For Stephanie McNair

Twelve-year-old Stephanie McNair won an unusual prize in an Internet contest for telling how she keeps her diabetes under control. 

Stephanie is a 7th grader at Rockwood South Middle School. Last October, she decided to participate in the AllowanceNET website. The website helps kids learn about business.

On the website, the kids design a weekly schedule of home chores. Then, they negotiate with their parents on how much allowance these chores are worth if they do them every week. 

After doing a chore, the kid checks it off on their website chore list. The parents can monitor the work report before paying the allowance. The object is to have kids organize home chores as if they were running a small business.

Stephanie’s most important chore has to do with her health. She has to monitor her blood sugar five times a day to make sure she doesn’t have a diabetes attack.

She takes a blood sample before every meal. She carries equipment that allows her to take and test blood samples. She checks her blood sugar levels. Then, she figures out the amount of carbohydrates in the food she’s going to eat. “Sometime I have to guess because I don’t always have nutritional information for each food,” she said. 

After doing the “carbo” math, she can decide how much insulin she’ll need to take. She injects the right amount of insulin into her abdomen. 

“If my blood sugar goes too far down, I feel faint and my heart beats real fast,” she said.

AllowanceNET recently ran a contest that asked kid members to tell what home chores their parents were most thankful for. 

Stephanie wrote: “I believe the chore that makes my parents most happy that I do every day is managing my diabetes. I’ve had diabetes for four 4 1/2 years.”

That answer earned Stephanie the top prize. She got her hot, new Razor scooter last month. 

Stephanie said, “My friend knows a few tricks on the scooter and she’s been showing me how to do them.” 

With her diabetes under control, Stephanie can lead a very busy life. 

In addition to being an honor student in school, she has ice skating practice three or four times a week. Last month, she was in an 18-person team that competed at the Webster Ice Arena. 

The team danced to the theme music from the old-time TV detective show, “Dragnet.” The members wore costumes that looked like detective trench coats. 

Stephanie felt she could have designed a better costume. “I want to be a fashion designer when I grow up. Since I’m an ice-skater, I love to design skating costumes,” she said. 

Since her family is Catholic but she goes to a public school, she attends the Parish School of Religion at her church on Tuesdays. That’s one of her ice-skating nights. “I eat dinner in the car that day,” she said. 

She also plays the cello. 

Of course, there’s also her weekly household chores. She earns her $5 allowance by doing them. 

She said one of her most demanding chores is baby-sitting her five-year-old brother, James. She said, “He can be a sweetheart. But, sometimes he’s a chore.” 

But, until she won the Razor scooter, Stephanie was taking a backseat to James in contest winning department. Last fall, he won a train set from the Nickelodeon TV Channel.
 
 

AllowanceNET helps kids organize a home business The AllowanceNET website offers kids a chance to organize their weekly household chore list into a small business. The site also gives help in negotiating their allowance with their parents.  Their parents can check their progress in doing the weekly chores. That helps the kids provide a record to show they’ve earned their allowance.  But, AllowanceNET is more than just a place to keep records.  For instance, the site give kids over 100 suggested activities that might go on their chore list. They also provide special “Diditz” gold stars for completing chores. These stars can be saved in their website account for credit needed to “buy” items from the site’s online store.  Items for sale include books, jewelry, posters, clothes and electronics.  If you’d like more information, Young Saint Louis.com has arranged for a hot link that connects to the AllowanceNET website (www.AllowanceNET.com).