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.