***Coming Soon****
The tales of the our recent accelerated life and the joys therein.
Stay tuned.
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Tuesday, July 13, 2010
GFCF Update
July 2010
OK, we have this GFCF thing down. John Mark is an excellent self-regulating kid, too. I know this would be such a pain if he were a "food sneaker." So, thank the Lord he's not.
We have tweaked things and I've got things pretty fine tuned now to fit our particular needs. First off, it feels sorta like detective work to find GFCF foods that are yummy AND affordable. And then, after reading the aforementioned book (see last post: Going GFCF), we gradually pulled out of his diet all of these things, too:
A pretty good rule of thumb is if it's hard to pronounce, put it back on the shelf. Or if it's a string of initials (e.g., BHT, EDTA), put it back because it was such a long word of chemical soup that it's a preservative or some other artificial something we don't need. I've also traded out his toiletries for friendlier options, as well as our cleaners, etc. I'm trying to incorporate more organic foods into our diet, too. Yes, it's all more expensive, but I don't care if I see improvements in my kids. I'll cut a different corner elsewhere.
So, I'm an avid label reader now. It's amazing what good things we become and will do when we're fighting for our kids.
And John Mark continues to make improvements. He even notices and has verbalized the differences and improvements. For example, he told me one day that the thing he noticed was that all those noises that his brother and sister used to make when he was trying to concentrate on school, well, he "just can turn that sound off now in [his] head." And I understand what he means. Tom and I know that John Mark just seemed to [previously] have an "open mic" that sent any sound directly to his head and he was pretty hyper-sensitive to even quieter noises that most everybody else wouldn't even be aware of. He'd get more and more frustrated and distracted by those noises. Now, not so much.
So, thank you Lord, for all the improvements we're seeing and how our sweet boy's personality is emerging!
OK, we have this GFCF thing down. John Mark is an excellent self-regulating kid, too. I know this would be such a pain if he were a "food sneaker." So, thank the Lord he's not.
We have tweaked things and I've got things pretty fine tuned now to fit our particular needs. First off, it feels sorta like detective work to find GFCF foods that are yummy AND affordable. And then, after reading the aforementioned book (see last post: Going GFCF), we gradually pulled out of his diet all of these things, too:
- HFCS (high fructose corn syrup)
- artificial food colors
- artificial flavorings
- preservatives
A pretty good rule of thumb is if it's hard to pronounce, put it back on the shelf. Or if it's a string of initials (e.g., BHT, EDTA), put it back because it was such a long word of chemical soup that it's a preservative or some other artificial something we don't need. I've also traded out his toiletries for friendlier options, as well as our cleaners, etc. I'm trying to incorporate more organic foods into our diet, too. Yes, it's all more expensive, but I don't care if I see improvements in my kids. I'll cut a different corner elsewhere.
So, I'm an avid label reader now. It's amazing what good things we become and will do when we're fighting for our kids.
And John Mark continues to make improvements. He even notices and has verbalized the differences and improvements. For example, he told me one day that the thing he noticed was that all those noises that his brother and sister used to make when he was trying to concentrate on school, well, he "just can turn that sound off now in [his] head." And I understand what he means. Tom and I know that John Mark just seemed to [previously] have an "open mic" that sent any sound directly to his head and he was pretty hyper-sensitive to even quieter noises that most everybody else wouldn't even be aware of. He'd get more and more frustrated and distracted by those noises. Now, not so much.
So, thank you Lord, for all the improvements we're seeing and how our sweet boy's personality is emerging!
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Going GFCF
1/12/10
Okay, newest developments: I started John Mark who has Asperger's Syndrome on the GFCF (gluten-free, casein free) diet about six months ago. The GFCF diet is thought to help with autistic like symptoms. Gluten is found in breads, crackers, cakes, grains like wheat, rye, etc. Casein is in all dairy products like milk, cheese, yogurts, etc. The short of it is that it is theorized that gluten and casein act like little opinoids (think "opiate-like") in their bodies and cause all kinds of havoc. So, you remove the gluten and casein, give the gut time to heal, and autistic symptoms lessen. That's a MAJOR oversimplification of things, but you have Google just like I do. Look at http://www.gfcfdiet.com/ or other sites and you'll get the jist of it.
All that to say, WOW! This is really, really making a difference with our sweet boy. We've removed gluten and casein from his diet and he is becoming a different boy! I am so pleased with the results we're seeing. He has much better eye contact, he is funny ON PURPOSE, he is more "with it" and engaged in conversations, he is just sorta "waking up." He's always been very high functioning, so I'd poo-pooed on the idea of going GFCF thinking that the benefits wouldn't outweigh the hassle and expense. Well, my humble pie is going down much easier to see my wonderful boy and his personality come out.
We've been doing this for about six months (since the start of the 2009-2010 school year). We have also added in giving enzymes too to help with digestion. I'm learning how to be a decent GFCF cook. We're making headway for sure. And it is worth it. I've been told that it can take 8 months to a year to see results. Well, we started seeing results just a couple of months into it. So, we are staying the course.
One of my main resources has been the book by Barrie Silberberg entitled: The Autism & ADHD Diet. (see her website at www.puttingyourkidsfirst.com for more info).
Good info. Will post an update.
Okay, newest developments: I started John Mark who has Asperger's Syndrome on the GFCF (gluten-free, casein free) diet about six months ago. The GFCF diet is thought to help with autistic like symptoms. Gluten is found in breads, crackers, cakes, grains like wheat, rye, etc. Casein is in all dairy products like milk, cheese, yogurts, etc. The short of it is that it is theorized that gluten and casein act like little opinoids (think "opiate-like") in their bodies and cause all kinds of havoc. So, you remove the gluten and casein, give the gut time to heal, and autistic symptoms lessen. That's a MAJOR oversimplification of things, but you have Google just like I do. Look at http://www.gfcfdiet.com/ or other sites and you'll get the jist of it.
All that to say, WOW! This is really, really making a difference with our sweet boy. We've removed gluten and casein from his diet and he is becoming a different boy! I am so pleased with the results we're seeing. He has much better eye contact, he is funny ON PURPOSE, he is more "with it" and engaged in conversations, he is just sorta "waking up." He's always been very high functioning, so I'd poo-pooed on the idea of going GFCF thinking that the benefits wouldn't outweigh the hassle and expense. Well, my humble pie is going down much easier to see my wonderful boy and his personality come out.
We've been doing this for about six months (since the start of the 2009-2010 school year). We have also added in giving enzymes too to help with digestion. I'm learning how to be a decent GFCF cook. We're making headway for sure. And it is worth it. I've been told that it can take 8 months to a year to see results. Well, we started seeing results just a couple of months into it. So, we are staying the course.
One of my main resources has been the book by Barrie Silberberg entitled: The Autism & ADHD Diet. (see her website at www.puttingyourkidsfirst.com for more info).
Good info. Will post an update.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Marie Callender's Revenge
She had her reasons for "pause" when she put the chicken pot pies in the cart at Sam's last week. She thought her hesitation was more because of the salt content, the fat, the MSG, and all manner of "Good mamas don't feed their kids this junk" concerns that caused her hand to hover over the cart with Marie Callender's little "Preservative Pots" in hand. But she shrugged off the nagging sense of "Don't do it!" and put them in the cart anyway. All her reasons to cave seemed valid: her out-of-town weekend trip meant the kids/their Daddy needed convenience food. Football season was putting a time crunch on dinner time and it would be nice to have some microwaveable offerings for the kiddos. And so forth and so on. Little did she know.......
Saturday night, small Texas town. Youth league football game in progress. She was perched in the top row of the bleachers with two of her children. Third child on the football field keeping the water bottles well guarded. She was trying to set up the brought-along "dinner" which consisted of (mothers everywhere brace yourselves for the shocking menu to follow) two Preservative Pots (aka, Marie Callender's Chicken Pot Pies) (yes, it's weird football game food, but she'd already nuked them and the family was running late, so she threw them in the car with some plastic forks and thought they'd just manage). Back to the menu: okay, two pot pies as already mentioned, CapriSuns, and Little Debbie "Cosmic Brownies." (Fit that onto the MyPyramid.gov website.)
As the children were peacefully eating their chicken pot pies (yes, it's a little odd, acknowledged that already), she bumped her mobile phone.The phone came loose from the clip on her pocketbook. She began to frantically try to prevent its sudden-death plunge through the spaces on the bleachers to the ground several feet below. In a moment that shall remained frozen in her mental DVR for all time, the phone bounced around a bit, and then, alas, dear readers, landed in one of the children's pot pies. Charging port side in first. (The little hole thing where the charger plugs in, that is.)
For a moment, she froze. Unable to act. Staring at the phone sticking up out of the pot pie. She was momentarily reminded of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial from her childhood where two Brits alternately exclaim, "You goht youh peanut buttah in my chocolate." and "You goht youh chocolate in my peanut buttah." She also immediately regretted her new "small-pocketbook-woman" tack she'd recently adopted because that meant all hopes of a Kleenex, napkin, or even a child's Pull-Up as had been known to dwell in previous larger pocketbooks, were fruitless. She equally regretted wearing a hand-wash only, light-colored shirt with new pants which made the thought of wiping her gravy phone on the clothing an unpleasant prospect. So, she did what any mom would do: she freed the phone from the pot pie mire, winced at the sucking sound of the phone releasing itself from artificially flavored gravy, and began to lick it clean.
The absurdity of the moment was in no way lost on her; and her pride was somewhat bruised by the sniggers of fellow spectators (namely, two bratty teenagers whose view of a 37-year-old woman licking her mobile phone at a football game managed to break their otherwise laser beam focus on photographing themselves with their gravy-free picture phones.) The former schoolteacher rose up in this woman and she quickly acknowledged to the girls that she was, in fact, licking her phone and in her best peeved tone inquired as to whether these girls might have a tissue about them. When they gave their best Lindsay Lohan impersonation of a "Whatever!" shrug, she resumed her cleaning process.
Fast forward to the next day: her phone has now begun to operate in what her cheeky, impudent husband refers to as "random mode." It now seemingly has the ability to "charge" even though it's not plugged into any charger of any sort. It is also fond of the "CAR KIT" mode which she was unaware even existed. It makes a irksome chime UP/chime DOWN sound as it seemingly scrolls through its now scrambled brain for a place to land. It sound like a question followed by an answer; the tone goes up (question?), the tone goes down (answer!) "Pot pies stink?" "You betcha!" or maybe "Get a new phone?" "'Fraid so."
This downcast, poor humbled woman has spent the better part of this evening weighing the pros and cons of new gravy-free mobile phones for her and her husband. Her head is swirling from phrases like, "VCast," "Bluetooth," "VGA," and all manner of contract lingo that the wireless phone company sets forth. She feels a slight stab of pain/embarassment mingled with financial nausea at the prospect of indentured mobile phonehood for the next 24 months, and all because of a sorry pot pie.
The moral of the story is perhaps a bit elusive. Maybe it's about listening to your inner voice talk about MSG and preservatives because maybe more than your health is at stake---it could be your technology, too. Maybe it's about not taking weird food to football games. Or maybe it's just about giving one's friends the opportunity to laugh their fannies off at one's follies. Take your pick. And let this dear woman know which option you choose. But just don't call her-----her mobile is still far too screwed up to take calls.
Saturday night, small Texas town. Youth league football game in progress. She was perched in the top row of the bleachers with two of her children. Third child on the football field keeping the water bottles well guarded. She was trying to set up the brought-along "dinner" which consisted of (mothers everywhere brace yourselves for the shocking menu to follow) two Preservative Pots (aka, Marie Callender's Chicken Pot Pies) (yes, it's weird football game food, but she'd already nuked them and the family was running late, so she threw them in the car with some plastic forks and thought they'd just manage). Back to the menu: okay, two pot pies as already mentioned, CapriSuns, and Little Debbie "Cosmic Brownies." (Fit that onto the MyPyramid.gov website.)
As the children were peacefully eating their chicken pot pies (yes, it's a little odd, acknowledged that already), she bumped her mobile phone.The phone came loose from the clip on her pocketbook. She began to frantically try to prevent its sudden-death plunge through the spaces on the bleachers to the ground several feet below. In a moment that shall remained frozen in her mental DVR for all time, the phone bounced around a bit, and then, alas, dear readers, landed in one of the children's pot pies. Charging port side in first. (The little hole thing where the charger plugs in, that is.)
For a moment, she froze. Unable to act. Staring at the phone sticking up out of the pot pie. She was momentarily reminded of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial from her childhood where two Brits alternately exclaim, "You goht youh peanut buttah in my chocolate." and "You goht youh chocolate in my peanut buttah." She also immediately regretted her new "small-pocketbook-woman" tack she'd recently adopted because that meant all hopes of a Kleenex, napkin, or even a child's Pull-Up as had been known to dwell in previous larger pocketbooks, were fruitless. She equally regretted wearing a hand-wash only, light-colored shirt with new pants which made the thought of wiping her gravy phone on the clothing an unpleasant prospect. So, she did what any mom would do: she freed the phone from the pot pie mire, winced at the sucking sound of the phone releasing itself from artificially flavored gravy, and began to lick it clean.
The absurdity of the moment was in no way lost on her; and her pride was somewhat bruised by the sniggers of fellow spectators (namely, two bratty teenagers whose view of a 37-year-old woman licking her mobile phone at a football game managed to break their otherwise laser beam focus on photographing themselves with their gravy-free picture phones.) The former schoolteacher rose up in this woman and she quickly acknowledged to the girls that she was, in fact, licking her phone and in her best peeved tone inquired as to whether these girls might have a tissue about them. When they gave their best Lindsay Lohan impersonation of a "Whatever!" shrug, she resumed her cleaning process.
Fast forward to the next day: her phone has now begun to operate in what her cheeky, impudent husband refers to as "random mode." It now seemingly has the ability to "charge" even though it's not plugged into any charger of any sort. It is also fond of the "CAR KIT" mode which she was unaware even existed. It makes a irksome chime UP/chime DOWN sound as it seemingly scrolls through its now scrambled brain for a place to land. It sound like a question followed by an answer; the tone goes up (question?), the tone goes down (answer!) "Pot pies stink?" "You betcha!" or maybe "Get a new phone?" "'Fraid so."
This downcast, poor humbled woman has spent the better part of this evening weighing the pros and cons of new gravy-free mobile phones for her and her husband. Her head is swirling from phrases like, "VCast," "Bluetooth," "VGA," and all manner of contract lingo that the wireless phone company sets forth. She feels a slight stab of pain/embarassment mingled with financial nausea at the prospect of indentured mobile phonehood for the next 24 months, and all because of a sorry pot pie.
The moral of the story is perhaps a bit elusive. Maybe it's about listening to your inner voice talk about MSG and preservatives because maybe more than your health is at stake---it could be your technology, too. Maybe it's about not taking weird food to football games. Or maybe it's just about giving one's friends the opportunity to laugh their fannies off at one's follies. Take your pick. And let this dear woman know which option you choose. But just don't call her-----her mobile is still far too screwed up to take calls.
Friday, June 27, 2008
New Pix
I haven't put anything on the blog in quite some time. So, I thought I'd throw up (not in the vomit sense, but in the sense of "in a hasty manner") some recent photos of kiddos, etc. If you notice the glaring lack of photos of IP, chalk it up to the age in which one doesn't like holding still and posing for Mom (or anybody else with a camera for that matter.) I'll endeavor to put them with the newest stuff first.
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AM has the unique and limber ability to yank her little legs up and put her feet over her ears. As an aging late-30something brittle boned adult, I find that very interesting. So, I took a picture of it. Ouch.
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Wichita Mountains, Oklahoma
JM atop Mount Scott in the Wichita Mountains, Okla. (Please understand the term "mountains" is applied generously here. "Rocky big hill-type things in the middle of an otherwise flat landscape" would be more accurate, albeit more wordy and less brochure-ready. But they are visually interesting.) Oh, and JM's shirt (for all you chocolate fans out there) doesn't really mean he's a chocoholic----it has to do with his math program that has colored blocks to manipulate and the "8" block is brown and thus, called, "Chocol-EIGHT." He received this shirt from the MathUSee guy, "Mr. Steve." JM's very proud of it. 
Freaky dead tree. I liked. I photographed it.
Los Tres Amigos. Sunset on Mt. Scott.
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Here is our family trip to Arbuckle Wilderness, which apparently enjoys the distinction of being Oklahoma's #1 tourist attraction. (yawn) But, it was fun, and the children enjoyed themselves.
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AM was the recent recipient of a bubble machine. All the kids and the dog were equally intrigued by this $8 wonder from Target. And all the kids and the dog were equally committed to trying to catch bubbles in their mouths. Eew.
*************************************************************************************Wichita Mountains, Oklahoma
JM atop Mount Scott in the Wichita Mountains, Okla. (Please understand the term "mountains" is applied generously here. "Rocky big hill-type things in the middle of an otherwise flat landscape" would be more accurate, albeit more wordy and less brochure-ready. But they are visually interesting.) Oh, and JM's shirt (for all you chocolate fans out there) doesn't really mean he's a chocoholic----it has to do with his math program that has colored blocks to manipulate and the "8" block is brown and thus, called, "Chocol-EIGHT." He received this shirt from the MathUSee guy, "Mr. Steve." JM's very proud of it. 
Freaky dead tree. I liked. I photographed it. 
Los Tres Amigos. Sunset on Mt. Scott.
This is little Miss AM in the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma---back in Feb.08.
It's an itty-bitty flower she found that she wanted me to photograph for her.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Our trip to the GA mountains and IP's 4H victory on 01 Nov
This first picture is of JM strolling down the walkway to the waterfall we went to in North GA the week before we left. Not really a good picture of him per se, just thought it was an interesting shot.
Mom, this pic above is mostly for your benefit (or maybe not) of a view of the mountains to churn up memories of the "Grans' Mountain Trip" as the kids refer to it. The leaves were not in full color yet, but I'd bet they're just glorious now. (Cue gnashing of teeth.)
Timmy (IP's buddy who came along for the ride----was great for IPS to have a buddy along), IP and JM at the railing of the big waterfall we all hiked down to.
I love this picture of AM and her daddy admiring the waterfall. Isn't she great?
"Cowboy Jack" posing for a moment before he had to dash down the walkway.
Now to pix of the 4H Food Show:
These are pictures from IP's Food Show this week. In order, the top on is right after he'd talked to the judges. Then 2nd is Miss Priss biding her time while we waited for the Awards Show. She was wearing a Xmas dress accented by JM's cowboy boots (3 1/2 sizes too large, but she couldn't be bothered about that); she looked simply stunning. Third is a close up of the "delicious 100% Whole Wheat Bread" as the recipe was so named. 4th is when IP won his blue ribbon.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Lady AM
.
AM is old enough to go to a local VBS this year and she wanted to wear this dress tonight and that particular hairbow, as well. After I got her dressed, we even fixed her hair a little as well; she was soooo pleased with the way she looked. And I also thought that she looked so much the lady that I took her outside and had to take a few quick pix of her. The pictures of her hands I cannot quite explain----she was moving them around a lot and I was just fascinated with the way she was moving them. She looked so much older in that dress, but her hands still looked like the little girl hands I know, so maybe I just wanted to take lots of pictures of her hands to remind me that she's still a little girl even though she looked a lot older in that dress! You be the judge.
The Volcano Cake
You know about JM's recent fascination with Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii (and the 79A.D. eruption of said volcano burying said Roman city). Actually, if you are unaware or at a minimum, sketchy on your details of this monumental event in history, prepare to get a [unsolicited] education on the subject from JM.
So, in view of such a compelling historical event (not to mention JM's interest in the subject), I made a "volcano cake" for the kids last week from a recipe I found several years ago in Taste of Home. No lava inside, just chocolate cake with loads of orange and red frosting. (We had also made the cake during the boys' respective years of kindergarten in our science unit, but this time, it had newfound purpose for JM.) So, here are the pictures from the lighting (i.e. faux eruption----or as JM sometimes calls it "interruption") of our Mt. Vesuvius.
Photos as of late...........
These are just some recent photos of the kids. Top one is when we came out in April and stopped at the Texas Welcome Center. Next is IP at the Dinosaur Valley State Park in April (Mom, AM and JM in the background). Next picture is the boys watching a 3D movie with the glasses on at Daddy's house. Then the last two are from our vacation in May. These last two pictures were taken at the Castillo de San Marcos, in St. Augustine, Florida.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
AM's New Haircut
A little trim for AM turned into more than I bargained for. But I think the results are still quite cute.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
IP Pix
You surely must know the cajoling and no-holds-barred antics I had to pursue to get all of this pix of IP. I can feel your cyber-admiration for my skills.
These are all down here in town at a park and a churchyard not far from the townsquare.
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