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I wish a pizza party could be just that. A party with pizza. For a parent of a child with diabetes, it's no party at all. It's a highly strategic military operation.

Charlie went to a birthday party on Sunday where the kids made their own pizza. I would have preferred a make-your-own grilled halibut with asparagus party. But it was not to be.

While most kids, including mine, had big, goofy smiles planted on their faces and the moms and dads kicked back into low-key weekend mode, chatting about the cold weather or gas prices, I was a wreck. For everyone else in the room, it was just another birthday party. For me, it was a hostile situation. I needed a plan of attack; I needed supplies; I needed a charged cell phone at the ready and an emergency medical helicopter on the roof prepared to lift off at a moment's notice.

I called home to give Susanne a status report.

"His blood sugar is 90 now. The pizza isn't out yet. If it doesn't come out in the next 10 minutes, I'll test again."

Most of the parents go around the corner to sit and have pizza, but I stay where I can see Charlie and he can see me. We spend much of the time communicating non-verbally.

The food and treats come in waves like aerial bombs. First m&m's - the tiny ones in the little plastic canister. The children, wasting no time at all, start popping the pill-sized chocolates like Rush Limbaugh at a pharmaceutical convention.

Charlie rips his open, looks at me about ten feet away at the bar and points one finger in the air. I respond with a consenting one pointer finger and a look that said "fine, just one." We play this game of charades for another six or seven m&m's until he finally flashes both palms toward me, indicating that he wants ten more.

"No! That's enough," I mouth back to him, motioning my hands together and apart like a football referee calling an incomplete pass. Or maybe he thought I was telling him to do the breast stroke. That would explain his look of confusion.

Having a blood sugar of 90 and likely dropping further, I didn't mind so much that he was having the tiny chocolates, but it just added more stress as I knew what was still to come.

The flying saucer-shaped individual pizzas descend into the room like an invasion. I call Charlie over to be tested. A friend follows him.

"Whoa!" the kid in the Spiderman shirt says after I snap the pricker on the outside of Charlie's index finger. "You're even better at that than our teacher is!"

Damn right I am, kid. If you like that, you should see what I can do with a 30- gauge needle.

Another call home: "The pizza is here. I don't like the look of it. It's big and thick - about the size of a salad plate."

I steal one slice from Charlie and then stop him from eating the last slice. I squeeze myself into the tight space between two tables filled with kids, kneel down and bolus based on Susanne's best guess. While most every other kid at the table barely touched their pizza, mine has to be the one who is keen on devouring every last morsel.

I'm sure I must appear rude and ungrateful to the parents who overhear me mutter "you're friggin' killing me" under my breath as the cake and ice cream gets wheeled out before a standing ovation.

Another call home: "There's cake AND ice cream! I shaved off most of the icing. It's a small square, maybe the size of a cupcake. How many carbs do you think?"

"Tell him he can't have both," Susanne says.

But it's too late. The only remaining evidence of vanilla ice cream surrounds his clown-like grin and he's digging into the cake like it's the last one on Earth.

I do love seeing Charlie enjoying himself and soaking in the moment just like all of the other kids. I absolutely love that smile on his face. I've said before that I never want him to feel excluded even if it means he runs a little high.

But, this was a mistake.

This was a big mistake and I feel terrible about it. That party kicked his ass. It was just a cheese pizza, but it came with the works. It came with the works for the rest of the afternoon and it came with the works into the night with horrible high blood sugars that refused to come down. We really need to nail down the square-wave pizza bolus.

Charlie's birthday party is in ten days. I'm thinking I'll stuff the piñata with scrambled eggs.