I took Charlie to a party on Saturday. It was in a large, old church hall with high wooden rafters and lots of wide-open space. When we opened the door, Charlie sprinted like a racehorse out of the gate, joining his friends who were busy whipping rubber balls at each other's heads at high velocity.

We had already discussed that we were going to pass on the pizza and Charlie was cool with that. Although many college students (and my high school humanities teacher) would be of a different opinion, Charlie does not like being high all night.

Charlie has an interesting way of describing things. He tends to invent his own words that end in "er." For example, for a party like this one, he would typically wonder if there was going to be a "jumper" there. Translation - a trampoline.

When talking hockey, he doesn't say he wants to play the position of forward. He would say, "I want to be a forwarder."

At the zoo, he's always anxious to see a "hopper."

On the diabetes front, the party was going fine. The average bystander would have no clue that the little maniac going 100 miles per hour had a very serious disease nor would they know that I was the father of a child with diabetes. Though I wonder if anyone would pick up on the subtleties if we were being studied like gorillas in the Congo; if hidden in the crowd of parents and family members, someone was watching us, observing the way the adult and child diabetic interact with each other.

Maybe then they would see that the adult stares at his child noticeably more than the other fathers stare at theirs. Or maybe they would see that the adult approaches the child every 20 to 30 minutes to ask him something quietly in his ear to which the child mouths "I'm OK." Or they would see the adult and the child walking quickly from the center of the hall to a table where the child would sit and drink a juice box, his face flush.

They might also observe that the child had to practically pull the adult away from the balloon man when it was time to leave.

Sorry, but this guy was sick. Check out the chopper he made for Charlie. And he was just getting warmed up. He was The Vincent Van Gogh of ballooning arts.

We left the party a little early, avoiding the cake as well. No pizza or cake! A victory for the adult of the diabetic child.

Once he got his greasy mits on that goody bag, Charlie could care less about pizza or cake.

"Whoa! Dad! Look what I got!" he said, digging deep inside the bag.

"A Christmas Farter!"

Translation - a holiday-themed whoopee cushion.