The Recital

Ria did well in her dance Recital. I think one of the things she was most excited about was receiving a flower afterward. We did give her a flower last year and she seemed to expect that was a part of it (and so does Kat now!). She was SO excited and pleased that she received not 1, but TWO roses. We couldn't locate a purple one, which was her special request, but she was just tickled to received 2! :) Ria was definitely a good line leader for the Tap and pretty good for Ballet. For the dances she was placed on opposite ends of the stage because, I guess, they could count on her most to do the steps she was supposed to do. We could tell she was checking the teachers who were off-stage and that was pretty funny. During one of the dances Ria was doing what she was supposed to do, but the rest of her line was not... so she ended up totally away from the rest of the group. The audience laughed and she looked pleasantly surprised. Ria definitely loved being on stage again this year! She's been talking about it a lot and VERY much looking forward to performing again next year.

Additionally, (I'm pretty sure I already told you) since her piano teacher told her she's going to do a Piano Recital she has had a renewed focus and desire to work on her piano practice. Well, today she told me she was going to play "Red Drum" instead of "Ten Little Indians". It's totally fine with me because Mary Kay told her she could choose her recital pieces. But now she has to memorize Red Drum... I think she did that, for the most part, already today! Can you believe her? She's just amazing to me.

OTHER NEWS

Jess
Still working LONG and hard in all his roles. He's also been helping me in important ways when he is home. I'd been having some tremendous difficulties getting Ria to focus on school and Jess stepped in a couple weeks ago and things have been improving dramatically, yet still bit by bit. He's being Daddy-teacher! I've read about other homeschool families and it seems Daddies most often take a stand-back-and-watch position. I'm so grateful that Jess is willing and able, in such a productive way, to take an active part in our homeschool!

Jess works Wed. through Sun., though Sundays he's off in the morning to go to Church with us. It's a pleasure to have him home on Mondays and Tuesdays, but having him gone from about 8am until 9:30pm or later is really rough much of the time.

This past Tuesday he made it possible for us to go to the temple together as a family. Every month I feel such a renewed gratitude for him support of my Spiritual Life!

Jess agreed to start having "Couple's Prayer" each night and he also reads his Bible out loud to me almost every night. I think I've mentioned this, but I'm just so thankful and... really... joyful over it, I can't brag on him and my God enough over it! I know Father has been working on his heart. Jessie's prayers are amazing! And when he has prayed over the anxiety and other problems I've been experiencing I've always felt a greater peace than when I was praying for myself. I know Heavenly Father is creating miracles in our lives (SO OFTEN!!!) and I know Jessie is recognizing them more, too! What an awesome blessing and even miracle, in itself!

Jess also makes our garden happen. It's been ridiculously difficult to get any work done the times I have tried to do it on my own, so it waits until Jessie's weekend. So, our garends are still not all planted out (one box is untouched as far as seeds being put in the ground while the other is almost completely planted now), but I'm going to pick my first BIG zucchini today! We'll have a BUNCH of yellow-crookedneck sqaush ready soon! I'm so excited! We have eaten quite a few raspberries and I even made some raspberry frozen yogurt (out of my homemade yogurt)! The girls LOVE the berries and enjoyed the "ice cream". What fun! I would like to get some blueberries from the Spring Hill Nursery that I got my raspberry plants from. No moolah for it right now, but I may be able to scrape some together next month? I DO hope so!

Me and SCD
So, I've been plugging along with the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. It's difficult still. Even though I have more variety of things that I can eat, it's still very difficult for me to NOT be able to eat everything I fix for my kiddos. I'm pretty sure I'm through the worst of the "die off" period. Lots of the peeps on SCD go through such a period, but MAN, I had no idea it was SO difficult and even traumatic!

How "die off" was rough: anxiety became much worse, my chest hurt a lot and often, diarrhea was basically non-stop (it had been regular, but not every hour on the hour previous to SCD), I was more exhausted than when preggie!, my "fuse" was shorter than ever, head aches, cold/flu symptoms, and generally feeling BAD. Currently anxiety is much much decreased. I still have had troubling thoughts, but not in the overwhelming-can't-do-anything sort of way I was having. My chest hurts less often. I have not had diarrhea at all in at least 3 days! Energy levels are improving. Fewer head aches when I drink enough water. Cold/flu is basically gone.

I'm in the Pecan Bread Stage 2 of implementing the diet. I'm most excited about adding in nut butter and nut milks. :) I also successfully added in eggs recently, which will broaden my food preparation horizons!

So, it seems good.

Ria
She's fighting less. As I implement "Bible Character Studies" more regularly, she seems to understand why the way she was behaving was wrong. She's totally NOT doing all her work independently and happily, but there is a lot less fussing and fighting about it! Currently her favorite classes are Math (MUS) and piano practice.

Can you believe she's almost through the Laura Ingalls Wilder books? She's read more of the series than me! I definitely want to read more of them, but am currently reading ahead books that I would like her to read before too long.

Kat
Did I tell you she's starting Dance this summer? She is SO excited! She's already been talking about going on stage a getting a flower! :) Isn't that so cute?

Kat is progressing slowly (but wonderfully) through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. She also enjoys numbers, though she's still not identifying them correctly on a regular basis... except for #s 1 and 2, maybe.

Kitty Kat loves playing with Tea, but Tea doesn't enjoy or tolerate her well, much of the time. Every once in a while Tea will enjoy Kat and I feel hopeful that they will be good friends like Ria and Kat are almost all of the time.

My middle daughter does not enjoy hanging out outside as much as Ria. I think Kat doesn't tolerate heat terribly well. In this way she's definitely more like me. I suppose she must needs be like me in some ways since she's SO much her Daddy's daughter in most ways. It's kinda funny, too, cause Ria is more like Jess in heat tolerance and more like me in personaily (among other things)!

Tea
Almost 8 months old. Can you believe it? She's cruising confidently now. She crawls like a Speedy Gonzales on all 4s! ^_^ She loves to play Peek-A-Boo. She has started to prefer having her LONG bangs in FRONT of her eyes (a-la-Ria... do you remember?). Tea has been pulling her hair out of it's clips and ties to get it in front of her face. I think she has too adorable a face to hide behind her hair. I guess she doesn't agree. Who knows!

Tea is still a happy girl, but she DEFINITELY wants attention when she wants it! She does NOT like it one bit when I can't make time for her right when she wants to be with Mama. Thus, she can be pretty fussy sometimes. She also does not sleep more than 7-10 minutes without me with her. This is definitely reminiscent of both of her older sisters! I think my babies just become this way after about 5 or 6 months.... It's exhausting for me to have no time alone. I NEED my temple time to be completely off duty!!! I'm so grateful Jess is so willing to make the trip so I can nurse my nursling right before and right after my work/time off! ^_^

Last Night

I was able to attend Enrichment with JUST Tea! It's the first time I've been to any Church related function SO unencumbered in SO long. I didn't have a blast, exactly, at the function, but I certainly wouldn't trade the time to have so few littles around. It was really pleasant. I'm so grateful Jessie was happy to take over the Dance Stage Rehearsal trip and keep Kat to boot.

Another nice thing from yesterday... I wore some pants to enrichment that I haven't worn since before I had Ria (and some during the pregnancy with her... I've always lost weight when preggie). It felt so nice! And they were not tight in my legs at all and only a little snug at the waist.

This week's weight drop was less than last week (last week it was 6 pounds). This week it was 2. I'm totally happy about it still going down. I expect it will for some time. Part of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet that helps me stick with it even when I feel like stepping way off (like last night being around those chocolate brownies!) is that it helps regulate weight to be what is actually normal for the person on the diet. That would be nice. I don't think I've ever been what is "normal" for my body. I'm excited and curious to see what that looks like!! I'll try to get a picture sometime... but even though I may have it, it'll probably take a long time to get it up here. I've come to accept that lengthy computer time is not meant to be for me at this season in my life.

Today's Destroying Angel

Could it be? You know, the destroying angel from Doctrine and Covenants Section 89? "verse 21: And I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the ^adestroying angel shall ^bpass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them. Amen."

I've been pondering much on food. It shouldn't surprise you since I currently have to prepare 2 meals for every ONE we eat... plus snacks, of course. Why? Well, I guess I haven't shared that, huh?

Okay, so here's the deal. You know those poop problems I've been having for YEARS? I've been trying to remember when they started. And, for the life of me, I just can't. I'm thinking maybe when I was... 23? So, that would be 10 years now, at least! Can you believe I'm 33? Well, I am and I have EARNED every one of the gray hairs on my head!!! :)

Anyway... I know I also told you about how my Mom suggested that I might have Celiac Disease. Well, I think that's a strong possibility. Actually, I think my whole family has Gluten Intolerance, at the very least. Since most Docs won't test for the disease unless you've been consuming gluten for at least 3 months prior to the test, we won't be able to be diagnosed even though Jessie's Health Insurance will probably start early next month (that will be about FIVE months early!!!). *sigh*

After realizing that my Mom's suggestion was probably spot on (like when she said I should marry Jess!), I took us off flour, rye (what?!), and barley (we actually DO have that one). It made a difference! It SERIOUSLY made a difference! My kiddos moods were more even... Kat is still pretty unpredictable and a little wild, but I think that's her "mama-ness" coming out. ahwell I forgot to bring a special snack for them to Story Time on Thursday and did NOT feel like fighting them away from the snacks (a Mama can fight only SO much). So, they had gluten (it's in almost EVERYthing!!). OH MY GOODNESS!!! The next day was hellacious. I'm sure it could have been an off day, but it just felt way TOO off, if you know what I mean. And I forgot about the gluten until I was reviewing the day later on and trying to figure out where I went wrong. *sigh* So, no more of that as much as I can possibly make it so, anyway.

As I was reading and researching Celiac Disease and trying to figure out what we were going to do about food, I kept coming across this SCD thing. So, I looked into it further after seeing it more than a dozen times. After reading about it, I ordered the book and decided to begin the Intro Diet. Have you heard of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet? So far it's great for my weight... but other than that, I feel like it's helping me heal. Today is the best day yet with only one small diarrhea at 6:05am and NOTHING SINCE!!!! The last time I shared that I had a solid poop, I had diarrhea after it and nothing but diarrhea for days following that. Who knows... maybe tomorrow will bring another one! I'm hoping so.

So, it's the Specific Carbohydrate Diet that creates the need for double meals. Not only am I almost always hungry, but the girls can eat way more variety than I can, so I make things for them to eat. Because I'm feeling SO strongly about the importance of our food, I've been working on lots of wholesome and tastey treats. Did I mention that the girls have been off sugar for a couple weeks now (except for Saturday night when they had some chocolate stuff I made for a missionary fireside)? They have. But they still want "dessert" items to eat. Ria has determined that an apple after a meal is dessert. I'm TOTALLY cool with that and it reminds me of Japan, which is a really good thing!

I have to tell you. This SCD is no joke! It's been REALLY difficult for me. I'm very much an omnivore with vegetarian tendencies. But the Intro Diet days (2-5) of this thing you can eat only meats and WELL cooked carrots. I couldn't eat the carrots, though, because they caused me additional crampiness! :( So, I've been eating WAY more meat than I've eaten in the last couple of months! But... since it seems to be making a difference, I'm sticking to it. I decided to give it a go of 3 to 6 months. Probably more like 6, though. And by then, hopefully, I'll be able to eat raw fruits and veggies again and the whole diet will be less difficult than it is today (and more like a celiac diet, which I believe we need to maintain).

So, why do I think my kids are gluten intolerant? Well, beyond the mood issues? Here's the run-down:
Ria has always had continents on her tongue. (check out symptoms) She's always been small (tiny when she was younger).
Kat has really rough teeth (enamel not good?). Her stools have been REALLY loose since we'd been eating more bread (homemade even).
Both girls have been complaining about being hungry ALL the time. Literally, they would eat and 15 to 30 minutes later they wanted another meal (NOT a snack)!
So far the only sign I observed in Tea that I think is related were some patches of skin irritation that I think might fit the description of the skin form of CD... no tests, again, so I'm not sure in that way. The one on her face has completely gone away and the one on her arm is almost gone now, though... seems like a sign that I'm moving in the right direction. I've been off gluten for over a week now.

Back to SCD. It's good for lots of bowel issues. If you do even a little reading around you'll find lists like this: Crohn's disease, Ulcerative Colitis, Diverticulitis, Celiac Disease, Cystic Fibrosis, Chronic Diarrhea, and Autism. One of my favorite web sites in my efforts in this thing is one created to help parents of Autistic children do this diet for their kids. I'm following the steps they have outlined on one of the pages. The whole site is very informative, though.

So, do you know someone that might benefit from this sort of diet? I do. I told one of the two who came to mind, but the other doesn't want me to write to her. I've argued with myself that maybe I should send her an email in hopes that this information might be helpful. But after much internal back-and-forth, I decided that I won't do what she doesn't want me to do: write to her. So, I just hope she reads this and knows I'm thinking about her and hoping she might find some relief from the Destroying Angel.

Well, at least that's what I'm coming to believe food can be! If we eat the Standard American Diet (and we Gollihughs certainly did!), then we're likely going to be what we eat: SAD. But if we eat to heal and then eat to live (rather than live to eat as I totally did!), we will be marking our door with a spotless first lamb's blood, as it were. I've also thought that healing through food may be the way that we become a people no longer in need of Doctors! Wouldn't that be lovely!?? It totally IS possible. So, food could be two sides of a "coin": both deliverance and death... at least, that's what I think.