
Rawr! I make you drink your probiotics!
We thought we had turned a corner with Logan, but again we’ve had two days of wiggles, flapping, odd noises, and defiance, which sort of dashed the small amount of hope I’d been feeling. But an Atmosphere song played on the radio this morning, and I choked up, a few tears slipping down my cheeks as I drove to the bus stop and heard “these problems are the good ones to have …”
I didn’t get the job I’d tried so hard to get. My kids both wailed practically nonstop last night for two hours and refused to eat. I don’t know how I’ll ever find time (and money) to begin cooking sugar-free. But I still have a job. I have children. And I have food. These problems are the good ones to have.
So as we plan to dive into this diet fully, we’re thinking about several things.
- Logan will no longer be able to eat anything provided by his daycare. This means we will now have to make breakfast, lunch, and two snacks in advance to send with him each day. This will also mean making and sending an additional snack for preschool, where he is bused every morning.
- This, of course, will likely mean tears and tantrums when he doesn’t get to eat what the other kids do. To say nothing of when a classmate brings in birthday treats.
- To try to help this, we let him pick out his own lunch box and talked about how cool lunch boxes are, and that he’ll get to have it every day with his own super special food in it. It worked with his probiotics—he’s now happy to drink them as long as they’re served in his green dinosaur-shaped cup.
- Side note: When did lunch boxes become giant pieces of luggage? We went to the store expecting to find a simple plastic box with rounded edges and a thermos inside, with maybe Mario or Superman on the front. All I could find were soft, insulated contraptions that will take up half his backpack.
- Good news: We learned that we can still bake desserts and other treats to send with Logan, like peanut butter cookies and cranberry gelatin—we just need to make them ourselves, with lakanto sweetener instead of sugar.
- Bad news: 1 ½ pounds of lakanto costs $35; by contrast, $35 gets you 24 pounds of sugar.
It again starts to feel impossible and pointless. But articles like this one from NPR help: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/18/244526773/gut-bacteria-might-guide-the-workings-of-our-minds (thank you Nick for sending it!)
I also especially need to thank Holly and Michael—their story of recovering their child from autism and their willingness to coach us through this mess has been inspirational and motivational for our family! I am so happy this blog and circumstances have connected us.
Feeling: Emotional, from bad to good and back again