I'm Living In a Garage

After finding some rocks and trees to play in near the Crystal River in Basalt, Colorado.

 Not really.  It just feels like that right now.  We are on day two in the house.  When I pause to take a breath, I am reminded of the lingering nausea and exhaustion of altitude adjustment.  The boxes are stacked 4 high in the house as we need to keep one room empty so the carpet can be replaced this week and we don't have all the built in storage we created at the other house.  But when I stepped into the living room tonight after a middle of the night wake up, I discovered that my fabulous husband carved out a corner and set up the couch, the rug and the coffee table.  Its a little oasis that will give us a piece of normal  as we slowly pick at the rest.

We created a rhythm this past week as we moved from the sea through the mountains.  With generous gifts from neighbors and friends on those last days, we were able to choose hotels with pools each night.  We pulled in, got into the pool, headed to the room, made dinner, crashed hard.  Woke up, had a family breakfast in the lounge, hit the road.  The girls did wonderfully all 4 days.  This was not a vacation.  We did not stop to see the sights.  We pushed through two and a half hours of driving, lunch, two and a half more hours of driving.  There were few clouds, high temps and barely a tree in sight for those 4 days.  We were so glad to finally see vegetation again.  I could never live in Southern Idaho or northern Utah.

Goodbye Seattle.

Hello Colorado!

Several things contributed to our success in the car.  Firstly, and probably most importantly, we were blessed with driving the moving truck.  WHAT? You say.  Yes, the truck was a blessing.  My husband and the 4 year old rode in the truck.  I had the 2 year old in the car.  I had the food, the suitcases and a duffel of activities for the 2 year old.  They had the 4 year old's favorite blanket, a white comforter, and a duffel of activities for her.  A week before we left I was worried we didn't have enough interesting things for the car.  Neighbors and friends showered the girls in those last days and it was perfect!  They had all kinds of neat, new activities plus some old ones that had been packed away in my closet for a month saving for the trip.  I also believe not camping was a huge one for us.  Camping requires one person to be fully on with the kids, chasing them in two directions, while one person tries to set up the tent and get the food going.  Both of which can require two people.  Because we chose hotels, neither one of us were "on" with both kids at the same time the whole trip.  We managed our own stress levels this way.  We were already depleting our energy with the trip, the camping process would have drained us much quicker.  With older children who can follow directions, be helpful and don't need to be watched every second, camping could have been a great solution. And in the car, each child was able to flow through her day of wakefulness, rest and eating at her own rhythm and not be interrupted or have to negotiate with a sibling.  When she was tired, she didn't take it out on her sister, she just settle down and rested.  They didn't have to share.  I realize this is a luxury and there is a lesson to be learned but again, stress levels were my priority on this trip.  It was a mission, not a vacation. 

I'm not completely sure how the rhythm worked in the truck.  We were prepared with a laptop and movies and I fully expected they would need that each afternoon.  I probably would have popped it in but I think she only watched a movie one day.  Mostly, she explored her toys and colored or sang songs or just chilled out.  In the car, the two year old did some exploring of toys but mostly dropped everything and screamed about it.  I used the mini DVD player every morning for about an hour.  She spent a good 45min. slowly munching her morning snack and then chilled out the rest of the time.  After running around at lunch time, we'd hop back in the car and within 20 minutes she would be passed out for her nap.  One day she slept straight through the 2 hours beautifully, mostly she had in and out sleeps needing to hold my hand as I twisted strangely from the front seat.  This was the time when we leap frogged our driving as I didn't want to lose miles while she slept.

It worked great.  The grown ups were very tired at the end of the day, most days falling asleep with the kids at 8pm.  I think the pools helped our bodies as well since we were getting pretty achy each afternoon.

Lucy getting her first dip in some natural water outside Basalt, Colorado.

As for the food, we had plenty. and it was super easy.  The batch of pancakes made it for each breakfast as I had granola and milk.  We brought our food to the hotel lounge as Daddy got to eat the free breakfast offered there.  We used the toaster for the pancakes and had a treat of apple juice each morning.  (I thought it could help with the lack of movement each day and needing the body to keep processing.  If you know what I mean.)  People looked at us a bit strange but I'm not sure if it was because of our food or the general craziness that comes with two young children at a tiny breakfast table when they are distracted.  Heck, there is craziness at our breakfast table each morning when we have plenty of space.  Things spill, silverware falls to the floor, someone eats food off the floor, syrup gets into the hair.  We just had an audience this time.

I ended up making it easy for lunch.  We pulled out the turkey, salsa, chips, hummus and some fruit.  Munched and gave up on all the "sit down while you eat" rules at rest stops.  The first night I did the most work as I sauteed veggies, then warmed pizza sauce, then toasted our premade pizza crusts in the pan.  After layering the rest of the items on the pizza, they were ready to eat.  And fabulous because we were able to get the crusts crispy.  Something I've not been able to do normally.  We may change the way we make pizza now.  This was an amazing dinner!  The other nights we utilized the microwave in the room and heated pre-cooked noodles with sauce or leftover Thai from our last night in Seattle.

Snacks in the car were nuts, granola bars that I had made, fruit and peanut butter and some dry cereal and raisins.  We drank lots of water and everyone always had a full bottle.  It just worked great.  No gas station food, or drive thru meals.  We ate well, felt great and that probably contributed to the ease of the drive as well.  I think I forget how much the food we eat affects our moods and ability to function and deal with stress.

But now its time to unpack the kitchen because I need to get cooking again.  Can't run to snag pizza or sandwiches while we work.  So back to it I go.

Road Tripping with Food Intolerances

We are three days from leaving Seattle and moving to Colorado.  The house is full of boxes and those strange piles of miscellaneous things that either don't fit in boxes or are needed in these last days.  I'm still taking every free moment to scrub a corner or a cabinet in hopes that the last day will not be completely filled with soap suds and hot water.

But today I designated as the food prep day.  When the family is avoiding gluten, soy, dairy and eggs, its not possible to just stop at a restaurant, let alone snag some snacks at a 7-11.  We will be traveling for 4 days.  That's a lot of meals and snacks to organize for a family of 4.  But I've got a plan!

Breakfasts are pretty easy.  I did finally find a reasonably priced gluten, soy, egg free cereal that Lucy likes so we'll have that a couple mornings.  But I will also freeze our pancakes for easy toasting on the road.  I also have just discovered a fantastic granola recipe from this book that is my new favorite.  And I was finding I'm not tolerating too many oats during the day and this is oat free.

Lunches will probably be glorified snacks.  Black beans, chips, salsa, fruit, gluten free lunch meat, veggie sticks, etc.  Plus, I have some energy bars I make and today I'm testing a gluten free banana bread muffin recipe from the ratio rally that many gluten free bloggers suggested.  Its a new adventure for me to create a recipe.  But I'm excited to try.  It seems so simple.

Now for dinners.  Which can be tough some times.  Actually, now that I think about it, we may flip the lunch and dinner menus so some mid-day play time can coincide with longer food prep time.  Then at night when we have to set up a tent, the lunch meat, fruit and chips is an easier option.  Hmmm...yeah...that makes sense to me!!

We'll have our beans and rice combo one day where we toss in guacamole, brown rice, black beans, chicken, and salsa.  All these items can be prepped ahead and just warmed up in a pot.  Another day, we'll have gluten free pasta and meat sauce.  I'll season and brown our turkey meat ahead of time and mix it with the sauce when we're ready to eat.  And another day I was thinking we might be able to swing our pizza.  We make a gluten free crust using Bob's Red Mill prepackaged pizza crust mix.  I can make these ahead of time and freeze them.  Then just warm them on the spot and top with sauce and fixings.  The kids just toss pepperoni on top and don't care about it being toasted.  For the grown ups, I can saute veggies and plop on top of the warmed crust.  When you don't need to melt the cheese, it makes on the road pizza easier!

I'll let you know how that works.  There is a lot of veggie prepping, cooking meat, and baking a variety of things to be done today.  Then we'll freeze a lot of it so it will keep better in the coolers along the way.  I guess we'll just eat what's thawed first.  :)  Or I can take some stuff out for the morning drive so it can thaw in the car until lunch.  I'm sure there will be lots to share about this road trip.  It will be an adventure.

Update on the 4 Year OId's Food Intolerances

Our "go to" gluten free, vegan muffin based on this one from gluten free girl.  We just replace the eggs with flax seed meal and the milk with an alternative.  I think this version I used coconut milk.  Then added blueberries!

Well, we have made it through 7 weeks of testing.  I am so proud of my daughter.  She is just moving through all of this with such grace.  Even the week of gluten, which she was really excited about, caused minimal distress.  She was pretty bummed when she told me on day 3 after we had seen plenty of symptoms, that she had had a tummy ache and headache for DAYS and they wouldn't go away.  I told her it was probably the gluten she'd been eating and she gave one good try to convince herself and me that it was something else.  But we both knew.

So here's the list.  Dairy we are still unsure of.  We need to test again with mostly milk instead of cheese and yogurt.  Not enough protein to react.  BUT...its possible that it gave her an upset tummy because she had rough nights of sleep that week.  Eggs sent her head spinning like a hairy monster.  She was aggressive, reactive, snappy and angry.  We stopped testing after 3 days because we were exhausted from the emotional attacks.  She was instantly calmer.  And she recognized it too!  Soy created all her skin stuff.  Eczema, butt rash, and some mental spaciness.  Gluten gave her tons of gas and she had several bowel movements a day that suggests she wasn't retaining many nutrients.  It also gave her the headache and tummy aches.  This week is cranberries.  If today's experience says anything, she is crazy emotional again. But today is the first day.  Not enough data.

And the blood pressure issue?  She is steadily decreasing each week as well as losing weight.  I'm hopeful that when we are off all these foods for a while, her blood pressure will stabilize.

So what now?  I am so grateful for our Naturopath.  She explained this all so beautifully to me.  So...its possible that one of these foods is the real culprit creating inflammation of the stomach lining cells.  That inflammation creates spaces in the lining where the other foods are seeping into the blood stream.  (leaky gut syndrome) The body notices a foreign substance in the blood and attacks like it does a virus or bacteria.  That constant attack causes all kinds of symptoms.  The hope is that after about 6 months of total avoidance of these foods, we can re-test them again and see the level of stress to the body.  Maybe one will show dramatic signs, maybe the others won't create symptoms unless introduced for several days.  Or, she may have to avoid all these foods forever.  Either way, discovering the cause of the various problems she's been experiencing has been an empowering experience.

We have also been seeing an occupational therapist because we thought Lucy had some sensory processing issues.  The longer she is off these foods, the more diminished the sensory issues are.  So I'm hopeful that in Lucy's case, her sensory things are more personality quirks that we can all work with instead of disruptive and debilitating behaviors that require lots of extra support.  We'll see.

I continue to have people respond to the discovery of Lucy's food intolerances with a dismissive tone as if we are just following a trend and are over-reactive.  I'm not sure why the first response isn't to be curious and compassionate but its not.  I usually get all kinds of reasons why we are probably wrong in our assessment.  I'm learning to move past these interactions with more ease but it takes an emotional toll on me to be so assertive all the time.  The best moment is when someone else is able to share in my experience of trying to take away most of what their 4 year old likes to eat in order to purposefully induce specific behaviors and physical symptoms that are stressful and sometimes exhausting!  But overall, this was a great experience for all of us.

We confirmed some issues for our youngest daughter as well and my husband is more aware of how his body reacts to gluten.  We are much less dependent on those foods and have more veggies, fruits and a diverse selection of grains because of that.  And I am becoming a better cook as I am challenged to find new ways to eat.  I used to avoid cooking feeling incompetent and disappointed with the final product.  But there is nothing like a medical issue with your child to motivate you to move beyond your own insecurities!  I'm learning new skills, and beginning to understand what types of foods go together well and how to prepare basic things like dressings and sauces.  It is actually fun.

The next step is expanding my daughter's food list.  She is fairly picky so the options available to her now are really limited.  We are making a chart with images of the foods she likes and putting them into categories so she can help plan meals for herself.  I'm hoping this will minimize some of her disappointment and allows me to introduce some new things regularly that she will at least try.  I'll keep you posted on how its working.

Day 12 of a Four Year Old's Elimination Diet

I recently told you about the health issues bringing us to the decision to take gluten, eggs, dairy, soy and cranberries out of our 4 year old's diet. In an effort to create solidarity, we all decided to do the diet together. So for the past 12 days the whole family has been avoiding these foods.

I must admit...this is challenging! Its hard to do just for myself as I went through this last fall and I haven't been perfect this time around. But its especially hard to try to make it easy for my daughter. Several things have come up for me.

My first reaction was stress. How are we going to do this? All she eats are gluten, dairy and eggs; Sandwiches, yogurt, milk, cheese, eggs, tortillas with cheese and mac and cheese. She eats plenty of fruit and a couple veggies and loves beans, hummus and meat so we were going to depend heavily on those first.

My second reaction was trying to keep her from feeling what I felt when doing this diet. That I was in a constant state of lack and feeling deprived. So I wanted to have plenty of food available and try to bake and cook whatever I could to mimic her favorites. This has turned into many hours trying to recreate pizza dough, bread, and tortillas without a whole lot of success.

Then I had an epiphany one day. She doesn't have my food issues! She fully expects there to be plenty of food for her to eat when she's hungry. She has grown up in a family where her mother and father provide enough food for her and she has all the confidence that this will remain the same. The gravity of this blessing and privilege are not lost on me. I actually think we have become more conscious of the greater issue of societal hunger problems through this process but that is for another day.

She has also taught me that when it is out of sight, its out of mind for her. Not like my obsessions that seem to creep up as a coping tool for emotional stress. I have intentionally avoided taking her to the grocery store until yesterday. It was horrible telling her how many things she couldn't eat there as she requested all her favorites when she saw them. She hasn't once mentioned yogurt, milk, or bagels since we started until the grocery store. One day in a moment of hunger when we didn't have exactly what she wanted she did shout, "I just want some CHEESE!!" But she quickly moved on.

This child, who used to eat more food between breakfast and lunch than most kids were eating in a day, has now adjusted her intake dramatically. The first few days I packed as much food as I always do. A routine that feels like we're having a full lunch every morning for snack. Its been this way for 4 years. Thank goodness I've been taking care of other children recently to be reminded how much a preschooler typically eats at breakfast and snack. I was panicking in the morning when she didn't finish her breakfast expecting a full meltdown in an hour. I also wanted to remain strong with our family rules to wait for snack for more food. No continuous snack bar here. There was no meltdown, no fight, just requests and patience.

She has also started trying different things. You know the nutritionists and parenting gurus all tell you that if you introduce the food enough, or if there isn't anything else to eat, they'll eat it. Yeah right, maybe with someone else's child, but not mine! Well, I have seen this play out. When I was forced to stick to a certain group of foods for her, she tried new things. She is eating more nuts now as a protein source. Super easy travel food and nuts are so great for her body! She's trying some meats and things that she had been avoiding recently. She is totally fine with deconstructed sandwiches, hummus on rice cakes and no quesadillas.

We are using fruit smoothies to hide veggies, flax seed oil, vitamin D, and sometimes nuts for protein.

At day 12, I can see how this can and probably will be a life changer for our family. Her emotions are less of a roller coaster and more of a rolling hillside. Feels more normal for a 4 year old. Her body is trimming down. Some of her sensory quirks are mellowing out. Still there, but not nearly as pronounced. She is more patient with her sister. She seems to be calmer overall. And the other day when I asked if she was noticing any changes in her body she said, "My head doesn't hurt anymore." Really? I didn't know her head was hurting! It almost made me cry. Even now I tear up. What kind of sensations has she been dealing with that none of us knew about? That she thought was normal? I am so grateful for this process and what we are learning.

If you need to do this with you and/or your child or want to, it really is an interesting discovery on so many levels for all of us. Way beyond just her physical health!