Update on Elisabeth

Elisabeth is 18 months now. She says a lot of words, especially this past week. There were six or so, and then suddenly it just exploded! She likes to try saying all sorts of words. She can repeat after me when I tell her to say something. The cutest thing she said today was when Rychen said "cuddle" and she repeated him. It sounded like "Tuh-duh." Well she is about 20 lbs now, which is just perfect! I remember talking about small toddlers with my friend a couple years ago, who was saying how sweet it is, how natural it is because it enables you to carry them through more years of their life! Isn't that so true? Rychen was a big guy and I didn't carry him past a year. But Elisabeth is still easy cargo, whether it be the Ergo, sling, or in arms. It's so much fun to have a little girl, intelligent and playful, yet still my teeny cuddle bunny on my lap. 

She still nurses for most of her food (day and night!) She snacks on food whenever we eat, but still probably doesn't get more than 150 calories in solid food each day. She helps herself to fruit from the cupboard and carries it around the house (yes, sticky, my husband hates this!) but she doesn't actually eat much of it! This kind of drives me crazy. Asking for bananas, so you unpeel it but then she doesn't want to eat it. The best way to get her to eat food is for her to drink a smoothie. She LOVES smoothies and can drink 3-4 ounces. 

Her favorite toys are books and crayons. Those two things stereotype Elisabeth at this point of her life. She is all about books and crayons. Another toy favorite beginning to emerge is these alphabet letters. She gets out her letters and gets our her alphabet book, and brings them to me so I can show her the matches. With the way she loves crayons, I am trying to teach her colors but she's not picking it up yet. She does love vocabulary games, as she will point to pictures in her books for us to tell her what it is. Then we can say "Where's the ___?" and have her point it back to us.

One fun thing about her lately is how she listens and obeys me when I am serious. We've had diaper time toubles, like most families. Elisabeth usually gets up and runs away, bare bummed, before I put her clean diaper on. She likes to play games and have me catch her. If I'm not in the mood for games, I sit and call her name until she comes back, or maybe try to lure her by saying "come give me kisses!" or I just walk away and forget about her until she poops on the carpet (no joke, it happens. But she has really clean log poops that don't leave a mess! It's actually easier than cleaning up the cloth diapers). But lately I have been saying firmly, ELISABETH, COME HERE. She will pause and stare at me to see if I'm serious. I point down to the diaper and say DIAPER TIME. NOW. And she will walk back to me somberly and lie down!

Her hair is getting long! Very blonde and feathery. We started doing pigtails, and she looks just like that little girl "Boo" on Monsters Inc. (or Rychen says she looks like Cindy Lou Who). She is just so stinkin CUTE! I adore this girl so much. She is just so precious, my cherished treasure every day. I love just watching her. She makes me smile so much!

Elisabeth's trip to the ER

So yesterday we had our first wonderful experience of admitting a child into the Emergency room, the first time either of our children has stepped foot in a hospital, let alone be a patient!

Elisabeth fell against the (non-padded) mini-trampoline and gashed her forehead--a common occurance, I'm sure; No big deal for experirenced moms. Big deal for young mom who has never had medical problems with children and lacks the wherewithal for discerning what an emergency is or isn't!

But I was calm and handled the situation well.

First let me tell you, we had a couple of trial-runs several months ago when Elisabeth was in her "eat everything off the floor, including small peices of transparent tape" (which apparently stick to the throat and don't go up or down). A couple times I had to call Rychen, panicked as she struggled to breathe, but she invariably ended up coughing up the tape before driving off to the hospital (another witness of the wonderful human body! She produced mucous to grab the tape and coughed it out). Anyway, this one time when we were headed to the ER with the choking, Rychen Parker was just freaking out. With his anxiety (and fear of death) he couldn't act rationally, and didn't follow our simple instruction to get in the car now! So it was a very stressful event on many accounts.

As "luck" would have it, the day before yesterday Rychen P. was asking about emergencies, and we had a talk about it. I told him "You never got hurt when you were little. But Elisabeth has a very different personality than you, and pretty soon she will probably hurt herself and need to go to the hospital," and explained that it's OK, we just need help from doctors, and that his job would be to get the phone and get his shoes on.

Not 24 hours later, I was scooping up a bloody, screaming Elisabeth, and gasping at the gaping wound in her forehead. I said calmly and firmly to Rychen P. "This is an emergency. Please get the phone, we need to call Dad. Get your shoes on." Somehow with my hands full of a screaming baby, blood on the kitchen counter, counter-pressure, and trying to offer her the breast, I told Rychen simply "We have an emergency, can you come right now?"

By the time he arrived, Elisabeth wasn't bleeding anymore, and she was calmer (apparently she had been screaming only because I was holding her down with the washcloth firm against her head). But there was certainly a gaping wound on her forehead, and I was getting queasy, so we headed off to the ER (in no rush, but with her in my lap nonetheless!) I didn't even think twice to hold her in my lap, with my mothering instinct, but Rychen was a bit self-conscious having other drivers see us like that. When a police man drove alongside us, I actually felt relieved to have an authority close-by!

Anyhow, we got to the hospital, parked, walked in calmly. By this time Elisabeth was happy and playing like nothing had happened. Except, oh yeah, her forehead was wide open. But apparenlty a wide-open forehead doesn't call for much urgency in the ER, even on a slow Thursday afternoon. By the time we got registered and were asked "When did this happen?" it had been an hour after the incident! Rychen P. was getting antsy, I was hungry, and I do admit, I felt silly hanging out in the ER with my child, in need of medical attention, playing happily about. I began to question why we were there and how necessary it was.

When I was a kid, we were playing at a pool when a surfboard suddenly flew out of the water (from the bottom of the pool with a teenager on top) at a velocity I didn't particulary care for, headed straight for my face. I had a wide gaping would in my chin. There was no panic whatsoever, the adults quickly lay me on a bench, did first aid, and applied the magic Butterfly Bain-aid. No biggie. All better a few days later. Experiences such as this, you now understand, are one big reason why I am so unfamiliar with hospitals (Personally, I have been admitted once in my life--in third grade when I broke my arm and needed a cast).

Also, I was a witness last year to a similar event, when my Father-in-law cut his thumb extensively and rushed to the ER, then casually returning an hour later after giving up the wait, and fixed his own thumb with superglue!

So, knowing that Butterfly band-aids and/or superglue were sometimes good alternatives to stitches, knowing that this happened time after time to my siblings, but nevertheless inexperienced as the authority figure making the judgment call of when those appropriate times would be, I casually approached the lady at the front desk.

"Do people sometimes walk out of here, after having been admitted?" yup.
"Cuz I was thinking... This probably isn't really as big an emergency as I thought it was...."

I asked her what she thought. She told me she's not allowed to give medical advice (which means, she's not allowed to tell people their services aren't necessary!)

But she did tell me that we could try it and come back if we want, and we could even just go to Urgent Care, which is a lot cheaper. Thank you, kind woman! Sounds like a great idea. There would be nothing to lose, so let's just give the $2 box of Butterflys a try first, and if we feel the need then we will go to Urgent Care.

After all of this, I called my parents for the first time. Just to make sure I wasn't stupid. My mom casually says "Oh, yeah, we did that ALL the time with you guys!" my Dad, somewhat less-casually gives me the actual run-down of what exactly needs to happen to dress/treat a wound yourself. Thank you, boyscout. Got it :) My mom said stitches are a good option too, and might reduce scarring, but she had always figured that would be less important than the trauma of having stitches. Knowing Elisabeth would need general anesthesia (and the low tolerance I would expect from her), I quickly agreed.

Walgreens, priesthood blessing, butterfly attempt (easier said than done, when it comes to a wiggly 18-month old!), 2nd butterfly attempt once she was asleep, and I think we're good. I went to bed early, exhausted, light-headed, and weak (I'm one of those people who lose my lunch upon dealing with any sort of wounds or needles). Rychen and I marveled over the way God gave this experience to us. Everything worked out so that he would be available and ready to leave the office; the no-small coincidence that I were already dressed with shoes on; the talk I had with Rychen P. the day before; the Holy Ghost being with me the whole time (I would have been freaking out); and even answering my little prayer for Elisabeth not to touch her banaids and to sleep well through the night. I do believe it was a blessing God gave us, because now we are more familiar with hospital protocol (and where the hospital is, and where to park) because I know this girl will give us much more grief in the future!

Today all looks well. We'll see! I am still nervous about it re-opening, so I am keeping her calm and sedentary as much as I can (we used a band-aid on an open wound with her before, but it was very slow to heal because it kept re-opening everytime she bumped it). Pray for speedy recovery :)

Rychen Parker allergies

Since Rychen was diagnosed with an orange allergy (and wheat, oats, peanuts, corn, dairy, buckwheat, eggs) he hasn't had any oranges, or anything closely relating to an orange, orange in color, at all. I just wasn't sure what an "orange" allergy meant. But we decided to try giving him tangelos, which are a hybrid of grapefruit (which he can eat) and tangerine (questionable). So far he seems to be handling the tangelos just fine. So maybe we'll try clementine tangerines as well (which were his favorite special food at Grandma's house!). The only problem is, I don't know how long it would take to show symptoms (itching, diarrhea, etc) so it's hard to make the judgment call. But in the next few months I intend to take him back for a better blood test, to test a wider range of foods. Not only will this reveal his true citris allergies, but we'll be able to see if he's overcome any of his current allergens. It's not uncommon for children to outgrow their allergies, especially when they are treated for leaky gut and given a histamine remedy. I think given the healing that has obviously occured from his gut (judging from bowel movements) he will probably be cleared of several allergens, at least the ones he was less-than-extremely allergic to (wheat, oats, dairy he probably can't ever eat again).

Fruit

I just finished devouring and relishing my lunch of ten oranges and was pondering why people are fruit-phobic. I am not the only person who LOVES oranges. But why is it so rare that a person links that enjoyment to eating another one? I was pondering this, intending to come blog about, and then I found this comment on my previous post:

I'm always surprised when you post the amount of fruit you eat. 10 oranges! Your husband had 20 fruits! I don't know why it's hard for me to wrap my head around, because I eat a LOT of food. Like 3 huge servings of spaghetti for dinner or 3 pieces of pie. But when it's in terms of numbers of fruit it seems like so much... I don't know what my hangup is.

How ironic! So it's time to discuss this. Openly! Let's hear your thoughts.

My theory is that in our society, fruit is accepted as a snack food. We don't eat fruit to get full. We eat it for taste, or for vitamins, seen as a supplement to a heavier diet. Also visually, we often see fruit 1-3 at a time. We're not culturally in the habit of buying cases of fruit, the way we buy a case of cereal boxes, and we are not visually accustomed to a large quantity of fruit which would reside in our kitchen, in order to feed us for a week if we were eating fruit substantially (meaning, as a staple to our diet, not a supplementation).

Another reason is the volume of fruit. We easily buy 10 meals of meat in one package, but it seems preposterous to buy more than a small produce bag of fruit at a time, which isn't enough for even 1 meal. In order to feed my family fruit for breakfast and lunch meals for 1 week, I need to buy about 2 cases of fruit every week. Volume-wise, fruit just takes up a lot more space than eating more concentrated foods. The main reason for this is because fruit is a complete pre-packaged food, ready to eat, including water. Similarly, think of the volume difference between buying dried beans or pasta vs. those foods once they are cooked, prepared, including sufficient water needs for that meal. If you bought pre-packaged food items like a Happy Meal for one week, 4 people (84 meals) this would be several large cases of food!

In mainstream nutritional science, fruit hasn't been seriously considered as a staple food, and hence, its superiority has remained a bit of a secret. As staple foods, we are used to comparing nutrition facts between meats and starches, but rarely do we include fruits and vegetables into the debate. The entire debate of nutrition consists of the meat industry attacking the grains, and the vegetarians attacking the meat. Both of them have wonderful arguments in pointing out the drawbacks of the other foodsource. And both of them are RIGHT! But it never occured to them that FRUIT is a viable option. Enter Dr. Doug Graham, the professional athletic nutritionist who trains elite athletes, who devotes his work to proclaiming all the wonderful advantages of fruit as the staple food in our diets.

Fruit is the ultimate source of carbohydrates, and yet we rely on bread and pasta for our carbohydrates. The difference with fruit is that it is instantly, easily digested; it hydrates us while we eat; it is visually appealing and requires no preparation, no spices, no cooking, no salt, no clean-up; Most every sweet fruit contains all 8 essential amino acids; Fruit contains every mineral and vitamin; Fruit contains the ideal omega-3 to omega-6 ratio, making omega-3 supplementation unecessary; and Fruit doesn't require cooking, which usually kills off at least half of any given food's nutrient values.

Fruit is about 5% protein; the World Health Organization recommends a diet containing 5% protein (Breastmilk, by the way, is 5% protein, which nature designed for the fastest growing human being). If your diet is largely fruit and then some higher-protein foods, your diet would be about 80% carbohydrate, 10% protein, 10% fat, which is what Dr. Graham recommends as the ideal ratio. Scientific studies back this up, as there is much evidence that more than 10% fat is harmful to health.

Cost-wise, this is very sustainable. A banana is 120 calories for 19 cents. Compare that to your 100-calorie nutrition bar, or 100 calories of ground beef (1-2 ounces). So 2000 calories of bananas would cost $3.16 for that day's food. When was the last time you paid so little for your nourishment (also taking into account the health-care costs of a richer diet). The oranges I am eating cost 33 cents/lb. This translates into about 8 oranges for $1. How would you like to enjoy a juicy, bright feast of 8 oranges for your breakfast tomorrow for just $1? Try it!

Engine 2 Diet

Just finished reading this book, Engine 2 Diet (click here to browse some pages digitally). It's a good read, the exact same diet as the R.A.V.E. diet and similar to the McDougall plan, but I personally prefer the whys and wherefores presented by Dr. Joel Fuhman in Eat to Live, which is the book Mary Cotterell handed me in September 2005 and changed my life! Dr. Fuhrman and Dr. John McDougall are both practicing M.D.s who prescribe a vegan diet to their patients and reverse various diseases. McDougall also has a book for women's issues (same diet but it explains why the diet works for those specific health concerns) and Fuhrman has one specifically for children's physical and behavioral issues.

 

I love these books because they are NOT about weight loss. All three of them go into detail (Fuhrman much more so) regarding how eating a plant-based diet will virtually eliminate your risk for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, and several other degenerative as well as auto-immune diseases. You cannot possibly read Eat to Live and not be convinced! If you are young and energetic and not concerned about disease, it's still the best weight-loss diet out there because you can fill your shopping cart to the brim with colorful, fresh, beautiful foods, and eat to your heart's content. There are no portion sizes or calorie-counting at all. The whole point of plant food eating is that you CAN trust your appetite and follow your body's signals WHEN you eat REAL FOOD--whole, unprocessed foods that God made, not man-made. It's impossible to eat excessive calories of potatoes, beans, squash, or rice, it just won't fit!!! But pour the oil on, add refined sugars, eat concentrated foods like cheese, and I guarantee you will put on weight.

 

Seriously, try it! Why not?

 

Anyway the Engine 2 Diet is a cool book to read because it's written by a Firefighter. So you get lots of fun, dangerous stories! This entire fire team eats vegan meals at work, they've gone off several medications, dropped their weight, and are much fitter, stronger rescue men. Now the author challenges other fire squads to do the same (video from Dr. Oz Show, that's how I heard about that book).

 

Oh and if you want to go totally extreme, The 80/10/10 Diet is the book for you! My personal favorite diet book. Dr. Graham is my hero, can't wait to meet him someday. I don't follow his exact diet but I try to eat a high-fruit, low-fat diet, with lots of raw foods! I'm not saying it's right for you, but it makes every single one of my health complaints disappear. Including irritability! So this is the "Happy Mommy Diet." Dr. Graham is a sports nutritionist who trains elite athletes, and client after client, their fitness has improved and they've broken more records as they follow his plan. But that's also what Engine 2 Diet claims, so you don't have to make extreme changes to up your game!

To gym or not to gym?

Moms, I need your feedback.

 

Does squeezing in "me time" into an already-busy schedule really help you feel better?? I am afraid it will just make me more stressed.

 

I'm been toying with the idea of joining a gym for a few months, for a couple of reasons. One is the obvious, I want to get fit. But I can do that at home, relatively so, as I do quick work-outs throughout the day, or involve my kids in the workout, or go out for a jog when Rychen is home. So far it's been OK this way - but my workouts aren't long enough or difficult enough to push me. I find that if I do a difficult workout, I need my kids gone for a while so I am not irritable/stressed as my adrenaline comes down and my hormones level out. So I just haven't done a difficult workout. It stresses me too much. So, in that case, I can't do it at home.

 

So then I had the idea of working out at Rychen's parents' house with him watching the kids downstairs, out of my way. But that is easier said than done, and didn't pan out very well.

 

So the second reason I want to join a gym is because I need to do something for myself, sometimes I need to get away for my own sanity. So honestly, would this help? The last thing I need is another to-do-list item, or stressing that I am not getting my money's worth out of a membership somewhere!

Didn't Care

Today I got out some old journals, it's fun to re-read them (I am so blessed that I kept one!) Anyway I found this song that I wrote in 2006, on a keyboard, on my living room floor, when nobody else was home. (Yes, Courtney inspired me, and I wanted to be cool like her!)

It has a tune but not much accompiament; unfortunately I don't play by ear, and my theory has wasted away, so writing a piano part is very complicated for me. I don't think I have shared this with anybody, ever. Rychen doesn't even know about it. One time when my mom was in town I intended to share it with her, but a good time never presented itself. My mom would really appreciate this song, because it's about the sad little girl I used to be (as a teenager, pretty much left the church, needed a physician to help with my depression, etc.) and how I found my faith and became truly converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So I am coming out of the closet and presenting this publicly. Here is who I used to be and who I am today. It's called,

Didn't Care

1.
Slouchin' down in the backseat of the car
I was starin' out the window, lookin' out far
Brother in the front seat, my sister and my Dad
They were all talking, didn't know that I was sad
Turned around a corner, almost crashed
into the backseat of a cab
Found myself thinking...
I wish we had

Chorus:
I was alone
I was afraid
I had known You before,
but it seemed such a chore
back then

Life was so hard
there was no point
whether or not I survived-
whether I lived or died-
Didn't Care.

2.
Stayin' up late, I never could sleep
My heart in a tangle, My soul in a heap
Searchin' for the answers, the Meaning of life
What's the cause of pain? The purpose of strife?
Lost in a maze of doubt and fear, I just wanted to find Truth
But I just wouldn't open my eyes...
(It's right in front of you)

Bridge:
The truth was there, I had to open my heart
(it had been there all along)
There is value in every struggle-
if it leads you to Him

Chorus:
I'd been alone
I'd been afraid
I had known You before,
but it seemed such a chore
back then

But now I'm strong,
My faith is sure
I had to sacrifice, but
I've gained so much
in return.

3.
The Lord won't force, You have your choice
but he's waiting for you, Can't you hear his voice?
Lay down your pride, turn over your fate
Let the Lord come in, have to open the gate
He'll do more with your life than you ever could
Bringing joy, I guarantee
Is happiness possible?
Look at me

Chorus:
I'm not alone
I'm not afraid
Now I know him again
and I feel so alive

Life can be hard
But there's a point!
When you let yourself go
and allow to grow
This I know.

Rychen's fruit smoothie

Rychen is featured in a community running website. Here's his ideal work-out fuel and recovery! I am so impressed. Sharing the benefits of a plant-based diet :)