Blueberries and Our Diet

It's the tail end of blueberry season, and we took our first-ever blueberry-picking trip.  I think I'm addicted!


The boys took turn pushing Zack around in the shade.


Trevor hunted mushrooms...


Blueberry-picking beats strawberry-picking hands down.  The bushes were so tall, the lanes so nicely kept and clean, and the berries were organic and so delicious!  Warm blueberries fresh of the branch is my new favorite way to eat them.


I got over-eager when we got home, and I froze every single berry.  They were so easy to sort and freeze that I got carried away.


So William and I went back the next day, *without Zack*, and picked some more!


*****

We have been swimming a lot...it has been SO hot, and all the boys LOVE to hop in the pool at Grandmother Beth's house.


*****

Also, we have been enjoying our new microscope!


Trevor has found all kinds of things to look at.  He gets so excited about each discovery.  His favorite is finding creatures--bacteria--and watching them swim around.


*****

Zack is ALL OVER the place.  Phew!  I'm still working on getting the house baby-proofed, a little at a time.  Now that he can crawl, he is quite a bit happier--Finally!  He did cut in one more tooth before we left Nebraska, bringing the total for that trip to 3, and now he is teething again.  He is into everything, but seems eager to learn and pays attention when we tell him "no".  He eats everything we offer him:  blueberries :), cherries, kidney beans, pickles, tomatoes, taco meat, and nectarines are some of his new foods.  He is still a ton of work, but now it is mostly because he is so BUSY, instead of because he is so fussy.  Thank you God!

He loves to do what we do...like brushing teeth, and wearing a hat.  He had a ball trying on Grandpa's hat on our trip.  He would open his mouth so big, and be so excited...




He's gonna miss that Grandpa!


*****

Trevor is still doing pretty well.  His OCD did seems to flare up for awhile...maybe due to the vacation?  

I noticed something new this week:  his skin is getting smooth.  He used to have little bumps all over his arms, legs, back and face.  He hated it.  He used super gentle soaps, but we never really did anything else about it, except hope it would get better someday.

This brings me to our diet...

When we started this diet (gluten-free, dairy-free) it was largely from reading the Eat Like a Dinosaur book, written by a husband and wife (the Paleo Parents) who openly shared about their family's health issues.

One of the problems they mentioned was their son's skin--it was bumpy like Trevor's, and after being on the diet it cleared up.  That really got my attention.

Before we started the diet, I made a list of all our little (or not-so-little) problems:  headaches, back pain, skin problems, emotional issues, sleep problems, OCD.  About 3 days into the diet, I noticed Zack sleeping better.  Within a month, I realized that I wasn't taking ibuprofen anymore.  I had been taking it at least once a day for headaches.  And now?  I can remember maybe 2 headaches in the last couple months, one from sinus congestion, and one from driving in the car with 4 kids. :)  Also, William used to take ibuprofen frequently for his back...he was alway complaining of it hurting.  I was on the brink of taking him to a chiropractor.  Now he rarely mentions it.

AND, Trevor's skin is cleared up.  I am convinced it is because we have some gluten sensitivities and have gotten our diet cleaned up.

The first month on the diet was hard...we missed our old foods, and didn't know what to eat.  Now, we sometimes still don't know what to eat, but we don't miss our old food as much.  Plus, we are experimenting with how much wheat and dairy we can handle, and still feel good.  We can splurge on a pizza once in a while, and not notice the effects much.  I'm glad about that, because it is fun to eat pizza :).

If any of this intrigues you, or you want to know more, check out the Paleo Parents website for inspiring stories and nutrition help.

ZOOM! -or- The Seventh Month Part I

Another month has blown by. How do they go by so fast? Man, so much can happen in a month. Thankfully, at our house all the happenings were the every-day sort: getting new teeth, loosing old teeth, getting new glasses, taking the last day of school, eating new foods...you get the idea.

Wonderwoman begged suggested that I give an update on Trevor. I know that lots of people have been praying for us, so I'll try to at least get out a bit of Trevor-news.

About two weeks ago, Trevor and I headed up to Birmingham for some more therapy. While eating breakfast earlier that morning, I had noticed Trevor mumbling about something. I just barely restrained myself from saying something through my teeth like, "Tre-vor...cut it out" and instead happened to say something like, "what are you jabbering about?" I was rewarded with some insight. Trevor said he was calling his OCD names. Sounds strange, but it's actually one of the recommended tricks for battling OCD. I can't remember the names, but they were silly, just like they are supposed to be. I was impressed.

Later, during the car ride, I asked Trevor about it. I told him that it seemed like his OCD wasn't bothering him as much lately, and he agreed. I learned that not only is his OCD bothering him less frequently, he is also able to handle it more easily when it does bother him. Rating things on a scale is often an effective way for Trevor to communicate, so I had him rate how bad his OCD was--"0" was not bad at all, and "10" was the worst you can think of. He rated it a "3"...but then changed his mind and gave it a "2". I asked him what he would rate it at back a couple months ago when things were really bad. He gave it a "9".

Wow. That is a huge difference! It's funny how when things are bad, and they get better, sometimes you don't notice right away. It's like when things are working the way they are supposed to, you don't notice. That little conversation helped me notice what a long way we had come. I had to look back at the last couple posts to compare... I noticed that last month I said that Trevor still mentioned his OCD every day. Now, I bet it is maybe every-other day. Eating is no longer a problem. Can't remember if I ever mentioned that, but for awhile, Trevor was having a hard time even eating because of the lies that his food had feelings and that he should feel sorry for it. I know...that's totally crazy. But, that's OCD. It's totally crazy. And it can be totally crippling. But we're not there anymore!! Praise God!!! OCD is still an unwanted part of our life, but it is not in control of Trevor anymore. Trevor is control of it. When a thought comes, he battles it...and wins most of the time. When he has trouble, he asks for help, and we work it out in a couple of minutes.

So, where does that put us now?  We still have some issues that we are dealing with...

Trevor's hearing has been increasingly painful. He is sometimes brought to tears by Zack's loud crying. Today I had an idea to see if I can't get some protective ear things...whatever they are called...like you see people wear when they are mowing. I think if I kept some in the car that would help.

Also, we are doing vision therapy with Trevor. That takes about 45 minutes...every day. It's been 2 weeks, and I'm already tired of it. All we do are simple activities using only one eye in order to strengthen the eyes. But it is time-consuming. We do it while Zack is napping.

We are still doing our gluten-free, dairy-free diet, and are growing more convinced that it is helpful for our family. More on that later, hopefully.

That's all for now. Thank you so much for all the prayers! God is so faithful and good.

The 6th Month

I'm encouraged today!



Sure, maybe I missed Easter because I got some freak allergy-induced ear infections. Maybe I still have to strain to hear my family talk to me. And maybe the house is a rockin' mess...but I'm encouraged.

This morning, I was thinking about what I wanted to write about, and I was enjoying thinking about the fun things we did over the last month. And then, before I started this post, I read back through the last post, and I can see that things are better right now than they were then.

Trevor is still struggling with his OCD, but I really think it is milder now. He can eat 90% of his meals peacefully. He still gets weird about William, but it is way less often. He doesn't walk around like a surgeon, with his hands in the "sterile" position, as much anymore. He does still tell me at least once a day that his OCD is "hurting him"...but he used to say that things were "hurting his OCD". I think that he is separating it from himself more...realizing that it is not part of him. Now, we can talk about it, and he can move on. It is true that he probably deals with it way more than I am aware of, but I think it is interfering with his daily life less than last month.

We have been doing the light therapy for almost 4 weeks now. I really think it is helping. We had his vision tested after 2 weeks, and his visual fields are opening up more. Also, we finally, after years of hearing about gluten-free and casein-free diets, have decided to try it out. The whole family. I know it's not very scientific to try more than one variable at the same time, but we were desperate!



Zack has been taking better naps. He rarely cries when I put him down anymore, and also, in one week he went from taking terrible 45-minute naps to taking full 2-hours naps. In fact, now I have to go get him up after 2 hours, to make sure he will sleep good at night still. What changed?? I really think it is the GF/CF diet. His good naps started within 3 days of the diet, and are now very consistent. Whatever the reason...the point is: Aaahhhhh. It's sooo nice.

A lot has happened in the last month.

I had a birthday. Here I am, posing with my new skillet and apron. Apparently I didn't want anyone posing with me.


Also, William turned 9!

We had chocolate-peanut-butter milkshakes for lunch. Nice choice:)


And after dinner at Grandmothers, we had jello cake. William's choice. He even made it himself.


It was actually surprisingly delicious.


Zack has hit both the 5-month and 6-month marks, since I last posted. He has picked up several new skills:
He can jump...


He can sit all by himself...(even while flapping his arms!)


Yesterday he learned to eat a Cheerio!


Not exactly Gluten-Free...so we'll see how that goes.


He still has to concentrate to chew.


And today he cut in his second tooth!

Even though he can sit alone, we still like to pop him in the bumbo in the kitchen. He loves to play with his toys.

We have had a couple of fun adventures lately. One day a couple weeks ago, being inspired by the Mission of Motherhood, I took the kids to a local plant nursery, and told them they could each spend $5 on plants. Well, while we loved looking around the beautiful nursery, $5 didn't get us much there. So, off we went to Lowe's.

I have to admit, I had visions in my head of everyone getting flowers. I imagined snap dragons, marigolds, colorful pansies...apparently I still have a lot to learn about raising boys. The only flowers we came home with were the zinnia seeds I picked out for myself.

But, don't think I was disappointed! It was so much fun, and I learned so much about the kids.

William was on a mission. He wanted a pitcher plant...a carnivorous plant that drowns its victims. Nary a one could we find.

Samuel was the first to actually snag a plant. His choice?

Oregano! He wanted something that wasn't going to just die at the end of the summer. Plus, "we can use it for food." He still had over a dollar left to spend, and did a lot of thinking while the other boys found their choices.

While we were looking for a pitcher plant, we found venus fly traps and sun dews, which are also carnivorous and catch their prey on their sticky leaves. Our fly trap is thriving out on our patio, so Trevor decided to get a sun dew. It's not looking so good right now, but I expect it will take some time for it to recover from its time at Lowe's.


William's second choice of plant was a cactus. Let me tell you, Lowe's has a large assortment of cacti. I know, because we inspected very variety of cacti. Twice. At least. This is what William chose:


It is a nasty little thing...the deceptively soft-looking needles on it come off so easily, and seem designed to lodge themselves into little hands. It's called a Bunny Ear. Perhaps someone had never really held a bunny when they named it that?

While William was shopping (and shopping and shopping) Samuel decided to go spend his last bit of money. At first he thought he might get a snap dragon (yes!) but then he saw the seed stand. He brought me a large handful of seed packets, and wanted to know how much it would cost to get them all. He had watermelon, corn, strawberries, broccoli, peppers, and cucumbers, I think. He was a little deflated when I added them up, and told him it would cost over $8 to get them all. We talked it over, and he decided to get...


Broccoli.

I told him he was like a farmer. He really liked that idea.

We came home and planted all our treasures. The kids have really enjoyed taking care of their plants. Samuel especially likes to go out and water his "garden." I loved seeing inside their little hearts...seeing what delights them.

The next day, we went to the library. Samuel got some Scooby Doo books, William got some cactus books, and Trevor got a sun dew book. At the last minute though, we found The Mushroom Book. Trevor has been interested in fungi for quite awhile. He had actually wanted to find mushrooms to buy with his $5, but, where does one buy mushrooms??

This mushroom book is so cool. If you happen to like mushrooms, you might like it.


He has had hours and hours of entertainment from it. He has even sucked us in...especially Tim.


Trevor hunts all over our yard, and can find new mushrooms every day.


It's really amazing how many different kinds we have in our yard. The book has an identification guide that Trevor likes to use. He also likes to record what he finds.


We bought some mushrooms from the store. We used to pick them out of our food, but now we have started eating mushrooms.


We put them on our burgers (along with sauteed onions...it's a little like eating steak, since we aren't eating buns anymore), and in our stir fry.

That same week, we went to the book sale at our library. It was so funny to me to see what the kids picked out. Samuel got a Prince of Egypt book (the Disney version) and a Sonic book (the Saturday morning cartoon character). William picked out these decorative coffee-table-type books:


and Trevor picked out this:


I just love how different and complicated they each are.

Oh how I praise God for the fun memories this month...for the help he has given us. I know many people are praying for us, and we are very thankful. I'm taking Trevor back to re-test his vision again this week. You can pray for that, and also that my ears would heal without any expensive trips to the ENT like the doctor mentioned could happen. :)

Things as they are...

(I just finished reading a biography about Amy Carmichael. Wow. I love her. Think she'll mind if I borrow the title of her book for this blog post?)


I'm not sure how to blog lately. Of course, it's always hard to find time...but it's more than that. Here I have all these sweet pictures that I want to share, but lately life doesn't feel as sweet as the pictures look. How should I handle that in the blog? Do I share all the dirt of our life, or sweep it under the rug and just show the pictures? I'm leaning toward letting the dirt show...this is our family journal, and when God pulls us out of this mucky pit, it will be all the sweeter to share. Bear with me these days while I try to figure this out.

Let's see...how to sort out all the pictures and events...

Valentine's Day
I had yet another breech of sanity, and decided (last-minute) that we should have a Valentine's Party...complete with homemade frosted sugar cookies, hand-made cards, and music.



That my mom didn't put me under citizen's arrest shows that she was also suffering from some mental impairment.



Sure, we look happy... That was early in the day. :)

While the cookies were cooling, we worked on making Valentine's bags and cards. I had gotten out every-single-crafty-artsy supply I could find. In further example of my insanity, I spread the crafts ALL OVER the counter before we made cookies. Brilliant. Then I had to shove everything out of the way, and then re-arrange after the cookie cutting blitz.



It's not that I didn't have a sweet idea...it's just that my brain-timing skills were off.

We each made a cute bag--just like in grade school--for everyone to deposit eachother's cards in. We made bags for the grandmothers, a widow friend, and our uncle who was in the hospital.

The kids could barely hang in there to make enough Valentines to pass out to everyone. Mom and I wound up frosting all the cookies ourselves.



We got finished with just enough time left to deliver the bags. At around 4:00 William and I started the Dodge Caravan Express and successfully delivered all the bags. We picked up dinner on the way home :). Aahh...love, sweet love.

Trevor's Birthday
Trevor turned 10 this month!!!!

10!!

Our plan was that instead of a birthday party, we would get Trevor a trampoline. Um...the birthday has come...and gone...and we still don't have a trampoline. Oops.

So, we started Trevor's birthday celebrations a few days early. Mom found tickets to Riverdance (!) and got them for T's birthday. She kept Z-dog while Tim and I took the 3 big boys to dinner and the show.



I have some Riverdance music from back-in-the-day, and Trevor really likes it. As the show started up, I was getting goosebumps, and thinking this could have been MY birthday present! I was imagining that Trevor was just loving it when he leaned over and started asking questions:

How much did these tickets cost?
Can we still do something else for my birthday?
Do we have to stay for the whole show?
Can we give our tickets back?

What???

Poor Trevor spent the whole 1st half of the show worrying about things. I didn't know what to do to help him. The music, the dancers, the lights...everything was so amazing...so fun to see. The other boys were enjoying it, I was loving it, and Trevor was miserable. Thank you, OCD.

Thankfully, the second half had songs that were new to us. That distracted Trevor enough that he was able to start to enjoy the show. Then came a comedy act that had us all hooting and laughing, even Trevor. By the end of the show he was having a good time, and was glad we went.



We started Trevor's birthday morning with donuts...


He opened some presents at lunch...




Notice his right arm hanging off to the side in that last picture? He does that when he feels contaminated. He walks around most of the day with his arms held funny like that. Or he'll fold his hands together to keep them from getting contaminated. I kept finding him that day trying to use just one hand to put together his lego sets. I had to order him to use both hands. He would wimper and do it for awhile...and then go back to one hand.

We took the day off school, and had some friends over to play legos in the afternoon. We dumped all the legos (that weren't made into creations already) onto the kitchen counter. It was really fun for the boys.



Trevor picked ihop for dinner, to everyone's delight.


Here we are trying to make a cupcake stand with legos to take to his family party. Again...what was I thinking?


We wound up just decorating the cupcakes with lego men. Still fun.





In other news

Zack is growing like a weed. He loves to eat.


That is...he loves to eat most things.


Still working on the peas...


He's starting to enjoy playing on the floor more. He is often in danger of being smothered with attention from the brothers. Poor baby.


He rolled over for the first time just this week!



Funny pose in the swing...


* * * * * * * *

I let Trevor hold him the other day (u-hum--unattended). A few minutes later, I found Trevor, but no Zack. Where was Zack?


Trevor had made him a hut. And put him in it. And walked away. Uh-huh.

But Zack loved it!


Oh Dear.

* * * * * * * *

More bottle pictures. I pump about 12-14 oz. each morning, so Zack gets bottles a couple times a day in addition to nursing. (More information than you were looking for? Sorry. :) We all love to give Zack a bottle.





* * * * * * * *

What else... Oh yes...the boys styled their hair like Antonio Banderas on Spy Kids...Sa-Weet.


* * * * * * * *

Mom and I redid the downstairs bathroom...


Working with that weird color of tile worked out pretty well...


Remember what it used to look like?




* * * * * * * *

Mom and I took Trevor and Zack to Birmingham last week. Trevor had a re-evaluation at the Snider Therapy Center. We are going to start him on all the therapy that we didn't do last year. We hadn't realized how much better Trevor had been doing until he regressed after Zack was born. It was really good to be reminded of all the problems that Trevor has. It helps me understand part of why he is so anxious.

Our appointment was so early in the day that we went up the night before and stayed in a hotel, which was super fun for Trevor. Cartoons in bed? He-Haw!! or, he-haw...he looks way too tired to use exclamation points.


In between appointments, we hung out at the mall. Here I am trying to explain to Trevor why a book that says "believe in yourself" is okay for him to have.


* * * * * * * *

And some random pictures:

The guys have been enjoying the gift Kim gave T for his birthday...


It runs on "crank" power--not sure what the real term for that is. You crank it up, and it goes. This is particularly nice, since Trevor has issues with using things up, like batteries.

I built a fort with the kids...which they slept in all night. Fun.


* * * * * * * *
And...I buried our sweet kitty this week.


But God was so kind and gentle. I'm so grateful that Mom was still here when I had to do it. She had been sick off and on starting with the day Mom got here, and the day before Mom left, William and I took Indi to the vet to be put to sleep. Poor Kitty.



With this long of a blog, maybe I should change the name to

Epic Accounts of Our Family