Magnesium and the Farmer's Market

Its been since Monday afternoon that I have been taking my new vitamins, kicked refined sugar to the curb, and made a change in gluten consumption.  I feel a difference already in my energy level.  My friend asked me yesterday if I thought the magnesium worked that well and fast.  I think it has more to do with what my body has been lacking and so desperately needed that has allowed me to feel a difference so rapidly. 

Monday I replaced our regular oats with GF ones. Can't even tell the difference.  And in the spirit of change I have been trying out new GF/paleo-esque recipes.  For a late night snack I made choco-almond butter oatmeal. Rather than chocolate I used carob.  Yesterday I made us snickerdoodle oatmeal.  The ingredients include: vanilla, cinnamon, raw sugar (although I didn't put nearly the required amount it), and milk.  The girls devoured it.  Another morning I made banana and egg pancakes, yum!  Tastes like eggy banana bread. Even Taylor liked it.  Oh, and I mentioned I would be consuming more kale in my last post.  Every morning I make us a kale, unsweetened appleauce, blueberry smoothie.  Yesterday, per turena and melissa's recommendations I finally got around to make kale chips.  Easy and delicious!  Lucy couldn't get enough!  Since I was in the veggie zone I roasted up some cabbage wedges in some coconut oil, salt and pepper.  The slightly burned edges made then scrumptious!  In fact, Taylor's whole dinner yesterday was the cabbage and kale!

When my oldest sister was in town 2 weeks ago she made really good meals.  Her "secret" ingredients, if you can call it that, were salt and pepper.  I often get caught up in all my different fun spices that I forget about how deliciously simple salt and pepper are.  If I am wanting to up our veggie intake so I can reduce processed foods then it will help to find yummy and different ways to prep that are easy and kid friendly.  The way I've been doing veggies has me longing for more and on most things the girls too.

Last week during a chat with moms about food choices and obstacles I was a little envious of the moms who could afford the Farmer's market.  I like to buy local and knowing who grows the food is helpful too.  A mom who was present during that chat did a price comparison between the farmer's market and walmart.  Turns out there was a $2 difference between bills.  I can get behind spending a whopping $2 more to shop local!  Since we have our farmer's market 3 times a week there really isn't an excuse.  It provides an outing for the girls.  It is possible to eat healthy and local without going in debt.  And honestly, I can only spend so much at the market but the spending opportunities at the big box stores are endless.  Just seems to make sense, dollars and cents.

I am so encouraged that my new diet change, desire to make changes for my family is possible and affordable.

Discovering a healthier me

Today I drove out to Hammond to get muscle testing done for a nutritional work-up.  Her findings confirmed some inklings I have had.  I have an intolerance for refined sugars and gluten.  I don't need to completely eliminate gluten.  But in the main ways we eat it I will try to have us go glutenless: bread, oats, and pasta.  Taylor has mentiond wanting to try the paleo diet.  I think that may be too much too soon, but along the lines of what we need to do.  So the girls and I went to whole foods to get gluten free oats and ezekial bread.  Simple.  I've been trying to cut out processed foods so there was really no need to get snacks and such.  So it also didn't break the bank.

I am also very low on magnesium, this is in large part to my pregnancies as it drains it out of you.  Surgery is also a culprit to magnesium depletion.  Low mag is linked to tiredness, depression, muscle spasms and anxiety, just to name a few.  So more magnesium will be added via supplement, epsom salt baths, and maybe magnesium soap.  Also, the omega I have been using hasn't been well received by my body, apparently my body prefers calamari oil, who knew!

The other thing I learned is that scars can cause blockages in the body, making it more difficlt for the body to process efficiently and effectively. I have 3 scars, so by applying wheat germ oil the blockages should clear.

In addition to all of this I also decided to finally follow thru with some pinterest findsN primarily kale.  I've known kale is good and when I go hbome I drink my moms kale juice.  With the new baby I am trying to get back to better eating.  We do organic, grass fed meat and so now back to good juicing, and then the limit on processed foods that I already mentioned.  It will require some more prep on my part, but I do enjoy it and it should save us money.

So in the spirit of good eating, saving money and such I made a batch of homemade potato chips, frozen applesauce bites, and kale/apple sauce smoothie.  The girls LOVED all 3! 

3 days in a row

Three days in a row writing, success.

Three days in a row without completely losing my cool with the girls, success.  This wasn't necessarily my goal, I figured id take it a day at a time.  We survived not just 1 day but 3.  Today was a bit more tricky since there were no playdates.  But for whatever reason they let me sleep to 9 so I was semi rested. Evie is in love with the set of books with Bible stories my mom gave her so we probably read for 30 minutes straight.  She came across a Bible character figurine, probably swiped it from somewhere =)  so during each story the little toy took on a new identity.  Pretty cute.

When I went downstairs in the morning to get Lucy, I was shocked.  She threw all her pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals out of the crib and she stripped herself down to her birthday suit.  She was just chillin with her feet dangling!  A few minutes later she cried about having to go potty.  And what do you know, she peed in the potty!

Crazy or not the girls and I went to Big Lots by ourselves. I used my temp handicap pass and got us a golden spot.  The trip went surprisingly well, I was relieved.  After, we did out monthly co-op stop.  Mr Sherman started selling us produce. So now I'm shopping local and in season. In season right now means collard greens, so I suppose I have to learn how to prepare them.

Well, this isn't any kind of fancy post, but I did it.  That will have to suffice.

Child birth is a womens rights issue

Birth advocacy, specifically as it relates to cesareans and vbac seeking moms, has really become like a child to me since Evelyn's bith.  Helping other moms find information, supportive health care providers, process their experiences, and even heal gives me purpose and a sense of fulfillment.  Yes, motherhood gives me purpose.  But after days of poopy diapers, nursery rhymes, and battles over toys I don't get the same satisfaction. I find myself wanting to pour out myself for these moms, much like I did for my students.

I've been interested in social justice issues for at least a decade now.  Our current education system and maternal care are very much social justice issues, so it makes sense.

Its a shame that a woman living in the US in the 21st century does not have control over her body.  Legally we can abort but we cannot choose how and even where we give birth.  Its as though we are too stupid to make an informed decision. It is as though the millions of women who successfully carried babies to term and birthed them the way God intended means nothing in our present day and age.   What does it tell us about our health care when a mom is in the throws of labor, exhausted, and wants to throw in the towel and no one offers an ounce of help or encouragement and is put under the knife?  What does it tell us when a mom has to get permission from complete strangers that know nothing about her but her name and that she had a successful vaginal birth, to birth in the safety of her own home with a trained professional?  What does it say about legions of health care providers who are unwilling or too scared to let the body do what its designed to do or even follow their governing body's recommendations?  I don't get it. Birth is not inherently dangerous or life threatening.   When mankind strays too far from what God intended things just get messed up. 

Something has to change.  Women need to realize what is at stake if they don't reclaim birth as their own.

People have often said to me after my cesarean just be thankful your baby is alive. First of all, where does someone get off telling me I am NOT thankful?  What about me?  A cesarean is a major surgery. Because it happens often doesn't make it any more safe.  What about thank God I didn't die under the knife. Thank God nothing was cut on accident.  Thank God I did have a horrible infection on my scar.  And what about my mental health? Does a mom's well-being not matter?   They don't have to be bothered by or care about their birth experience, but don't impose that on me.  Maybe they should be thankful I didn't smack them! 

Then,  while preparing for my vbac and hbac people also said things like: I don't want my baby to die so that's not the birth I want.  Yes, you ignorant fool, I want my baby to die and that is exactly why I'm choosing this course for birth. Please, don't insult my intelligence.  I spent HOURS reading published papers, articles and the like to come to an informed decision.  

I feel sad for women who feel the need to tear other women down.  I am sad that women cannot acknowledge we take different paths in our journies to becoming mothers.  It upsets me that we make women feel bad for caring how their children enter the world, for grieving a lost experience, and telling them its no big deal. 

Blogger App

I really would love to document my days more frequently, but it seems hard to find the time.  But as I was browsing the app store I wondered if there was an app for my blog. Sure enough!  In the smartphone age my phone goes with me everywhere.  It only makes sense that if I want to "write" and document my life that I should try to do it on a blog rather than fb. Don't get me wrong, I will still do FB. But this way I don't need to continually feel like a "failure" because another day went by without some writing. 

It seems to me that it took have 3 kids to get me into gear on certain things.  Of course, I had lots of energy today. Tomorrow I will likely be exhausted and accomplish keeping us all alive and that's about it.  But here is to trying anyway!

Cleaning House and Beads

It's been 5 weeks and 2 days since my little Josie was born.  This morning my sister Thawivann and my nieces Grace and Joy flew back to Chicago after spending a week with my family.  They were the last of the post-partum family help.  I was blessed this pregnancy to have help for nearly 5 weeks straight.

Today, Taylor started back on his night shift.  These days are typically the hardest, so I never know what to expect.  Today went by almost without a hitch.  I even managed to be a cleaning machine.  Granted, it helped that over the past few weeks my MIL, mom, and sister helped me chip away at the clutter and develop more systems for organization.  Since my mom was in town, nearly 3 weeks ago, I have successfully washed, dried, folded, and put away my laundry.  This is HUGE!  Thawivann got me a butt load of containers and laundry baskets to help me manage my clutter.  The beauty of this system is that I don't necessarily have to change my tendencies: collector and not quick to clean up.  So, I have tons of bins that are labeled: toys, baby items, coupons, crafts, items to go up stairs, etc.  Rather than let the items clutter the flour or surfaces I can drop them in the bins and contain the chaos.  Then when I get chance I take the bin and put things back in their proper places.  BEAUTIFUL!  Here is a glimpse:

Something I realized I need to do now that I am a mother of 3 under 3, with all of them at home, is to try and have something planned each day.  It would be great if I could have that "something" planned in advance, but I won't hold myself to that.  I have SO many empty egg cartons and have been thinking of something to do with them.  I also have a grocery bag full of beads from an Economics lesson I taught.  Lucy loves stacking, putting things in and out of containers.  Evie is beginning to show interest in sorting and counting.  So I emptied 4 different colors of beads into egg cartons for each of them.  Lucy just had fun picking the beads up and putting them in another section of the carton.  Evie asked me how to play with them, so I directed her to try and separate them into colors.

  I noticed they were starting to lose interest so I gave Evie 4 small containers and showed her how to separate each color into its own container.  I gave Lucy larger containers and she just enjoyed pouring the beads back and forth.  I also gave them spoons so they scoop the beads into the various containers.  OnceEvie sorted her beads she was basically done.  Lucy stayed intersted much longer, but then she started to play with them by Josie and I was worried that she would try to feed them to her.  Ending her play with the beads and containers came with some resistance, but it was worth keeping all my children alive =)

I am proud to say that we all survived the day.  Actually  I think today we more than thrived.  Thank God!