The Difference a Day Makes

Yesterday ended up being quite a horrible day in our house :( Emma did in fact launch into a full blown reaction to something, and whilst Georgie wasn't reacting to any food or chemical exposure, she was reacting to Emma's behvaiour... as was I :(

Once both girls were in bed, I was able to look at the day objectively and I now know exactly what was going on with Emma - as I do, she suffers from Fructose Malabsorbtion, and pears are quite high in fructose (the sugars found naturally in fruits). However, because we hadn't ever got a clear result from our fructose testing in the past with Emma, I didn't realise that she was indeed quite sensitive. So, she was reacting yesterday - to the pear she ate. The reaction continued from noise sensitivity to rage & oppositional behaviour, to bowel issues - almost an identical reaction to those that I experience - but hers continued for almost 7 hours! Even at Dance Lesson yesterday afternoon she was joining in the wild behaviour of a couple of the other students, where usually she would tell them to stop and leave her alone. We will confirm this theory with another exposure to pear, but not for a couple of weeks.

So whilst it was very disappointing as she thoroughly enjoyed her pear, it also does help as I can now refine our list of things to try - high fructose foods will now be a LOT further down the list!

And today, I have two delightful little creatures on my hands! Both have been playing beautifully and being kind to each other. We've had a lovely morning of watching The Night Garden and Playschool, followed by some drawing and learning about shapes and colours. In fact, I haven't had to help resolve any disputes or suggest better behaviour or anything today!

A day really can make all the difference :D

Just when I thought it was safe to wash again...

After raining for almost all of last week, my washing pile is enormous! So today, we had a beautiful clear sky this morning and I hit the laundry... but now its coming in really overcast again and I've been told showers are expected again this afternoon :(

Due to the age of our house and its electrical wiring, we really try not to use our clothes dryer very much at all, as simply having it on means that something as simple as turning on the jug or toaster can trip out the whole house! And under our house isn't really ideal for hanging out washing - mould grows under there quicker than a load of washing takes to wash!

So, I now have the washing line full, and another load in the machine ready to hang out, but the rain is predicted for the next couple of hours... Hopefully at least some of it is dry!

We've had a busy day actually... all the washing, and we've also made some butterfly biccies and some carob/choc chip muffins! The muffins are LOVELY! Miss E has also eaten an entire pear for the first time ever! Now just to repeat the exercise over the next couple of days to see if she reacts to it or not... fingers crossed there are no reactions and we can add pear to our list of allowed foods!

Unfortunately though, Miss E apepars to be extremely noise sensitive today :( This is the first sign she often shows of a chemical reaction... So if it continues (and isn't just because she's being a bit cranky), I need to have a think about what she may have been exposed to...

Oh and now Miss G is running around biting things, so something unusual is going on in our house today...

We have FISH!

We've been wanting to get the girls a pet of their own for a while now, but its taken us a while to work out what is the best option given that most pet foods contain ingredients we are all allergic to, and of course it had to be a rather simple pet for them to take responsibility for...

So, today, we bought Miss E & G a fish tank each and a Siamese Fighting Fish! These fish are excellent because they are carnivorous so we can feed them Freeze Dried Worms, or fresh mosquito wrigglers etc, so we can avoid all the commercial fish foods which are problematic, they also require very little to keep them alive - just a tank with regular water changes! No need for filtration or heating etc...

Miss E set her own tank up all by herself, whilst Miss G had a little help from Daddy. The end result though is two very happy little girls who have a little pet each. Miss E is naturally very keen to feed her fish and take care of him, so I can't wait to see how she goes looking after him. I have no doubt she will do a fantastic job because we are finding the more opportunites we are giving her, the more she is proving just how capable she is.

Here's just a few pics of the process of setting up the fish tanks today...

Adding the pebbles to the bottom of the tank

Adding Water

Releasing the Fish

One Happy Girl with her new Fish Tank and pet Fish!

A rather ordinary day :(

I'm afraid I'm feeling quite out of sorts today... I think I've had a few too many chemical exposures during the week, and its absolutely taken its toll on me... oh and I'm terribly stressed about selling our house!

We've had our 3rd Open House today, and to date we have had no one show up at any of them, no one has even enquired on our property from the newspaper advertisements, web advertising, being harassed by our agent or in store signage :( We have had one party through to look mid week before last, but they were only humouring their agent (our agents husband!) - I could see they were just there for the ride because they were doing and saying such similar things that I have done in the same situation!

Now we KNOW we can't live here as is - the house has really poor air quality and is full of problems, NEEDS to be renovated to give us the room we need (50m2 is just not enough when we need to spend so much time indoors escaping rain or stinky neighbours!), and we can't renovate safely without adding considerable time and cost to the project. BUT, what happens if we can't sell our house???

We could rent it out and rent somewhere else ourselves, but the problem with that is that we aren't really in a situation to be able to do that as we wouldn't come close to covering the loan repayments.

So, I think what we'll end up doing (if we can't sell) is renovating... VERY CAREFULLY... I'm not looking forward to that at all, but something is going to have to happen one way or another...

I think what we need to do is set ourselves a time limit on when to just bite the bullet and admit that the house may not sell and we need to consider renovating... more discussions to be had...

But, seeing as we've all been chemically exposed this week and have been reacting, I'm really really cautious about this and will need to do a LOT more research.

So just some pointless rambling tonight!

A NEW Butcher!

Obviously it doesn't take too much to get me excited these days, but after my little outing to a new butcher this morning I am very excited!!! I've been more than a little disillousioned with my other meat sources here, and have been trying a few different sources lately, but today I feel like I've found "the one"!!!

Today's butcher did NOT roll his eyes when I asked my usual questions, the how long is it from slaughter until you receive your stock and sell it, has it ever been cryovacced, can you order organic meat etc etc etc! Usually I get very vague responses and butchers looking at me like I have 4 heads and am not to be taken seriously at all. Their response to my organic questioning has always been "There's no demand for it here so no one will supply us"...

Well, apparently that's not the case! My *new* butcher said that they most certainly can order organic meat - its very expensive and they have a minimum quantity to order, but it is possible! He is going to look into the exact minimum quantities for me, and also get some price information and call me back next week. Now, it may be that I simply cannot afford to purchase the meat, and it may be that the minimum quantity is far more than I can ever safely use given our restrictions, BUT, he is prepared to find out more for me and will call me back AND he was nice!

So that alone has made my day! And after yesterday's post saying I couldn't source organic meat, I am soooo happy to say that my statement was based on my previous encounters with Butchers and today's little shopping expedition has proved that statement wrong!

I'll have to remember to post when he calls me back... gosh I hope he DOES call me back... I'd hate to be this excited and happy with his service to be disappointed next week....

Curse You, Jamie Oliver!

I am tired and grumpy and not being a very nice person today and its all Jamie Oliver's fault! LOL Well, only because I find that anything he does I must watch because I just love the passion for food and cooking that seems to just ooze from everything he says and does...

So, last night I sat up watching "Jamie's Fowl Dinner", a show about a gala dinner he prepared to highlight the Chicken and Egg Industry in the UK. It was, as with everything he does, really interesting to watch and I thoroughly enjoyed it, however it didn't finish until 11pm and that is way to late for this little black duck to be going to bed!

I will have to admit that I don't know how much of our industry here in Australia is similar to that in Great Britain, however I do remember visiting my Great Uncle's who were both Egg Producers when I was a young child and seeing the cages and cages and cages of chooks, an image very similar to those battery hens portrayed in last nights show. I honestly can say it didn't impact on me at that time because, quite simply, we had our own chooks, as did everyone, so we ate our own produce and at that point I didn't realise most people didn't have their own chooks and eggs.

And I guess there is one very distinct advantage to both Miss E and myself having Egg Allergies - we no longer buy any eggs at all so the deicision as to which eggs to purchase isn't one I need to consider! Although, back when we did buy eggs, I used to always try for the free range or organic eggs as I do remember the stark contrast between our chooks/eggs and those chooks kept by my Great Uncles - it didn't impact on me as a child, but by the time I was able to go grocery shopping for myself I certainly remembered...

As for chicken, well, I always found it interesting that the breasts I bought were WAY bigger than the breasts on our own chickens as kids, but I will be honest and say that I never actually put any thought into the reasoning behind it... I know there is a mentality out there that the chickens must be fed steroids or growth enhancers or something, but I also remember seeing a Poultry Industry type report that said those types of things were not used in Chicken production. At that stage I kind of just believed everything the *officials* said... It's something I still haven't looked any further into though... But then, from my involvement in the Cattle Industry (both paid employment and having family members involved in Beef Cattle), I know that certain breeds are chosen for their meat quantity and quality, so breeding chickens specifically to grow really fast and to have large breasts makes sense to me.

But you know at the end of the day, irrespective of my research and my decisions as to which chicken to buy (organic meat is not available here, so that automatically eliminates my preferred choice :( so I do need to look into my options seeing as we do consume so much chicken) the best thing about watching Jamie's Fowl Dinners is quite simply that I am talking about this and hopefully so are many other people, and hopefully this will bring about...

Awareness in Consumption

And not just in relation to chickens and eggs - hopefully it will trigger something in people to start becoming more aware about everything they consume...

Teaching our Kids...

Lately I have been reading a lot about the Montessori way of educating our children and it REALLY appeals to me. I actually would love to visit a Montessori School to see how it looks in action, but unfortunately the closest one to me is still almost 1000klms away, so its not going to happen anytime soon.

But, after reading quite a few things I have decided to start implementing just a few things each week or so to see what impact it has on my girls. Until I manage to make or acquire some of the learning materials though, I thought we could start with just encouraging the girls to do more of the day to day things that I do for them, themselves. I have known for quite a while that Miss E get so much enjoyment from doing things that help me, or are generally considered my jobs.

Last night she really wanted to help me prepare dinner - she really wanted to peel a carrot - so I let her! She struggled a bit but slowly got the hang of it. Towards the end she did ask me if I could please help her finish it and I obliged as she had done a really great job and was just so excited - it was the first thing she told Daddy when he came home last night! After Dinner, and when Miss G was in bed, we sat down and talked to her about some other jobs that she might like to do around the house.

Starting today, Miss E has 3 jobs to do each day.

• Make her bed each morning - and she did an awesome job this morning after only being shown once last night how to do it!
• Help me prepare lunch - this was something she really wanted to do - obviously she wont be doing it on the days she is at kindy, but on the other days she can.
• Before bed pick up any toys that are still out and put them in their proper homes.

It isn't a huge list, but she really is excited and wants to do these things and judging by the excitment she showed again this morning after making her bed, I think she will love being able to do something useful that does require her to think a little bit.

But, whilst out this morning I witnessed a first hand example of how simple things like this can benefit our children in their futures.

I went out to purchase some porcelain cups and a jug for the girls, and was served by a younger girl (well, when I say younger, I mean younger than me! I'm 29 today so anyone under around 20-25 is younger!), who simply had no idea how to wrap the fragile cups. She really really struggled with the concept of how to put the cups into the paper and fold/roll the paper. I was torn between wanting to do it myself so it was done and I could go home, and letting her do it herself to learn the skill... I ended up letting her do it, but made a couple of suggestions to her along the way.

Now maybe I have expectations that are too high, but I'm quite certain that my brothers and I knew how to wrap fragile things when we were quite young, and I guess I would have thought working in such an environment this girl may have had a bit more of an idea what to do - it wasn't the first time I had seen her there, so she wasn't a brand new staff member.

It made me realise that a lot of children may not be given the opportunities to do things such as this, for themselves so therefore never gain those skills. Now I know Montessori is about so much more than just teaching children to do things like this, but it really did reinforce to me that giving our children opportunities to help us and to learn can be of such an enormous benefit throughout their entire life.

So, I'm now even more determined to introduce even a few simple Montessori themed ideas into our home and give my daugthers the opportunity to learn by doing the many day to day tasks that occur in everyday living. I know Miss E currently loves to say "Can I help?!", so from now on my answer is going to be...

YES!!

Starting to Reduce my Internet Hours!

That's right! I need to reduce my internet hours (I think!), so today is the dawn of my new net using era...

If all goes to plan, and we sell this house, the area we are looking at moving to, and a house that we have our eye on in particular, does not have the same level of internet availability that we do here in town. So, after a short discussion with our internet provider, I have an idea of the type of net access I will if we do move.

However, the different options are unfortunately less internet hours than our current plan, and at a greater cost :( So, we have decided that we should try to reduce our internet usage to see just what we can get down to and then make a deicsion on which new plan will be adequate - we really don't want to go spending a whole lot more on telecommunications after my massive effort to reduce this area in our budget. So therefore if we want to remain at our current expenditure (or less!) we need to reduce our usage.

The plan is to not turn our computer on of a Tuesday and Thursday, and probably not even during the day of the weekends. That way we can see how much difference just 2 days without accessing emails or the internet makes to our usage and we can always take out more days if needed. (Or perhaps add one back in!!)

But today is Tuesday - why are you online, you say! Well, I made my NaBloPoMo pledge to make a blog entry every day this month and I intend to keep that promise. So, until the end of July, I will still be logging in and doing my blog entry even if it is a Tuesday or Thursday. I'm quite sure a few minutes online on these two days for this week and next wont make a dramatic difference ;)

I'm soooo used to having the computer always on and regularly checking my emails, so this will no doubt take a bit of getting used to and will be quite a habit to break. But I'm quite sure that I can do it (my sanity may suffer a little though!).

My internet usage has slowly crept up over the past couple of years as I now have quite a lot of blogs and websites I like to check out and I do have a tendency to get side tracked and time gets away from me VERY easily... I'm sure that two days without the internet will give me back a considerable amount of time which can only benefit my family (as per yesterday's entries). I have used the net as my little *time out* so now I am going to have to find some other way to refresh myself and get that little mental break on those days. I have had a feeling for some time now that the internet was using up a lot of time, but I hadn't wanted to acknowledge just how much as it was MY time...

What am I going to do?? Well I'm still not sure, but we did have a little outing to the library this morning and I have borrowed some books to read, and also a book aimed at teaching children to knit... I figure if its aimed at children, I'm sure to be able to understand it! I can knit quite baiscally, however having RSI in both wrists has meant that I don't knit very often as it hurts. I'm hoping though that if I learn properly (as opposed to me teaching myself from what I remembered as a child), my technique may improve and therefore reduce the impact on my wrists... but only time will tell - I may just have to accept that I cannot knit!

So there you have it... our plan to reduce our internet usage for a few months to see what happens. Nothing really to post about food today though... although my organic vegetable order should be here in a couple of hours!

More musings...

You know, I've been thinking more and more today (seeing as its still a relatively good day!) and I've pinpointed some very specific things that do in fact improve our days...

1. Not to engage in the emotional *discussions* at meal times - the rules are simple, we must eat our meals before we leave the table. Until now, there had always been some degree of *discussion* taking place at meal times - bargaining over each and every meal. I was very caught up in the emotions of needing my children to eat for their health, growth, development etc, and I do believe that they saw this *need* in me and it was something they weren't sure how to deal with... I don't really have anything else that invokes these same emotions in me, so this would have been very different to the Mum they were used to. So, over the weekend we decided (as we had some months ago, but the situation improved and we kind of forgot about it) that from now on there will be no discussing or arguing or pleading. The rule is simple - we sit down and eat our meals before we leave the table. End of story. Yes, if the children aren't well or there is something else going on (ie a chemical reaction), I may alter the amount that I require them to eat, but for normal run of the mill type days, the rule applies. I may still be as emotional over meal times, but by not engaging in any discussions on the topic, I can keep those emotions to myself.

2. No more preparing 2 or 3 meals until the child is happy - yes, in my desperation to have the girls eat, they would sometimes demand something else and something else and something else... and I would go and prepare it. Well, if its a meal that I know they do like and have eaten recently, they will be expected to eat. I am absolutely prepared to make something else if we are introducing them to something they haven't had before or something I have made a little differently - I know they (Miss E in particular) have very distinct preferences for foods and textures, so if I am dishing up something different I am most happy to also have something that they will eat on standby. But a vast amount of time has been spent preparing several meals at each meal time and my time is far better spent interacting in a more positive way with the girls than preparing multiple meals.

3. Spending some time together doing something *fun* every day - Emma is always asking to do something *exciting* and when I make the time to ensure that even half an hour a day is spent on the floor with the girls doing something they want to do, the mood of the house is always much better. I may be a little behind in some of my jobs, but the girls do then tend to play a little better (for a short period of time at least) so I cam be more efficient as I'm not trying to play with them, help with conflict resolution and do my own things...

4. Spend some time outside every day - this is probably the trickiest one for us at the moment... The neighbours that would sit outside and smoke for hours on end have gone, but in their place we have a neighbour who is renovating and so we are now often being trapped inside to escape the paint and glue fumes that waft into our yard. We also haven't really been able to go out anywhere since May due to the girls being quite unwell. But, both girls are now reasonbley healthy, so on the days that we don't have anything planned, and are unable to go outside due to whatever our neighbours may be doing, I will try to arrange for a trip to a park or similar. Again, this will take time away from my chores, but hopefully will invoke the same degree of self-directed play and a sense of serenity over us all that my efficiency will improve.

Yesterday really was a horrible day and unfortunately I'm a little slow on the uptake and it takes a really bad day for me to sit down and re-assess what is happening, where we are at and look at solutions. But, doing so really is quite uplifting and today I do feel so much more energised and able to cope.

Now I just need to work on getting to this point BEFORE a really horrible day occurs...

phew.... A Better Day Already!

Well, today is shaping up to be a MUCH better day than yesterday!

Miss E woke up in a fabulous mood, happily ate her breakfast and even had all of her medication without baulking. It really does make an enormous difference to our days when they start off in such a positive way. It may only be 11am and there is still loads of potential for the day to deteriorate, but its still so nice to have such a calm and relaxed start to the day.

I made a concerted effort to sit with the girls and do some activities with them this morning for around an hour or so, and they are now happily playing together without me. I really do need to remind myself that a small investment of time in them does make a dramatic difference to their moods for the day. I guess the luxury of today though is that our play date was cancelled and I decided that the other jobs I really must do today can wait until this afternoon.

Doing some cooking last night also helped as it meant the pressure was off me to do some more this morning. We can now survive until tomorrow before I do anymore baking.

I also started to re-read Buddhism for Mothers last night and I know I am feeling calmer already for doing so. This week may still be quite chaotic with our other commitments, but hopefully by making a point of doing just a few minutes of reading each night will also help.

In addition to the reading though, I have also reduced one of my supplements... it has a tendency to increase insomnia in me, and it really didn't occur to me until last night that I was suffering insomnia again. So hopefully in a few days the reduced dose will have kicked in and I'll be back to sleeping well again!

Much happier all round here today :D