Who says good nutrition means animal fats? Weston A. Price

Here is an article from the Washington Post this week about the Nourishing Traditions diet.  

The Great Divide

It's a pretty great article.  I'm impressed!

It's potty time

Last night Rhett had just gotten Seth out of the tub and all of a sudden we heard a little tinkle.  We sighed because we figured Seth was peeing on the wall or something.  We turn around only to find him peeing in the toilet!  It was so cute.  I guess it's time to figure out this potty training thing.  Oh boy.  

Kisses!

Seth blew a kiss today!  His occupational therapist was leaving and blew him a kiss, and he did it right back!  Wow!

Meal Plan Monday

Leftovers - we still have leftover soup and taco salad.  Yum!

Rotini and bread - Rice rotini noodles with homemade marinara sauce.  Garlic and butter bread.

Black bean rolls ups - These are frozen from Trader Joes.  Black beans and cheese and rolled up in a corn tortilla.  Served with guacamole.  (yeah, I know, I'm being lazy)

Burgers and fries - organic, grass-fed beef patties grilled to perfection.  Sprouted buns, lettuce, home grown tomatoes, avocado spread and raw cheddar cheese.  Sweet potatoes cut into strips, drizzled in olive oil, sea salt and pepper and baked until yummy!

My mom gets married on Friday, so I'll be eating out of the house.  The boys will be on their own (aka: Chipotle).

Dinners are easy this week because I'll be busy cooking up 5 days worth of meals for mom and Scott's honeymoon!  ;)

Is autism a call back to the farm?

Yesterday I started reading Connection Parenting by Pam Leo.  My life was changed before I even finished the introduction.  It's that good.  Seriously.

"Parents are not told that our most important job is to secure and maintain a healthy, strong parent-child bond.  This critical information, about the conditions that children need to thrive, has not made its way into the media.  Parents hear far more about what new product to buy that will hold their babies than they do about the importance of holding their babies in their arms.  What our children need most, money can't buy.  Our children need human connection.  A healthy, strong parent-child bond, created through consistent, loving connection, is essential to our children's wellbeing and optimal development.  This bond is also the key to our effectiveness as parents.

Many children are in crisis.  Parents are reading parenting books and taking classes.  Many of us are looking for answers because we are struggling.  Parenting has always been work, but it hasn't always been a struggle.  Our grandparents and great-grandparents didn't read books on parenting or take parenting classes.  Did they already know about bonding?  No.  Our great-grandparents didn't know about bonding either.  It was not what they knew that made parenting different for them, it was how they lived.

In our great-grandparents' day, children's need for human connection was met naturally by a lifestyle that supported a strong parent-child bond.  Babies were born at home, they were breastfed, and spent their early years at home.  The mother-infant and parent-child connection was not compromised by separation.  Parents' and children's lives were more connected.

Our lifestyle has changed dramatically.  Today most babies are born in the hospital and are bottle-fed.  This early compromise to connection is compounded by the reduced amount of time parents and children spend together.  Many infants and  young children spend long days away from their mothers and fathers.  The stressful pace of modern living, the loss of extended family support, and the ever-increasing amount of time adults and children spend with television and computers have further weakened the parent-child connection.

Because the vital parent-child bond grew naturally and was not created consciously, when our lifestyle changed we were unaware that those changes were eroding the parent-child connection essential to our children's wellbeing.  Even though the adults didn't know something was missing, the children did.  Children's unmet need for connection began to show as behavior problems."

She goes on to talk about asking "what is not right for our children?" rather than "what's wrong with our children?".  If a plant isn't growing well, we look at the growing conditions.  If a child isn't growing well we need to look at the growing conditions.  

I hate that we, as a society, have grown apart from our extended family.  Money takes us elsewhere, and our children are the ones paying for it.  Seth is a totally different kid when my mom is around.  He's happier and more secure.  I think he feels more confident because he has more attention.  He's not always in a power struggle with me to get my attention.  I've got another baby to take care of, food to cook, laundry to wash, dishes to clean, etc.  When my mom is here there is always someone who can stop and give him attention.  I'm also a totally different mom when she's around.  I'm more patient, just because I'm not so lonely and frustrated.  Mother's should not be alone.  Children should not be alone.  We need family close by.  We need each other.  It's not in our human nature to be alone.  

Is this why there are so many kids on waiting lists for speech and occupational therapy today?  Because they aren't around other kids?  They don't have anybody to learn from?  Is it a coincidence that Seth finally started saying words the day after his 2 cousins left after being here for a week?  Kids needs kids to learn how to be kids together.

Seth has such a hard time with Rhett being away at work all day.  Rhett has to get up early and leave before Seth wakes up every morning.  If he didn't, Seth would scream all day long until he got home again.  Literally.  Seth doesn't understand that dad has to go to work.  There is not way to rationalize with him.  Then, Seth's weekends are spent obsessing over Rhett and terrified that he's going to leave.  It's not very fun.  If Seth knew that dad was just outside working I think he would feel more confident to get through his days.  

Don't even get me started on how much local, organic farm food would help these autistic children (and all of us, for that matter).  That's a whole other soapbox for another day.

Why have we let our (not "our" as in Rhett and I, but society as a whole) lives get this way?  Why do we let money pull us away from the things that really matter?  Food, family and love.  Is this autism epidemic a call back to a simpler way of life?  

I rambled on about all of this to Rhett yesterday.  He quietly listened and finally said "If you scratch my back we can move to the prairie".  I scratched his back.  So, who wants to join us in community living on a farm?

Tired of autism

It's been one of those days.  We didn't even make it to church today.  The screaming, oh, the screaming.  Seth is so unbelievably irrational.  Ella's "terrible two's" are going to be a breeze.  This is so hard sometimes.  I just want one quiet hour with my husband...just one.  

If that wasn't enough, Ella and I have thrush again.  So, she looks like The Joker today.

Setting the stage for autism

This is why we think Seth has autism...(yeast + formula + not enough good gut flora + MMR  vaccine = "autism")

Setting the stage for autism

Here are some wonderful videos about gut flora, probiotics, diet, autism, etc.  Well worth your time if you have little ones or plan on having little ones soon.

Videos

Seth is expensive

Very, very expensive.

Speech Therapy - $350 for 5 sessions

Group Therapy - $175 for 4 sessions

Occupational/Speech Therapy - FREE through the county until he turns 3 in October!

DAN! doctor - $100 every 6 weeks

Supplements - $350/month

Seth's special diet food - $100/week

Misc. (my research, books, videos, non-toxic household products, etc) - $100/month

That right there is $1188 a month.  There is so much more that we need to be doing for him also.  We need to buy him his therapeutic listening program (a couple hundred dollars).  We want to get him a ABA therapist (another few hundred a month).  We want to get him a specially trained autism dog (we won't even go there).  Autism is expensive.  Insurance doesn't cover a penny either.  Oye.

In the market for...

A dog!  We've been searching online for autism-trained dogs, but they are just too expensive.  So, we're going to give it a go at a "normal" dog.  There are some pretty cute ones on petfinder.com.  We would like to find one that is still young, but trained, vaccinated, etc.  We just have too much on our plates right now to get an untrained dog.  We'll let you know if we find one!

We're also searching for a feeding therapist for Seth.  His diet consists of milk, pancakes, bananas, juice and baby food.  Honestly, that's it.  We know we need to get more nutrient dense foods in his system, we're just at a loss as to how to get it in there!  He refuses to even look at other foods.  I know a diet change would mean a world of difference for him.  So, I've posted around that I'm looking for in-home help for 2 weeks as we try to switch Seth over to the Specific Carbohydrate diet/Gut and Psychology Syndrome diet/Weston A. Price diet.  There's going to be tears and screaming and I'm going to need some help.  Anybody up for the challenge?

DAN! appointment, bridal shower, Seth update

We've been busy around here the last few days!  On Thursday Seth had an appointment with his DAN! doctor.  Through the muscle testing, she found that he is being negatively affected by chemicals right now.  We tried to think if he was exposed to anything lately - nothing came to mind.  We're chemical/toxin-free in the house, so it wouldn't have been anything here.  She said that it could be his body starting to detox, which would be great.  She said that his corpus colosum isn't working right.  Translation: his right and left brain are not working together like they should be.  So, she gave us some homeopathic remedies for that.  We're also starting him on another protocol pak and some more vitamins.  We've got quite the regimen around here.  About $350/month in supplements just for Seth.  

We also had an appointment at the public school for Seth on Thursday.  It was a meeting to determine Seth's eligibility for the special-ed class.  He passed with flying colors.  He will be going right into the autism class.  Which is SIX hours a day!  I honestly don't think he will be able to handle that.  He gets extremely overwhelmed from an 1.5 hours of group therapy once a week.  They said we can try it out and if it's not working for him we can switch it around.  I can't believe my little boy will be going to school in a month.  I keep imagining him getting on the bus with his little back pak on.  That is going to be a sad day.  

Then Thursday night I went to my mom's bridal shower!  Yep, mom's getting married this upcoming Friday.  It was so nice to get together with my mom's Centreville friends.  I think the last time I saw everyone was at Seth's baby shower.  Ella tagged along and she did great.  I can't believe my mom's getting married.  I'm so excited for her.  I will be busy this week cooking up 5 days worth of meals for mom and Scott's honeymoon.  I've got some delicious things planned!

Seth has had a great last couple of days.  He's interacting with Ella more and more.  He's finally starting to make more connections.  He is also starting to imitate.  He's never imitated before and it's so cute to see him finally do it.  I was feeding Ella yesterday and she was holding one of her feet and waving it around.  Seth looked at her, laughed, and then held one of his feet up in the air.  I couldn't believe it!