In Search Of...

My mission  next week is to find an awesome gluten-free pretzel recipe. Did you know there is a Wetzel Pretzel in the mall now? And it smells amazing. So amazing. I miss doughy pretzels. And that cheese sauce? DAMN.

So my mission is to find a pretzel recipe. And I will document it, I promise. And if it turns out well, I will sing it from the rooftops, post about it on social media, and brag about it here. I didn't always hate baking. I used to make awesome pie crusts and I loved making bread. But gluten-free baking just isn't the same. From needing a pantry full of 25 different flours and 16 different starches, to the fact that gluten-free dough DOES NOT FORM INTO ANYTHING, it's just not as awesome as it's gluten-filled, gut-demolishing (in the case of my son) 'a counterpart. :P

While I am working towards accepting the fact that I gotta be me,  I do still hope that I can embrace gluten-free baking more. Pies, breads, and pretzels - I hope I can learn to love it again!

Tales of the Undomesticated Housewife.

Ground beef is cooking on my stove top for freezer meals, grocery bags filled with veggies are being emptied into the refrigerator. The floor got vacuumed yesterday, and toys from the last 2 days of playdates are slowly making their way into their proper places. The dishwasher has been filled, run, unloaded, and is getting refilled again as 3 days worth of dishes are being catched up upon.

Too bad I have had nothing to do with any of it (except the freezer meals. That was my idea).

I have come a long way in our almost 10 years of marriage, but it's still safe to say that my husband is a better housewife than me. It's the joke in our marriage, with our families, and with my friends. I laugh about it as much as my husband does, and joke about the benefits of not living together before marriage (so he had no idea how much work I would be).

Sometimes it hurts my ego way more than I let on, and work my a$$ off to prove to EVERYONE (myself included) that I can do this whole homemaker thing. It doesn't come naturally to me, and often I spend a ridiculous number of hours tidying things that I coulda/shoulda/woulda just put away when I was done with it, instead of leaving it for 3 months. I stay up late dusting, folding laundry, and sweeping the floors. I get up at 5 to spend 3 hours cleaning the kitchen and washing the bathroom floors by hand before the kids wake up. I invite people over to see all the clean in my house (while it lasts), apologize for the clutter on the counter, and give my husband a detailed report of all I got done, just in case live has messed it all up and it's not obvious when he walks through the door. Dinner is ready at 5:30, appointments for the kids are booked, they are registered in activities, and forms/permission slips are signed promptly. I bake and craft and sew and redecorate, and make my home "pretty". And I feel great about myself and my house.

Other days, like today, I am impressed that we made it anywhere on time for anything, I leave a huge box full of peaches on the livingroom couch (because couch peaches are the bestest), it takes me an hour and a half to make mac and cheese for lunch (from a box. Think gluten-free KD. It's not like I'm making the pasta from scratch), and dinner is ready "on time" only because it was thawed by my husband the night before, and it just needed to be put in my slow-cooker this morning when I still had energy. Laundry is done only because of Princess' NEED for clean socks for tomorrow (which reminds me, they're still in the washing machine...) and the fact that both children made it through the day unscathed I wear like a badge of honor. If company is coming over, papers and clutter might be "filed" away into laundry baskets and put in the laundry room, and I might make up excuses that we just got home from a trip, or we are in the middle or reorganizing the house, or we were too busy on the weekend to clean up after ourselves, and I am embarrassed and frustrated.

I used to think that success in personal growth in this area meant that I became the diligent housewife - that the first person I described to you was the person I would be at least most of the time. That I would love spending time cooking and cleaning and always have the energy to bake and sew, that my house would find more order than chaos, and my husband wouldn't need to start dinner when he got home from work ever again. I used to think that someday, somehow I would suddenly become Martha Stewart, and 31 years of mess-making and chore-incompleting habits would suddenly vanish.

I now realize that I will never be that woman. While I will say that moving to a new (bigger) house has helped (more space to store all our stuff) and older kids has meant that I have more hands to help (and different messes to clean), I might never not-have days like today. And I need to be ok with that. I will still have mornings where I choose a clean kitchen over sleep, I still have aspirations of inviting friends over for tea in my spotless kitchen with freshly-made scones (hopefully with all the required ingredients, unlike my last attempt), and I do hope that someday I can walk through my entire house without stepping on legos, a dust-bunny, or a hotwheels car, but I need to cut myself some slack. I need to let go of the notion that I need to be all-or-nothing, that sometimes my house will just be messy, that sometimes my husband will need to pick up my slack, that sometimes surviving the day will be all I can manage, and sometimes there will be peaches on the couch.

When I Can't Finish What I Start...

I foolishly started a new blog post this morning, instead of finishing an old one. I don't know which I would have been more successful with, but in the end, neither won out. Today was just not that day. Today dance started up again, play dates were had, swimming lessons, and then dinner afterwards which was yummy, but took about an hour too long.

Tonight I am  blogging because my blog challenge is about finishing what I start, and even if I don't finish a blog post tonight, I can take one step closer to finishing this challenge, and that's pretty awesome too.

So tomorrow I may finish my post on "making memories", or I might blog about our recent trip to Montreal (in July. I have yet to take the card out of the camera), or maybe I will finish the kids birthday posts (from June). For tonight, I will finish this blog post with a song that has been stuck in my head since my post last night:

(**warning, not entirely appropriate**)

The New Normal

This post was first written two Augusts ago, and then re-visited last August. Third time is a charm for this one. It started out as a terrified collection of thoughts about what school would look like for Princess, as well as the rest of us. The next year I wrote about our "New Normal" - Princess in full-day school, Tobes at home all day with me, and "big kid" activities like dance and gymnastics to juggle. This year, "The New Normal" means a happy return to routine, but also a calmness about and recognition of the fact I am in a new and different place. My whole family is.

I have lived in the "baby" space for a long time, even before my own children. I chose babies as my career. For 10 years (this October), I have been taking care of babies and their families. I have been snuggling, feeding, sniffing (don't judge - babies smell awesome), changing diapers, and rocking them to sleep. I have taught parents how to do basic baby care, and breastfeed. Before my children were born, my friends started to have kids, making me a proud (honorary) Auntie, and Godmother. As my own children have grown, many other friends have had many more babies, giving me more "nieces", "nephews", and another Godchild. Many (almost all) of my close friends are in the baby space now, and I am happy to talk about diapers, breastfeeding, babywearing, and how awesome babies smell (seriously!! they do!!)

But that is not my family's space anymore, and sometimes I forget that. Sometimes I forget that I have a 7-year-old. She is going into Grade 2 in just 15 days (as she is quick to remind me, and thankfully also quick to reassure me that I can still call her my "baby girl"), and while she LOVES all the little kids in our lives and loves to play with them and help them, she is also old enough to start choosing to play more with kids her own age, and making friends independently of my friends. She is old enough to go to friends houses without me, have sleepovers, and start to become a little bit more independent from me.

My youngest is 4. In 15 days it'll go back to just me and my "buddy" all day, but this is the last year I get that. Next year he's off to kindergarten. My husband and I talked long and hard about whether or not to send him to preschool this year, and while I feel right with our decision not to (Princess never did, and we feel like it's the right choice to keep Tobes at home as well, though I can't put into words why), I worried for a long time that part of the reason was just so I could keep little just a little bit longer. But next year he will start half-day kindergarten, giving me 3 solid hours a day that I will be completely alone. In just over 3 weeks, he will be starting back into gymnastics. He is old enough to be in an unparented program, so I will sit and sip my tea for an hour a week while he flips and tips and runs around the gym.

This summer both of them were in unparented swimming lessons, and Princess went to a bike camp that was 3 hours a day for a week. This summer there were days I barely saw them except to doll out food or grab their water bottles from the upper cupboard. Summer reading club this year has gone well, with Princess and Tobes often huddling in one of their beds together, Princess reading him his stories. There has been more than one night where they have requested she read the bedtime story to him, alone, and Hubbyman and I can come in after to tuck them in.

I still have a few wraps that sit lonely in my closet, unless I am babysitting my Goddaughter, or a very rare occasion when Tobes wants "uppy". I have a TON of books on breastfeeding and babycare, but those are now filed away in my "office space" (cupboard) to refer to for my clients, and the change table we used for Princess has been converted into her dresser. I keep buckets of toys for when little littles come over to play, but otherwise their toy space has been taken over by legos, 100 piece puzzles, and board games.

I love babies, and I'm sad that stage of my personal life is over, but I'm excited for this new stage. I'm excited for who my kids are growing up to be, for each of them to gain more independence and make more decisions for themselves.

I'm also thankful for all my friends with babies who let me squish them and smell them. Because babies smell awesome.

"No News is Good News"... Almost

First post to be finished is from December of 2013, the update (finally) from my November post. The update on test results. I need to heavily edit it because there have been a LOT more updates in the last 8 months, and the irony is that even once the post in finished, the topic is actually far from. But I will do my best,

And tonight I bring you "No News is Good News... Almost"

***

I've always hated that phrase. I've hated to say it as a nurse, and I've hated to hear it as a patient. No news isn't always good news. No news can mean that the results are normal, or it could mean that the ball has been dropped (as it has on me more than once). No news could mean no news yet, or bad news once we get the proper consultations or specialists in place. I understand that a busy doctor's office can't call people with the results of all tests all the time, but I think that when it's a specific diagnostic test, then it would be nice to get a call regardless.b

It has been a long, hard, frustrating road since November, when the rest of us got tested for Celiac disease. Hubbyman and Princess came back negative in their bloodwork (only once I called the doctor, and fought with the receptionist, which was the original rant of this post). While we are GF at home, they enjoy gluten when we're out and about with no issue (other than the practical implications so as not to contaminate Tobes). It turns out that my test results weren't so straightforward. Apparently I am deficient in the component of the blood that they test for in the Celiac bloodwork, meaning my negative result meant nothing. I started getting some pretty gnarly symptoms in January, which led to the decision for me to get an endoscopy in May. I got some answers (negative for Celiac disease), but a whole lot more "wait and see", and "we'll call you"s that didn't happen. I barely saw the specialist (and only after I harassed the nurse. Apparently they thought I'd be fine with a printout, and wouldn't have any questions), and then got conflicting information from the pharmacist when my prescription changed. It's a good thing I'm a nurse, and know how to play the system...

I'm hoping more answers will come next week, when I actually meet the gastroenterologist who did the procedure in May for longer than 2 minutes while I'm still groggy. I'm hoping to hear more about my results from 3 months ago, and more about what I can/cannot do to help me feel better (my symptoms have started to appear and worsen again in the last few weeks).

The discussion of what drives me to get these answers can be saved for another day. For now what matters is that the whole "no news is good news" thing is a load of crock, and the waiting game sucks.

Summer Blog Challenge

I have not blogged since last November. It's not for lack of trying - my draft queue is filled with half-written ideas, little starts and random thoughts. A whole bunch of cool friends (who also blog) are doing a Summer Blog Challenge, and I feel like it's as good a time as any to catch up, to finish some of those thoughts, and to explore some new ideas.

My biggest goal from this challenge is to learn how to finish a post. I have a tenancy to start one topic, link it to another one, and then leave both expertly unfinished. Then they both get banished to my "draft list", never to be seen again, I curse the whole notion of "blogging" in general, and go rot my brain on bad reality TV.

Take this post for example. It's taken me 2 hours to write this. Why? Because I've started at least 4 new topics in this post in the last 2 hours, none of which have anything to do with the Summer Blog Challenge (other than the fact that they are blog posts, posts that I might write during the challenge. This summer).

So before I start my 5th topic (it's a toss-up between "I'm not really a dance mom", and "I like helping people"), I will end this here. Look at me finishing a thought, and then hitting publish before everything is muddled!

Small victories, my friends ;)

The Story.

I have eluded to it on facebook, but it's an awkward conversation to have. When people ask me "what's new", where do I begin? It has been a long, long journey, and it's one many people don't really know the details about. So when I tell them Tobes has Celiac Disease, it's often met with blank stares, or comments like "how did you even think to check for that??" He never seemed "sick" or was hospitalized, his symptoms weren't easy to see, or readily talked about.

I am writing this post for 2 reasons: I am writing to answer the questions from people I know who are surprised by the news. I am also writing because it was the personal experience of others (both in-person and expressed on blogs) that helped me connect the dots for Tobes. I am not saying that everyone should be tested for Celiac Disease, I'm not saying everyone has Celiac Disease, but maybe someone else out there will read Tobes' story, and maybe it will connect some dots for them.

It mostly started just over a year ago, though looking back there were signs long before that. Tobes always had a bloaty belly, ever since he was a baby. It was chub to begin with, but at some point that chub turned into bloat. It came out from below his ribs, and it's size varied day-to-day. He was gassy, he was colicky, but so was his sister. She grew out of it, he didn't exactly. He was never an excellent sleeper, but neither was Princess. As they say, hindsight is 20/20.

Just over a year ago, Princess started school, and while I assumed that the routine would help with a nap schedule and rest, Tobes just wasn't sleeping. He had bags under his eyes, and that lack of sleep permeated everything. He was irritable, clingy, and sad. When he did get rest, it was riddled with night terrors and nightmares, sometimes 7-8 times a night. Words cannot describe the feeling of having my little boy in my arms, stuck in a twilight, unable to wake up or fall back into deeper sleep, and screaming and crying all the while. Sometimes it was downright scary. There was a lot of crying. From all of us. We were impatient, irritable, and we just hoped he would grow out of it eventually.

It was by chance that I found a pamphlet in my office at work for mental health support services for young children. I filled out the 7-page intake, participated in a half-hour phone interview, and got an appointment for him. Through that we learned awesome coping techniques for him and better ways to parent our exhausted, anxious toddler. Tobes had separation anxiety that was made worse when Princess started school (they had never been apart otherwise) but through bloodwork we also learned he was severely iron-deficient, which was causing to Restless Leg Syndrome, which was thought to be related to the night-terrors. He was started on iron, and between that and the coping techniques, we were on an upswing. He started to sleep longer stretches, and he was happier more often. His tantrums and meltdowns lessened in frequency, and they started to get easier to manage.

This fall, however, things started to fall apart again. His iron levels weren't coming up the way they were expected to, his sleep was regressing again, and the GI side-effects of the iron medication reared their ugly head (despite the first 4 months of the supplements going along just fine). He stopped eating as well, and started to complain about tummy aches. He was hungry all the time, but after 2-3 bites, he was "full". And if we pressed him to eat more, he was often sick to the point of vomiting after.

All this time, I had been researching and reading and gathering information. I read about different causes of iron deficiencies in small children, I read about RLS, nightterrors, and about mental health in toddlers and preschoolers. At the start of this whole process, I had also talked to the friends I knew who had gone GF without a diagnosis, but in hopes it would help their children with behavioral or other issues (and it did for many of them). I read up on Celiac disease, along with a myriad of other things, and some boxes started to tick that I couldn't ignore. His iron deficiency, belly bloat, anxiety, and even his weakened tooth enamel (which we just assumed was genetic and from me) were on list after list of symptoms.

Tobes' doctor wanted to explore the iron issue deeper, and I asked if he could add on the "Celiac blood test" while we were at it. He was skeptical, asked a bunch of questions, and finally relented. He had never seen the worst of the bloat. He didn't understand the depth of the sleep issues. But he added it to the req and we got him tested.

I got the call mid-October to come in for the results. My doctor was dumfounded. Tobes' results for the test were astronomically high (in the THOUSANDS, where a positive is considered anything greater than ten), and we were given a referral to the pediatric clinic at the local children's hospital. It was the end of October when we saw the pediatric GI specialist, who was almost prepared to diagnose Tobes based on the initial bloodwork alone (the Celiac blood test is not the sole diagnostic test for the disease in Canada, but the chances of him having a false negative with that high a number were apparently incredibly low). The rest of the tests were done and it's confirmed, Tobes has Celiac disease.

We are now just over 2 weeks of him being gluten-free, and the rest of us have been tested for it as well (waiting on results). It hasn't been easy, but that is for another post. It will be worth it. Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder. He is battling with potentially 3 years of intestinal damage - every molecule of gluten Tobes has consumed has caused his body to attack his gut. It will potentially take years for the damage to be repaired, but it will be repaired. But in just the last 2 weeks, Tobes has started to transform. We have been prepared for the withdrawal symptoms many have warned us about, but his cheeks have pinked up (my translucent toddler had colour), he generally handles change and transition better, his sleep has overall started to improve again, and the GI issues that plagued him seem to be a thing of the past (he has been off medication for that since 2 days after he went GF). It will be a lifelong journey for him, but we are starting the first few steps.