Fab Father's Day Picnic at the Park

It's Father's Day, and we will celebrate the father of my two children by taking him for a picnic dinner tonight at Bellevue State Park to see Almost Fab, a Beatles "music review."

Here's the menu, and keep in mind a three- and a four-year-old will be joining us:
cinnamon raisin bagels
rye cracker bread
cream cheese
minced shallots
smoked salmon
sushi
pretzels
cheese cubes
brownies
juice boxes
water
Gruet sparkling wine (Method Champenoise, Brut)
*oops, edited to add: sliced apples*

*(and p.s. we had a blast)*

Is there any way to help in Myanmar?

I know I'm not the only one puzzling this out. I read today that U.S. Navy ships full of provisions are leaving the coast of Myanmar tomorrow (Thursday), after having been shut out for three weeks.

This page at USAID gives a chronological overview of relief efforts and response by the Government of Burma. Things do not look positive for further relief delivery.

We have not donated to an agency specifically for Cyclone Nargis relief because I have been waiting and watching to see which could best use our money. But now I am more discouraged than ever. I know any gift to the major relief agencies will be used to help people somewhere, but I felt I needed to give to this particular area since the devestation was so enormously felt.

Has anyone worked out a giving solution for Myanmar that they would feel comfortable sharing?

Back to Usual

Well, I threw in the towel yesterday. I couldn't take the mental stresses of not eating gluten and dairy! I am keeping our diet very low in both. N's behavior was not wonderful when we started the diet, but that may be attributed to the end of preschool and beginning of a long summer. He is not very good with milestone transitions.

I learned quite a bit about the science of baking, alternate grains, health and nutrition, and psychology as we prepared for and undertook the experiment. It is not all for a loss.

On an interesting note: D did not have the crabbiness that the rest of us had. In fact, over the six days of the strict elimination diet, he said he woke up every morning feeling more rested than he had in years. That is something for us to ponder.

When the cure kills the patient

I suppose the basic issue is that we (meaning my son, daughter, and myself) have been addicted to gluten--and possibly dairy--our entire lives. So, we find ourselves acting really poorly lo these four days. My husband is doing fine, he says. (But he gets to spend ten hours a day outside of our not-so-happy house.)

Frankly, I don't know how much longer I can handle my son's non-stop movement and my daughter's whining. Myself, I am hanging on by a thread. Every single thing in my environment BUGS THE LIVING HELL OUT OF ME.

We were all such a ball of joy today, running our errands and amazing our fellow shoppers at the depths of our incivility. As we paused in a playground outside the children's hospital where my daughter had an appointment, I tearfully called my husband to ask if he thought I should cancel the diet test. He said he would support me whatever I decided, because he understood it was important that I find a cause for the kids' and my own range of maladies.

When I got home this afternoon, after I had unpacked the groceries, helped the kids unburden themselves and find something to do, returned a few phone calls, fed and took out the dogs, tended to my own needs, and drank some water (AND BELIEVE ME THIS SEEMED TO TAKE TWO YEARS OFF MY LIFE), it occurred to me that maybe I was having withdrawal from something. So I Googled "gluten withdrawal." Voila.

I've always freely admitted to using food as medication. Dunkin Donuts got me through some dark days in graduate school. Popeye's biscuits softened the blow of divorce.

Wise people say that what you crave most is likely what is doing you the least good. This time, I may have to cede to my demons. My life is far too complicated right now to be dealing with a new panel of troubles brought on by such drastic alterations.

I am going to take us one more day into the FAILSAFE, gluten-free, casein-free wonderland, taking moments throughout the day to consider what smaller steps we could take for our health and well-being. Certainly we will continue to avoid artifical food dyes, preservatives, and glutamates. I would also like to keep the shampoo, soap, and toothpaste contamination to a minimum.

Gluten and casein? I'm thinking on it.

Elimination Diet, Day 3

N's scalp still red, but he seems to be itching/scratching his face and head less. Me? I'm crabbier than hell and tired to boot.

Breakfast:
buckwheat pancakes (REALLY successful FAILSAFE, GF, CF recipe I will post tomorrow)
rice milk for kids

Snack:
oatmeal and maple syrup
raw cashews

Lunch:
celery sticks and rice cakes with hummus dip (NO lemon juice or tahini, instead, a dash of citric acid; rice bran oil for olive)
leftover pancakes
oatmeal cookies

Snack:
popsicle
leftover lentils and millet from last night

Dinner:
scrambled eggs and kettle chips for the kids
omelette with diced sauteed potatoes and scallions for grown folk
green beans
iceberg lettuce with oil, dash of citric acid, garlic powder and salt

By the way, the kids were all over dinner, after balking all day. They had multiple helpings of everything. So we are coming back around I think. I am very lucky that my husband is supportive of all of this. He misses his Extra Sugar-Free Bubble Gum.

I am getting used to brushing my teeth with plain baking soda. It is extremely salty, but somehow I get a kick out of it. Crazy like that.

Elimination Diet, Day 2

I was tired today. It could have something to do with getting up in the middle of the night for one of the kids, or waking up early with the whywonttheyshutthehellup? birds celebrating the beautiful morning. Or the 30 minute power walk. Or the monthly loss of blood. Okay, it could be the diet. Jury's out.

Breakfast:
teff muffin
oatmeal and maple syrup
rice milk for the kids

Snack:
oatmeal cookies

Lunch:
stir fry of garlic, shredded chicken, and green beans over rice noodles
leftover black beans
leftover red cabbage
celery sticks

Snack:
"lemony" popsicles (simple syrup w/citric acid, diluted and frozen in popsicle molds)

Dinner:
lentils (w/garlic and celery) over millet
brussels sprouts which we could not eat because they were covered in brown spots. bleah.

N is still batting at his itchy ears and his scalp is still red. He tells me the new diet is not working. I tell him we have two weeks to wait. AC is ornery as hell. I think she's catching a cold. This food is not foreign to her and she's usually my omnivore. But she is all of a sudden picky. Her nose is running, though. Again, jury's out.

Elimination Diet, Day 1

And it begins.

Breakfast:
Rice waffles (also contain tapioca and arrowroot flours) and pure maple syrup
Fresh Bartlet pears, peeled
Rice milk for the kids

Snack:
Celery sticks, more waffles

After a bite of a Teff Muffin, N balked. He said he liked the Maple Muffins (what I call the FAILSAFE muffins) better. I'll make those again, but first I'm going to try a Pear Muffin recipe.

Lunch:
Shredded roast chicken (yes, veggie friends, I roasted a free-range, hormone-free chicken last night. My first and possibly not last.) with sauteed garlic and celery in a rice wrap. Celery sticks.

Snack:
Home-made soda (simple syrup with a dash of citric acid, mixed with soda water to taste--I got a high five from the husband for that one), home-made oatmeal cookies (the Quaker Oats recipe with my home-made gluten-free flour mix to replace the wheat flour and Ghee to replace the shortening; no vanilla or nuts added).

Dinner:
Eggs fried in rice bran oil (that and ghee are my only oils)
Red cabbage "slaw" with some oil and a dash of sugar
Black beans cooked with sauteed celery and garlic
Baked potato wedges

Dessert:
More oatmeal cookies

We aren't going to starve for the elimination period, but we will be low on a few nutrients. It's nothing that will hurt us, though. When we have been on the diet at least two weeks with five consecutive symptom-free days, I will start the first challenge: dairy.

New Muffin

I made a new muffin that is quite yummy. I used the recipe off the back of Bob's Red Mill Teff Flour (it's also on their web site) with the following substitutions: 100% maple syrup for the brown sugar, rice bran oil for the olive oil, and a 1:2 ratio of baking soda to cream of tartar for the baking powder. I had to leave off the cinnamon and hazelnuts. They are oh so good, FAILSAFE, and gluten- and casein-free!

Environmentally, Personally Safe Products

So, in getting ready for the elimination diet, I'm also replacing our personal care products with ones having fewer harmful ingredients. I've started using the Crystal deodorant, and the kids have already switched to California Baby Super-Sensitive Shampoo and Body Wash. (Our Target carries it for $1 less per bottle than the manufacturer's web site.) I'll switch Saturday morning. Saturday is D-Day.

I guess we'll all start using baking soda as our toothpaste. D and N already use a toothpaste that has no sodium lauryl sulfate (they are both troubled by apthous ulcers--sores in the mouth--and this ingredient may exacerbate them). Their current toothpaste, Trader Joe's brand, is very pasty and low foam, so I'm hoping a baking soda and water paste won't throw them too much. AC will hate it, I know that.

Still wondering what to use as a moisturizer and D's shaving cream. Will report back on that later.

FAILSAFE Muffins, My Way

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we are going on an elimination diet (the FAILSAFE diet minus gluten and casein) in a couple of weeks, and then challenging gluten, dairy, and a couple other food components to see what might be contributing to some of our health issues.

Here is my current version of a popular muffin recipe in FAILSAFE circles. It has also been modified to be gluten- and casein-free (GF-CF). The kids like them okay, so I can see them being something to help fill our tummies as we go through what is bound to be a strange and boring few weeks of limited food choices.

GF-CF, FAILSAFE Muffins
makes 1 dozen regular-sized muffins

2 cups brown rice flour
1/4 cup white sugar
3/4 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp xanthan gum (all I had--guar gum instead would be FAILSAFE-er)
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
scant 1 1/4 cup water
1 egg
3 Tbsp rice bran oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease muffin tins with a FAILSAFE oil (only rice bran oil or ghee, as far as I know) or line with paper muffin cups.

In a large mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients with a whisk. In a smaller bowl, whisk together syrup, water, egg, and oil. When the oven is hot and the muffin tins are prepared, pour liquids into dry ingredients and mix batter with spoon only until moistened.

Divide batter into the 12 muffin cups. Bake immediately at 350F for 12 to 15 minutes. Use a toothpick in the center of a muffin to test for doneness.
___
Here are several FAILSAFE, GF-CF variations I have read about, but have not yet tried.
Savory muffins: add pressed garlic and cut the sweetener
Dessert muffins: bake as mini-muffins, serve drizzled with maple syrup or canned pears in syrup
Breakfast muffins: make a fried egg muffin "sandwich"

***edited to add nutritional data, calculated at, you guess it, www.nutritiondata.com***
Per 1 serving (1 muffin)
Calories: 166
Fat: 5g
Carbohydrates: 29g
Protein: 2g
Calcium: 1%
Iron: 4%
See the entire breakdown here: http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C0002CFSqqcqq0GFqqcqq0CFqq0Muffins-01c501n-00o21Kh-01c21Ki-04q3088-03E21Un-01D403U-00P41SC-00P21SM.html
***

I found these muffins acceptable as a breakfast or a snack. The texture does not have the crumb of a wheat-flour muffin made with milk, but rather gets a little gummy in your mouth the more you chew. Not enough to be bothersome, though.

Next, I'm going to experiment with some FAILSAFE, GF-CF waffle recipes, since that is a beloved breakfast at my house. I will miss my Bisquick, that's for sure.

Whither Spring?

Cold.
Rainy.
Windy.

I'm from the South, people. This just isn't right. I'd complain, but the natives will return with, "It's Delaware. If you don't like the weather, wait a minute."

Spring Parasites

We are just closing out the second week of family illnesses. I think all the humans are back to normal, and perhaps W too, one of our Italian Greyhounds. After dealing with both children throwing up all over their bedding multiple times for weeks now, I had the pleasure of cleaning up after a dog who had bloody diarrhea all over MY bed. Just to mix it up a bit, I guess.

Trip to the vet revealed that a roundworm infestation was upsetting his system. Roundworm. Gross me out so many different MORE ways just than finding the ruined duvet. Now he and R are on meds (since R has likely picked it up from W), have a more sanitary routine, and I still have the willies.

Spring Bug

Little AC and I have gastroenteritis. Yummy.

World Food Crisis

If you haven't read the stories under the dire headlines, you should. Here's one from Time magazine online, regarding the World Food Programme (a U.N. agency) and its recent inability to distribute enough food to the poorest populations. Astronomical oil prices and the use of grain crops for biofuels worldwide have exacerbated shortages in money and food. What can we do about it? Any ideas?

'Cause That's Just How His Mind Works

My son (turning five this July) will rarely relinquish control of, well, anything. I find myself wresting items from his hands many times per day when requests to "put that down" fall on deaf ears. Interested in trying ANYTHING to stem the tidal wave of contrariness, we (re)instituted a token/reward system the other day to motivate two specific behaviors: exiting the car in the driveway and coming into the house in a timely fashion, and pottying when Daddy or I ask. I just used potty as a verb. To potty. The word has obviously lost all of its original--and hideous--meaning and taken on a wacked life of its own. I'm doomed.

Anyhoo. Back to the intransigent one. See? I made up for the potty thing before you could bat an eyelash. He earned two tokens right away and traded them in for a balsa glider. Today he has a grand total of four tokens. He can get a better toy/activity/experience than an old glider by trading in FIVE tokens. So this afternoon, as he danced and hopped and leaped and held in that waste, I said, "Go to the potty, boy!"

He replied, as he has for YEARS, "No. I don't need to." Leap. Leap. Hop. Hop. Clutch.

Veeeeery enticingly, I said, "You can earn one more token! That's all you need to get a BETTER toy!!!"

"No thanks." Hop. Clutch. Sprint.

Hehe. I should write a book on child rearing. Really I should. It will be called, "Everything you told me I should try and I did didn't work so please why don't you take my child for two weeks and when you yourself find that your methods are shite then I promise not to say I told you so when you return him to me." Would you buy that? Maybe Oprah could have me on. I suppose those child-rearing methods work for the kids in the middle. But my child isn't typical. Not average by any stretch.

This is a little song he wrote about a month ago.

(He's obviously into really short phrasings.) The lyrics, in case you couldn't tell from his atrocious spelling, are "Die die die die die die die." I'm sure you did divine that the title of this ditty is Poopy. Or perhaps I should let his spelling stand. More poetic. And he is definitely all that, AND a bag of chips.

edited to add: Please don't be the person who thinks I'm serious when I call his spelling atrocious.

It Isn't Supposed to Be This Way

It is difficult for me to admit, and even more difficult to reason why, that on the two days per week when both of my children attend morning preschool, I have a much more difficult time dealing with them later in the day.

No, it's not them, it's ME. You would think that a rest from both dervishes, a moment to myself to think, some quality caffeine, and maybe a pastry, would allow my brain cells time to hang out, refuel, then regroup when it's time to become Mommy again. But NO. My best guess is that my brain cells GET USED to being their own bosses for several hours, and loudly REBEL when any one shows up to prove otherwise. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons are my WORST MOMMY TIMES EVER. I snap, growl, yell, and when the kids are in another room, curse like the sailor I never was. I madly telegraph an SOS to my husband at work--send pizza, send a nanny, send a man with a butterfly net. ANYTHING, but just get me away from these kids. Oh, and these dogs too.

It's Thursday night. He brought home pizza an hour and a half earlier than he usually gets home. The husband is bathing the troops. And yet, my FUCKING DOG KEEPS BARKING AT ME AND SCRATCHING UP THE FUCKING UPHOLSTERY. AND YES THERE IS A DRIED PUDDLE OF PEE HERE IN MY STUDY THAT HASN'T BEEN CLEANED UP FROM WHEN HUSBAND FOUND IT THIS MORNING BECAUSE THE SPRAY BOTTLE OF ENZYME CLEANSER FELL BEHIND THE CHEST FREEZER IN THE GARAGE THE OTHER DAY AND I DON'T HAVE STRETCH ARMSTRONG ARMS TO GET BACK THERE AND RETRIEVE IT. OH AND THEN IT NEEDS TO BE REFILLED ANYWAY FROM THE 2 GALLON CONTAINER WITH THE FUNNEL.

Okay. I think I'll go figure out the spray bottle situation right now. I feel a little better having gotten that off my chest. And I'm going to put the goddamn dog in his crate. Which is IN MY STUDY. AAAAARGHH!!!

Let's See

We have our Radiohead tickets for August 12. Lawn/general admission, but at least we got some. The Wire Season 5 comes out on DVD the same day. What more could a girl want?

D mowed the lawn today for the first time in 2008. I raked and cleaned the back patio a couple days ago. We're almost ready for spring.

I washed and hung up/put away all the winter coats, mittens, and hats for next year. My car's trunk is full of outgrown clothing, most of which will go to Goodwill. A select few pieces for spring and summer I will try to consign tomorrow.

About two weeks from now, it will be time to clean and put up the winter clothes. Then I can get a glimpse at how measly my summer wardrobe is. It's probably good that I have no shorts, since my legs are the color of wallpaper paste.

Waiting, waiting, waiting to hear back from the school district about N's placement in a gifted class this fall. Turns out our district is facing budget cuts for the same time. So the question of N's test score may be moot if the gifted program is axed.

Still collecting ingredients and ideas for Elimination Diet '08. I lack guar gum. I know I can order it direct from Bob's Red Mill, but I'm still on the lookout for it locally, to save on shipping. Does cream of tartar go bad? I'll need that to make my own baking powder, but I'm worried that my little container container of cream of tartar must be about ten years old.

Keep on, folks.

Spring Round-up?

Spring's here in Delaware. My daffodils have yet to burst, but the neighbors' are dancing in the sun today. Our maples are full of their little red buds, and the wild rose vines are already in leaf. Vines and I have a year-round battle. My side yard is the favored home of wild blackberries, roses, grapes, plus a sensational wisteria. As much as I'd like to say "To hell with it," and let them all run wild, they are actually killing several trees I'm really rather fond of. Did I mention the English and poison ivys, the pachysandra, and the vinca that grow underneath? Oh, and then there are the ferns and thistles that mock me in May. Oh, and the Cherry Laurel that sends out new trees every year. Thrown into the mix are a bajillion Day Lilies and some daffodils, an iron tree, a weeping cherry, and a crabapple.

A landscape designer once told me to cut down everything and use a defoliant widely. And often. Then start from scratch with the side yard I think I want. She said that at this point there was no way to say goodbye to the voracious stuff and keep the tidy stuff. After six years of fighting Mother Nature, I now believe her. But I'm not going to do it. Not yet.

Another Day, Another Diet

So, the new thing where I live (both IRL and online) is to try to match a particular (-ly restrictive) diet to your or your kids' symptoms to see if said issues improve. A good number of mothers of my kids' preschool classmates are trying different combinations of gluten-free, casein-free diets for both themselves (allergies) and their children (aphraxia, autism).

My son's behavior and his eczema are aggravated, I've noticed, by artifical colors (red 40 and yellow 5, in particular), MSG, citrus, tomatoes, and who knows what else? Because I am all about making my life more difficult, I am going to try the FAILSAFE diet, also known as the RPAH Elimination Diet, to see if it produces an improvement in my son's defiance and impulsivity, and his eczema too. After you follow the bare-bones diet for several weeks, or until you see an absence of the symptoms you're investigating, then you challenge it by adding items high in the substances you suspect are triggers. That way, you know what you can safely build back in to your diet, and what you need to avoid in the future.

I've been researching this diet for months, and am preparing for us to spend four weeks on it, including several challenges for the forbidden substances: amines, salicilytes, glutamates, and synthetic additives. If nothing changes, and nothing shows up, I may need to see if gluten or casein may be an aggravator.

Ideally, we will start the day after preschool lets out for the summer. I'll keep you posted.

Oh, I have a blog?

Dang. I totally forgot this thing was here.

Did you know there is a Very Large Telescope in Chile, and that it is called The Very Large Telescope? Who says astronomers don't have a sense of humor? I don't want to go all 'Fessor Frink on you, but it is actually a telescope array. Whatever the hell that means.

I am rather addicted to these things:
Herr's Whole Grain Pretzel Sticks
As snack foods go, they could be a LOT worse.

Here is a little bedtime convo my daughter and I had the other night as she was losing brain cells to the sandman:
AC: I have a boo-boo.
Me: Where?
AC: On my heart. [pulling up her pajama sleeve] Can you kiss my boo-boo?
Me: What is wrong with your heart?
AC: I think I breaked it. [exposing her elbow and pointing to it]
Me: Isn't that your elbow?
AC: I think I breaked that too.
*snorz*

My son is into representing the planets according to their relative sizes. He is getting better and better at it. Here's a picture from about four months ago: