One ice cream in a Mickey Mouse bowl for Ben.

One ice cream in a pink bowl for Maeve.

And one ice cream for ...

"Whoa! I’m definitely not having any," Charlie said, staring down at the number on his meter.

He showed me the 480 regrettably - like it was an F on a math test.

I peeled down his sweat pants and saw loops of bloody tubing. Charlie didn’t scream at the sight of it. Instead, he ran over to show Maeve, who was chipping away at her vanilla fudge ripple.

"Ew!" she said.

Like a good soldier, Charlie marched over to the big brown chair as I followed with a syringe loaded with 2 units of insulin. He leaned over my lap and I searched for an area on his bottom that wasn’t bruised from previous infusion sets. Not easy, I must say.

"Wait," Charlie said. "Would my blood sugar come down faster if you gave it to me in my arm?"

"It might," I said.

He held his arm and looked at me nervously. He is not a fan of the shot in his arm.

"You know, Charlie, when you get older, you’re going to be making these decisions on your own," I told him.

He shook his shaggy head. Man, that kid needs a haircut.

"So I’ll let you make the call. What do you want to do?"

He deliberated for a moment, squeezing the skin on the back of his arm.

He paused and looked at the needle, biting his bottom lip.

I'm proud of Charlie. He decided on his own that ice cream would not be a good idea at that time and he handled it maturely. By merely asking about the shot in the arm, he's showing me that he wants to take care of himself. He doesn't like the idea of being high.

He twisted his tongue and pointed to his arm then quickly reconsidered.

"My butt. Do my butt."