This blog entry is dedicated to her. She is one of the reasons why I took this challenge, why we are doing this experiment.
Let me see if I can explain her a little. For my friends in Delco, it's easy... she's A LOT like me. Full of energy, always getting involved with things, chatty, hyper, dancey. But she's also sweet and caring and has a genuine concern for others. She is extroverted and loves to be surrounded by a group of girls.
However, J has always been a bit moody (not unlike me). Her moods can be very HIGH and very LOW. As a toddler, she was difficult to discipline because she couldn't, she wouldn't just sit there in time out. Even if I sat with her, she would argue why she was or wasn't doing something, she would tell me all about all kinds of things. She wouldn't just stop, relax, realize she was wrong, take the punishment, apologize and move on... or ANY of those things. EVER. You just couldn't rationalize with her and you still can't.
She is unlike me in many ways as well. She is incredibly artistic, has an amazing memory and can has had terrible balance over the years. It took her a long time to do things that my other kids had mastered much earlier... like using a computer mouse (she was 3), forward rolls (she was 5), cartwheels (age 7). I always worried about her health, from the time I got pregnant with her. She's the runt, my smallest child and she always was just a little bit more frail, more feeble, more vulnerable to illness than the others. Note: she was delivered at 39 weeks, 7lbs 4oz., so she was not premature or low birth weight.
**Linda - I am not comparing my kids - I swear! I am just noting development differences!** :)
During her preschool and kindergarten years (half day), it became very clear to me that J couldn't make it from snack at school to lunch fast enough. I would get her at noon and she was a BEAST until I got food into her. Crying, inconsolable, miserable, snappy and rude. I actually starting packing a snack (banana and granola bar) so she would stabilize for the one block walk home. yeah, I said that... ONE block. She couldn't make it ONE block.
Sometimes, I would notice after certain meals that she would get hyper. So hyper and silly that she was not like herself at all. She was like someone who was high, kinda. I thought maybe it was sugar high, like after eating enormous bowls of ice cream with tons of toppings and Ne Ne's and Pop Pop's house.
All the while, I wondered if she was just crazy, or if this was normal and my other kids were abnormal, or if she had a medical issue. It's been brought up in conversations at the pediatrician for years, but we never did anything about it because I didn't want my little peanut to go through needles and blood work.
It became really obvious at a weekend trip to the Poconos, when we were doing a lot of physical stuff and eating later than normal. Dinner time was insane. She couldn't wait.. she cried and whined and it was really obvious that she was "difficult"... or was she? Was this maybe just a big discipline problem the whole time? Was I enabling her to act this way because I hadn't really punished her for it? It was very obvious to our hosts that I was really really trying to be patient with her and that what we were doing wasn't easy on either of us.
So many questions... so much confusion. But for the most part, she's a doll. She's funny and loving and smart. She's an excellent student and she's just beautiful.
So how could this child be sometimes like Jekyll and sometimes like Hyde? Was it blood sugar? Could she be diabetic? Hypoglycemic? I started going to the symptom checker and saw some "maybes" for those things. Finally decided to get her blood work done. Fasting, pins and pokes, but she did okay and we came home and ate.
Test results??
NORMAL.
I am going to ask the doctor for the actual results so I can view them, but they are all in the normal range.
Part of me was relieved and part of me was bothered because I was hoping for an answer. Not that I wished illness on my child, but it would have helped me with how to help her.
Soooooo.....
During the interview that was mentioned in the first blog post, they discussed the effects of wheat on children. So... what happens if we remove wheat from J's food?
Uh.. You might be surprised by the answer....
It wouldn't be fair to just say it bluntly, would it??
Okay, okay.
It's working.
There, I said it. It's working. There has been a noticeable difference in her. At dinner the other night, the other kids remarked at how well she was doing. The remarked that she wasn't so moody, so crazy, so manic. They were like, "Good job, J!"
So, could removing wheat have leveled out my J-bird?
The USDA recommends 6 servings of grains or whole grains DAILY.
Grains: Bread, cereal, rice, tortillas, and pasta. Whole-grain products such as whole-wheat bread, oatmeal, and brown rice are recommended because they have more fiber and help you feel full.
Picture and information from this site: http://kidshealth.org/kid/
http://www.fns.usda.gov/tn/Resources/howmuch.pdf --- says 6 oz. per day. So, that's equivalent to 6 slices of bread or 3 cups of cooked pasta.
That's really not that hard to remove. Yes, it changes our traditional vision of meals.
I have noticed that she is looking for other choices... like fruit and yogurt and hard boiled eggs. It's so cool to walk down in the morning and catch your kid eating a hard boiled egg. :) She seems to have noticed a difference and she seems to like that she isn't feeling so manic.
So for now? We keep on 'keepin' on'. It's been, well... nice. :) Way to go my little J-bird!
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