Gluten-Free Again- Thank God Almighty- Gluten-Free Again!!!

Sorry it has been so long- it seems the days just keep getting shorter!


O.K. So the medical issues…well when we went to the doc for my middle son’s checkup the doc had a lot to say. He was in the room with us for about 1 1/2hrs. I am sure his next patients didn’t like it but I loved it! After our ordeal with the previous doc I was glad that I had found one who would listen to me & was willing to try natural remedies.

Anyways at this appointment he told me a lot of stuff but the main things were that he diagnosed my son with Aspergers (along with ADHD)- I forget the specific terminology (Social something) but it was in part due to his social skills. He also said he thinks J is either sensitive to gluten (if you will remember I had taken him off gluten at this point) or had celiac disease. But in order to prove him right J had to go back on the gluten. I really debated doing this…but if he had celiac disease and we didn’t know it could cause issues later in his life. So we went back to the gluten…For 5 ½ months I have been doing a count-down of when I could take him back off. It was horrible. If I didn’t believe in his behavior change before I sure do now. He only needed to be back on the gluten for about 1 ½ months to do a blood test. Well his blood work came back inconclusive so we had to go to a pediatric gastrologist to have an upper GI done. And of course it is months to get into a specialist’s office! End result- he isn’t allergic to gluten just sensitive to it. Thus he is now gluten-free again.

This time I am trying to make sure he has no gluten whatsoever! Did you know chapstick has gluten in it? A lot of candies do too- and unless it is pure 100% chocolate you can count on it being in your candy bar. Even sunscreen and playdough have gluten in them! Last time he went gluten-free I concentrated more on the breads and pastas. Now that I have that down pat I am going for the hidden gluten.

Here are a couple of websites I have found that seem to have great info for gluten-free people:

http://glutenfreerestaurants.org/index.php


http://www.livingwithout.com/

Medical issues

I haven't written for a while...Sorry...I am in the middle of sorting out medical issues of one of my boys. Once I figure out what is going on I will blog about it.

Bball

Basketball Season has started...Thats all I have to say! :-)

Vaccinations & Bloodwork

So I just finished reading the book “What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Children’s Vaccinations” by Stephanie Cave. It is a very interesting and easy read. You know the saying “Hindsight is 20/20”? Well that definitely applies here. This book goes over the pros and the cons of every vaccination. It even goes into the controversial parts, like vaccinations maybe causing Autism, ADHD, etc. I told my husband that is I have another baby I would not follow the CDC’s recommended vaccination schedule. That is not to say I wouldn’t get him/her vaccinated but I would probably follow the recommended schedule in this book. There is just too many diseases/death incidents associated with the vaccinations.


It got me thinking…Maybe it is my fault that my child is ADHD…because I let the doctors give him vaccinations. From the time he could crawl he was always busier than any other child I had met but I don’t remember him having some of the emotional issues then. He was busy but he was happy. I can’t pinpoint when he changed though…I have been trying to figure it out, since reading this book, if he changed after receiving one of his vaccinations but nothing stands out. Every parent wonders at some point if they caused something in their child. One thing that will be changing is that if the doc wants to give my children a booster shot he is going to have to check his blood titers to see if they even need it. If your blood titers for a certain vaccination are so high then they are immune and they don’t need a booster shot. Most doctors don’t check these though, they just give the shot. I will also make sure that all their shots are mercury-free. Since ADHD kids are known to have high levels of mercury.

This week we go to the doc for J’s appointment. I have a list of blood work that I want the doc to run. Cross your fingers that the appointment goes well!

We will have fun!!!

We have been in school now for about 6 weeks. The first 2 weeks were great!! The kids were excited. They did their work quickly. The next two weeks -not so much fun… My oldest and youngest were not the issue…although the oldest didn’t want to do his work either. It was mainly the middle one. It was a struggle to get anything done. And it was taking all day to do the work. This should not be taking that long!! It was frustrating us all…except my youngest who can take school or leave it. So last week I asked myself why am I struggling like this. Is this why I chose to homeschool? To sit at the table all day and fight with them to learn anything? So I decided to become a little less structured. We are going to do a unit study one day a week. Which is why we did our weather study last week (See the first blog in Oct). We are going to do experiments. We are going to go outside and build forts and take walks. Every chance we get we are going to get a group together and have fun stuff. I did not start homeschooling to be stuck in a “classroom” for 7-8 hours a day. We will have fun!!!

So do bears Hibernate or are they Dormant?

We use Apologia for our science curriculum. I love it because I can have a “science class” with all grades and then just assign work according to their level. Yesterday for our science lesson we were learning about bears. According to the lesson bears don’t hibernate- they go dormant. Hibernate means that breathing slows and body temperature drops to the same as the surrounding air. Dormant means a temporary state of inactivity, kind-of like a long nap. So bears are actually experience dormancy and don’t hibernate. Anyways the boys have been taught in public school that bears hibernate all winter. So here is our conversation:


Me: “Do you know what many bears do during the winter?”

Jason and Kenneth: They hibernate.

Me reading from the book: “They sleep! Because of this, some people say they hibernate, but that’s not really true.” I go on to explain the difference between hibernate and dormant. And the fact that they can even give birth during their dormancy.

Jason: So they don’t hibernate?

Me: No they don’t.

Kenneth: Well why did they teach that at public school?

Me: I really don’t know but now do you understand why I have chosen to homeschool you??

This is not the first time in the last few weeks that we have had a similar conversation, where they boys have found out that something they learned in public school was not correct. It just reaffirms one of the many reasons why I homeschool.

9/30/10


It was pouring all day today so we decided to do a weather unit study. What a great day to do this on since we could actually see some of the things we were talking about!

First I did a search for unit studies. I found a great one that was perfect for a one day subject study: http://www.homeschoollearning.com/units/unit_09-17-01.shtml

We looked up weather vocabulary words:

Flood Plain, Downdraft, Occluded Front

Anemometer, Whirlwind, Psychrometer

Wind Shear, Virga, Microburst

Cirriform, Katabatic Wind, Thermograph

Ball Lightning, Gully Washer, Isotherm


We talked about tornadoes and other weather. I had a few weather books so we read them. We did 3 experiments I found on this site: http://www.weatherwizkids.com/weather-experiments.htm . We made a bottle tornado, thunder, learned about rain gauges and how to use them, and learned about rainbows by a color experiment (http://www.weatherwizkids.com/experiments-rainbow-colors.htm). Unfortunately I didn’t get pictures of the color experiment.

The Bottle Tornado (http://www.weatherwizkids.com/experiments-tornado-bottle.htm)

The Rain Gauge (http://www.weatherwizkids.com/experiments-rain-gauge.htm) We had almost 3 inches of rain in less than 24 hrs!!