Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Special Occasions and the diet?!

So what do you do on special occasions when there are temptations everywhere? Today is Chase's Grade 8 Grad and there will be all sorts of yummies full of gluten and dairy! Generally I only let them choose things that are on within our limits, but today is really special for him! Sometimes I will help them choose the goodies that have the least amount of offenders but just about everything there will have gluten and dairy!!

On a night like tonight I will let him have whatever he wants, but I will caution him to try and limit too many bad choices. For example, more than 1 piece of pizza would be a bad choice! Chase is very aware that whenever he cheats he pays the price the next day when he feels crappy. He usually gets a stomach ache and a headache, he also gets a little spacey!

Sometimes though, like tonight, fitting in with your peer group takes priority!

Pamela

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Cosmic joke!

OK so seriously the universe is playing a huge joke on people in general! Whoever came up with the plan that has families living under the same roof when the mom is peri-menopausal, the dad is hitting his mid-life crisis and then there are teenagers in the house!!! Who thought this would be a great idea??? Lucky for me my teenagers are fairly reasonable, well at least for 3 minutes every day. And Larry has not gone out and bought a red sports car yet, although if he did I may run away in it! And in our house we have the joy of ADD, ADHD and Asperger's!! Some days are just exhausting and then I realize it is only 6:30am!!

I think it will be a very long summer, right now the teens are arguing over gum?! Why? How can you have a 1/2 hour long argument over gum? Really it should not be going on this long since they are ADD and ADHD, they should have lost focus about their topic 25 minutes ago!!

Well off to run away from home!

Pamela

Monday, June 15, 2009

Must have chocolate!

OK as far as I am concerned the need for Chocolate is one of life's basic needs!! So if you are gluten and casein free, what can you do? I found some chocolate chips from Enjoy Life that are gluten and dairy free!! I get them from our local health food store and you can order them online (www.enjoylifefoods.com). With the chocolate chips you can work wonders! We melt the chips and add things like almonds and you have a chocolate bar. To make icing for our yummy chocolate cake I melt the chips and add rice milk and gluten free icing sugar until I get the right consistency! These chocolate chips are incrediably rich and sooooo good!! Apparently the Easter Bunny knows about them too and makes them into Easter eggs and puts them in plastic egg cases!

Happy chocolate!

Pamela

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Best Gluten Free Cake!

Birthday's can be hard on the gluten, casein free folk in our family! Cake is the one of the yummiest inventions I have every discovered and I haven't met too many kids who don't love cake too!! So what happens when you go gluten and casein free? Well I have done some experimenting as the problem comes up more often than you would realize. Not only do you need an option for your own kids birthdays, you also need a solution when they go to other kids birthday parties!!

I tried baking my own cakes from scratch, but they just didn't cut it, nothing horrific, just not that great. OK so even my chocolate crazed kids wouldn't even finish the cake! Then we tried a Bob's Red Mills gluten, dairy free chocolate cake mix, home run with everyone in the family!! OK, it is not the cheapest cake mix out there, but sometimes it just doesn't matter. When it is your child's birthday you want to be able to give them a yummy cake! The really funny part is how much the regular folk love this cake too! I did get a little smarter this year with Chase's party, I made a regular cake and his cake. The other boys all had the regular cake so then there was lots of left overs after the party for my guys and I saved some $$$.

Next time I will share how to make the best chocolates and chocolate icing so no one feels deprived!

Pamela

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Living with a sugar junkie!

Living with a sugar junkie can be very scary! I know because I am a reformed sugar junkie myself! Anything sweet was my weakness, didn't matter what form it came in I loved it!! I drank coke and ate candy whenever I could! Every time I would start to crash I would be searching for my candy or coke or ice cream or .... (the list is endless). I recently gave up processed sugar and I was shocked at how much better I felt! It was even easier to quit than I thought it would be. My moods very quickly evened out and I wasn't getting wild energy swings anymore!

My problem is that Chase is an even bigger sugar junkie than I ever was! This boy takes the quest for sugar to a whole new level. Yesterday we all went to the town fair for his birthday. He started the day with an energy drink, then went on to downing 3 Arizona's! As I am lecturing him on self-control he informs me that they are simply a fruit juice drink so it is OK. He doesn't seem to care that they have 24 grams of sugar each (only half what is in a can of coke but still a lot of sugar). Then there was the birthday cake and who knows what else that I didn't see.

We do try very hard to limit his junk intake but he goes out of his way to sneak anything he can get his hands on. He even resorts to eating straight out of the sugar bowl when he can't find anything else (yuck)! Just what an ADHD kid needs, straight sugar! All we can do at this point is fill him full of probiotics (we take Theralac) so we stop the massive yeast growth that must be happening in his body with all that sugar. The probiotics are brilliant since the yeast overgrowth can cause so many symptoms like...

abdominal gas
headaches
migraines
excessive fatigue
cravings for alcohol
anxiety
cravings for sweets
inability to think clearly or concentrate
hyperactivity
mood swings
diarrhea
constipation
hyperactivity
itching
acne
eczema
depression
sinus inflammation
dizziness
poor memory
persistent cough
earaches
low sex drive
muscle weakness
irritability
learning difficulties
sensitivity to fragrances and/or other chemicals
cognitive impairment
thrush
athletes foot
sore throat
indigestion
acid reflux
chronic pain

Pretty frightening list! The problem starts with these kids when they end up taking antibiotics, due to ear or throat infections and then the sugar just gives the yeast a happy place to grow.

Maybe a sugar intervention will be in our future.

Pamela

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

The Challenges of Being Organization

Organization is not my strong suit to say the least!! I can honestly say that I am organizationally challenged! Now how does the organizationally challenged manage to teach her ADD and ADHD kids to be organized?! It is like a toddler trying to teach adults to drive a tractor trailer!! I really do try hard to be organized and I start off well, but it goes rapidly downhill. Then there is also the fact that when I do achieve some sort of organization, others in this house declare war on it and wreck any progress we have made!

Well imagine my shock last night when I happened upon Ashlynn's planner for school and it was perfectly organized!! She had all her homework listed, she had her extra stuff in there and she had her workout schedule there too!! I just about cried. I know how hard this is to do for me let alone for her with her ADD!! Maybe I can learn from her!

Pamela

Monday, June 1, 2009

I am getting to spend the day with Kolton who is home sick today! We are snuggling on the couch and watching "Bolt" (again)! Kolton gets sick a lot, which always freaks me out. Ash and Chase were sick when they were small, all the normal stuff like ear infections and throat infections. Luckily they grew out of it and have been very healthy. Kolton since birth will suddenly spike a fever of 104 to 105 completely out of the blue. There usually aren't any other symptoms to go with the fever. When he got so sick at 3 it scared us to death! He was in hospital for over a month, they took out his appendix and he had another procedure to put a pick line in to feed him. He had a rare thing called HSP (couldn't possibly spell the full name). It was his body's autoimmune reaction to something. His head swelled so much he couldn't see, he couldn't walk, his intestines shut down. The doctor's at Sick Kids told us that normally when a child gets HSP they get 1 or 2 symptoms, are sick for a few days and then they are fine. Kolton got every symptom to the max, they said they never see such a severe case.

The reason I am sharing this is because it seems like he has a very strange immune system which I believe is somehow related to his Asperger's. I believe that all of these kids with ADD, ADHD and Autism have sensitive systems and they can't handle all of the crap in our environment, our food etc... I don't have a degree in anything that would qualify me to know what the heck I am talking about, but sometimes common sense can tell us so much more!

Well back to snuggling and "Bolt"!

Pamela