Ellory is 4.5 years old and she is a cowardly lion. Meaning that she is a coward (when it comes to pain), and she is a lion about her cowardice.  The first time we ever had to take her for a blood draw, it took 4 adults to hold her down. The other day Greg tried to remove a nasty splinter from her foot. The effort took 2 hours, a tremendous amount of screaming, pleading, and bribery, and culminated in . . . a nasty splinter in her foot. That’s Ellory.

Most people tend to be fascinated by the things that scare them the most and so Ellory is deeply fixated on Ainsley’s diabetic torture devices. She wants to know all about how they work. She wants to examine them. She HAS to watch every finger stick and insulin shot. She insists on it, and yet then cannot help herself but to engage in a strange stationary dance of trepidation as we prepare the test or shot. The dance increases in speed as we approach and she starts saying things like, “Oh, here it comes . . . it’s going to hurt . . . here it comes . . . I hope it doesn’t hurt too bad” until at the last she is vibrating right off the floor and speaking in terrorized tongues. Poor Ainsley.

Needless to say, I sat down and had a talk with Ellory about being supportive and not scary. The dance continues, but now she shouts things in English like, “oh, um, oh, ah, ah . . . GREAT JOB AINSLEY!”