Walk out that door

One of the most challenging things about motherhood for me is that there are no breaks. There’s no day off, there’s no vacation - in fact vacation can often feel like a more difficult version of daily life as schedules get disrupted, planning for our food can get tricky and everybody’s running low on sleep. No one gives mothers permission to take a break. There’s no national program where every mom gets three hours of free babysitting every week so she can get her hair cut or go to her OBGYN alone or take a damn nap. This basically exists in France and I wish I could unread Bringing up Bebe so I didn’t have to know that French mothers get to go shopping or go to the gym solo on the government’s dime.

I think that even if I had had run-of-the-mill children, I would have sucked pretty bad at taking breaks from motherhood. But I had Ellie and she’s been hard. I have felt for a very long time like I’m the only person in the world who can care for her. There have been many times when I’ve tried to relax and let go for a couple of hours, and her caregiver ends up feeding her the wrong foods and I return to a little girl with a tummy ache. It just didn’t feel worth it. So for a very long time, I didn’t take breaks.

Yummy nut balls

I know there are approximately 1,000,000 recipes for nut balls in the world, but I have been making them for years and made a version today that is the best I've ever had. I thought I'd write down the recipe so I don't forget what I did!

Ingredients:

1/3 cup brazil nuts
1/3 cup cashews
2/3 cup sunflower seed butter
1 cup pitted Medjool dates
1/2 cup shredded coconut
pinch Celtic sea salt

Put all ingredients into food processor and blend until it becomes a paste consistency and forms into a ball. You may need to scrape down the sides every once in a while.

Form into bite-sized balls and store in the fridge. Yum!

Where I like to hang out online

I haven't really figured out my relationship to this blog, even though I've been writing it for FIVE years now. I can't believe that can possibly be right. Some days I feel very share-y about our journey with food and allergies and health in general and other days I feel quite private about all of it. And sometimes those private days stretch into weeks and months.

I also think about privacy as Ellie gets older and I realize that this is her story as much as it is mine. I'm not sure how I'd feel if my parents had broadcasted my health history to the world during my childhood. Seems quite weird.

Focusing on the non-food aspects of health

This fall I participated in a program hosted by our family's nutritionist, Andrea, Nakayama, called the Girl's Guide to Hashimoto's. It was a tremendous experience for me and a healing experience for me to put my own health front and center for a while, and put Ellie's health on auto pilot (as much as I am capable of, anyway).

The program was a huge undertaking for me and I learned a TON. I learned a tremendous amount about my own phisiology, what Hashimoto's is, how my personal history and genetics got me here and how it expresses itself uniquely in me. The program had an active message board and I benefitted tremendously from the ongoing support from Andrea and her other nutritionists, along with the other participants in the program, who are walking this road alongside me. There is something very healing about realizing you're not the only one who experiences the symptoms you do ... that you're not alone.

MTHFR and salicylate sensitivity

A few months ago our whole family (minus the toddler) got tested for MTHFR mutations. Before that, I had never heard of MTHFR and knew nothing about how genetic polymorphism could affect our health. It has turned out to be absolutely crucial to understanding Ellie's health and her struggle with food sensitivities.

Initially we did the test for Ellie and myself. I tested positive for one mutation, and she tested positive for the other. Later, we tested my husband and he was positive for Ellie's, which means he passed it on to her. Now I know who to blame ;)

My mutation is quite minor, but hers can be more serious. The testing results showed that her enzymatic activity is only 60% of a normal person. What does that all mean? It took me a lot of reading and absorbing to sort out not just the basic science of it, but also, what this means specifically for Ellie.

My imperfect love

Six months ago - when Ellie was four and a half - I decided to make her a doll for her fifth birthday. I didn’t know how to sew and I had certainly never made a doll before. But turning five felt like such a big milestone and I wanted to give her something really special.

I started researching doll making and looking at patterns online and even emailed a total stranger who had blogged about making her daughter a doll. I quickly realized not knowing how to sew a stitch was going to be an impediment, so I sought out a teacher who specialized in making Waldorf dolls.

During my first lesson I felt silly as I struggled to thread the needle and tie a knot. I really should have taken home economics, instead of skipping it to be the yearbook editor, I thought. I thought by this age I would be the editor of a newspaper, not sewing dolls. Funny the paths our children lead us down.

If you are a nursing mama with Hashimoto's - don't drink this tea

I am transitioning off the Autoimmune Protocol. It was an amazing and very healing experience. I saw all of my Hashimoto's symptoms fall away and felt my energy return, my emotions stabilize and my resiliency improve. In an ideal world, maybe I would have stayed on the protocol longer, but as our summer started ramping up and we are spending more time away from the house, it became a serious stress to prep AIP-approved foods for outings.

The first time I ventured off the AIP I actually didn't mean to. I was stuck in some massive afternoon traffic and hadn't eaten for hours and was feeling my blood sugar start to crash. All I had in my bag was a container of almonds and suprisingly I felt totally fine after eating them. After that I gave myself a little leeway and have generally been feeling quite good. It's possible I've overdone it in the chocolate department, which always impacts my sleep quality and then my energy the next day.

I am not following the re-introduction of foods as recommended in The Paleo Approach because it makes me nervous to introduce egg yolks as the first food, since I know clearly that eggs are a problem for me. It's possible the yolks are fine - I just didn't want my first try to be a fail. So I've added back in limited nuts and chocolate and that alone makes the diet work for my needs at the moment. Some people are able to follow an 80/20 rule when doing the Paleo diet - meaning 80% of the food they eat is Paleo-approved and for 20% of the time they give themselves a little flexiblity to eat standard American food. Well I am taking the same approach for AIP - about 80% of the time or more I'm eating AIP-approved foods and 20% of the time I'm eating just Paleo food (like nuts). It's working for right now.

Anyway, all of that was a very long-winded lead up to what happened today.