Beans and rice

First off, let me just say thank you. I have received a few emails, a phone call and your comments of support and encouragement. Parenting is hard stuff sometimes (most of the time) and I so appreciated all the positive words that reminded me that I'm doing okay. Sometimes I take the criticism to heart and forget that other parents feel the same way I do. So thank you for reminding me that we're all in this together. And that I don't suck.

 

 

Now onto food storage. In each of these pictures, you'll see our stash of food. All of our cupboards, some closets, under beds, in the garage... (As a bonus of this post, you get to see our big kitchen which we love!)

 

When we moved here, several people from church who helped us unload our van commented on our huge amount of food storage. Matt and I are preppers! I love feeling secure and having food storage makes me feel really safe. So out of our 26 ft UHaul, about 6 ft of it and the "Mom's Attic" space was full of food storage.

 

And then my parents brought some of their food storage that they don't need anymore (because they bought enough food storage for a family of six over a decade ago and now they don't need that much). So now we have a TON of food storage.

 

I'm not complaining! Matt and I have made a goal that while we live here we will eat our food storage. That was one of the reasons we built it up so much--so that we could cut our food bill during grad school.

 

There are two exceptions to eating all our food storage-- first being that we will not eat 12 boxes of no. 10 cans. They are our bed frame, and we'd like to keep that. Second, when we leave Georgia, our empty jars will be full of peaches. I mean, come on! I'm not going to live here without canning peaches (and peach-raspberry jam...)!

 

It should be quite the experiment. We bought this wheat grinder which we love. That was our one splurge when we moved here. It's no Nutrimill, but will grind wheat and oat flour. We've cut back drastically on white flour and typically change the recipes to 50% wheat, 25% oat, 25% white. Oat is a sweet, soft flour. It doesn't hold together great, but it is delicious. Our new favorite is whole wheat waffles. Everyone loves them, especially Charlotte.

 

We have a TON of beans though. We do make a lot of bean recipes. One of my favorite recipe sites is Provident Plenty, which has a great bean burrito recipe. I'm looking for some new ideas! So please, leave a recipe or two!

 

See how much food storage we have? It's a little ridiculous.

 

On the upside, I feel secure!

I know my kids are different, I just don't know what to do about it.

On Wednesday nights I leave first and go to accompany/direct ward choir. Matt leaves later to pick up teenage boys for Wednesday night activities. Because Matt and I are both busy, the girls typically play in the nursery or the gym for the hour and fifteen minutes I'm unavailable.I don't like leaving them essentially unsupervised for that time, but there are many people in the building on Wednesdays and the girls know where to find me.

Tonight after rehearsal, I went into the gym to round them up. While I was getting Emily to find her shoes, a woman (I don't know who) turned to me and angrily said, "Your daughter (Emily) threw a ball at my face and hit me, ON PURPOSE." Never one for confrontation, I replied with a vague, "Yes, she struggles with things like that." Then a man sitting on the stage (I do know him) said, "She threw a ball at me too. And she tried to bite me several times! It was all in fun, but she's definitely a firecracker!" The woman was very angry, the man a bit bewildered by my 6-yr-old's behavior, but trying to be understanding at the same time.

I have conversations like this all the time.

Until recently, Emily liked to lick the van when it rained, despite being told over and over that licking the van was disgusting. Nathalie has trouble making friends at school because she can be wild. Because she's so social though, she makes friends again easily. Charlotte absolutely, positively, refuses to wear any type of shoe, including flip flops. Emily occasionally tries to spank random strangers or acquaintances. Nathalie thinks it's funny to obnoxiously taunt people (it's obviously a game to her, as Nathalie isn't a mean child. She loves it when people chase her or react to her taunting and laughs really hard. It drives Emily crazy.) Emily will call other people names-- for example, one day after school she called two girls "hey, you little rats." Or she'll say, "Hi stinkpot" or "How are you, noodle face?" Nathalie has so much energy, I have to watch her carefully for signs she is getting bored because she turns destructive .

Sometimes people tell me, "Oh, boys have so much energy! Girls are easier when they're young because they're calmer."

Obviously, they don't know my girls. People who do know my girls frequently tell me that they behave more like brothers than sisters because of the constant chasing, wrestling, jumping, climbing, yelling, running, very ACTIVE behaviors. Taking them to the store (even just 3 of them!) is a NIGHTMARE.

WHY do my girls act like this? I am at a loss.

My voice has gone hoarse from all of the "Now this is the behavior I expect out of you" talks. I prep them every time we have to go to a store. There has not been a single store trip, long or short, where I didn't end up yelling at one of them for twirling in the middle of the aisle, climbing on the stacks of toilet paper, trying to hang upside on the cart handle, etc.

Emily is required to write apology letters to the people she offended today. I've had to leave parks before because of the judgmental comments from other parents. I get nervous going to birthday parties because I know my kids act weird.

And it's not like I'm unaware of their behavior. It's not like I'm not watching them. They lose privileges, they get yelled at, they sit in time out, they write apology letters or apologize in person, we go over and over and over and over and over about what normal and appropriate behavior is, why I expect them to not bite or not lick or not spank etc.

I don't know why my girls act this way. We limit sugar, processed food, dyes, media time and encourage imaginative play, creativity, physical activity, helping and working hard. They have a reward jar that gets filled with beans when they exhibit good behavior.

I'm feel embarrassed and angry. Embarrassed because of the judgments people make and because their behavior is a bad reflection on me. Angry at my girls and angry at people who criticize me openly, commenting that I'm a poor parent.

I'm not a poor parent. But I am a struggling one and 6 yrs into this, I don't know what to do, because none of it is working.

(Disclaimer: My children are not constant hellions nor do I hate them. Generally speaking they are fun, smart, hard working, active, and loveable girls. However, I see these bizarre behaviors on an almost daily basis in spite of all my talking and teaching. Since it is generally considered bad form for adults to lick wet cars or spank acquaintances, I know that I am not getting through to them and worry about that. I don't want them to be "like everybody else" but I WOULD like them to learn standard accepted public behavior.)

Making Sausages

We obtained a deer and got about 70 lbs of meat out of it. Since Matt and I don't like to buy meat from the store, we knew we wanted to make some sausage or else we would live a sausage-less life! So Matt set to work making sausages using our meat grinder and sausage stuffer attachment on our KitchenAid.

The girls helped...and Emily helped a little too much. Matt got caught up in making sausages and his back was turned when Emily decided to add the rest of the allspice. At least HALF the container. So some of our sausages tastes like Christmas!

Nan loves wearing an apron.

And helping.

Mixing up the sausage, fat and spices.

Et voila! Sausages! It was another skill we learned and added to our repertoire. We definitely learned a thing or two and next time will be a lot easier and better tasting (not as much allspice, definitely!)

Random Life

Adorable Lydia at 5 months.

Our garden! We are growing basil, oregano, mustard, lettuce, green beans, wheat and cilantro. We can grow year round here!

A little tree frog found his way into the house one afternoon when the kids were running in and out.

It was SO small!

Emily made a scarecrow using Kirby. She tied him with bathrobe ties to a broom and then tied the broom to the table.

Making sausages.... (coming next time)

Emily's selfies.

Charlotte's selfies.

Emily's selfies.

After bath time.

Good big sister. Lydia's not so sure though.

6 month metabolic appointment

We had Lydia's first metabolic appointment this last week, and we also met with a new geneticist as well. The purpose of the appointment was to establish care with a new team and hopefully extend Lydia's feeding hours from 3-4 hours to 5-6 hours when healthy. So on Tuesday, Charlotte, Lydia and I drove to Atlanta.

She was weighed, head measured, height measured and she's still a little girl. She is in the 30% for weight (up from the 28% at her 5 month appt), 40% for head and 40% for height. Developmentally she's right on target. She can sit up for some time by herself now, she's "planking" and pushing herself up on all fours, she reaches, grabs and holds, she laughs, tracks things, etc.

They were really happy with the fact that she has been through several close calls but handled them really well and we haven't had to take her in to the hospital yet. They weren't happy with the fact that she's just barely starting to eat solids and that she still eats small amounts really frequently.

The end decision was that she cannot extend her time from 3-4 hours yet. When she starts eating more solids (esp. carbs), I can call and give them a rundown on her eating habits and we can start extending.

My thoughts:

It doesn't bother me that she can't extend her times yet. She rarely eats every 3-4 hours. At night, the most we usually get is 3 hours at a time. During the day it's every 90 min to 2 hours. In talking with other MCADD parents, eating smaller amounts more frequently is fairly common. Most parents said that they follow what their child's body does because the child's body knows more about how it personally handles MCADD than a doctor does.

I am not going to push solids any faster than Lydia is ready for them. Out of the four of them, Emily and Nathalie showed an interest in solids early on and they loved baby food. Charlotte didn't and continues to nurse frequently and take bottles until she was about 8 months old. Then she went straight into adult food (tiny pieces, of course). Lydia is interested in food, but not very much. I know enough about parenting now to know that I can't force my children to develop faster than they are able and it's unwise to do so. So we'll keep hanging out with lots of bottles and slowly work our way into solids. Lydia has refined tastes however-- Chik Fil A french fries, Olive Garden breadsticks, Goldfish and chocolate chip cookies. That's my girl! :)

Overall thoughts on the appointment:

I wasn't very impressed. The metabolic specialist couldn't answer all my questions about MCADD. The geneticist was nice enough, but I didn't feel he was really invested in Lydia. When I asked them if they were the people to call in the case of a metabolic crisis, they said it wasn't necessary if our pediatrician felt comfortable with the steps to take. At Nationwide, the geneticist wanted us to call with any questions, and especially if we suspected Lydia was going into a crisis-- and then they would call the next day and the day after to check on her.

Because all they did was measure her and talk to me, I think I will request that Lydia's pediatrician and I have a Skype meeting with them. And if they really want her to be seen in person, I will push for us to go to Nationwide next summer when we're visiting Ohio. We will meet with a geneticist here in Savannah in March and I'll see how that will go.

In the end, I did get the answers I wanted but I got them through the Fatty-Acid Oxidation Group I am part of on Facebook.

Going batty

Can you guess what I'm working on?

 

Or what all the girls wanted to be?

 

You don't know?

 

Can you see them?

 

Nananananananananananananananana...

 

Bat girls! (And I seriously love Charlotte in this pic...)

 



 

Three little bats went out one night,

Hoping to give some folks a fright!

Across the yard and down the street

Saying to all, "Trick or Treat!"

From the desert to the ocean

My parentals came to visit...a month ago. Yeah, it's old news. But we had a great time.  My mom's one request was that we go to the beach while they were here. So we did. Look at this cargo ship coming in-- those boxes on the ship are train cars. That's how big the ship is. And usually they're stacked 3-4 high, but on this one they're only 2 high.

This is the Tybee Island Lighthouse. We haven't been up to the top yet, but it's on our list. So pretty!

It was a cool day, around 80 degrees. The water was a little "colder" meaning, it didn't feel like bath water like it does during the summer.

Charlotte stayed out of the water, like usual. She's not a risk taker.

My dad and bro taking pictures.

My mom and I have temperature standards so we stayed out of the water too.

Sadly they had to leave a few days later. The girls cried all the way to school. But we had a great time!

As a post script: we went to the beach this last weekend too. We arrived at a very low tide and were able to find several horseshoe crabs, an invasive species of barnacle, oysters, a bream (sp?) fish, a few hermit crabs and I even saw a shark fin! There's always something to see at the beach!