The good news is that none of the kids caught diabetes at Charlie's birthday party. Phew! That was a close one. I would hate to receive that phone call from an angry mom or dad.

We had Charlie's birthday party at a little magic shop in an old, historic building. It was a Harry Potter theme. Susanne made great cloaks and wizard hats for the kids to wear and Hogwarts house badges with the symbols of the Gryffindor lion, Slytherin snake, etc.

The kids were good sports about wearing the costumes, though there was something ominous about the image as they waited for the magician's show to begin. From the back, the twenty kids sitting in lined chairs in the small "party room" with their hats pointing skyward and their long cloaks just barely touching the floor looked disturbingly reminiscent of a Ku Klux Klan meeting. Nice.

In the middle of the magic act, I crouched down in the front row and tested Charlie. 132. Not bad. As I was putting his testing stuff away, the magician called me up, put a box on my head and then drove sharp arrows through it. After the third arrow seemingly went in one ear and out the other, it occurred to me that I should probably add some "ooh!" and "ouch!" sound effects. My acting, however, was not stellar. I sounded like Ben Stein.

As a volunteer, Charlie made a cake appear with the wave of a magic wand and requested that it be "red like blood." Again, nice.

The magician could not, however, make Charlie's diabetes disappear. This caused an awkward and uncomfortable scene when I screamed out loud in front of all the parents and children, tears streaking down my face.

"Well, why can't you? (sniffle, sniffle) You're a !*#!@ magician! (sniffle, sniffle) Make it disappear!"

To his credit, the magician did make many smiles appear yesterday and Charlie had a fantastic time. And to top it off, the Giants won a thrilling Super Bowl championship. It was a perfect game, barring the fact that we spent the second quarter in the emergency room.

Charlie sliced his thumb opening birthday presents with kid scissors. It was "red like blood."