Irreverent Eloquence

      A box came in the mail last weekend. It was weighty with more than physical mass. My husband picked it up from the front steps and brought it in the house, set it on the table across from the front door, nearly an impossible place to miss a box that size.        With three girls six and under, boxes this size don't get missed. They sparkle with promise, a gift or treat gleaming through the plain cardboard and into their imagination. Apparently not this box though. It simply sat waiting.        I didn't mistake it when I came home. It caught my eye as I removed my boots, caked with snow, and tossed them onto the entryway rug. The sticker on the top was a large return address, the contents inside no mystery though I had not ever laid eyes on the finished product. The red lettering bolded the box as I passed it, begging to be marked as "Priority" in my day. I brushed my hand on it as I pushed it out of my mind.        "I can't open that now," I to

       I'm finding myself stuck in last year. I keep comparing and not finding too much contrast between  Fall 2013 and Fall 2014. I've not written much about our oldest daughter and unfortunately, this month, these days to be exact, last year were solely devoted to her and her new diagnosis. I hate that I want to tell you about her and her diabetes first. There should be some preface to this, some prologue that shows her as this amazing girl first, without the label of T1D, and yet, I can't tell you about where our lives are right now, and how far we've come, without the shadow of diabetes looming over us.        I will tell you that we make a lot of allowances in our household for kid behavior, attributing the nuances of naughtiness to holidays, Daylight savings time change, or the weather...last year this was the running mantra. The end of October hit us hard, me signing up to be a Daisy Girl Scout leader to twelve kindergarteners the day Charlotte got 'sick