It’s been three weeks of Feingold for Zander (and all of us). The first two weeks went fairly easily. Last Saturday I decided that I’d treat us all and get a few “off program” add ins for our home made ice cream. Sunday Zander had a cookie or two at Sunday school, ½ a doughnut, ketchup (natural salcylates – not a stage 1 food), soda (full of everything bad I’m sure), and then the splurge Sunday night. All were in moderation. This was great progress. HOWEVER…it’s apparent that moderation isn’t going to work for Zander at this point.
Monday was bad, the first bad day since about day 4 of the program. Tuesday was better. Wednesday at the park I found him with a family who were eating happy meals. The father was feeding him handfuls of goldfish. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to cry. I have thought it over and if this ever happens again I need to be sure the adult knows that it isn’t good to feed strangers children. Of course Zander was being a pest I’m quite SURE! He loves those…but really we were just recovering from Sunday. It’s obvious that those yellow little fishies are full of artificial color to say the least. Thursday was hard but we survived.
Today – Friday Zander found the countraband Oreos left over from Sunday night. I quickly told him we’d make “real cookies” for him. We discovered we were out of eggs. The older boys were doing school and I told the younger kids to load up and we’d go buy eggs so we could make some healthy cookies. Zander came out to the van with Oreo crumbs around his mouth. {Sigh} I learned from this that I will not be able to keep countraband food in the house….he finds it. {G}
We headed for HEB. I was hoping to find Rapadura. I didn’t. I then headed to a health food store. They had Turbinado. I bought it. The lady said that really Sucant, Turbinado and Rapadura are all the same…who knows…but it had to be better than refined white. I need to research this issue some more. While there I found Newman O’s – Oreo look-a-likes made with NO preservatives, artificial flavors or colors. I bought some. I also bought some licorice (that I loved and the three kids hated). They LIKED the strawberry fruit leather…then I realized that it may be organic but it had “strawberry flavor” added…..so definitely not good.
I finally finished baking the cookies tonight and was excited when Zander said, “Dad – come here – these are GOOD cookies”. I wasn’t sure they’d eat them. They had freshly ground wheat, turbinado, real chocolate (not the cheap stuff with vanillin) and oats in them. Thanks, Becky, from SHS for the recipe.
I also sliced up a bunch of apples, sprinkled them with cinnamon and started them in the dehydrator.
We are noticing that each time Zander goes off the program it takes about 2 – 3 days to regain the ground we’ve lost. It’s amazing to watch. He really, really does much better on the program. He is able to reason. He isn’t running to his room in anger. He’s wearing clothes. He isn’t chewing his clothes. He isn’t totally rebellious. He is self-controlled. He is potty trained (except for the bm part). He isn’t having melt-downs. He’s not even saying any of the mean things he’d begun to say to me. Ok, to be totally honest, it’s been 3 weeks since I’ve heard “I hate you” and I’ve got to tell you that any amount of extra work is worth the change in him.
It was so encouraging to me today to hear Mike and Jamin talking about the change they see in Zander when he is on the program. We are all determined to make this work for him. Mike even said that he wasn’t so sure about (well the gist I got was ) “my organic kick” but he had to admit it made a world of difference for Zander.
I'm training Zander and the other kids not to say "the food makes him bad" but the fake food makes it "hard for him to be good". He's still responsible but we are doing all we can to make it easy for him to respond.
We’re sold. We’re committed. I’m now trying to figure out what to order for the next co-op day. We order from Shop Natural. What makes it tough is that looking for “organic” isn’t enough…it has to be preservative free, artificial color and flavor free….and BHT and MSG free…..but things are much, much better. I’m wondering if it would be worth my effort to order direct from Shop Natural so that I don’t have to mess with driving to another town to pick up….but it is nice to be able to split big things with someone else….
Zander just came and found me and said, “Alright Mom, there’s something I have to tell you! I like your cookies.” Ah. A mommy moment.
Friday’s are Mike’s day off. He’s not usually home on Fridays but he is today. We try to arrange our school schedule so that we have flexibility on Fridays. The older three boys are all busily working with the goal of being done by lunch. The younger ones got a bit done.
We noticed this “bird” at our feeder during breakfast. He’s the funkiest looking bird in West TX. The boys have long since referred to this little guy as the “possessed squirrel”. He does act a bit “different”.
Zander had been promoting a game of Mouse Hunt all morning. His day was MADE when Mike suggested they play a game. 
Not sure what else we’ll do today...probably get another estimate to get the van repaired. I’ll update later.
This is a vent; and only a vent….I will pray this through and I will not go postal…though I would love to hear what others of you would do in these situations. {G}
Have you ever wished you could just “take off the Christian label” for 10 minutes and give someone a piece of your mind? Of course, this isn’t right. Of course, I would not really want to take off Christ – for any amount of time…but ARGH.
I shared that our van was shot a couple of Saturday’s ago (story and pictures at about 25 Feb). The man quickly noted that we are Christians, that Mike is a “pastor at the base” and that he is a pastor himself, as well. We got TWO estimates to repair the damage that he ADMITS his son caused to our van when he wasn’t watching him in a city park. The estimates are approx $400 because this is a 2005 van and Ford puts a clear coat under the paint to prevent rust. To properly fix the van, since the hole goes to the medal, the clear coat will need to be replaced and the whole door painted. This man didn’t have the $ to pay $400. We agreed to take payments. We faxed him the estimates. He called and wants to pay $75 – 100 PERIOD…because we are wanting to do too nice of a fix it job, because he has some “Christian” in Midland who said it can be fixed for $75. This man has NOT seen the van, doesn’t know the year, doesn’t know what damage was really done and does NOT live in the same city as we do. I can’t believe this. We may well have to take further action with this man and we WANTED to simply be nice, accept payments and be done with it. Really, a parent should be teaching their child to be responsible for their actions…and that would include the parent paying for the damage caused. I’m totally shocked by this situation. I can’t believe that he actually believes that he is RIGHT to suggest we put a bit of putty on it and give it a few sprays of paint. Then again he saw nothing wrong with a 4 year old playing on a play ground with a loaded BB gun. {sigh}Since the incident we’ve learned we SHOULD have immediately called the city police and he would have a nice fine and other repercussions to deal with in addition to fixing our van. He can’t seem to understand that we are being fair and nice.
THEN – TODAY – our new dentist called. I had asked them to be sure to call United Concordia and get pre-approval for our cleaning. They said they did. Our last cleaning in AK was 26 May – our cleanings here were 29 Nov. I repeatedly asked if they had gotten approval because I thought we needed to wait until 2006. Yes, they insisted it was fine. I just got a notice from them. “Oops….your last appt WAS 6 months ago but the May was the second appointment in that year so they won’t pay for it”. So now – at a tune of $50+ per person I have to pay for it because THEY SAID they had pre-approval but seemed to have only looked at the dates and DIDN’T call to get pre-approval.
In both these situations the fact that Mike is a Chaplain/Pastor was brought up. Of course, I need to be Christ-like in ALL situations – regardless of my marriage to a minister…but I’m really wishing I could give someone the left boot of fellowship here….What does being a pastor have to do with either situation? Does being a pastor mean that business offices can do a sloppy job and stick you with the bill? Does being a pastor mean that kids can take pot shots at your van and then refuse to fix it?
On the other hand, I would HATE to think that my actions over something as trivial as auto body work or dental cleanings would turn someone sour on my Lord. ARGH….Why can’t life be simpler? Reading back over this I can’t help but think how chilling the thought of taking Christ off really is. I would be so lost without His grace and mercy in my life. I desire to show grace and mercy to others. I simply desire them to treat me fairly as well…..of course, Christ wasn’t treated fairly. Who can help me with my angst? PASTOR’S WIVES UNITE! {vbg}
**If anyone here locally knows a dentist they’d care to recommend we may well pay the bill and find a new dentist…because I asked them repeatedly to check with United Concordia and they assured me they had. The kids also were not really taken with the “chair side” manner of this dentist.
I love it when God sends little bonus’ to our school days. We began studying birds at Jared’s request. I thought it was a strange time of the year to study birds; but we were done with Astronomy and needed something to do for the next ½ of the year! {g}
Wow – I was not thinking TEXAS when we began the study. We have had a LOT of birds in our yard. We have a tree in the backyard with bird nests.
This week we are studying nesting. I kept thinking it would be fun to look up close at one of the nests but our text book talked about the federal laws on collecting nests and so we hadn’t investigated.
We’ve had quite a wind-storm last night and today. The kids discovered a nest blown out of the tree….yippee! We didn’t “collect” it – we simply observed it before picking up our yard. It was a cup nest and made with all sorts of interesting things from our yard….dog hair, red yarn, plastic streamers, ribbon….
You can see our science book here
I continue to work on this - and it continues to be harder at 42 than it was at 22. {g} I lost 2 lbs last week - yippee! I am now firmly into the 150's...and I thought I'd have to grow old at 161.
BUT my problems are now over. Paperback Swap has let me know that I am being sent the book *8 minutes in the Morning - a simple way to shed 2 lbs a week - GUARANTEED*! That's it. I've been looking for a guarantee and found it. I wonder if I have to read the book or actually do anything????
Another “real” homeschooling moment brought to you by *me*. {vbg}
I was aware when Mike left for work. I’m usually up. I knew I should have gotten up. I rolled over and caught about 20 more minutes of sleep.
Zander woke me up “Mom – its GROSS in the kitchen”. By this time I could smell that something was UP. I walked out of my room and the kitchen and living room were full of thick smoke. The alarm didn’t go off. We began airing it all out. Discovered that Zander must have been on a hunt for contraband food (he’d checked the cupboard above the fridge!!! – previous chocolate hiding spot of mine). In his search he found a package of microwave popcorn. He’d put that in the microwave. There were 56 minutes left on the timer when I turned it off. The GLASS is black in the microwave. The popcorn was a rectangle piece of charcoal….ugh.
Now on with the day….
It was a gorgeous day here. I know it’s snowing in EUGENE and SPOKANE but it was in the 80’s here. We had fun with Josiah’s boat and Nolan’s “stomp” rockets. Josiah had to get to work so we dropped him off at home and then we went on Lake. We fed the ducks, geese and 
other such birds. We tried to put bread on the boat and feed them…but the boat scared them. {g} We discovered that Stacia will steal the apple right out of your hand….that girl likes her food.
f Hogan’s Heroes.
