My Six Year Old Dance Partner

Somehow, my two kids began their respective school years AND we officially passed Week Eight, AND!  I let it all pass without updating the blog.  Shame on me.  My only excuse is that I was so focused on getting into our new- old routine that I totally didn't notice how incredibly awesome things have been going on the diet.

Lily started first grade two weeks ago and the difference between this transition and last year's is huge.  Is it that she's a year older?  And the routine is more familiar?  Yes, of course but it is also no doubt due to the changes in her behavior brought about by the diet.  The week before her starting school was very challenging behavior- wise.  I kept waiting for that emotional eruption that the drain of being "on" at school all day would inevitably bring.  It still hasn't happened.  When I pick her up and ask her how the day was, I get a big smile and an "It was great, Mom."  Then I get details! About her day!  I refer to this as the Feingold Diet Lily.  She will tell me who did what, who said what, what her "specials" were like (Library, Art, Music, etc.), and in DETAIL.  When I ask questions to draw out more details, then I get answers.  This is probably how your conversation with your kid goes after school everyday.  However, Lily has been struggling with short term memory issues and the problem intensified near the end of Kindergarten.  All year long I would ask questions about her day and our conversation would almost always end in her tears.  She either didn't want to talk about it, or she just couldn't remember.

One day last Spring the KPES Kindergarten created an Insect Museum complete with tours and a play for parents to enjoy.  When I came with Lily's three year old brother in tow, I was shocked to realize that the star of the play was a character named Lemon The Ladybug, depicted by my very own Lily.  We made it into the play with no time to spare.  Being unprepared, I had no camera- only my phone.   I asked Lily later why she didn't tell me about her role in the play.  She struggled and struggled to answer me and even patched together a half truth about wanting to surprise me.  The look on her face told me otherwise.  She broke down crying and apologized for not remembering to tell me.  The fact that they had practiced the play every day for weeks and she never mentioned it disturbed me.  It was one of the many moments I can recall over the past couple of years when I knew I had to do something to help her.

I had to send Lily in to school on  the first day with her own hand sanitizer and hand soap for her classroom.  What?  Did I not mention that the Feingold Diet covers what you put ON your child as well as what you put IN her?  The dyes and fragrances in skin and body care products can cause as bad, if not worse, reactions as food infractions.  We've replaced our hand soaps, hair care, tooth paste, bath soap, dish soap, laundry detergent, sunscreen, supplements, everything.  Lily's teacher was so on top of it, she told me about the febreeze she uses to spray the room down in the afternoons, and the air freshener she uses in the kids' bathroom and I provided her with replacements.

Now here we are, beginning our ninth week on the diet.  There are so many positive changes that I've sort of lost my momentum in actually paying attention to them.  But our progress is just like an un-choreographed dance routine.  Some forward steps, with some sideways and backward steps too.  Once again, the last couple of weeks have been so uneventful that it wasn't until she had a very intense weekend to make me realize how smooth we've been sailing along.  She had a very short fuse, was interrupting and being generally uncooperative.   I know what you're thinking!  The difference between the way your child behaved when she was generally uncooperative and interrupting and the Feingold Child is that they are not in control when they are doing it.  They can't stop.  It is so intense and constant and stands in such stark contrast to the previous days or weeks' behavior that you know it is a reaction of some kind.  And as helpless as I feel when I see her having a reaction, it also reinforces for me how well the diet is working overall.  Today is better than yesterday, which was worse than the day before, but tomorrow will be even better than today.


My next post will focus on special days, birthday parties and holidays!

Jam and Bread

Jams and jellies are like a food group in my house.  Of course, in addition to the food sensitivities we're trying to eliminate on the Feingold Diet, we're also extremely sensitive to sugar in concentrated forms.  So with jam, I always use it sparingly and I find that commercial jams are so sweet that a teaspoon or so is about all I need to put on toast, a PB & J, or a whole grain waffle.  Lily mourned the loss of jams and her favorite store-bought brand of whole wheat bread.  I think she asked for jelly or jam a thousand times more than any other Stage One elimination.

Could I make my own jam out of approved fruit choices?  Yes.  But I couldn't find an approved pectin source and stirring a huge pot of sugar, fruit and lemon juice for an hour while giving mason jars a hot bath just didn't excite me this summer as much as taking my kids to the pool for a few hours.  SO MANY other foods were being made from scratch and well.. it just didn't happen.

But once again the mothers on the Feingold Member Boards came through for me in a pinch and someone recommended Jill's Jams.  They are home made, small batch jams and jellies- all without corn syrup, or worse, HFCS, and many options are Feingold friendly.  I just got my shipment today, at the EXACT same time that a big loaf of home made buttermilk bread was baking in the oven.  We are so, so very excited to slather that bread with butter and our new jams and jellies as soon as it cools.

I could go on and on about bread baking and my million and one questions about what I'm doing wrong, but that is a post for another day.  Right now, after several failures, I am sticking to the bread machine for baking bread and dough that I can finish in the oven.  Yeast breads are something I have NO experience with up until recently and it is throwing this amateur home baker for a loop.

So, how about that four week Check In?  To be honest, I've been putting it off because it feels a bit like the honeymoon's over.  I have no plans to pull the plug, but since we passed Week Four with illness, prescription meds and supplements I should have avoided, we can't seem to get back to the results I was seeing in the first three weeks.  We did go on vacation in week five, so there was some loosening of the reins I'd been holding over restaurant food, and that one time yesterday when I gave her some canker sore medicine with dye in it so she could eat her dinner.  All minor setbacks in my mind.  The problem is, I'm seeing consistent behaviors that made us start the Feingold Diet in the first place.  So instead of cheating and waiting until a better time, I will go through the Symptom Checklist:

Interrupts Often
Low Frustration Tolerance
Nervousness
Distractable
Inability to follow direction

Hey, you know what?  That wasn't so bad.  I'm comparing that to the first self assessment and it isn't as bad as I thought it was.  It helps me to see that despite displaying behaviors in week five that I didn't see from her in week three, we've still made consistent progress.  I know I've been joking a lot about my control tendencies (ahem) lately, but in all that humor there is still truth.  Being on the Feingold Diet simultaneously aggravates and appeals to my inner control freak.  Progress makes me bask in the glow of our success and setbacks make me want to slam my head against the wall.  But really, isn't that the story of mothers everywhere, every single day?

Our success stories for the last couple of weeks don't completely suck.  While on vacation one day Lily decided to swim.  On Monday she didn't swim and on Tuesday she did.  She has been incredibly phobic about putting her face or head in the water for years.  Splashing around and playing in the pool where her feet can touch the bottom, or her water wings will hold her up has been fine up until now.  In the middle of our vacation, she transformed into a fish baby.  It was so incredible to see.

She also mastered controlling her bike this week.  On training wheels.  I know that may sound like no big deal to you if you have a six year old.  But for my child, who is frustrated to instant tears by activities that aren't mastered in the first second, it is a big deal.  I actually took off her training wheels yesterday.  We both agreed that she has a long way to go, but we both also know she's still not afraid to try.  She's proud and so am I.

In A Nutshell

We're not having a great week.  I might go so far as to say that we're not even having a good week.  Both kids are sick with colds that went straight into their chests.  For Lily, who has asthma, that means medications.  Xopenex, to be specific, which is a form of albuterol inhaled through her nebulizer and let me tell you that it does awful things for her behavior and general disposition.  So instead of posting about behavior after passing week four in Stage One, I will talk about FOOD instead.  I am going to cheat and do our self assessment next week when the meds are all out of her system.

Last week I mentioned how focusing on what we could eat rather than what was restricted in the beginning helped us not feel so overwhelmed.  If you're wondering what is acceptable in Stage One, you'd need the Foodlist from your member materials for anything processed.  Even for milk (psssst, Horizon Organic is one choice).  That's because manufacturers can spray the lining of any packaged food or beverage with BHT- a preservative we avoid in Feingold World, and those manufacturers do not have to list BHT as an ingredient.  Also, let's say you have a fruity granola bar and even though the ingredients look compliant, the supplier of the fruit sprayed it with colorant and therefore, the artificial colors don't have to be listed as an ingredient either.  Don't you sort of want to punch those guys from the FDA in the face right now?

So most all processed foods must be brand specific when you are on the diet and luckily, the Foodlist is very comprehensive and compiled depending on where you live in the U.S.  BUT!  You can have any fresh, uncured, unseasoned meats or fish, as well as the following:

Fruits-

Avocado

Banana

Breadfruit

Cantaloupe

Cassaba Melon

Coconut

Dates

Figs

Grapefruit

Guava

Honeydew

Kiwi

Kumquats

Lemons

Limes

Loquats

Mangoes

Papaya

Pears

Persimmon

Pineapple

Pomegranate

Starfruit

Watermelon

Vegetables-

Alfalfa Sprouts

Artichokes

Asparagus

Bamboo shoots

Sprouts

Beans (all types)

Beets

Broccoli

Brussels sprouts

Cabbage

Carrots

Cauliflower

Celery

Chard

Collard greens

Corn

Eggplant

Kale

Kohlrabi

Lettuce

Lentils

Mushrooms

Mustard greens

Okra

Olives

Onions

Parsley

Parsnips

Peas

Potatoes

Pumpkin

Radishes

Rhubarb

Rutabaga

Sorrel

Spinach

Squash

Sweet potato

Turnips

Turnips Greens

Water Chestnuts

Watercress

Yams

Zucchini

A lot to work with, right?  Also, any flour, salt, black pepper, baking soda, baking powder, white sugar, and whole grain is acceptable.  Pretty much any dried seasonings with the exceptions of red, green or chile peppers and paprika are acceptable.  If you wanted to, you could bake and make from scratch almost anything you want in Stage One using acceptable ingredients, but I personally have relied heavily on as many convenience foods as possible, especially when we're out and about, to make this transition as easy as possible.

On Today's Menu:

Breakfast:

Banana Pancakes (365 Organic Whole grain Buttermilk Mix)

Snack:

Crushed Pinapple (canned in pineapple juice) with 365 Organic Nonfat Vanilla yogurt

Lunch:

Whole Wheat Pita with Turkey (King of Pita, Applegate Farms Roasted Turkey Breast)

Sliced mangoes and bananas

Snack:

Pancakes from breakfast with peanut butter

Dinner:

Grilled breast of chicken

Amy's frozen mac and cheese

Sliced pears

(Insert vegetables here that Dad forgot)

Not an A+ but passing for decent today.

Mini Progress Report

Looking back at the first two weeks on the Feingold Diet, I noticed at first that the improvements in behavior I saw were so subtle that they snuck under the radar.  It wasn't until I witnessed the first blow out somewhere around day six that I realized, Oh My God it's been six days since our last blow out.  By blow out, I mean a screaming temper tantrum with the most drama you could imagine over being asked to begin her bedtime routine.  Throwing herself on the floor and moaning type of drama.  This was a typical scene for us at least once a day for as long as I can remember.  During the school year, I set my watch by the daily explosion.  You'd think the sheer quiet of its absence would've knocked me over!

A cold turkey approach could've been a disaster so instead we had an on- ramp of about a week where we talked about what foods we would not be eating during Stage One and what we would eat instead.  Not having to give up a lot of juice or candy or sweet treats was not dramatic since they weren't part of the landscape to begin with.  There was a lot of discussion about why we were trying the diet and how it might help.  Lily has really been on board from the beginning and I know I'm so incredibly lucky because if not for her understanding and cooperation, this experience could be very different.

My notes in our food diary from the first two weeks are highlighted by these kind of changes:

Calm and cooperative
Sits still while doing craft activities, coloring, or TV watching
Cooperative, quiet play with Owen (her brother)
Following directions (on the first request)
Initiating routines without being asked (like morning and bedtime)
Less easily frustrated by pain, disappointment, etc.
She's an overall happy child
Less anxiety

Over the past year when I felt like she was getting out of control, I tried to ask her to pay attention to what was going on with her insides and what she thought the problem was.  Lily is a very sensitive and intuitive child and as far fetched as it might sound to ask a five year old that question, she'd usually answer with insights like, "I'm having a bad day, and I just can't control it."  Or, "My brain is sending the wrong message to my body and it is getting me in trouble."

In the early part of last week she said to me, completely by surprise, "Mom, on the Feingold Diet I feel like my brain and body are talking and listening to each other.  Before they weren't listening or cooperating.  Hey, Mom-Oh those are happy tears, right?"

If that doesn't sound like a commercial or a sound bite, I don't know what does.  I want to have it printed on a T-shirt and wear it around.  Seriously.

Our "bad" days have been sprinkled in there too, it isn't 100% roses and sunshine.  She had a meltdown at the pool one day because her goggles were letting in a little water.  Our last two trips to the grocery store have been peppered with spastic behavior and easy frustration.  But the quantity and intensity of any behaviors she checked into the program with are drastically reduced.  When I decided to move forward with this I told myself that it certainly can't hurt and if 60-75% of her issues are helped, it would be worth it.  So far the outcome has far exceeded my expectations.

Here is a sample menu from today:

Breakfast:
Yogurt with cheerios and sliced bananas

Snack:
Smoothie with pineapple juice, pineapple, mango and banana

Lunch:
Turkey whole wheat pita, kiwi fruit, milk

Snack:
Pear slices with peanut butter

Dinner:
Roasted salmon (a splurge for a Wednesday), asparagus and roasted yukon potatoes.

There are many Feingold approved commercial snacks, as well as frozen convenience foods and we definitely have then all on hand, but today we ate at home so this is as close to "perfect" as it usually gets.

I'll be sure to post again on Monday with a Week Four Check Up.

The Feingold Diet Week 3 Round Up (And How We Got Here in the First Place)

I'll begin with an official announcement that yes, I've put my child on an ADD/ ADHD elimination diet although she has never been diagnosed or evaluated for it by a physician.  My six year old daughter, Lily began to exhibit behaviors that raised red flags for me around the age of three.  I would say that it was the intensity of her emotional explosions, combined with her bursts of activity and lack of focus that drove me to search for help in some direction or another in order to avoid a diagnosis and subsequent prescription drugs.

On July fourth, we were celebrating a dear friend's birthday and a friend of this friend overheard me discussing with Lily which candies she could eat and which ones she couldn't, and she casually commented, "Ah, so you're on the Feingold Diet."

Of course at that time we weren't and I'd never even heard of the Feingold Diet.  Our conversation unfolded and she told me that the diet eliminated artificial colors (we avoid them whenever possible), preservatives (we don't do those either), flavors (or those), and salicylates.  This is the tricky part because salicylates are in all those healthy foods we feed our kids, like berries, apples, tomatoes, cucumbers and grapes.

Basically, the five foods my child has eaten every day of her entire life.

I knew what salicylates were and I had avoided eliminating them three years prior when we were trying to help Lily with her new asthma diagnosis, simply because she adores eating those fruits and veggies.  But early this summer there was a day when I was watching Lily color a picture and constantly being drawn away and dropping interest.  She presented it to me as a gift and I asked her to finish it-- to color in the letters, all the character's clothes and backgrounds.  Something I really don't ask her to do, and something she very rarely does.  I watched her struggle with this simple task for a child her age.  She kept exploding out of her seat to vigorously shake her hands in front of her body while panting, and alternately hitting herself in the head while barking like a dog.  It was just too much for her.  She couldn't do it.  We both ended that coloring session in tears.

Fast forward to July 4th and the words FEINGOLD DIET are reverberating in my head at a backyard barbeque.  I felt like I was in the right place at the right time, talking to the right person (Thank you, Merianne).  We're ending our third week on the diet and I think I can count our "bad" days on one hand.  We are half way into the "detox" period and if it keeps getting better and better, all I can say is if she never eats another strawberry or tomato that is a price I am MORE than willing to pay.

For a frame of reference, here is a list of symptoms we've dealt with:

hyperactivity

inapppropriate wiggling of legs/ hands

poor self control

excessive talking

interrupts often (a constant problem)

repeating an activity (like galloping instead of walking or sitting on her head instead of her bottom)

low frustration tolerance

overraction to pain, sound and lights

demands immediate attention

panics easily

nervousness

distractable

unable to complete projects (a major problem)

inability to listen to a whole story

inability to follow direction

eye muscle disorder (strabismus)

short term memory problems (a major problem)

erratic sleep

asthma

hives

Now, please don't sound the alarm since chances are, your child exhibits many of these behaviors.  Almost every child does at some point.  Chemically sensitive kids who benefit from the diet just exhibit them more frequently and intensely.  However, if you see your child in my illustration of Lily's problems and reading this helps you, then all the better for everyone.

At the end of next week I'll re-list the symptoms since we have a second self check-up scheduled after week four.  I'll also try to post some recipes soon and open the discussion to home bread baking which is  constantly on my mind.

Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive on Facebook and given me so much encouragement so far, and thanks for reading!