In the Pool

My kids get FREE swim lessons, from the BEST swim instructor*
 *with a running shirt tan, hehe!

I'm not sure why he gives us such a good deal...he must have a crush on me or something!

The Future was Yesterday?!

 

I saw this photo on facebook this morning. Yesterday was the day that Marty McFly time-traveled to on "Back to the Future". Boy, seeing this made me feel old!

I think I don't like food anymore.

I just finished this incredibly long and boring Email to my daughter's teacher that basically sums up my life for the past year or so. I've read a statistic that families dealing with dietary restrictions are more stressed out than families who are not. Personally, I couldn't agree more! I think a good deal of my stress comes from not even knowing if all this will help her, but I feel like we should at least try.

Hi Mrs. R,

I hope you had a nice and relaxing break. Kate said the baby had to have stitches recently. Poor guy! I hope he's feeling better!

I just want to let you know we had some new blood work done for Kate that shows she is having a strong immune reaction when she eats foods containing wheat, gluten, peanuts, almonds, and dairy casein (including cheese, yogurt, and cow milk). Also, we should be limiting her sugar intake.

So far she has never had any serious anaphylactic-type reactions (thankfully), so if she accidentally eats one of these foods we don't expect anything crazy to happen. Mainly she just gets itchy hives, eczema and digestive problems. Even so, we are trying to keep her on a diet strictly restricting these problem foods so that we can see if her symptoms improve when she avoids them.

She's been on the diet for about 2-3 weeks now and it has been very hard on all of us. To make matters worse, Kate sneaks foods she knows she shouldn't have whenever she finds the chance. I've caught her sneaking rolls under the table at Easter, an old Cheeto she found on her cousin's bookshelf, a piece of candy off the tennis court...It's sad, but I think she is desperate to eat something "normal". At school she'll often trade her "safe" foods for her friends' brownie or crackers. I have asked her repeatedly not to trade, but she still does. She eats birthday treats at school when she knows she should bring it to me first to be sure. I'm sure she's worried that I'll say no, so she eats it while I'm not there to say it. I can't say that I blame her, either. It has been very hard for her not to be able to eat what everyone else is eating, and I feel terrible telling her "no" all day long.

Anyway, I wanted you to be aware of this so you can be mindful of it during the school day. Since I'm not there to keep an eye on what she eats, I'm asking for your help with watching her in the classroom. I told her I was writing this letter and that you would be watching her at school. Hopefully she won't be so sneaky if she knows you are aware of her diet, too. ;-)

If you could get me a copy of the birthday list, that would be great. That way I can plan with the other parents so I can send a safe treat for Kate on birthdays so she won't feel so left out. Also, if there will be any type of school or classroom celebration involving food, I would like to know about it ahead of time so I can plan to have an alternative treat for Kate (she should not have any pizza or ice cream, for instance). If you offer candy as a reward to the class, please don't let Kate have more than a small lollypop or a few Skittles worth...and she shouldn't have anything containing milk, like chocolate. Many licorices even contain gluten, which she should not have. I think Skittles and Starbursts are safe for her. The DumDum lollypops you have are probably safe. Let me know if you want me to bring in a bag of candy for that purpose.

As far as the lunch table goes, I'm at a loss. I would rather not have her sit at the allergy table. And I doubt there are any supervisors there who will be watching what she eats. Do you have any suggestions on how to keep kids from trading with her?

I feel terrible putting all this on you, but in order to know if this diet is working I need to know what she's eating at school. Ultimately, I don't want anyone to give her food at school without me giving the okay. And whenever possible, I would like to be notified of social food situations ahead of time so I can provide a safe substitute for her to feel more included.

If you have any questions please ask.

Thank you!!!
Dana 

For the record, the title of this post was an exaggeration. I still like food...just maybe not as much. 

Fortunately...

I wasn't sure what to make for dinner tonight. Katelyn made an unusual request. "Let's eat at Panda Express tonight." It's right across the street from us, so naturally we never eat there.

I was surprised, "Why do you want to eat at P.E.?" Kate: "Because I want to get a fortune cookie so I'll know what's in my future."

I wanted to teach her that fortune cookies didn't really determine your future, so we wrote some fortunes of our own just for fun. Here are a few of the ones that Kate came up with...

(Off topic, we took this pic while she was waiting to meet David Archuleta, whom she may or may not have had a huge crush on since she was 2!!)


You will go far, far away.


You will lose all your teeth at once.


You will go in outer space on Monday...wait, Mom is today Monday? (Me: Yes.)...I mean Friday.


There's a monster under your bed.


You were born in a town without any water. Kenya.


You will lose a tooth and you will swallow the tooth.


You were born in 1999.

Sorry, this list cracks me up. I have no idea where she came up with these. Except for the losing teeth fortunes. That seems to be a pretty hot topic in 1st grade.

Here's one from me to Katelyn:

You will marry David Archuleta when he is 40.

Peace.

How to Trap a Leprechaun

Did you know that if you catch a leprechaun he has to give you all of his gold? Did you know that people actually build leprechaun traps every year? Growing up near Chico, I thought the only St Pat's day tradition was getting sloshed, but when Kate came home with an assignment to build a leprechaun trap, I learned about a fun tradition that doesn't involve alcohol...or green food coloring for that matter. Yay! I googled leprechaun traps and learned so much! Apparently they're a pretty big deal among school children. Every St Patrick's Day kids (and parents) set to work making leprechaun traps in the hopes of catching one of the little guys, but they wake up on St Pat's day only to find that the sneaky leprechaun got away. Most likely, they'll find that the trap has been sprung (evidence that it was a close call), and that in his struggle to get away, the leprechaun carelessly dropped some of his goodies (like chocolate coins, green glitter, or stickers...even a note), which your child will be quite excited to find!

During our research, the kids and I had fun with these videos: Can you spot a leprechaun??
leprechaun caught on webcam 

leprechaun watch one day time lapse

We even found a live leprechaun watch webcam. It's a 24/7 live watch on a fairy ring in Ireland.

I'm going out on a limb now and assuming that the leprechaun won't read this post. Here is how the trap works:

The leprechaun will encounter our trap and notice the first ladder. Once he reads the "Don't ClimB ladder!" sign, he will naturally want to climb the ladder...because leprechauns are mischievous. When he encounters the second ladder he will want to climb it, too; there is a bag of gold up on that hat that he won't be able to resist. Once he is on the hat he will notice a rainbow slide, and a sign reading "Do not slide on rainbow!" Naturally, he will want to slide on the rainbow. He knows that pots of gold are hidden at ends of rainbows. He won't be able to resist. But here is the trick: the clouds at the end of the rainbow are concealing a hole we cut into the box. Sneaky! When the leprechaun slides down the rainbow, he will slide straight through the clouds and into our net! Don't worry, we placed a small pillow under the net. Katelyn was concerned for him to have a soft landing. After all, we don't want to hurt him, just want his gold.

I can't tell you how excited the kids are to catch a leprechaun. As soon as Littleman woke up the next morning he came knocking on my door, "Mom, let's go see if we caught a...what's that thing called again!?"

**If you googled onto this site in search of leprechaun trap ideas, let me tell you that this took us about 8 long hours to plan and put together. That takes some of the fun out of leprechaun trap building. You might want to build something simpler...(we were just really set on incorporating the butterfly net). The base is a cardboard box wrapped in green papers. The box is laid on its side, opening to the back. We cut a hole and taped the butterfly net underneath, inside the box. The hat is an empty oatmeal container wrapped in green scrapbook paper. I cut a 12" round of green fabric for the brim of the hat, but paper would work as well. Katelyn painted the rainbow. The clouds are fiberfill. For the ladders, I hot glued jumbo popsicle sticks (rails) and lollipop sticks (rungs). We cut coins out of golden card stock and wrapped them in a bit of tulle. We cut off one of the flaps of the box and decorated it to look like sky and propped it up against the hat.

Have fun leprechaun hunting!!