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As parents of children with diabetes, we are constantly being challenged with difficult decisions to make.

Charlie has wanted to play ice hockey for over a year now. He lives for hockey. He mimics the moves he sees on television from professional hockey players, pretending to stop on a dime and spray ice on the hard-wood floors. He sets up little hockey figurine players and simulates game situations. When he's not doing that, he plays hockey on his Playstation. And when he's not doing that, he and I play indoor knee hockey in his bedroom where he repeatedly takes ferocious slap shots into my groin. It's great fun. The kid loves hockey, is what I'm tryin' to say.

The waiting was finally over. I knew how excited he was for this moment, so I didn't want to screw it up on my end. I came with a simple plan:

1. Feed him lunch before he plays

2. Disconnect pump

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Charlie sat on the bench in a somewhat meditative state. Even the blank expression on his face seemed by design to be a strategy in which to conserve energy. If he blinked his eyes less frequently and stayed perfectly still, perhaps his blood sugar would remain above 100.

"Charlie, you can skate a little bit before hockey starts," I said. "You’ve got about 10 minutes."

"Neh," Charlie said calmly and without emotion. "I really don’t want to go low this time."

Who can blame him after last week’s debacle.

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Charlie's ice hockey session ended yesterday. After a rocky start – which I wrote about recently – I must say; blood sugars have worked out beautifully.

Without too much trial and error, we found a routine that worked and stuck with it for the remaining four weeks of the hockey program.

I tested him just before he took the ice, unplugged him and gave him a 20-carb banana (with no bolus) to cover the intense workout. Unsure how it would work out in the beginning, careful disconnection of his pump felt like an attempt to dismantle a bomb. "Work damn you! Work!"

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A few blogs ago, I wrote about feeling like a bad dad when high blood sugar forced me to deny Charlie the ice cream I had promised.

I wanted to address the following question from a reader.

My question to you is (and you'll have to forgive me since I'm fairly new at this) couldn't you just have given your son an option of getting an injection if he wanted ice cream? We have a supplemental dose for such instances.

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I was stuffing Charlie’s smelly hockey equipment into his big hockey bag when I heard Susanne from the other room.

"So you’re gonna tell the coach about Charlie’s … and she paused.

"Bad gas? Yeah, I’ll let him know," I said.

"Diabetes," Charlie mumbled while picking up a 2-7 spare in Wii Bowling.

"Oh, right, diabetes."

Ice hockey season started on Sunday. How nice it would be to just throw him on the ice and say, "have fun" like all the other kids’ parents do - the biggest worry being a potential blister. For us, there’s just so much to think about. So much "strategery," as Will Ferrell would say in impersonating George W. Bush on Saturday Night Live.

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Despite my initial rant, Charlie’s week of hockey camp was great. He had a blast. Once we settled into the routine and got the lay of the land, everything went more smoothly. After a week of tagging along with the hockey counselors all over the Princeton campus and dealing with some very badly behaved 7 and 8 year olds, I’m happy to get back to my normal life. Ha! Normal!

As they should be, the other kids were curious about Charlie’s pump. During the week, several kids asked Charlie what it was. Charlie educated a few and at other times, he’d defer to me.

"Does that hurt him?" one kid asked after I tested Charlie’s blood sugar.

Charlie held his finger out, accepted the prick with no reaction and then pulled his hockey mask over his head and darted out of the locker room toward the ice before I could even answer the boy.

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When I see 499 on the blood glucose meter, I wonder if it's possible that the small plastic device has a heart. Maybe it's trying to soften the blow - afraid to show me a number like 500.

"At least 200 of that is from him being excited to play hockey."

This is what Susanne says when I call her with the news of the 499 from the ice rink. She might be right. It was week 1 of ice hockey and Charlie's level of excitement was bursting at the seams.

300 would have been an acceptable number being that he had just had breakfast.

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Blistering hot highs. Blustery lows. Raging tempers like an April thunderstorm and even beautiful numbers as cool and still as autumn.

This was Sunday.

The day started off promising. Charlie woke up with a good blood sugar. He hit the ice at 8 am for hockey practice with a blood sugar of 203 - a number I'm comfortable with when he's out there on the other side of the glass. After hockey, Charlie tested himself while we drove to my soccer game.

"I'm 98."

"Nice!"

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