Sick Cravings

 
Leave a comment

Nacho Cheese Dip

When the Geek and I were ‘trying’ to get pregnant with Mr. Charm, I was busy counting calories to be the healthiest I could be before getting preggo.

Consequently, I KNEW I was pregnant before I ever had a test when I finished work one night in Raleigh, NC, got to the hotel at 11:00 p.m., and proceeded to head immediately to the hotel bar for FOOD.

I had already eaten my entire days worth of calories, and by the time I got back to my room, I’d polished off another 1700 calories via a huge bacon cheeseburger, extra order of fries, EXTRA PICKLES, and gigantic chocolate milkshake.  Washed down with a Coke.

That’s not normal, folks!  

The rest of my pregnancy with Mr. Charm, I never had a craving.  Nope.  Didn’t crave a single food – well, except once when I really wanted chocolate ice cream.  We were out.  Bummer.

No, I just got HUNGRY.  Didn’t matter what – I wanted FOOD.  NOW.  And I think I even threatened bodily harm to my parents and husband one night when they were debating on where to eat.  GET IN THE CAR AND DRIVE – I’LL EAT ANYTHING, PEOPLE!!!

With Mr. Happy, I never had cravings, and fortunately, never even got The Hunger.  I pretty much ate what I normally ate, just a tad bit more.  (Any surprise I gained less weight with him?)

So I never enjoyed the ‘pregnancy cravings’ that so many women experience.  

Now, when that special time of the month comes?  All I used  to want was Tex-Mex.  Give me nachos, tacos, enchiladas, but most of all, give me corn chips with queso.  Lots of it, and I’m not sharing!

That’s about the most ‘craving’ experience I’ve ever had in my life.

I expected this elimination diet would make me crave foods; after all, I’m deprived of every-dang-thing that is edible – why wouldn’t my body eventually go “Please, for the love of all that’s holy, a SALAD!!”

Well, it hasn’t.  In my logical, rational mind, I know that I’m looking forward to the day when I can eat a full-fledged Subway Salad with spinach leaves, cucumbers, tomatos, bell peppers, and some cold-cut turkey, but it is FAR from a craving.

So, I’ve been pretty pleased with myself.  Smug, even.  “My appetite doesn’t control me; I control my appetite!”

Apparently, I am a weak woman when I’m sick.  Last week, if it weren’t for the frequent reminders from the Geek – and the fact that none of this food is in my house – I would have messed up my elimination diet completely.  

Sick Food is a whole different ballgame, in regards to cravings.

ALL I wanted to eat was chicken noodle soup (my homemade kind, with every-veggie-I-can-find and egg noodles), saltine crackers, and tacos.

Back when I was a Single Gal, if I knew I was getting sick, I’d head into the kitchen before I got too weak and make two things: a pot of my chicken soup, and a big ol’ mess of taco meat.

Then, when I was all icky, I’d start with eating my chicken soup, and when my tummy felt like it could handle more substantial fare, it was super easy to heat up taco meat and make myself as many tacos as I could handle any time I was hungry.

It kind of got to be my ‘thing’.  

I guess my body remembers that, because dear, sweet God, I WANTED SOME DAMN TACOS last week!!

Guess I’m not immune to cravings after all.

I’m just glad I stripped my kitchen clean of unsafe foods.  Otherwise, I’d be overcome with guilt this week.  ‘Cause I KNOW I would have broken my diet for a taco.

What crazy cravings do you have when you’re sick?

An Ode to Pediatricians. Or a Rant. Either Way.

 
7 Comments

Whew.  What a rough two weeks here at the Rocking Casa.  First I lost my voice, then an FPIES reaction, then the stomach bug from hell (and another minor FPIES reaction, but it’s all over now).

Stick a fork in me; I’m done!

So the question came to my mind: where exactly did we GET a stomach bug?

We’re shut-ins, after all.  The Geek barely interacts with (maybe) two to three people in his work – there are benefits to being a computer dude, after all, and tele-Skype-emailing is one of them.  So…who had the cooties?

In my humble opinion, we got it from the ‘new’ pediatrician we were trying out.  Wednesday two weeks ago, I was concerned about Mr. Happy’s poop.  He’d dropped down to only pooping three times in nine days.  That was a drastic drop off for him, but I wasn’t terribly concerned yet.  Still, the Geek said “Why don’t you take him to the doctor?  In fact, why don’t you take him to the new doctor we want to see?”

We have been thinking of changing pediatricians for a while now.  We like our pediatrician.  She’s a very nice lady and she seriously likes kiddos.  But for the last 6 or 7 months, her office has been changing quite a bit.  There’s been an increase in staff, a turnover in staff, and we didn’t really know anyone there anymore.  It felt impersonal and topsy-turvy, when it once was warm and friendly.

Furthermore, she missed the diagnosis of pneumonia in Mr. Happy back in July, and had we listened to her advice instead of our guts, he very well could have died.  That’s scary stuff.

Even with all of that, the biggest reason we wanted to shop around was because she doesn’t have hospital privileges at the hospital we will be taking our kids to should they need an ER visit in the future.  And we hate the hospital she does have privileges at.

In July, the pediatricans on call at the hospital were from a local pediatric group, and we really liked their attentiveness, thoroughness, and the fact that they were willing to say “you’ll get better care elsewhere – off with you!” instead of having the big ego so many doctors seem to have and insisting they could handle anything.  So, that seemed a good place to start for a new pediatrician.

I had called to get the kids appointments with these new pediatricians many moons ago.  They are booked up MONTHS in advance.  I should have just made the appointments then, but I didn’t.

Well, Wednesday two weeks ago, with my voice still not working, the Geek got on the phone and managed to get us a squeeze in appointment for Thursday morning.  Rock on, babe!

So Thursday morning, I had myself and the two kids in the parking lot of the office at 8:23 a.m. for an 8:30 a.m. appointment.  Pretty good, considering it’s a 35 minute drive and – dude, it was 8:30 in the freaking morning!

I got Mr. Happy in the Ergo, got my purse/diaper bag, got Mr. Charm out of his car seat and made sure he had his sippy cup and his toy trains that he carries EVERYWHERE with him nowadays, and off we went.

I couldn’t find the door.

Seriously.  I’m not stupid, but I didn’t see an entrance anywhere from the parking lot.

So, we started walking, thinking it was around the other side of the building.

We walked ALL the way around the building, and turns out?  The architect decided to be cute and placed the entrance door at a weird angle where it just flat blends in to the front of the building, so if you don’t know it’s there, or drive up at just the right angle to see it, well, it’s a doorless building!

So we get inside, and I croak out in my muted voice “Mr. Happy”, and the girl starts looking for our appointment.  While she looks, I get my credit card and insurance card out.  Not my first rodeo, peeps.

She can’t seem to find us.  She makes me repeat our sons name.  She looks here.  She looks there.  She finally goes “Oh!  You’re in with Urgent Care.  They’re over in our Urgent Care building.  If you go outside, cross the parking lot, go around the building, it’s on the other side and you’ll see the entrance right there.”

It’s a good thing I was literally speechless, or I would have chewed her out.  What, you couldn’t have told us this crap when we made the appointment??  Ugh.

So, back into the wallet go the insurance and credit card, back into the purse goes the wallet, I drag a fighting Mr. Charm away from the TV screens, we cross the parking lot, go around a building, and sure enough, there’s the entrance.

Go through the door, repeat the whole process, and now we’re nearly 20 minutes late.

Thanks, guys.

We got checked in, finally, and were quickly taken back in to an exam room.  They measured and weighed him (27 inches long, 18.13 pounds) and said the doctor would be in shortly.

We waited.  We waited.  Then we waited some more.

FINALLY, after almost an hour, the doctor came in.  The first thing he said was “Sorry you had to wait so long. We usually run right on time, but I guess you were a little late and we missed our ‘window’ to see you right away.  I had to see the patients that were on time first.”

Um, I would NOT have been late if you guys didn’t have an ignoramus for an architect and have two different facilities but not bother to tell new patients that over the phone!

So, yeah, my feathers were ruffled a bit from our first meeting.

By the time we had sat and talked about Mr. Happy and Mr. Charm for a while, though, I was feeling much better about everything.  He’s a good doctor, I think, and has a good bedside manner.  I felt comfortable there.

He commented that Mr. Happy looks incredibly healthy, especially considering his condition, and that I must be doing an exceptional job regarding his well-being to have him looking so good.

Yeah, Mama likes a little “atta-girl” every now and then.

Then it got sticky; he asked if we vaccinate.  I told him that we would LOVE to vaccinate, but that so far, Mr. Happy has only gotten the Hep B at birth and the Hib at 4 months old, because his system is so out of whack I can’t, in good conscience, add anything else to the mix.  Plus, he reacted mildly to the Hib, and the DTAP has casein in it – another word for dairy – which he is deathly allergic to.  So I can’t get him the whooping cough vaccine unless they can find one that doesn’t have milk in it.

The doctor proceeded to tell me that “…we’ve had children in our practice die from whooping cough, so we’re a straight vaccination clinic.  If you can’t vaccinate, we’ll need a note from a specialist telling us that vaccines are contra-indicated due to his condition.”

Well, that’s just great.  So I have to get in touch with my GI, who is almost impossible to reach, and get him to write a letter to a pediatrician saying vaccines are contra-indicated – which, by the way, they are NOT strictly contra-indicated for FPIES, according to medical people.

But Mama’s of FPIES kids know that vaccines affect your immune system, your immune system is directly linked to your intestinal health, FPIES is an intolerance that comes from intestinal dysfunction, ERGO…don’t give vaccines when your child is reacting, take it easy and do one shot at a time, and maybe skip some shots so your kiddo can, you know, try a new food instead of getting a shot – because you can only do one thing at a time.  And kids kind of – silly, isn’t it? – like to EAT.

So getting that note for the ped. might be a little tricky.

Then I have to get in touch with our allergist to have her write a letter saying that – Captain Obvious here – a child with a dairy allergy CANNOT HAVE a vaccine with freaking dairy in it!!

<facepalm>

Even better, the doc then goes on to explain that they won’t see us if we continue to be patients of our current pediatrician because “…lots of people try to use us for our after-hours clinic but we don’t want people to take their kids to another doctor for an ear infection at 9:00 a.m., but bring their kids to us at 9:00 p.m., when we’d rather be home with our families.”

Well, the after-hours clinic was a large part of why the Geek and I wanted to use this pediatricians office, and we completely agree with not abusing their generosity in having the clinic open for after hours.  But I had already told the doctor that we were switching pediatricians, and why we were switching, so why is he lecturing me about this??

While all this lecturing was going on, I was paying attention to the doctor and not giving the kids 100% attention.  Mr. Happy used that opportunity to start eating the paper on the exam table.  I don’t think he ate much of it, but he got some in his tummy and gummed/drooled on quite a bit more.  I removed the paper and got it away from him. (This and the board book that night are what, I believe, gave him the bloody diaper the next morning.)

Mr. Charm, meanwhile, was driving his trains all over the exam room, crawling under the table, over the table, touching the doorknobs, knocking posters off the wall, playing with everything he could touch.  You know, normal stuff for him.  But almost certainly where he picked up the stomach bug.

In the end, the doctor said most kiddos start pooping differently at 6-7 months old; they’ll drop from pooping with every diaper change to sometimes only going once a week – or even less!

But, if I was concerned, here were some things I could try.  They all were either medications I already know are unsafe, or are things I’m hesitant to try (like molasses or brown sugar – hello FructMal!).

Again, I wasn’t all that concerned about the pooping, but we wanted to be ‘official patients’ of this clinic because that’s the only way to use their after hours clinic, and this way they’ll have previous knowledge of the kiddos in case we wind up in the ER again.  So, I ignored his advice on the pooping and said “laters!” and off we went.

The Geek and I discussed it, and we’re not sure the vaccine thing is going to work out for us.  We shelved the decision for the moment, did our evening routine, and went to bed.

Then Friday morning and the bloody poop.

It was enough to make us drop everything and start actively trying to book appointments with the specialists in Atlanta that we would like to see our kids.

I managed to get us appointments with the allergist and the GI, and it looks like January will see me and the kiddos Georgia bound!

I had to hustle off the phone because we had an appointment scheduled for that afternoon for Mr. Happy’s 6 month well-baby exam.  We went to our current pediatrician (the one that doesn’t have hospital privileges at our hospital) and you know what?  I really do like it there.

Her office is going through growing pains, because she’s trying to expand her office (almost certainly because of the Obamacare stuff heading her way, but that’s another rant) to make it easier on her and more profitable.  I already mentioned that I didn’t really like the changeover, but now that I’m getting to know the new people, it’s starting to feel more like it always did.

Because of spending so much time on the phone trying to get appointments, I actually WAS late to this appointment.  They didn’t say a word.  Just said “Hi!”

They didn’t bat an eye when I said no to the vaccines.  Just reminded me to call them the first moment I felt comfortable giving Mr. Happy his shots.  They took a look at his butt, commiserated with how awful it looked, and prescribed an ointment to help it heal.

They checked him out from head to toe, pronounced him ‘right on track’ and healthy looking, said they’d be happy to give us a referral to any specialists we needed, told me (again) how awesome a job I’m doing with Mr. Happy, gave him a book (she always gives kids a book at their well-baby checkups – isn’t that awesome?) and even complimented me on my weight loss.

It sounds sort of Norman Rockwell, doesn’t it?

When I got home, I told the Geek that I wasn’t sure we needed to switch doctors.  Bottom line, NO pediatrician is going to be able to help us with the FPIES/FructMal/allergy stuff.  Pediatricians are for runny noses, sprained ankles, well-baby exams, colds, flus, ear infections, and other run-of-the-mill kid stuff.

They’re not specialists.  They’re not for FPIES or allergies or FructMal.

A good pediatrician will learn at least enough about any special conditions your child has to make sure they give good care (not prescribing ‘bad’ drugs for your kiddo, etc.) but they don’t need to provide care FOR that condition.

Which, frankly, our doctor has done since the beginning.

She did miss the pneumonia, but honestly?  I knew at 10 in the morning that Something Was Wrong – Seriously.  I KNEW we would wind up in the hospital.  I PACKED for the hospital before we even left.  But…for fear of coming across as an over-reacting Mama, I went ahead and went to the pediatricians office anyway.

I knew better.  I knew I should have gone straight to the ER.  She should never have been in the position to examine him in that situation.

So.

Old doctor:
CONS – made one misdiagnosis that was a big deal; doesn’t have practicing privileges at our hospital.
PROS – everything else

New doctor:
PROS – after hours clinic; practicing privileges at our hospital.
CONS – unhelpful receptionists; gonna give us crap about vaccinations; gave us the stomach bug from hell (when we’ve never picked up so much as a sniffle from our old pediatrician in over two years)

Yeah.  I’m thinking we’ll stay with our old doctor.  And just listen to our guts better.

Anyone else picked up a funky bug from the doctors office?  Has anyone else ever noticed that “privileges” looks like a fake word after you’ve written it a few times?

The Stomach Bug That Came For Dinner

 
Leave a comment

Just a quick update on matters here at the Cradle Rocking Household.

We’re sort of on the upswing, but MAN this stomach bug has Wiped.Us.Out.

And did you know?  When my kids are sick – they get whiny?

I hate whiny.

We’ve been glamorously sitting around in various degrees of pj’s on the couch watching miscellaneous TV almost all day for the last three and a half days.

Monday, none of us could eat.  Tuesday, we made lame attempts at putting some food in our tummies.  Wednesday, I actually regained my appetite completely, though the boys in my life are still a little ‘off’.

I’m a bit worried about the kiddos.  Mr. Charm is just about refusing to eat.  He still points to his tummy and his throat and says “Owie!”, and he’s still having diarrhea diapers.  We managed to get him to drink one and a half sippy cups of water on Wednesday, which is FAR more than he’s drunk the last few days but still not good.

The only way we’ve managed to get him to eat anything is to break out foods that we either know are unsafe for him (fructose-wise, not allergy-wise) or are not yet added back in to his diet.  So, Wednesday was Cheerios and some A-1 Steak Sauce for his dinnertime steak.

He still only nibbled.

Mr. Happy had his full-blown FPIES reaction last weekend, and we thought he was all clear.  Sunday he only vomited the one time, so, we’re good, right?

Well.  Except Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday he’s thrown up once per day.

And every diaper has been diarrhea  but at least they’re not green and the smell is better.  So, I think he caught a mild version of the bug that has taken up residence in the rest of us.  God Bless antibodies in breastmilk…if not for them, I’m sure he’d be in the hospital already!

The Geek and I were feeling quite a bit better by bedtime Wednesday, but seriously…who would have thought a stomach bug could make you feel like someone vice-clamped your entire body so you feel like a gigantic bruise from head to toe?

I’ve been getting dizzy when I move, sit up, stand up, bend down; exhausted from SITTING ON THE COUCH HOLDING MR. HAPPY (seriously? exhausted from that?) and wiped out from making us food…once per day.

My kitchen is a disgrace.  I actually took a picture to show you what a kitchen looks like when every.single.person. in the family is sick simultaneously, but I’m just too embarrassed to show it to you.  <hangs head in shame>

Laundry is ridiculous.  Between being vomited on, and using linens to clean up vomit, the laundry room stinks and is piled high with foul piles of stuff to launder.

The best part?  I know for a fact that NONE of this will get addressed for at least 3-5 more days.  As wiped out as I am, as physically drained as I get doing even the most mundane of tasks, the kids and I will still be sitting on the couch, watching TV for as long as we can get away with it.

After all, the Geek is threatening me with the terrifying words: “I’m going to go to work tomorrow”.  HORROR OF HORRORS!!!

So if I’m alone with two little sickies, and I’m sick, too, just changing the diapers and keeping them alive will MORE than drain me for the rest of the week.

Eventually (like, by New Year’s Eve, I’m hoping) I’ll be caught back up and my house won’t look like absolute pigs and slobs live here.

<snort>  Yeah, I’m not holding my breath for that one.

This stomach bug…I don’t think I dislike ANYONE to wish this one on them.

On the plus side?  I lost another 8 pounds in three days.

Oh!  I have an idea!  Anyone need to drop some weight?  Come over to my house tomorrow and help me clean up (code: clean up for me)!  You’ll touch all the cooties in the process, and then, when you’re sick, you’re almost guaranteed to lose 8-10 pounds. It’s a sure thing!

This is my first real experience being conscious and sick with kiddos.  Is it always this hard?  (We all got sick once when Mr. Charm was a baby, but I was SO sick I was basically unconscious for three days and then bounced back pretty quickly.  So, this is kind of my first dealings with The Sick that hits us all.)

I’m hoping that sometime next week I’ll be able to get back on here more regularly.  I actually miss writing.  But I’m signing off for now.  Mama’s Tired.

Paper is Poison, Or, Why My Weekend Included Bloody Diapers and Vomit

 
3 Comments

Friday morning, Mr. Happy had a diaper FILLED with blood.  

It was so acidic, it instantly  burned his butt, leaving blisters and raw, bleeding open wounds in it’s wake.

I seriously thought I was going to cry.

Which just proves that my son is far tougher than I am, because I wanted to cry just from seeing his butt, but he-who-had-to-live-with-his-butt was a smiling, happy baby as soon as I got him cleaned up and re-diapered.

The Geek came home from work right away; my voice still wasn’t doing well, and he felt pushed by this latest development for us to immediately get appointments with the specialists in Atlanta.

We managed to get an appointment with the allergist, but the GI needed a referral from our pediatrician and we weren’t able to get that squared away before they closed for the weekend, so we’ll book that on Monday.

Then we left to go to the doctor.  We had an appointment already booked for Mr. Happy’s 6 month well-baby checkup (more about that later), and his pediatrician gave us a script for an ointment to help heal his butt.

He didn’t have any more bloody diapers that day, but I was so frazzled I took to the message boards right away and started asking for help.  

Once again, the ladies came through.  Immediately following his bloody, acid diaper, I was trying to suss out what caused it.  Was it the soy/corn from the grass fed beef earlier in the month?  The ibuprofen?  The methyl cellulose? Or something else?

The ladies pointed out that it wasn’t likely to be the beef, because too much time had passed.  A reaction might last 3 weeks, but it wouldn’t start 3 weeks after the trigger encounter.  Their money was on the ibuprofen.  

That didn’t feel quite right, but it was a start at narrowing things down.  Without really answering the question, but feeling a lot calmer, bedtime came, and off to bed we went.

Saturday morning I woke up in a pool of vomit.

Mr. Happy had ended up in bed with us, and first thing in the morning he had vomited all over himself, me and the bed.

We did a quick shower, stripped the bed, got dressed, and no sooner had I sat down with him than he vomited all over us again.

Another clean up, another change of clothes, and back to the message boards I went.

One FPIES Mama remarked that Mr. Happy’s reaction sounded JUST like what her daughter did after eating a board book.

DING DING DING DING!!

<flashback> Thursday evening, I found Mr. Happy happily gnawing away on one of Mr. Charm’s board books. I took it from him, but he’d had the chance to chew on it a bit first.

Friday at the doctors office, he managed to eat some of the paper they put on the exam table before I could stop him.  I took the whole sheet of paper off the table after that, but he’d already eaten some.

Thursday=eat a board book…Friday=bloody diaper.
Friday=eat exam table paper…Saturday=vomit all day.

Coincidence?

Sure enough, the ladies confirmed what I already suspected: board books are full of corn and soy, and exam table paper has a water resistant coating on it made of – wait for it – corn!

One brilliant Mama posited that the Ibuprofen had gotten his gut good and irritated, and the book/paper eating just sent his system over the edge.  

Sounds about right to me.  

All told, on Saturday he vomited 5 times.  By the third vomit, he was vomiting to bile.  He stayed a happy, smiling baby through it all, though that third vomit started to make him wince a little when he puked.  Isn’t he amazing?

He started showing early signs of dehydration, but didn’t get bad enough that he needed the ER.  He was still peeing, but not as much as normal.  The pee was still nice and clear, though, and his skin was showing good responsiveness and he still wanted to nurse.

So, we dodged the hospital on Saturday, and that’s a good thing.

In case I haven’t mentioned it so far, I HATE FPIES.

Sunday morning, he vomited once, but then was completely vomit/bloody diaper-free for the rest of the day.

The Geek and I were so happy and relieved by this development that we felt comfortable enough leaving the kids inside during their naps to go attempt putting Christmas lights on our house.

Partway through that endeavor, some friends from church stopped by with our loveseat (that prior to remodeling the house we did not have room for, so it’s been ‘living’ in their house for the last three years; now we’ve remodeled, and have room, so they brought it back).

They hadn’t seen the remodel yet, so we were doing the grand tour and Mr. Charm woke up from his nap.  He started playing with their son, a young lad of 8 that Mr. Charm thinks is the sun, moon, stars, and just about his favoritest young friend on earth.

Not ten minutes after he woke up, while we were talking bathrooms, Mr. Charm’s young friend came running in: “He just threw up!”

We go running.  In his two and a half years on the planet, Mr. Charm has only thrown up once.  It seemed to offend him so much that I think he just told himself he was never going to do it again.  So, vomiting?  Kind of a big deal for him.

Sure enough, he threw up.  I cleaned his face, cleaned up the mess, held him for a minute, then he indicated he wanted down so he could play some more.  I put him down, and about a minute later, he puked again.  

Sigh.

All told, he vomited about every 15 minutes for the rest of the day.  He shortly had emptied his stomach, and was vomiting bile, and quickly moved on to dry heaves.

The poor little guy was just lethargic, crying out in pain, and puking all day.

With a 6 month old in residence that thinks the world ends if he’s not held enough, and a sick toddler, the Geek and I were trading off bathroom/eating/cooking/cleaning tasks all afternoon.  Fun times.

When it was the Geek’s turn to eat dinner, I took the kids in for bathtime.  Hydrotherapy works, and I figured both boys could use a little warm water on their tummies (even though Mr. Happy had been fine after his morning vomit).

We played in the tub, and both boys were giggling, splashing and acting like their normal selves.  When we got out of the tub, I nursed Mr. Happy, and put him to bed.  The Geek got Mr. Charm dressed for bed, and we laid both boys down in the middle of our king sized bed – with layers of towels underneath them!

I had started having a weird feeling around the time I ate dinner, but discarded it.  After the kids were in bed, though, I couldn’t excuse it any longer: whatever bug Mr. Charm had picked up, I had it too.  

So now, the only person who can function independently in the house is the Geek.  Mr. Happy doesn’t seem to have gotten our icky little bug, but he’s kind of helpless himself.  So we’re all depending on the Geek to keep us alive right now.  

I wrote most of this post on Saturday.  I usually do most of my post writing over the weekends, using my brief half hour a day blog time during weekdays to finalize, rearrange, and edit posts I’ve written the prior weekend.

Because of spending my weekend up to my nose in vomit and diarrhea and bloody, acid poop, this is just about all I’ve written.  And now that I feel so rotten, I’m not sure when I’ll feel up to sitting down and writing more.

So, if I can, I’ll post this week, and if I can’t, well, you know what I’ll be doing.  

Blogging is much more fun.

__________

Update: the Geek got the bug, too.  Now the whole house is out for the count.  

Yip. Pee.  Ugh.  

Muted

 
Leave a comment

photo courtesy of imagerymajestic at http://freedigitalphotos.net

I lost my voice on Tuesday night.  At 6:00 p.m., I was chatting away on the phone, and by 10:00 p.m., I could hardly eke out a whisper.  Don’t know why – my throat was sore and it felt like fire when I swallowed, but I didn’t have any other symptoms of sickness.  I guess it’s just one of those things?

Parenting a toddler is…interesting when you can’t speak.  

I can’t yell at him from another room.  Instead, I must physically get up and move to where he is, touch him to indicate my presence, and get eye contact before trying to whisper whatever I need to tell him.

I can’t call out to him for meals.  Instead, I either physically have to get him, or tap on the plate with the fork until he looks my way.

It’s made me acutely aware of how much I “yell at” my son.  

It’s not that I always yell at him in a “you’re in trouble now, young man” sort of way, though there is a good deal of that (as we all know silence+toddler=trouble), but just a general way of how I deal with him.  There’s a lot of raising my voice to get my point across.  

When he’s being naughty now, I can’t do the loud “MR. CHARM MIDDLE NAME STOP RIGHT NOW” caution.  I’ve instead been clapping my hands, making the “psst” sound until he looks at me, and then conveying my message with my facial expression and body language.

What’s funny is, it seems as though we both like it better when I’m not talking so much.

He seems to be acknowledging my presence easier and faster than he usually does, and he is minding a tad – just a tad – bit better.

I also can’t repeat myself.  It hurts to talk too much, so when I say something, that’s it.  I think that consistency and reduced room for negotiation is also increasing obedience; he’s not going to get away with ‘cuting’ or ‘grinning’ his way ‘out’ of anything by distraction or just by my giving him room to think of a way out of his predicament.  He’s doing something bad, I say “Stop” one time, he doesn’t stop, and so he gets whatever the normal punishment would be (toy taken away, removed to another room, or single swat on heinie).  Period.  End of story.

And vice versa.  I want him to do something, I say it once, he does it or doesn’t do it and consequences immediately follow.  Easy peasy.  No muss, no fuss.  It’s so much less frustrating than constantly feeling ignored, for me, and it must be so much more clear and straight-forward for him, too.

I have the feeling there’s a strong parenting lesson in here for me.  After all, who likes to be yelled at?  And Mr. Charm being who he is (a rambunctious, curious, brave toddler) is often on the receiving end of admonitions.  It has to get tiring.  It has to get old.  It has to eventually just turn into background noise.  Wouldn’t it get that way for you?

So I’m thinking I should use my voice less and my physical presence more.  

Boy, that’s going to be hard!  You know, when I can speak again.

Have you ever noticed the way you speak to your kids and thought you could improve?  Tell us what and how, if you please!

Dextrose Is Still Sugar

 
Leave a comment

Mr. Charm on Sugar

I’ll take “duh” for $1000, Alex!

So, I mentioned how Mr. Charm was begging for a vitamin last week, and how I had to say no because it had sugar in it.

Well, I decided that, since it was Thanksgiving, I’d work on a few ‘treats’ for Mr. Charm to eat that wouldn’t strictly be in his fructose elimination diet.

I’m still fiddling with recipes, but I made a first attempt batch of pumpkin cookies last Friday night that Mr. Charm just loved!  (They weren’t up to the Geek’s or my Mom’s standards, so, still working.)

He licked the beater, licked the bowl, and ate 7 and a half cookies!

I couldn’t say no to him – though I did use the cookies as a bribe to get him to eat all of his dinner first.  It worked!  He cleaned his plate for the promise of another cookie!  Score!

It was so wonderful to see my son eating something so normal for a child to eat – cookies!  I can count on one hand the number of times he’s eaten a cookie in his life.

Within thirty minutes, I remembered WHY he’s only eaten a cookie so few times: the child is Ca-RAZY on sugar!

It’s like….the Tasmanian Devil on crack, y’all.  Seriously.

We started the bedtime routine at 7:30 p.m., as usual.  He finally crashed – and I do mean crashed! – a little after 11:00 p.m.!

Imagine, if you will, a 2 year old running in circles around the living room, screaming “yayayayayayayayayaya” the whole time.  Maybe that’s normal for 2 year olds; it’s NOT normal for Mr. Charm.  Well, unless he’s on sugar!

Believe it or not, it took the Geek over two hours to come to the realization that “Maybe it’s the dextrose that’s doing this to him!”  I didn’t figure it out at all until the Geek said it.  (Mama’s tired, y’all.)

When the Geek made that stunning proclamation, it made perfect sense.  But somehow, we had overlooked the fact that Dextrose is STILL SUGAR, even if it doesn’t have fructose in it.

It might be safe for Mr. Charm…but he still REALLY DOESN’T NEED ANY HELP BEING HIGH ENERGY.

So, he can have one – maybe two – cookies at a time.  And no later than after lunch.  Preferably after breakfast.

‘Cause chasing a streaking two year old around the living room two hours past bedtime because of a sugar high?  SO not fun for the ‘rents.

(Extra thought – dear God!  Can you imagine if I sent him to public school after eating a ‘normal’ SAD breakfast of sugar-laden cereal?  NO WONDER so many kids are getting drugged for ADD nowadays!  Those poor teachers!  He couldn’t sit still to save his life after so much sugar, and kids these days are pumped full of it constantly!  Connect the dots, folks!  OK – rant over.)

Do any of your kids turn into holy terrors after eating sugar?

Learning to Listen

 
4 Comments

photo courtesy of keattikorn at http://freedigitalphotos.net

Recently I shared some ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of my amazing weight loss with my online Mommy friends (from the Parenting Weekly monthly birth club group I joined when I was pregnant with Mr. Charm – yes, three years later and we’re still an active group!) and they were impressed and concerned.

Impressed, asking how I did it, and concerned, making sure I was getting the nutrition I needed and was making enough milk for Mr. Happy.

I assured them that I was making plenty of good milk for Mr. Happy, and then had to explain that because of all the fillers put in multi-vitamins on the market, I am currently unable to take any vitamin supplements to my diet.  I said how, once things are stabilized in my kiddos worlds, I’m planning to meet with a nutritionist to discuss what I need supplementation on, and then working with the compounding pharmacists to create a ‘safe’ vitamin for me to take.

Mr. Happy had to come first, and going on this diet was absolutely necessary to keep him alive and well.  I HAD to focus on him first – but soon I can start making sure I’m not causing damage to myself by taking care of my son.

Much as I love the weight loss (48 pounds in just under 4 months as of now!) and the fact that my son is THRIVING on this diet, I freely admit: it’s not the healthiest way to eat in the long-term.

However, there are some things I’ve learned by being on an elimination diet that I think are very useful for people in general, and they are things that will help  me to be healthier in the long run.

I now firmly believe that, generally speaking, our bodies are so out of whack from the way we eat in America that we have completely lost touch with ‘hearing’ our bodies talk to us.

_____

By being on a completely restricted diet, I soon realized that I do MUCH better when I eat three meals plus a snack per day.  Previously, I sometimes only ate once or twice a day (and wondered why I couldn’t lose weight).  I’ve actually had dizzy spells from low blood sugar from not keeping my body fueled regularly.  Since I used to drink Coca-cola like it was air, my body never had a chance to TELL me that it was in need of fuel, as I was supplying sugar to my body without nutrition.  Now, I only drink water and decaf tea with a little stevia for some sweetening; my blood sugar doesn’t spike from my beverages, so my body can now tell me what it needs from food.

_____

I once signed up for a gym membership and a personal trainer, who put me on an incredibly strict diet (worse, even, than the one I’m on in some ways!).  It was a completely carb-free diet.  NO carbs.  At all.  Plus, it was low-to-no fat.  I was allowed VERY small amounts of un-saturated fats every day.  And I was supposed to work out 5 days a week, alternating weights and cardio every other day.

I stuck to that diet.  I stuck to that workout regime.  I was in the gym for at least an hour, sometimes two hours, per day, and nary a carb and hardly any fat entered my body.  I was workin’ it, ladies and gents!

In two months, I lost a whopping – are you ready for it? TWO POUNDS.

Feel the urge to curse like a sailor over that?  I sure did.

Now, nearly a decade later, my metabolism ‘should’ be slowing down and weight should be harder to get off.  I’m on a very restricted diet again, but NOT working out at all (unless you count running after two energetic children as a workout), and I’ve lost 48 pounds in three months.

What’s the difference?

Today, I’m still eating carbs, and I eat fats.  

photo courtesy of Suat Eman at http://freedigitalphotos.net

Our bodies NEED carbs to function; they just don’t need as many carbs as we usually consume.  Too many carbs equals weight gain.  Not enough carbs, your body goes into ‘famine’ mode and hangs on to your weight for survival.  It’s like Goldilocks: your carb intake needs to be “just right”.  

Carbs are sugars, when you get right down to it.  Our bodies need some sugar to use as fuel, but we are overloaded on sugar in this country.  It hides in nearly everything you can buy in the store, and in everything you can order at a restaurant.  Even if you don’t drink colas, don’t add sugar to your tea, don’t eat sweets…I promise you are still over-filling your body with sugars if you eat the S.A.D. (Standard American Diet).

photo courtesy of Grant Cochrane at http://freedigitalphotos.net

Too much sugar stresses out your body and causes obesity, diabetes, and all kinds of other painful problems.  By cutting out all straight sugar from my diet, and limiting my carbs, I found the ‘sweet spot’ that Goldilocks would be proud of.  My blood sugar doesn’t ever spike, my body gets enough fuel to function but not so much that it feels compelled to store it as fat, and my health, skin, weight and general energy levels have improved in amazing ways.

Saturated fats are just healthier, in the long run, than unsaturated fats.  Your body can process them better.  While most of my frying oil is (currently) olive oil, which is not a totally saturated fat, I am consuming large quantities of beef, which is chock full of saturated fat.

photo courtesy of jackthumm at http://freedigitalphotos.net

What I am NOT consuming is strictly unsaturated fats, or NO fats.

I’m eating a whole heckuva lot like my great-grandmothers did, and my body feels a whole heckuva lot better for the effort.

_____

When I discovered Mr. Charm’s Fructose Malabsorption, we were all living on the FPIES elimination diet I started for Mr. Happy.  It was easier to cook just one meal three times a day.

When I suddenly had to cut out fructose and fructans from Mr. Charm’s diet, life became more complicated.  Now I needed to cook TWO meals three times a day.  One way to make this easier on me was to simply eliminate fructose and fructans from MY diet, as well, and make ‘safe’ hamburgers and french fries for both me and Mr. Charm for lunch.

Suddenly, I wasn’t eating as much onion, garlic, and carrot as I had previously eaten.

I also quickly gorged myself on the remaining honeydew melon and cantaloupe that we had in the house, as Mr. Charm LOVES his melon and he no longer could eat it.  I didn’t want the temptation around.

Dehydrating my Melons

Within a day of eating the melon, I was sleeping poorly, waking up with a headache, feeling fuzzy-headed and groggy all day, and having unpleasant tummy symptoms.  

I finished eating all the melon, and within a day, all those symptoms went away.  Hmm.

Eventually I branched out into cooking two meals for each mealtime, and when I did, I started adding carrot, onion and garlic back into my meals.  Mr. Charm couldn’t have them, but the Geek and I could!

Onion and garlic are still ‘in research’ stages, but I notice a clear reaction in my body when I consume carrots, now.  

Shredded Carrots for Carrot Chips

So I have determined that I, also, have at least a slight form of Fructose Malabsorption.  Which makes some sense; I’m 5’5″, and everyone else in my family is almost or over 6′.  If I wasn’t absorbing nutrients properly as a child from FructMal, it could explain why I didn’t grow as tall as genetics might indicate I could have been.

I have eaten (and drunk) fructose my entire life and never connected the dots.  My body was so out of whack, I literally could not see or feel any connection between anything I ate and how I felt and functioned.

Being on a reduced diet, I can hear my body speak.  And it tells me that fructose sucks.  

_____

photo courtesy of winnond at http://freedigitalphotos.net

I’ve been essentially dairy and egg free for over two years now, since shortly after Mr. Charm was diagnosed with MPI and egg IgE allergies.  After Mr. Charm weaned, but before I started my 3rd trimester with Mr. Happy, I had a brief two month period where I could eat anything I wanted to eat!  It was glorious not to worry so much!

Except…if I ate an egg?  I immediately had a stomach ache and cramping that lasted at least 4 hours.

And when I consumed large quantities of dairy?  My sinus cavities would become so congested I could hardly breathe.  Small amounts were okay; one ice cream in a day, or a glass of milk.  The amount of cheese on two slices of pizza didn’t seem problematic.  But if I tried to have all of that in one single day?  Hello, head pain!

_____

No, eating the way I am currently eating is not the key to long term health.  I eat too limited a diet to ensure my body is getting the wide variety of vitamins and nutrients it needs.

But it won’t kill me to keep it up for a while.  In fact, I consider eating this way to be one of the best things that ever happened to me (not counting the reason WHY I’m eating this way, of course!).

By getting rid of the competing messages, the conflicting data, I’ve been able to start truly listening to my body and hearing what it tells me.

This is only the beginning for me; as I add foods back into my diet, each one will be carefully ‘listened’ to to decide whether it works with my biology or not.  I hope that, in the end, I will eat a diet that is the healthiest possible way to eat – FOR ME.

And because of what I’ve learned about my body and my son’s body through this experience, I encourage everyone to voluntarily put themselves on an elimination diet for a few weeks, and then start adding foods back in.  I promise that if you do it, you will finally be able to hear your body speak to you, and in the end, you’ll be eating the healthiest possible way – FOR YOU.  

Plus, you’ll probably look SMOKIN’ HOT in short order, and who doesn’t want that?

Anyone brave enough to try it?  Let us know how it works for you!

This post has been shared with Whole Foods Wednesday, Real Food Wednesdays, Allergy Free Wednesdays, and Gluten Free Fridays.

Diagnostic No-Man’s Land

 
2 Comments

At my parents house, getting completely out of baseline! Still so sweet to each other, though!

Last weekend Mr. Charm had a poopy diaper that looked a little odd.  I couldn’t quite tell if it was mucous or blood.  Or both.  So, I pulled out our handy-dandy stool testing kit and put it to use.

Yup. Blood.

Nothing has ever caused Mr. Charm to have blood in his diapers except for dairy.  I know he ate 2 squares of baker’s chocolate at my parents house, but…that was well over a week ago.  Is he STILL so sensitive to dairy that he’s showing bloody stool, even so many days later? Or did he ingest something else bad that I don’t know about?

I don’t know.

I DON’T KNOW.

A week after returning home, and over a week since his last dose of ibuprofen with methyl cellulose (which the pharmacy assures me was NOT corn derived), Mr. Happy is still having reactions.

His poop still stinks like nasty buttered popcorn, though, it is smelling less bad by the day.  His eczema is still there, and it seems like he’s having reflux symptoms. Yesterday, the only way I could get him to stop screaming in pain long enough to nurse was to pile all three of us into a hot bathtub and let the warm water soothe him.  Even then, he started whimpering when we got out of the water.

I don’t know if it is his teething that is causing his reflux symptoms; I know he’s in pain – but is it from teething, reflux, or an FPIES reaction?  Is it the constant, prodigious amounts of drool he’s swallowing causing him to spit-up so frequently, or actual reflux? Is it the teething pain that is causing him to refuse to be out of our arms for more than an hour -total – per day, or is it not wanting to be horizontal because of reflux pain?

I don’t know.

I DON’T KNOW.

I’m sick to death of feeling so helpless in the face of my sons issues.  My fear at returning to work in June is starting to really effect me; I’m having nightmares about being at work and my children being rushed to the hospital and it taking me far too long to get back to them.  No one seems able and/or willing to help keep my children safe, or find answers to our urgent questions except me and the Geek.

Two years into being dairy and egg free, and at Thanksgiving our family sprayed a ‘specifically cooked special ham’ for Mr. Charm with a butter spray.  I know it’s complicated and hard to keep straight, but it still frustrates me when I have to – once again – outline what is unsafe for my kids to eat even after two years of dealing with this.

Doctors have been almost no help to us, thus far.

I do the best I can; I do better than my best.  I feel rotten about not spending as much “present and there” time with my kiddos, because almost every waking moment that I’m sitting still, I’m reading something about their illnesses on my phone.  I have to force myself to remember to spend active, quality time playing with and enjoying my kids, not because I’m trying to do laundry or sweep the floor, but because I’m trying to speed-cram an unofficial specialty doctors education into my brain so I can help keep them alive and well.

And still…I don’t know.

What do you do when you’ve entered a diagnostic no-man’s land?  Where there are no definitive answers?  Where you’re just making guesses about what is and what should be done? 

I. Don’t. Know.

We Give Our Two Year Old Coffee

 
5 Comments

On Thanksgiving, Mr. Charm snuck into the kitchen, pulled the trash can over to the counter, used it to climb onto the counter, opened the cabinet and grabbed the multi-vitamin gummy chews we used to give him, closed the cabinet, climbed down, and brought the bottle to me.

What ensued is pure farce.  

(Me, reading the label to make sure I remembered correctly.) “Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry but this has sugar.  You can’t have these.”

“PIECE!!” Mr. Charm implored loudly.

I took the vitamins back to the kitchen and put them back on the top shelf (the no-man’s land of foods not currently safe in any of our diets) and he HOWLED in frustration.

“PIIEEECCCEEEE!!!!” he screamed.

I wracked my brain trying to think of anything resembling a treat that I could give to him.

I offered potato chips.  NO.

Nuts.  NO.

Dried rice spaghetti noodle.  (I know, but for some strange reason, he likes them!)  NO.

Finally I threw up my hands.  “Baby, I don’t know what to tell you.  I don’t have anything I can give you that you want.”

He sobbed for another minute or so while I decided to start cleaning the kitchen.  Suddenly I heard a noise from the refrigerator.  He had opened the freezer and grabbed the Geek’s bag of coffee beans.

Eureka!  

“Baby, do you want some coffee?” I asked him.

“Uh-huh!” he cheerily replied.

(A little backstory…)  

Some months ago, we grew tired of constantly battling Mr. Charm’s persistent attempts to drink the Geek’s coffee.  The Geek takes his coffee with our homemade creamer, which is heavy cream, milk, maple syrup and vanilla.  Delicious – but incredibly bad for our milk protein intolerant son.

So, in the age-old parental move we decided to ‘break’ him of the desire to have the coffee…by giving him coffee!

We’re a totally caffeine-free household, so it is decaf coffee.  We brewed up the strongest batch of coffee we could make, poured it black and added a couple ice cubes, then sat back in parental smugness to watch Mr. Charm screw up his face in disgust and never want another drink of coffee again.

As often happens with such brilliant schemes, it backfired.  Mr. Charm LOVED his black decaf coffee.  He chugged the whole cup and asked for more.

Well, we know when we’re beaten.  The child can’t have anything but water to drink, now; no juices, no more stevia-sweetened ice tea.  So, we let him have coffee as a treat no more than once or twice a day.

(Back to Thanksgiving…)

I poured some beans into the grinder, let Mr. Charm push the button, let him help me get the coffee-maker set up, and he was grinning and SO excited my heart was just breaking.

How bizarre is it to say to your two year old “No, you CANNOT have a vitamin.  But you CAN have coffee?”  In the past week, he’s begged for the following items that I’ve had to deny him: bananas, carrots, vitamins, and whole wheat bread.  It’s absurd and frustrating! What two year old WANTS to eat those things?  And then to be forced to deny them?!

As I poured some coffee into his sippy cup (we cut it 50% with plain water) I started thinking of anything ‘treat’-wise that I could make him with coffee.  Suddenly, I had it – Coffee Sorbet! 

Mr. Charm was happily sipping away at his coffee sippy cup, so I poured the rest of the coffee into a bowl, added 1.5 TBS of dextrose to dissolve, and put the bowl in the fridge to cool.

Our new safe sweetener.

After it was cool, I got out our ice cream maker and got it set up.  I poured in the coffee and let ‘er rip!

Pouring the coffee into the ice cream maker.

Starting to firm up…

Ready to serve!!

In about 20 minutes, we had a nice iced coffee slushy sorbet-type treat for Mr. Charm.

I gave a sample to the Geek and his eyes about popped out of his head.  “Mr. Charm might like that, but ugh!  Bitter!”

So, I sprinkled some of his vanilla sugar on top of his bowl, and sprinkled a little bit more dextrose on top of Mr. Charms.

I wanted a ‘treat’, after all, not just an iced black coffee.

Ready to eat!

Mr. Charm liked it…sorta.  

He took his first bite and I asked him “Do you like it?”

“No.” he said.  “Uh-huh!” he finished.

Then he got another spoonful.  I honestly think it was the cold factor that was doing him in.  He’s not really sure what to make of ice yet, but once it was more melted and less icy?  He sucked. it. down.

“Do you like it?”
“No. Uh-huh!”
Right…

So, I think that’s a dessert treat I can give him every now and then when he’s really craving a treat.

I think this would be AWESOME with milk or coconut milk, though, so I HOPE someone will try it that way and report back.  I’ll put the recipe I would make if I could down below; let me know if it is as delicious as I’d expect it to be!

__________

COFFEE SORBET (top 8 free, fructose free)

-brewed, cooled coffee
-3 TBS dextrose

  1. Brew coffee.  Pour it into a bowl.
  2. Add dextrose and stir to dissolve.  Let cool.
  3. Pour into an ice cream maker and turn on.
  4. Serve when it looks like a slushy.

___

COFFEE SORBET (top 8 free)

-brewed, cooled coffee
-1 can coconut milk
-1-2 tsp. vanilla
-1/3 c. maple syrup
-1/4 c. cocoa powder (optional)

  1. Brew coffee.  Let cool.
  2. Pour coconut milk into a bowl.  Add vanilla, cocoa powder and maple syrup.  Stir.
  3. Pour 1.5 cups of cooled coffee into the bowl.  Stir.
  4. Pour the mix into an ice cream maker and turn it on.
  5. Serve when it looks like ice cream!

__________

Do your kids want healthy, nutritious foods they can’t have?  Does it break your heart, too?  Do you give your kids foods or beverages that others would be surprised about?

This post has been shared with Whole Foods Wednesday, Real Food Wednesdays, Allergy Free Wednesdays, and Gluten Free Fridays.

Grateful

 
Leave a comment

Mr. Charm last year before Thanksgiving. My Pumpkin in the Pumpkins!

Today is Thanksgiving Eve, and I’m going to be taking the rest of the week off from blogging to spend time with my family, finish getting life in order from two weeks away from home, and (attempting to) rest.

Before I go, though, a Thanksgiving post is in order.

Every November, we are encouraged by a national holiday to spend at least one day counting our blessings.  Often I hear people do this by way of self-chastisement; as in “I’m so selfish and arrogant to complain when other people have it so much worse than I do!”

There is truth to this thought, but the fact remains that each of us lives our own lives complete with ups and downs and everything in between.  Other people have it harder than us, sure, but other people have it better.

Don’t compare.

Don’t compare your blessings, and don’t compare your difficulties.  Accept your life as is, with all its ‘goods’ and ‘bads’, and on this Thanksgiving, focus on the blessings.  Focus on the good in your life and be grateful.  

Sure, charity should be in our hearts.  We should think of others and the needs that are going unmet that we may be able to fill.  This is right and good, and an important part of most faiths.

Don’t eliminate compassion and charity from your heart, but this Thanksgiving, don’t be grateful because you have it better than other people…just be grateful for the sake of being grateful.  

I’ve been thinking about what I am grateful for this year, and do you want to know what I’ve come up with?

Everything.

I am grateful for everything.  

It sounds so vague, doesn’t it?  So naive and childish.  But it’s true.

I’m grateful for the path my life has taken since the day I was born.  Every single thing that happened, both good and bad, has led me to this moment.  This moment where I have…

an amazing husband who is a good man and who loves me as much as I love him and stands as my rock in hard times,

two sons who are so amazing and wonderful I could peruse the dictionary for hours and not come up with enough adjectives to properly explain how awesome they are,

a beautiful home in which to raise my sons and build the foundation of their lives,

parents who are healthy and vibrant and who show me they love me all the time,

extended family that loves me and my family dearly,

gainful employment (even though I’m on leave, I’m still gainfully employed) in an interesting profession,

a husband with steady, gainful employment working with the best boss in the entire world,

access to the internet, which has brought me a wealth of knowledge about how to take care of my children via FPIES message boards, FructMal message boards, medical literature, Mommy Blogs, and even some new friends,

U.S. citizenship, which, while I’m sometimes scared of the direction the country is taking is STILL the standing bastion of liberty, freedom and a ‘can do’ attitude unparalleled in the world,

a better understanding about health and food than I ever thought I could have, which has brought about almost 50 pounds of weight loss in me and an improved quality of life for my family, not to mention kept the boys out of the hospital,

the ability to write, and the forum to share experiences on a blog that might help another family,

the grace of God, because I know I am certainly a work in progress and could never earn salvation on my own.

For these things, and so many others, I am truly grateful.  My life has been blessed in a million little ways that are far too easy to overlook on a daily basis.

Today, and the rest of this week, I plan to spend some time relishing my blessings and actively appreciating the people in my life who make it worth living.  I hope you’ll do the same.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!