A Louisiana Girl's Iowa Observations

First of all, everyone here is blonde.  Everyone.  It is uncanny how many blonde haired, blue eyed adults and children live here.  Someone said they are of scandinavian descent, but I'm not sure.

Snow does not kill weeds.  I thought for sure it would.  It does not kill grass, either.  It melts and the grass is just as green as it was in Autumn, and the weeds you left in the Fall are still there.

Snow also doesn't melt like I thought it would, into rivers of water.  It melts slowly, from the top of the pile, like your snowball does.  It also retreats from the edge of the curb like the waves at the beach.  Curb to sidewalk.  For some reason I didn't think it would go that way.

Avatar's Pain

I have been thinking about writing this since the Super Bowl, but it wasn't until I saw the movie Avatar that it was clear why.  If you haven't seen it, it is about people who transform themselves into another life form, and live on a distant planet much like Earth, to learn about the native's culture, so that they can excavate their energy source and bring it back to Earth.  The main character goes through a process of becoming more and more like the natives, and eventually decides to stay.

But that is not the pain part I am talking about, the pain of learning a new language, and culture, and way of life.  I'm talking about the pain of seeing your hometown on TV when your reality is something completely different.

May!

Hello everyone,

Hope you are all well, time for an update...

Miles is doing ok, he is talking a lot more now. He says "ready, swing, peek a boo, mommy, daddy, elle belle, apple, nana (banana), monkey, quack (when I sign duck), finished, fish, water, flower, shoe, sock, eat, stop...", and he signs finished, fish, claps for more, doggie,

So his speech is improving, I started using coconut oil for the yeast we still have (no it did not go away), which is antifungal. It seems that the antibiotics just tipped his system in the direction of the yeast over good bacteria in his gut, because he is still only pooping twice a week, and is very uncomfortable when he does, and I'm not sure what else to do. We did 7 weeks of grapefruit seed extract and cranberry juice in our smoothies, oregano oil occasionally (which is fungicidal and bactericidal), I quit eating chocolate, we have cut down on the white rice flour products, and we are on our second round of two weeks of Diflucan (which is about the third line medicine for yeast).

What happens with yeast is that sometimes it gains a foothold in the gut and converts from its spore form to an aggressive hyphal form, which can attach to things, and is the yeast responsible for punching holes in the gut. So to say I'm concerned about his little system is an understatement. I finally found however a very strong probiotic from Klaire labs that I have been giving him and Justin, and it seems to be helping a lot. I didn't realize until my current chiropractor pointed out that the probiotic I have been using for months for Justin only has 1 billion viable cells, which is fine for a kid with a normal gut, but for our family it doesn't even cut it. 5 billion is the minimum for Miles, and 50 is the minimum for Justin. Right now I'm taking 200 billion to try to get my gut in the right direction- away from the yeast.

Spring Updates

Hello everyone!

We are finally thawing out after a record winter with 90 days of more than 5 inches of snow on the ground. It is nice to see the sun again and for the snow to melt, although after it melted we had another storm which dropped about 4 inches in our backyard, and that is almost gone, only one heap of snow left in our front yard. Did you know you can take a paint roller to the snow and make it stick? I had no idea and it is the coolest thing next to snowball fights!

It is cold here. I am kind of tired of being cold, tired of long sleeves, tired of my forearms constantly itching due to the seams on my long shirts. Now I understand how kids with sensory issues feel about tags on the back of their necks! After 34 years of short sleeves I am feeling oppressed by wearing so many clothes for so many months of the year. Not to mention the laundry that five people create when everyone wears at least three layers!! I tell my friends that it is crazy that I moved from a place where we wore winter clothes for three months out of the year, to a place where we wear summer clothes for only three months out of the year!

Elle wants to wear dresses every day and I still haven't figured out how to do that- I know she could wear tights but those drive her up the wall. She is doing very well in school, with her writing. Math not so much, they started a program called Everyday Math which introduces math concepts at a very early age, and we are having trouble finding the time to do the take-home exercises after school. She is so spent after 7 hours at school I would rather that she just play when she gets home. She is 5! I think anything beyond counting to 100 in Kindergarten is a bit ridiculous, but it is the curriculum, so we'll do it somehow.

Ten Years

Hello all!

So I skipped Nov and Dec. It has been busy, to say the least. I'm going to try to get up to speed but I am really not sure what I missed. I realized the other day that I have been writing this log for ten years now, and I think it's time to put it all in one place, I just can't decide how to go about doing that. I thought about separating out Justin's story but I think that would just be more work... I have all of the emails compiled into a binder but now I can't find any of my email files older than my cox.net account (which is like four years worth). So if anyone has by chance saved those old old emails could you send them to me? I don't mind rewriting them, that is just a pain.

I have a few blogs started, but none of which I want to keep doing. I think I am going to go over to WordPress and see if that is any better. Suggestions are welcome. I quit doing my M2M blog when Rob (Susan's husband) offered to set up a website for my business, and we migrated it over to m2mbfs.com. Unfortunately or not I haven't had the time to even fool with it so it is still under construction. I have nothing but time on my hands, though, so I think it's time to get the story out there and give myself an outlet to write- because it is my stress reliever and helps me cope with this crazy life with three kids!

Miles is doing *great*. He is running, and falling down a lot, but doing very well. He is trying to talk, which is so cute. He has said "hi", "yeah", "NO", and "daddy", and "mama" when he is mad. He is a very intense baby who is determined to do what he wants to do, but not very difficult when limits are imposed (unlike his older brother)! He climbs up the stairs and down a few, climbs off the sofa, likes to stand on top of the little desk Elle has, and loves to walk around outside in the snow. Not necessarily walk in deep snow, but along the sidewalk where it has been shoveled, so he can play with the snow on the sides.

Sept Pics

Sept went by very fast, with the start of preschool. Elle has adjusted very well to Kindergarten and I am almost adjusted myself- weaning is hard any way you slice it. Her teacher and I had a few disagreements and all seems to be smoothed over now. She is learning sight words and can read quite a few, the first word she learned to read was "wheat", as in "wheat free". She would ask if a food was wheat free when she could read wheat on the box.

Justin is doing well in Preschool after some early difficulties. He went from a class of 8 to a class of 20. He hated circle time at first but has figured out the routine and has the opportunity to play alone when he is feeling overwhelmed, which helps tremendously with socialization. We started him on some digestive enzymes this summer after I did some research on them (they were always too strong or the wrong ones before), and his digestion has improved immensely. He has improved so much from the use of enzymes that - dare I say it- he acts like a normal kid now. No more sensory issues, no more meltdowns for no reason, no more gross motor weakness. His speech has made some leaps, but still needs work, but I am happy to say he is only about 3-4 months behind what is developmentally appropriate right now.

I wanna go home!

Maybe it is the early cold weather. High of 41 today. We were in our skivvies in August. What gives? I am not looking forward to a cold Halloween.

I keep toying with the idea of moving back to NOLA. Sure we'd have to pay for school. Sure it would be mind numbingly hot. Sure it might be an aggravation to deal with drama again... but wouldn't it be better than living here, alone with no help, in the cold?

I feel like I am going through the five stages of grief. Maybe I am on the bargaining part now- if I sell off half of our stuff, we can afford a decent small house there, and maybe even be able to pay for school. But then I'd have to work. And deal with day care for Miles. And deal with whoever takes care of Justin and make sure they adhere to his diet to a tee.