Dropping some silver on supplements

I just spent $132 at the Vitamin Shoppe. Wow. My husband has an eardrum that has been ruptured for over 48 hours and still hurts a lot. I bought some tea, colloidal silver supplement and nasal spray, grapefruit seed extract ear drops and nasal spray, some probiotic (on sale), calendula tincture (seemed like a good idea) and some more homepathic remedies (including something that my son grabbed because it came with a little Curious George pouch - even the alternative stuff markets to kids! He's been sick, too, so I cut him some slack, especially after he agreeably put several items back on the shelves and since he'd been whining a whole lot before we got into the car).

When I first went on my Save-My-Adrenals-and-Thyroid health kick starting in early 2004, I spent that kind of coin on capsules often. A lot was at the Vitamin Shoppe, where you get little coupons every so often if you spend a lot, and I also shopped at Village Green Apothecary in Bethesda, where they carry brands usually only practitioners have but at a better price. Since my thyroid has stabilized and my nutrition is so much improved, I haven't been as much of a supplement junkie. And certainly in this economy with a one-income family, I'm usually more reserved before throwing $25 bottles of dried mushrooms into my basket (my sister-in-law swears that one helped her). But since the hubby isn't of a mind to get energy work and is still in a lot of pain, he told me to get "whatever looks good." After a week at home with my sick son, who was on a nursing binge to fight his fever (which also turned into an ear infection), I was ready to jack up the credit card for our health at the supplement store (and I already have with craniosacral therapy and an acupunturist who used some cute little tools on my boy to open his meridians and did a few needles on me when I mentioned his clinginess. It always comes back to me!)

Considering a possible run for reconception, I'm also thinking that it's probably time for me to actually see a doctor -- a holistic-minded one for sure, and preferably one who starts with some energy work, but someone who can make sure I'm in a safe place to possibly go forward with trying for a bigger family. That will cost a pretty penny, too, I'm sure!

Gluten-Free (Low)Sugar Cookies

My camera battery died before the cookies came out of the oven, but here are a few of our successful baking experience making cookies to take to our Waldorf school tomorrow, where the class will be be baking Valentine cookies with whole wheat. We always bring our own gluten-free alternative to our Parent-Child class.

I always like to add almond or another nut flour in recipes to add to the protein and fat content so that the cookies don't cause a crazy sugar reaction. They are also quite low in sugar compared to some other recipes, but I'd still rather have something good with my something not-so-good.

These recipes have been adapted from The Gluten-Free Gourmet and Gluten-Free Baking Classics (via adaptation by Monica Corrado of Simply Being Well)

Dry ingredients to mix together first:
- 2 1/4-1/2 cups of GF flour
I used maybe 1/3 almond flour, 1/3 arrowroot, 1/3 tapioca and the rest brown rice flour
If you use only dry sugar/sucanat/rapadura (or date sugar or maple sugar), use closer to 2 or 2 1/4 cups of flour
If you want to substitute some molasses or maple syrup (or honey) for sweetener, add in a little more flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon salt

optional
up to 3/4 or 1 teaspoon cinnamon
a shake (1/8 teaspoon) nutmeg

Set this dry mixture aside

Gooey mixture
- 3/4 cup to 1 cup oil -- I used half coconut oil and half butter. We can tolerate a little dairy, and I do think butter makes for better cookies. Use a little more oil if using less wet ingredients (i.e. no liquid sugar)
- 1/3 cup sucanat, rapadura, date sugar or maple sugar -- sugar that still retains some of its food quality and hasn't been stripped of everything
- a small glob (maybe 1 teaspoon) of black strap molasses

Mix these together with a hand mixer. You might want to heat the oil/butter some first to encourage the chunkier natural sugar to melt/mix well.

Add to the gooey mixture:
- 1 egg (could try a few tsp. flax meal in hot water set aside for a few minutes as egg replacer, but I didn't)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla (Frontier GF/no alcohol)
optional:
- 1/2 teaspoon almond flavor or another flavoring (Frontier GF/no alcohol)

Add dry to gooey and mix with mixer until it looks like dough you could roll into a log to chill in the freezer for a bit

Put some rice flour on your rolling pin and parchment paper and roll out the chilled dough to cut into shapes

Place on cookie sheet (grease first with coconut oil if it's a sticky one, or put on parchment paper if you want to avoid Teflon)

Bake at 350 degrees for 7-14 minutes. I made my cookies quite thin (so I'd have plenty of them) and baked for 7-8 minutes. I also did a few trials in small balls and they cooked well in 8-9 minutes.

These cookies were light and had a shortbread quality -- not particularly chewy or soft. And of course with the natural sugar, they are on the brown side (and uneven in color since I didn't warm my oil and also added the egg at the same time as the oil and sugar instead of after). But they were perfect for cutting into shapes, and they sure were tasty and satisfying!

"Feed me" said the Fever

I've always intended to learn more about both homeopathy and herbalism, but I don't get serious about either until an illness prompts me to drag out some books and to poke around online.

When my son woke the other night before 9:30, we could tell something was off. He'd had a small cough and looked a little peaked, and his dad had been fighting off a cold for a few days. E was so out of it and resistant to going back to sleep in his bed/alone, I brought him downstairs, and he snuggled in and fell asleep, staying asleep as we finished a rare night of actually watching a movie (actually, we'd started the movie the night before and were really hoping to finish it this time!). The boy had some twitching and seemed mildly delirious, as though he was having vivid dreams and thinking he was awake.

But still, it wasn't until after midnight that I felt the heat radiating off of him and started to smell on the acrid tinge to his breath that told me his body was becoming a bug-killing cooking machine.

Even eHow has an article that explains a fever is a body doing good work. We have never tried to artificially lower our son's fevers with Tylenol or Motrin, even when it once went up to 104.7. I'm sure we'll have to resort to allopathic medicine at some point, but whenever possible, I hope to let his body's immune system do its job and help it out only with natural means.

Our doctor said he thought frequent applications of belladonna might help. That I actually had at home, so we started it a few hours later when the boy woke up from drowsing on the couch with his dad. He did seem to perk up a bit, and he ate some. I put him in the Ergo and we all took a short walk in the unseasonably warm, 50-degree afternoon.

The night was a little smoother, but he still had lots of desire to be near me, and I nursed him in bed even though we'd stopped that weeks ago (we also are using diapers during this illness even though we'd had our first very successful diaper-free week).

But still, he was around 102 this morning, and the cough sounded worse. So we asked the doctor to fit us in. E ate a little bit this morning and drank some of his blue Odwalla juice that he'd randomly demanded in the middle of the night, but for the most part, he slept all morning.

The doctor was not worried about the chest sounds and saw nothing in the ears. We discussed symptoms, and he determined that gelsemium might be the new remedy to try.

I used the Ergo again in the grocery store and gave him some pellets once they'd been rung up. The boy was about to check out, too, practically asleep and drooling on my front, all 30 pounds of him.

After we got home and he wanted to be up from resting, he requested coconut juice and then mango coconut yogurt. I put it in front of him after spooning him a few bites and offered that I could feed him if he needed me to. A minute later, he demanded, "Feed me!" a phrase I never thought I'd serious hear from my almost-three-year-old, or from anyone outside of Little Shop of Horrors or a TV sitcom, for that matter.

But he only wanted a few bites and then said he needed to poop on the potty, which I took as a good sign. After that, more rest, more nursing, more rest, more nursing. It's like I have a baby again. It's much calmer and quieter around here than I'm used to, and I can appreciate that, but I sure do hope the little guy is back to his old self soon.

Taking a Fall

Two weeks ago, I fell taking a step onto a neighbor’s basement stairs. My foot just slipped on the carpet and I was about to bounce down the stairs on my bottom. Having sprained my ankle in September 2007 two weeks before I was going to run a half-marathon, I was determined not to let my legs take any of the ill effects of this fall.

So I braced myself with my hands – I let all the weight fall into my upper body. Within minutes, I knew my arms were going to hurt. I was in a fragile emotional state before the fall, and I knew that the feeling of upset and the trauma were going to settle into my body in a powerful way. I went home and sobbed for a few minutes after I took my first round of drops of Perelandra’s Emergency Trauma Solution (ETS Plus). I repeated the drops every 5 minutes four or five times. Then I took arnica and applied Traumeel lotion topically.

But it hurt a lot to raise my arms out to the side, and I knew that whatever I did, I was going to need help. I kept taking arnica – no OTC painkillers and the next morning called the massage therapy center where I’ve been going for over a decade. I knew my regular craniosacral therapist wasn’t working that day, but the other one was, and she had an opening. Fortunately, my husband had a few days off of work, so I could take the appointment.

The session was very powerful. Not only did I leave feeling like almost all the pain was gone, I was profoundly relaxed. It was clear that I needed the session anyway; CST simply needs to be part of my regular life, at least as long as I’ve not got a consistent yoga and meditation practice going on.

I happened to get in this past week with another CST practitioner I used to see a lot before my son was born. He has more experience with visceral manipulation and other aspects of Upledger training. He worked on my son for 30 minutes and for me for the remaining 20 minutes. The work felt deeply therapeutic. He said I was still locked up from the incident and that he worked to release the tension. That night I actually felt tired before 11:00 for the first time in a long while. That would not be the first time that CST helped me to chill out enough to be able to get to sleep at a decent hour.

I’m very glad to have these practitioners in my life to keep me from holding on to negative patterns and then compensating for them in other problematic ways.

When needs diverge

I am being pulled in opposing directions. Now, my wanting to do several things at once is not a new thing, I freely admit. However, I was starting to feel good about the idea of going to bed early in order to get up early and do yoga or work out and write before my son got up for the day. If I get up at 5:00, I figured, (something I did regularly while teaching high school), I can do 20 minutes of yoga practice at home and then write until he comes downstairs with his dad at 7:00. We'll get him used to sleeping or at least resting until 6:30, and then he can play quietly in his room or in the hallway while LJ showers and gets dressed. Or, on alternate days, I will write for just a short bit and then go to the gym to return at 7:15, when LJ has started breakfast but is about to be needing to leave for work.

Either way, I thought, I will feel refreshed from an early bedtime, exercise, centering and creative expression. Surely this will make me more than ready to face a day of focusing on my son when we're together -- being fully present with him. And on the days I do have some childcare, I'll be more on-task for having gotten some ideas down on paper already. I'll either be able to move ahead on that or work on work or leadership for the moms group I'm starting.

That sounds lovely, but I'm feeling like it just ain't gonna happen, not without a few rough days of habit change. Why? Because my son is no longer sleeping soundly through the night on his own or in his own room. He paddles into our bed sometimes as early as midnight. Sometimes he just snuggles in, but other times he tries asking to nurse first. I tell him it's sleepy time, not morning yet, and he usually complies, especially if I have some almond/coconut milk ready for him to drink. But when he wakes at 4:00 and I say no to nursing, he sometimes gets pissed. He whines, telling me "No!" and wriggling his hand back up or down my shirt. This also happens on occasion when I cut him off from the allowed post-5:00 feeding(s). I essentially feel like I'm done with my night's sleep at 4:00, and that is just too early even if I were getting to bed by 9:00. In fact, on New Year's Eve, I stayed reading on the couch when my husband took him up to bed, and for some reason that image would not let the boy rest without his mama. So we all went to bed together early that night. And 4:00 still felt just plain wrong.

Yet I never fell back under solidly, and he wanted access to the bar at 5:00 and 6:00, and then he was just up and wanting us all to be up for the day. That is now becoming the norm: he whines, "I'm hungry! I want to go downstairs!" He used to be willing to go play in his room for a bit, maybe bring in a doll or some books to us, but now the suggestion that he amuse himself just upsets him more.

I don't know what we're going to do. Since my husband will probably not start his new job this week, I think I'm going to say we bite the bullet and I just leave the upstairs at 5:00 and let them deal with it. I've planted seeds of suggestion about this to the boy, which he ignores to ask some unrelated question that seems to be a cue he doesn't want to hear about whatever I'm saying. I am not in a hurry to wean for good before age three, but we may have to morning-wean or bed-wean. I don't know if he's just coming on like gangbusters now in a last-ditch effort to claim the goods before he drops them or what. We had been down to just morning and night until just after Thanksgiving (also just after I ovulated for only the fourth time since he was born); then he was asking around the clock for a few weeks. Since that period ended, he's tapered back to morning and night, sometimes before nap and only asking otherwise if he gets hurt or is just feeling needy. I ought to read more of How Weaning Happens and Mothering Your Nursing Toddler. My friend's 13-month-old just stopped on his own -- was crying when she'd try to feed him. I just can't imagine my boy ever wanting to stop. I wonder if there's something I'm contributing to that dynamic -- some need to be needed?

I would like to wean and cleanse before the summer, before considering trying for another child if that's what we decide to do. If we do go for #2, I would want my body to have some recovery time and to get to the healthiest possible state, which it clearly is not right now. Seeing as it took 29 months to get my first postpartum period, I want to be gentle with myself.

One other thought about the boy is to get serious about restarting remedies. Tonight I gave him Bach Flower Essences Impatiens and Vervain in addition to our first time trying Rescue Sleep -- and I could get him back to the craniosacral therapist and get us both into one of our healers who helped before. I also read in Peggy O'Mara's "A Quiet Place: Your Child's First Healer" in the new (Jan/Feb 2009) issue of Mothering magazine that the homeopathic remedy Nux Vomica is a go-to helper if you're waking at 3 or 4 a.m. If I don't find that I have any in my medicine chest, I think I will pick some up tomorrow and give it a try. And I will also call my pediatrician (a homeopath) to finally get in for an appointment!

Body Ecology Diet's List of 29 Healthy Things to Do

I get e-newsletters from the Body Ecology Diet from time to time. The most recent one contained a list called "29 Most Important Things You Can Do to Improve Your Health in 2009". There are, as you would expect, several specific nutrition recommendations, like adding in fermented foods and eliminating sugar, but I like that the list also includes lifestyle choices and general wellness practices, like breathing for stress reduction. Each tip has a link to an article on the BED site so you can easily find the answer to how and why.

Fancy Dinner: CityZen

We had splurge Merry Christmas dinner the other night at CityZen at the Mandarin Hotel. Fortunately it wasn't until the following night that my son woke a few times before midnight. Thankfully, on our night out, all was quiet. We left at 7:30 and didn't return until 11:00 after a lovely dinner (with a neighbor babysitting for free as a swap! score!)

It's already been a week (things have been busy), but I hope I can still capture most of the intricacies of our meal. I hadn't called ahead to mention being gluten-free and dairy-free because the menu looked fairly forgiving on that front. The actual menu was a little more of a challenge, but once we mentioned the issue to our server, I felt very watched out for and taken care of.

The meal began with two amuse-bouches for each of us. My husband got a wild mushroom "pretzel" with a wild mushroom sauce. I was given three small pieces of roasted beet (two gold and one red) a tiny amount of greens. It was hard to hear the server describe the next mini-course, but it was something like jicama. He said it was Japanese potato, something I love to roast at home, but this one was marinated or pickled or something. It came with a date relish. I'm afraid the details are already blurring! LJ got a mini souffle (what he is calling custard) -- he thought it had some kind of rich cheese but was told it was just egg, cream and olive oil with paprika. We heard a woman at the next table equally incredulous being given the same explanation upon inquiring about what type of cheese was used.

The menu's seafood selections looked the safest for me, but I didn't want an appetizer and entree that were both fish. She explained that the "ravioli" in the pork belly appetizer was just some fruit inside a folded-over shaving of persimmon. So, despite concerns about nitrates, I went for the pig, and it was very yummy. This is why I ordered the Cabernet Sauvingon instead of a white wine, and, since it was on the chilly side in the restaurant, I was glad I'd gone with red. LJ got a Manhattan that came with a marinated sour cherry and was prepared "old school" with bitters. He later got a glass of Sangiovese Chianti.

LJ's appetizer was a parnsip souffle inside of a crepe with a clam sauce. He describes the experience as "cosmic." LJ was offered bread during the meal - country, foccacia or something else. He says they were good, and he had the choice of unsalted and salted butter.

His entree was duck breast that came with duck sausage and French lentils. I had a bite was rich and yummy. LJ called it "exquisite" if not perhaps a tad too salty. My entree was local Rockfish (not listed on my wallet mercury chart) - crispy skin filet - that came with citrus potato hash, baked cauliflour and a green sauce that was delightful, but I can't remember what vegetable it was supposed to come from. The fish itself was unremarkable, but all the flavors of everything on the plate were amazing.

To cleanse our palates, I was given some kind of a pear dish that was divine, and LJ had something else I'll have to check with him about when he gets out of the shower.

Desserts are usually a challenge for the bluten- and dairy-challenged. I am not usually a big citrus-eater, but the CityZen Tequila Sunrise was out of this world : poached blood orange suprêmes, orange confiture, sherbet (currently says lime on the menu but I think mine was rasberry) and a drizzling of tequila offered like pepper on a salad. I held back out of respect for my liver but wish I'd asked the server for a few more shakes. The ginger beignets went to my husband with a regretful "these have gluten." We had actually only said wheat was a concern, so it was nice to know they understood what we really meant.

LJ had a pumpkin bread pot au feu with flowering quince (whatever that means) and ice cream. It also came with some type of cookie/sweetbread.

We savored every bite of the meal and sip of our drinks and decafs. There were lots of morons smoking under the warming lights as we waited for the valet (which still cost $7 even with the restaurant stamp), but otherwise, the intake for the night was impeccable and worth the pricier-than normal nice meal we might normally pursue. With all the extra little touches, I would say it's worth the money of $75 for the fixed price. If you are flexible enough to be happy with any of the smaller number of choices (and don't have any dietary restrictions), I would guess the $50 for sitting at the bar would be the way to go, as long as it comes with all the fun extras.