunk in milk and nibble off the ears and arms and legs. Ohmygosh they looked soooo tasty and fun to eat. She dreamed of teddy grahams doing high-dives off the rim of glasses into pools of milk, stacking teddy grahams into two- three- and four-highs, and most of all, snacking on teddy grahams. She decided that would just be the best thing in the world.

Along comes the Joslin Clinic in Boston. The local Lion’s Club somehow made it possible for me to go shortly after my diagnosis (I remember riding in the back seat of a small red-and-white pick-up truck on the way back, we had to switch from a car to the truck due to a snow storm, the truck had 4-wheel drive). In those days, the Joslin was the place to go for diabetes education. I remember playing with the models for food portions there. At some point the dietitian told me I COULD EAT TEDDY GRAHAMS!!! (I’m guessing I’d asked, or my mom did.) This is the part of the story my mom likes to tell, because of the pure delight that shown on my little face. And on the way home as I was dozing and cuddling up against my mom, every so often I’d wake up just enough to smile and say, “I can have teddy grahams.” And fall back to sleep.

P.S. I bought the teddy grahams for myself the other day, in case you were wondering.