"Come on, baby, hop up here. I need to check your sugar."

"No, mama, no check sugar." She cries and tries to hide her fingers in her clenched hands.

"Yes, honey, we have to. I know you don't like it, but we have to do it."

"I don't yike it," she replies.

"I know, but the doctor says we have to do it." She loves the doctor, so she complies, gingerly holding out a finger.

I cock the lancing device and push the button. She flinches as the spring thwongs the lancet into her tiny, little finger. Crimson blood pearls out on to the test strip, the meter beeps and does its quick backwards count from five.

She sticks her finger in her mouth, sucking the blood off, as she's seen her big sister do countless times. Then she holds the finger up to me.

"You tiss it, mama."

I kiss her finger and tousle her hair.

"Put a yid on it, mama."

"A what? A lid?"

"Yiss. Put a yid on my finner."

"A bandage? You want a bandage?"

"Yiss. A yid."

I retrieve the tiny little bandage from the bathroom cabinet and wrap it around her still-oozing finger.

"We'll have to go buy you some pretty bandages this weekend, baby."

"Ok, mama." And she gets down and toddles off to build block towers.

I check her number. 136. Crap. That's 2 hours post-prandial. If this were Olivia, I would love that number, but I'm not so sure. I log it and move on with my day, with the niggling worry always with me, just below the surface, waiting to claw at me again.