02 Apr Hop to it: Tips and Treats for Easter with T1D
Our inboxes and social media feeds are flooded with suggestions for managing type one diabetes (T1D) during food centric holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and even Halloween. Truth be told, it’s always a (doable) challenge whether sweets arrive in trick-or-treat sacks, stockings, Valentine cards, or Easter baskets.
Your child with diabetes can celebrate Easter and have every ounce of fun. Truly. Candy doesn’t have to be the focus. This profoundly spiritual holiday also brings plenty of family friendly activities–from Easter egg hunts to egg coloring, games, and more.
Like most celebrations of the past year, Easter looks different. While waiting for COVID vaccinations, we’ll be attending online worship, observing the holiday with immediate family, and hunting eggs in our yard and home (versus a large scale gathering packed with friends and neighbors).
Thankfully, Easter ushers in new life, hope, and renewal. Let’s embrace it! Tweak traditions or start new ones. We’ve got you covered with egg hunt options, an egg craft to dye for, an Easter candy carb sheet, and a round-up of resources. Let’s hop to it!
The thrill of the (egg) hunt
As Ellie has gotten older, the Easter Bunny has upped his game. Lawless hunts with dozens of families and marshmallow fights in the backyard have been swapped for more challenging nighttime egg hunts by flashlight and an Easter egg scavenger hunt.
Tuck clues into plastic eggs that encourage kids to find their bounty in a specific order. Each time an egg is discovered, a message inside leads to the next one, continuing until there is only one left. The final “egg” can be a gift, toy, or basket of goodies.
For a larger egg hunt, get in touch with your neighborhood group text or homeowners’ association. Ask families to decorate large Easter eggs on paper and then tape the paper eggs into windows facing the street. On Easter Sunday, families can head out on foot, in cars, or on bikes to try to count all the eggs in the neighborhood. We did this last year, and it’s ideal for getting outside and having fun while social distancing.
Cheree Berry Paper is helping the Easter Bunny (and harried parents) with darling clues ready to click and cut. Thank you!
To dye for craft: How to make shaving cream dyed eggs
If you’d like to try a new twist on a favorite tradition, drop the egg coloring kit and use shaving cream (or whipped cream/Cool Whip for edible eggs).
Warning: This is a messy craft. Be sure to protect your work surface and wear gloves if you’d prefer not to have colorful hands for the next couple of days. In our family, messier = more fun!
Supplies:
- Eggs
- Water
- Small saucepan
- White vinegar
- Large bowl
- Shallow pan
- Shaving cream or whipped cream
- Food coloring
- Bamboo skewers (or plastic utensil)
- Rubber gloves (see warning)
- Bowl of water
- Paper towels
Step-by-step directions:
Step 1: Prepare eggs
Prepare a batch of hard-boiled eggs. When the eggs have cooled, place them in a large bowl of vinegar. Let the eggs soak for 20 minutes to eventually allow the dye to adhere to the shells. Fill a shallow baking dish with a thick layer of shaving cream. (We used a disposable foil pan and plain drugstore shaving cream.) Spray the shaving cream so that it covers the bottom of a pan with a layer that is about an inch thick.
Step 2: Add color to shaving cream
Generously place drops of food coloring on top of the shaving cream. You can use one color combination for the whole pan or divide the pan of shaving cream into halves or quarters to create more color combinations. When most of the surface is covered with food coloring, drag a bamboo skewer across the top of the shaving cream to swirl the colors.
Step 3: Roll eggs
When the colored shaving cream is ready, put on a pair of gloves to protect your hands from the dye. Pick up a hard-boiled egg and set it gently on the surface of the shaving cream. Slowly roll the egg over the surface to completely coat the egg’s shell in the colored shaving cream. Place the egg on a paper towel and let dry for 20 minutes. Don’t wipe off any of the shaving cream until the egg has completely dried. Repeat this process with as many eggs as you have on hand, reusing the colored shaving cream mixture.
Step 4: Clean and Display
To clean the dried shaving cream eggs, carefully dip each egg into a bowl of water. The water will remove the excess shaving cream while leaving the colored design on the egg’s shell. Pat each egg dry with a paper towel, taking care not to rub or wipe the surface of the egg. When each egg has been cleaned and dried, add the eggs to a colorful display. Eggs decorated with shaving cream are not edible, but whipped cream dyed eggs are safe to eat as long as they are refrigerated.
Our eggs never make it into the fridge or onto the menu, but they’re the most festive part of our Easter décor. Ellie loves to display her “egg-cellent” creations.
Our thanks to Better Homes & Garden for the step-by-step instructions and video tutorial!
Safely enjoying sweets & treats
When it comes to enjoying jellybeans or chocolate bunnies, you have a sense of what works for your family. Our approach? As long as Ellie eats treats in moderation and monitors her blood glucose regularly to help minimize the disruption in blood sugar control, Easter (like Valentine’s Day before it) continues to be one sweet holiday.
Now, what to do with all that Easter candy… We’re sharing helpful hints (tried, true, and familiar if you read our Valentine Day tips).
Take inventory. Divide candy into three categories:
- Treating lows
- Trading in
- Dosing as a treat
Treating lows—We like the convenience and portability of candy. It’s often easier to carry a few packets of Skittles, some Starburst squares, or a roll of Lifesavers than a juice box. Often candy packaged for stuffing in an Easter egg makes the ideal fast acting carb when we’re on the go. We love the small bags of Skittles that come in at 16/17 carbs per packet. We’ve even been known to check aisles of drugstores, grocery stories, and super centers when seasonal items are marked for clearance. We stock up on our fast acting carb supply/stash.
Trading in—If it’s a challenge to dose; causes blood glucose spikes; or creates heartaches, hassles, or health issues, you can ask your child to swap the sweets for a coveted new toy, book, or experience (movies, indoor mini golf, etc.). We’ve taken the candy in a basket to a workplace breakroom and donated it to our local Ronald McDonald House (along with a more substantive meal). A special gift will last long after the candy is a distant memory.
Dosing as a treat—Chocolate lovers rejoice! This is your holiday! Hershey Kisses and Miniatures are perfectly portioned for a sweet treat. At the risk of sounding violent, we’ve been known to cut up Ellie’s chocolate bunny to eat over the course of several days.
Despite its high sugar and carbohydrates, milk chocolate has a glycemic index of 42, and dark chocolate only has a glycemic index of 23, which is in the low range (below 55). This means the sugar is slow to be absorbed due to its high fat content. For this reason, never treat a low with chocolate. The added fiber in dark chocolate also slows the break-down of carbohydrates in the blood stream. You’ll stay low longer since it isn’t a fast-acting carb. In essence, chocolate is fine when dosing but not when treating a low. (Thanks to our friends at Beyond Type 1 for giving us the skinny on chocolate.) https://beyondtype1.org/all-about-chocolate/
As always, check nutrition labels, google carb counts, and/or use this handy Easter Carb Cheat Sheet from Beyond Type 1.
As Ellie says to her Peeps (sorry for the pun!), “Quarantine can’t stop the hop!” We’re sending sincere wishes for good health and abundant blessings!