The first sign of their collective lack of consciousness is their bizarre kitchen-TV-watching-posture. There is nothing about my kitchen that makes eating in front of a TV comfortable or relaxing. They seem to always end up in these odd configurations – sometimes three of them end up either sitting on the countertop next to the TV or they get all twisted up trying to balanced by kneeling on a stool and sometimes that just stand there staring. This is definitely not comfortable, but with the TV on, they don’t even notice. When this lack of awareness of their physical selves is combined with an open bag of pretzels, no matter how whole wheat, gluten free or organic they are, there is zero consciousness about how much food they actually eat, until of course the bag is emptied.

It didn’t take our family too many 300 or 400 blood sugars (ouch) to see that this whole after school snacking system needed a serious makeover. As crazy as it sounds, this is one of those instances where I’m thankful for Elle’s diabetes. Without diabetes, there is no question in my mind that I would have never noticed anything awry here. Because Elle has diabetes, this lack of consciousness has a quantitative value – milligrams of glucose per deciliter of blood. For most families, signs of this same problem are not immediate.

Obviously, solving this problem was not rocket science. We just took the TV out of the kitchen and replaced it with music, and real life human conversation. In all honesty, I do still keep the TV in a kitchen cabinet so I can pull it out if I want to watch something, but then put it away before the next after school feeding frenzy comes along.

The other thing we try to do to solve the unconscious overeating problem is try to instill the habit of putting our snacks into a dish or bowl. How can anyone possibly be conscious of how much they are eating if they are eating it straight from a Family Size box or bag? We always try to keep plenty of easy to grab-and-eat fruit and cut-up veggies on hand and those portions are easy to control (and so what if they are not). To help them be more conscious of their portions, we also keep small colorful bowls on low easy to reach shelves and get them in the habit of using them.

I would love to add any tips or tactics to our “encourage conscious eating” repertoire. Please feel free to share any pointers you have learned and adopted over the years.

What a treat to talk with the inventor of the first insulin pump, Dean Kamen!

It is with pride and unconditional affection that I share a post my daughter, Elle, drafted.  She recently attended a fundraising dinner for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.  I hope that you will enjoy reading about her adventure almost as much as I did!

As I put my hands on the door handle to a restaurant where the event was held, I imagined what it would look like inside. Would everyone inside have a test kit? An insulin pen or pump? As I took the door handle with all my strength and pulled the door open, my eyes just could not take everything in. It all looked so beautiful and exciting. I looked over at a table with computers and a sign that read Check In / Check Out and thought in my mind this event is so fancy they even have a registration. Well, if I want to find a cure, I better go and register.

One hour later, I see three CIRCUS people. One man was standing on stilts and juggling while walking.  He asked me if he could walk over to me while juggling and all I could think was what if one of the pins lands on my head?  He looks like he is 30 feet in the air.  The man read my mind when he asked, “are you nervous?”  I answered the man with a “yes.”  He walked over me without dropping anything.  I was fine and it was over.  He left the room and came back walking on a ball while juggling.  This time he asked if I wanted to come and stand on the ball with him and he would hold on to me.  At first I said “no”, but then I got rid of my nervousness and stood on the ball.  He held on to my wrists as and I did it.  After a minute, I jumped off the ball feeling relieved, but still glad that I did it.

One hour later, it was time to eat!  The waitress comes over to explain that the dinner special was chicken with terriaki sauce and a side of peas.  I looked over at my dad waiting for him to give me an answer about how much insulin to take.  He doesn’t answer me until I take a roll from the bread basket .  Then my dad took my hand and said “why don’t you I start wtih 25g?”  I sneak my hand through my dress and take my pump out and press ACTIVATE to put 25 in and then carefully put it back under my dress.  The food arrived and I looked at it wondering how much insulin to take.  Dad told me I should take another 45g, but only if I was planning to have dessert after dinner.  Again, I sneak my pump out from the dress to take the insulin I need.  I cut the chicken, took a bite and it practically melted in my mouth.  Dessert was served some time later.  It was a small cup of berry sherbet ice cream.  I eat it slowly trying to remember the flavor in my mouth.  I finished the ice cream fast.

The last part of the night was a live auction,  When it started a man with a microphone was babbling numbers over and over again.  This got on my nerves a little bit, but then I remember that if I want these people to donate some dough to find a cure then I better just listen patiently and quietly.  And so I did.

On this Mother’s Day, I would also like to celebrate the strength and determination mothering a child with type 1-diabetes demands.  I learned to love ferociously the day I became a mother.  At that time, I never imagined the depths of a mother’s worry or the concern that comes from caring for a child who is living with this chronic, complex and relentless diagnosis.  Here’s to mothers who have more sleepless nights than most, who keep calculators on their kitchen counters, always have candy on their person and have learned how to be continuous glucose monitors.

I have been a mother for nearly eleven years.  In this time, I have often pondered the existence of our fabled mother’s intuition.  Is it intuition that guides decisions like whether or not to schedule a doctor’s appointment for the could-be ear infection?  Or maybe it is intuition that stops a wrestling match just before “somebody gets hurt”?  It must be my maternal instincts guiding conversations about fifth grade boys or answering questions like how space and heaven can both fit in the sky?  Trusting your instincts and following your intuition both require a commitment to listening carefully and going with your gut regardless.

As if decoding and knowing when to trust my mother’s intuition has not been disorienting enough over the years, along came diabetes.  Diabetes comes complete with continual and almost immediate feedback.  Every time my first-born eats anything with carbohydrates, she must calculate insulin required to treat her changing blood sugar levels.  Signs and symptoms of high or low blood sugars are also present more frequently than we would like to admit.  For Elle, high blood sugars are accompanied by the grumpies, a pale complexion and fatigue.  Low blood sugars also come with a pale complexion, the jitteries and some sweating.  These complicating factors have a tendency to put my maternal instincts into overdrive.

Spring’s arrival has meant some travel and more time away from my children than is customary.   When my mother’s intuition is working in overdrive it becomes impossible to distinguish between a premonition and pure paranoia.  For example, on a recent trip away from my family, I had a premonition that Elle was experiencing a low blood sugar.  As it turns out, she was on a hike and happened to have a low blood sugar at the time I was incessantly trying to reach her and my husband by phone.  Keep in mind that it is not unusual for a low blood sugar to occur as a result of physical exertion from the first hike of this season.  I am also acutely aware of the circumstances that could result in a high or low blood sugar and already tend to be on heightened alert when those dynamics are present.  Statistically the odds of realizing a premonition are in my favor given the number of times Elle experiences a low or high blood sugar in any week.

I am rational, pragmatic and analytical enough to know that I have the benefit or curse of more often than not being able to predict how certain activities and events will impact Elle’s blood sugars.  The unfortunate reality is that this can create a sense of paranoia especially when my fears are already heighten thanks to separation.  As the sorority of mothers with diabetic children can attest, it is impossible to plan for every situation.  This leaves me lying awake at night worrying about things like how to help Elle prepare for upcoming environmental camp.  As prepared as everyone will be for working with Elle to tackle the complexities of eating and sleeping away from home, I know all too well that while we are apart the battle between premonition and paranoia will rage.

Diabetes undeniably complicates your relationship to food. The reality of having to count more that 5 grams of carbohydrate in what you consume requires an unnatural fixation on every single food choice you make every single day. Diabetes prompts questions like: Am I hungry right now or is it time to eat because of the amount of insulin in my body? Should I eat frozen yogurt or ice cream? Do I need to count the carrots in my salad? Is it okay to eat the birthday cake at my friend’s party or cupcakes at the celebration in my class at school? Are these good foods or bad foods?

Diabetes came into my life and my family two years ago. In this time, I have watched my daughter wrestle with the complexities of her own relationship to food. I have witnessed her struggle to understand what certain foods will do to her body. I have caught her sneaking “bad” food. I have helped her through many hyperglycemic episodes induced by too much of the “wrong” food without enough insulin. Together we have worked through this unchartered territory. At each step along the way, my heighten awareness about the psychological and physical impact of coping with these dynamics guides me.

I am not a nutritionist and frankly, I was never a “good” eater. I have a gigantic sweet tooth and consistently have pregnancy-like cravings for french fries. Keep in mind, I have not been pregnant for nearly four years. As Elle’s Mom, however, I now know more than I ever wanted to know about nutrition. Ask me about the glycemic index of particular foods or the latest artificial sweetner or how to substitute buckwheat flour for white flour and I can tell you all about it. Of course, I understand how the food pyramid works and appreciate that some foods are better for you than others. It is clear to me that no one – with or without diabetes – should be helping themselves to five candy bars a day. In our home, however, we have decided to let the nutrition label speak for itself. We are done with “right” and “wrong” foods. No more “good” and “bad” food labels.

Changing the language we use and the judgements we make about food has not been easy. I still catch myself feeling anxious and using a different tone of voice when Elle explains that she has chosen a banana over an apple or a bag of pretzels and a granola bar over some almonds and yogurt. We both know all too well that not only are some foods just better for you, but some foods work better with insulin than others. The truth of the matter is that some foods spike blood sugars and others do not.

What Elle and I have discovered together is that the ramifications of living with labels can be as dangerous and devastating as eating too much “junk” food. Coveting the “bad” food and constantly restricting certain foods only makes those foods more desirable. Obsessing over and applying labels made us both feel crazy. I was anxious anytime Elle wanted to eat anything on the “not so good” list. Sensing my concern, Elle started finding ways to eat the foods on that list without my knowledge and consequently, without enough insulin. We have decided that this is not a healthy way to live and are learning how to redirect this energy. Now we are spending more time making the choices we are fortunate enough to have in the refrigerator.

As Oprah’s recent show demonstrated, understanding the difference between Type 1 and Type 2 is difficult. To understand why it is so horrifying for children and adolescences to develop Type 2 Diabetes, you must comprehend the difference.

For the record, Type 1 Diabetes or Juvenile Diabetes as it is commonly referred to is an autoimmune disease and is treated with insulin. Type 1 Diabetes cannot be prevented by changes in lifestyle or diet. There is NO cure for Type 1 Diabetes. Type 2 Diabetes is often called adult-onset Diabetes because historically it was diagnosed later in life and is often the result of poor diet and excess weight. Type 2 Diabetes can often be managed by making dramatic lifestyle changes including diet and exercise. In both cases, Diabetes can cause the same serious long-term health problems such as heart disease, kidney failure nerve damage, blindness and neuropathy to name the more serious complications associated with the disease.

As the parent of a Type 1 Diabetic, you may be wondering why I am committed to supporting the Let’s Move Campaign. To manage my daughter’s disease, she exercises nearly every day. Our family does not need the gentle push of a public education initiative or a more direct nudge through the Fist Lady’s bully pulpit to keep moving. My motivation to engage in this public awareness and advocacy effort is not a result of my direct self-interest. Michelle Obama’s leadership inspires me because I desperately want to help other families avoid a fate that my family could not avoid.

It makes me shudder to think about the lives of these young Type 2 Diabetics. Children who are my daughter’s age and are facing a lifetime full of health complications, doctor’s visits and battles with food. In every case, this life sentence was preventable. I am on board and ready to MOVE!

Toasting Oprah for dedicating yesterday’s show to the topic of diabetes. Thank you, Oprah!

Unfortunately, I tweeted this after I heard about the show from a friend who had not watched the program and before I saw it for myself. Despite my mistake, I do hope you will consider following me on twitter.  I promise that I will not make this mistake again.

Pre-tweet, I had no idea that Oprah’s episode would spark a firestorm in the blogosphere.  I think that the sixuntilme post best summarizes the sentiments of Type 1 Diabetics who saw the program and had strong enough reactions to write or comment on other posts.

For families like ours and the individual living with this chronic illness every day, it is hard not to feel urgent about helping everyone on the planet understand exactly what living with Type 1 Diabetes involves.  When Oprah decides to direct her substantial megaphone to the topic of diabetes education, we are all immediately invested in a deeply personal way.  Honestly, I imagine that it would be hard for Oprah or Dr. Oz to get it exactly right as far as we are concerned because it is simply too close to home.

Nearly all estimates indicate that Type 1 Diabetics make up less than 10% of the entire diabetic population. Understandably, Oprah’s megaphone will be focused on the 90% of Type 2 Diabetics.  I only wish that the megaphone was conveying information exclusively focused on managing and preventing Type 2 Diabetes and not confusing matters by blurring the line between Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes.  For the Minority Diabetes Population [MDP] forced to live with a lifetime of injections and finger pricks, Oprah’s show was simply unhelpful.

The virtue of reinforcing risk factors for developing Type 2 Diabetes and highlighting key statistics cannot be overstated.  It is critical that sugar addicts like me understand that drinking one fully leaded soda every day translates into an 83% chance of developing Type 2 Diabetes.  After enduring a week of illness, Oprah’s show should be lingering in my head as a source of inspiration or ammunition to eat healthier foods, exercise and generally take better care of myself.  Instead, as the parent of a Type 1 Diabetic, I find myself preoccupied by why it is so important to me that people understand that as a mother, I could not have prevented Elle from getting Type 1 Diabetes.

Grocery Shopping with Elle

by Craig Welch

I wonder how many families around the world shop for their food once a week? That’s the ritual for our family and I think for just about everyone else I know. This is likely an American phenomenon created by credit cards, suburban planning and our work-life “balance”. I think that most of the world buys their food daily, or at least many times per week from neighborhood grocery stores, butchers, fruit and vegetable stands and bakeries. In other places, I imagine that the food is fresh, in season, has little or no need for preservatives and can be carried home in one bag. Like it or not, my family practices the American style of shopping. I try to stop at Carl’s Meat Market to stock up on the Bell & Evan’s natural chicken tenders and at Golden Harvest because their fruits and veggies are better quality and I like to support the local guy. Mostly, our shopping is a $250.00 trip per week military industrial exercise requiring lists, bags full of bags, an SUV, a credit card and if all goes well, at least one of our four children.

This week it was Elle’s turn. These trips present an opportunity to talk with each child a little about where our food comes from – well lit refrigerated cases wrapped in plastic? How to make good consumer choices – Spider-man gummies for $7.24 per pound or Golden Delicious apples at $1.29 per pound? Ultimately, they are learning how to make healthy choices to best fuel our bodies.

Having Elle along makes me realize not only how hard it is to make healthy choices about food, but also how hard it is to figure out what items in the store are really food at all. It’s one thing to try to make good choices from our fridge or pantry, but entirely another thing to make choices from a 75,000 sq.ft. box store full of colorful bags, boxes and bottles of chemistry posing as food. Even in our mostly utilitarian local Market Basket, the splash of color, bright lights and piped in music could be mistaken for a carnival.

As Elle and I start out, we remind ourselves of the rule about “shopping the perimeter of the store”. If we stay true to this rule, we’d be in OK shape – walking from dairy to meat to fruits and veggies and then to the bakery. This is the 1/4 of the store where the actual food is, but I’ve still not found a way to avoid diving into the middle aisles.

So we start on the perimeter with the glistening refrigerated cases of dairy products. Dairy is a good choice for Elle with lots of calcium, good fat and protein and not a lot of carbs to worry about. We don’t need much here because we are fortunate enough to have a Milkman. Yes, a Milkman! Just like the old days, we have a little white truck that drops off milk, eggs and a few other must haves to get us through to the end of the week. I try to get all of our milk from the milkman because it’s the only place I can get local milk direct from a NH farm. More on that later. One thing we always stock up on are Stonyfield Super Smoothies not just because they are great, but also for those times when Elle goes low in the middle of the night. She’s become pretty good at drinking while sleeping, and when you poke a straw through the little foil cover under the cap, it’s almost spill proof.

Then we’re at the deli. The whole idea of cured meat has never made us fans of the deli, but through Type 1 eyes, we’ve found a new appreciation in the giant cases of “free” food – carb free that is. Elle likes having a couple of slices of pepperoni in her lunch or some baked ham, shaved thin. Not that it makes much of a difference with carbs but I’ve never realized how hard it is to get something as simple as baked ham.

“Could I get a half a pound of baked ham please?”
“Honey Baked Ham?”
“No just Baked Ham please”
“How about some Virginia Honey Baked.”
“Any plain Virginia Baked?”
“Nope, just Honey Baked”
“OK … I guess”

Then it’s on to the middle aisles and this is where the label reading begins. The cereal aisle is a modern wonder of the world. An 80-foot long, 7 foot high wall of processed goodness. Shouldn’t breakfast cereal be one of those things, like bread and yogurt, that shouldn’t be too hard to get right? Elle doesn’t eat a lot of cereal for breakfast, but it’s nice to have one kind on hand that she likes so we start picking through some choices and studying our breakfast. Wow! Is this stuff even food? It must be food because most of them have positive nutrition claims on the front of the box. Whole Grain Trix? Coco Puffs are apparently a good source of Calcium and other Vitamins. According to the front of these boxes, these cereals are full of fiber and other good things.

What am I missing? This is what I find on the nutrition information posted on the cereal boxes – sugar, corn syrup, hydrogenated whatever and enough chemicals and preservatives to keep each bite bright and crispy until the next Ice Age. The boxes look more like toys than food. We finally settle on some of your good old-fashioned Cheerios and some oatmeal.

On it goes through the middle aisles – choosing, reading, unchoosing, learning and talking as we go. Is a 26g granola bar good enough to be 1/2 of lunch? What’s high maltose corn syrup? What’s BHT and why is it used to preserve freshness, and more importantly, why are they calling it BHT instead of it’s real name? It must have a real name right? We end up at the very end of the middle aisles and feel like we’ve made some good choices and some good compromises.

The rest of the shopping is easy – picking up as many fruits and veggies as we can eat in a week without spoiling. We start in the organic section because we’ve made the commitment to buy organic whenever we can and suck up the extra $25 – $50 per week. As I’m bagging up my broccoli, I’m wondering why we don’t put it in a box with a cartoon character on it like the cereal. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll work on that?

Grocery shopping is like anything else where making good choices requires making the time and having the resources to make choices. With all of the choices we have, trying to do all of this in 45 minutes is nuts. It’s very hard to find the time and make the time to talk about food, to plan meals, to bring the kids, to shop slowly, and to read the ingredients.

While this is hard for us, it must be nearly impossible for millions of families with more challenging circumstances. This process would feel dramatically different if I didn’t have a choice but to bring all of my four kids together, if my time were stretched thin because I was juggling two or more jobs, or if I had a budget so tight that cost per calorie was the deciding factor. The fact is, healthy food can be really expensive. That is, if you don’t count the hundreds of thousands of dollars in health care costs that your kids and our country will incur later to manage their Type II diabetes. The cost of good food is a major factor at the root of our Type II diabetes epidemic.

I’m thankful that Elle is 10, and so has the ability to reason. She’s old enough to understand that we’re really trying to make good choices to keep our family healthy. When it does turn into a fight, I remind myself that this is not a fight between me and my child – it is a fight between us and the food industry. It’s not a fair fight when you think about all of the marketing power, science, and technology they have on their side. This is why we need to stick together and be armed with as much information as we can find and share.

From www.lifeistwosweet.blogspot.com

Type I Diabetes

This is the BIGGEST change in our life since my last entry. On Tuesday August 5, 2008 I took Kailyn to the doctor because she had been having a stomach ache for weeks. The night before it seemed to have gotten worse. She was crying about it and had not done that before, so I decided it was time to get it checked out. I was chalking the stomach aches up to nerves about first grade (which she talks about all the time) or just growing pains. During this time she was also eating a TON. She was ravenous all the time and cranky because of it. I figured this was because of an impending growth spurt. She wet the bed a few times in the last few weeks too, but I thought it might be a result of the virus I thought she had. Her urinating had increased quite a bit, but her brother goes so often this did not ring a bell for some reason either. Not odd for this family to have to stop 4 times to go the bathroom on the side of the road for a one hour trip. During all this time she started to look skinnier and skinnier. Her bathing suits were drooping off of her and the size 6 clothing we bought for the next school year were WAY too big. I did not understand this because she was 46 pounds which was within the limit for 46-51 pounds that a size 6 was for. (little did I know that she was only 43 pounds)

We had a routine exam at the doctors office. She had a yeast infection (her first ever), a three pound weight loss since May and we thought her stomach aches might be reflux. The doctor thought this might be all stuff left over from the virus we thought she had a few weeks ago. She had some cold sores in and around her mouth a few weeks ago, which is why I thought she had had a virus. He told us to get cream for the yeast and mylanta for the stomach aches and to come back into the office in two weeks for a weight check. If she had not gained weight in that time they would do testing.

On our way out the door he stopped us and said that he decided we should do a urine test and wondered if we could get a sample. We could not because Kailyn had gone before, so we decided we would get the next sample and bring it back to the office before 5.(when they closed)

It did not take long to get the sample. We went to get Sam at Grammie and Grandpa’s and she had to go then. We went and brought the sample and then went to Rite Aid to get the cream for the yeast and the mylanta. It seemed like we were in Rite Aid forever because Kailyn had to urinate twice and so did Sam (Sam constantly has to go to the bathroom). When we got out of Rite Aid I looked at my phone and noticed I had 6 missed calls. One of them being the Doctor’s office. I promptly dialed their numbe,r told them who I was and they said they would get the Doctor right away. (That immediately put a lump in my throat).
The Doctor got on the phone and said something I will never forget. “I hate to tell you this on the phone because I like to tell people this face to face, but Kailyn has Diabetes and you need to go to the ER at Maine Med immediately” He let us know that the Pediatric Endocrinologist was waiting for us and to get there as quickly as possible. The whole time I knew it was an emergency, but I was still hopeful that there was a mistake and the endocrinologist would tell us otherwise. WELL, he did not.

When we got to the ER the Endocrinologist was waiting there. He rushed us through admitting and helped us during triage. When the nurse was asking us why we were there I was giving her all her symptoms and Dr. Jerry (the Endocrinologist) pipes in and said.”and she has type I diabetes” Right then I finally realized it was true and our life was going to change forever. We found out later her blood sugars were in the thousands and she was a ketone level away from the Ped ICU.

I stopped blogging because it became too painful. Sam had been diagnosed with Autism in Sept of 07 and Kailyn Diabetes in August of 08. They both are doing wonderful now and we have been blessed with a new addition, Keira. We have our ups and downs with Kailyn and Sam will be in a regular K class next year and only has speech issues to work on, but I am still not ready to share our day to day life. Here is the link to August when our journey began. You can scroll to the bottom to see when it all started if you would like. http://lifeistwosweet.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html

Needless to say, I ultimately came to the obvious conclusion that anytime one has the opportunity to listen to the President of the United States outline a proposal for strengthening the economy there should be absolutely NO debate. In outlining his proposal to encourage the growth of small businesses in this country, I was relieved to learn more about the tax incentives he proposed. I was particularly intrigued by the idea of suspending the capital gains tax for funds invested in small businesses. Of course, as a student of political science and public policy, a Town Hall-style speech always leaves me thirsty for more details. However, I do appreciate the opportunity this format provides for American citizens to ask our President some hard and deeply personal questions on topics ranging from health care for families like ours living with chronic illness to how we are going to reduce the national deficit.

President Obama did briefly mention funding for the NIH and the need to advance medical research. Of course, I am always desperate to hear more emphasis on this particular issue. As Elle’s mother, I do not think I will ever be satisfied that enough attention is being directed to this particular issue. As an American, it is hard to imagine that some of this country’s best and brightest scientists, engineers and researchers are living abroad because greater access to resources for this type of research is available in places like the U.K. At the end of the day, I am grateful to be living in a place where protestors and supporters can come together to hear our President outline his vision for how to move our country forward.

To read the full transcript, click here.

The evening began with a buffet-style dinner for the Senators and their guests complete with the traditional fare of chicken pot pie. Apparently, this is a dish that Senators have been dining on for years prior to the State of the Union. Savoring the spirit of bipartisanship, we sat at a table with Senator John McCain and Cindy McCain, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Senator Evan Bayh and Susan Bayh.

Following my private tour of the Senate Chamber for a close up look at my Mom’s desk, it was time to head over to the House. Guests of the Senators were escorted to the Gallery past the Hazmat squad decked out in their space suits.

Perched above the House floor, I stood and watched as Speaker Pelosi announced the Senate, Supreme Court, First Lady and President into the chamber. As the President began to speak, I was in a position to see members from all three branches of government as they individually processed his words.

From a policy perspective, I was inspired by President Obama’s proposal to support small businesses. It is my hope that these measures will spark an Innovation Movement as described by Tom Friedman in the following NY Times Op Ed on January 24:

www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/opinion/24friedman.html?emc=eta1

My favorite moment, however, was listening to President Obama celebrate the First Lady’s commitment to tackling America’s childhood obesity epidemic. Despite the cynicism that pervades our media driven culture, I still believe in the capacity of our government to make change in the face of adversity. When I think about children who are handed a diabetes diagnosis that could have been prevented it makes me angry and profoundly sad. Our children are developing type 2 diabetes because they are obese. This is America and we need to do better for our children and we can do better.

The pundits will surely focus on why the Republicans stood and clapped during some parts of the speech, but not others. Commentators will infer and split hairs and question whether President Obama emphasized all the right points. Talking heads will ask whether he was justified in his criticism of the Supreme Court and show split screens of his remarks and the facial expressions of the Justices. I expected that getting to see those expressions firsthand would be the most compelling takeaway. It turns out that the most treasured souvenir from this experience is my renewed sense of possibility. I feel hopeful that Americans from both sides of the political aisle can come together and tackle our country’s most pressing problem. We must work together because this is OUR Union and OUR children are waiting.