How I spend my Sunday afternoon

As everyone in the DOC knows, we as parents of T1's generally weigh or measure all of the food that our kids eat. Weighing/Measuring the food is hard for me. I love to cook and to feed my family but I'm not a measurer, I like to just throw in a little of this and a little of that. However for snacks and etc, I don't mind the weighing and measuring. When Kortnie was first diagnosed with Type 1, I would buy pre-measured packs of things, you know, like they market for school lunches and such, BUT those pre-measured packs are more expensive, and you can't just give those snacks to just your T1 kid because all the kids want what the other one is getting. So, I've found a system that works for us.

On Sunday afternoon, I spend an hour or two with the snacks. I have 3 kids, both my daughters take their lunches to school every day and I generally have extra kids after school and on weekends. So we go through a lot of snacks here at our house. Every 2 or 3 months we go over to Flagstaff or down to Phoenix and we shop at Sam's Club or Costco. The kids are usually with us, so we let them have a say in what we pick to buy. Sometimes I do still buy pre-packaged things like Granola bars, (they love the Nature Valley, chewy Peanut Butter bar things), sometimes those Handi-Snacks things with the spreadable cheese and crackers, Slim Jim's, and Fruit Snacks. We also get the bigger packages and jars of things like Goldfish, Applesauce, crackers (Ritz, Butter crackers, Triscuts, Wheat Thins), Peanuts, Pistachio's, Yogurt. We've also done things like pretzels, grapes, popcorn, and chips. On Sunday afternoon's, I divy up those bigger packages of snacks into small snack size ziplock bags and small containers. I weigh them out and put them in the containers and write the amount of carbs on the bag. Most of the time I do 1/2 servings. I do around 10-15 little baggies of each snack for my 3 kids and put them in a basket in the pantry, I tell them that's all they get for the week, so not to eat them all right away. Here is the finished product, this day, I did Ritz crackers, Strawberry Yogurt, Vanilla Yogurt, Applesauce, Goldfish, Pistachios, Peanuts, and small containers of Jif Peanut Butter.

Goldfish 15g is 10gc. I but a big box of Goldfish at Sam's Club, there are 3 1# bags in each box, when I open up a bag, I pour it into a #10can so they stay fresh and it's easy to scoop some of the fish out to weigh. (one serving is 30g Goldfish~20gc, I do 1/2 serving of this one)
With my Sharpie, I write the number of carbs on the outside of the baggie, this way, my kids, babysitter, husband, and I know how many carbs are in the snack already.

Peanuts, 10g is 5gc. Most of the time, Kortnie can have 10g peanuts as a "free snack", meaning she doesn't need to have insulin to cover it.

I buy these larger sized containers of Strawberry and Vanilla Yogurt and repackage it into these smaller containers. I do 112g yogurt is 18gc. This is another one that I half, the container says 225g (1 cup) yogurt is 36gc carbs. I don't think my little ones need a full cup of yogurt.

Applesauce 126g is 22gc. I buy this at Sam's Club too. For the yogurt and applesauce I bought these small Ziplock brand containers (they had Box Tops on them, were small enough, and reasonably priced). I put a piece of tape on top of the lid and use a Sharpie marker to write the number of carbs on the tape.

The girls take their lunches to school, after school, they come home do their homework and pack their lunches for the next day. I always stay at the kitchen counter with them and help them with homework and watch them pack their lunches, for Kortnie I write on a piece of paper the things that Kortnie puts in her lunch, the amount of carbs in each thing and then put down a total number as well, that way the Nurse and Kortnie don't have to add it all up when she's doing her bolus. Usually they'll take something a "main dish" type of something, (cheese, crackers, and meat, a sandwich, or a thermos of soup or leftovers. Then they get to pick one or two other snacks to go with. For instance today Kortnie took a thermos with Chicken Noodle Soup, Vanilla Yogurt and 9gc worth of Chocolate Chips to mix into the Yogurt. She took 5gc worth of Peanuts for her Recess snack.