I want to be...

I want to be seen.

Don't look at me!!

Not with your eyes!!
Look with your heart and soul and your big beautiful Mind!

I am not a size 3!!!

Who cares about thighs...

I am so much more then boobs, a waste and a behind,

Touch me instead...

Touch me in my soul where I can feel you

Touch me there with your soul, with your heart

A New Diagnosis and thoughts for 2018

It has been 4 years and I have been really terrible at blogging.  I'm finally going to be back on the horse.  i'm determined to be. 

My girl is 10 years old now and in January we were given a new diagnosis.  She's ADHD Combined type which...I already knew.  I did not know the extent to which it impairs her but I knew she had moderate-to-severe ADHD.  The second part didn't surprise me either but it still took my breath away a bit.  "ASD level 1"  Ultimately it depends on if you listen to the diagnostician who doesn't know her and met her one time for 4 hours and his feeling on the test results or if you listen to her therapist/medication doctor who has known her since birth, he WITNESSED the lack of speech.  He witnessed how she behaved, he's seen her outside of an office environment before she knew he was a doctor.   She's a great kid but she has difficulties. 

We are starting the Feingold diet to help her with her symptoms but getting up on that horse is daunting because it's not like you just cut out all bread or all rice or all tomatoes.  It is dependent upon the brand name as to whether you can eat the bread. 

I have a question for you....If you have a special needs child (Or more than 1 neurotypical child) and are a working mother who also meal plans, packs lunch for your kids every day and manages to implement a special eating plan like feingolds then i need you to stand up so we can salute you!! And then all of you are coming over to my house to teach me how to do that.

SERIOUSLY.  How do you?

Meal Planning

So i've really really been BAD at meal planning lately.  My kids normally eat dinner at the sitter's house so it's only me who needs to eat from wednesday - Saturday evening but I also need some food for lunch at work and I don't really do bread very often so sandwiches aren't really an option.

I'm also just going to work on planning 3 meals a week. i'll struggle with leftovers the rest of the week....

We'll have to go to the store at some point today and my car is not behaving. so let's see what we can pull off. :)

Sunday 1/19 - Pizza pot pies (Recipe incoming)
Monday 1/20 - meatless Monday - Meatless chili  (I anticipate being at the mechanic's shop all day)
Tuesday 1/21 - Chili Dogs with uncured hotdogs...
Wed-Sat = leftovers

Sunday 1/26 - Kahlua Pork
Monday 1/27 poor man's soup (on the fly recipe to come)
Tuesday 1/28 left overs
Wed-Sat = left overs

Yes. I'm lazy. But the pork makes a LARGE amount of food and is enough for us to eat all week.  that soup makes a lot also. and so does the chili :)

Vegetarian Lentil Tacos

Found this sitting in drafts.  Silliness.  Posting it. :)

This idea came from a post over here at Greatist.  I just don't want to have to sort through a major essay to find the recipe. No big woop.

Lentil Tacos

Preparing your Lentils:

Make sure to sort the Lentils and rinse them like you would ANY bean or legume prior to cooking.  You need to make sure there are no rocks or dirt in there!

Ingredients:Tortillas

Filling:

1 cup dried lentils3/4 cup diced fresh tomatoes OR 6oz of diced canned tomatoes.1 packet of taco seasoning (Yes. I'm lazy)
Butter or coconut oil.

Toppings: 

What do YOU eat on Tacos?
We like Spinach instead of Shredded lettuce
Diced tomatoes
shredded cheese
Plain Greek Yogurt instead of sour cream
Salsa

Directions:

1. Cook lentils
2. In a medium-sized pot or large frying pan, sauté the garlic with olive oil for 2 to 3 minutes, until tender, over medium-high heat.
3. Add the tomatoes and spices. Cook until tomatoes start to soften, about 5 minutes.
4. Add the lentils and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes, until the lentils have really absorbed all the flavors. Add extra spices as necessary.
5. Serve on corn or whole wheat tortillas and top with shredded lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, shredded cheese, and guacamole.

When you screw up as a parent....how do you fix that?

Have you ever forgotten to play Toothfairy?  I have.  Have you ever forgotten to play Easter Bunny? Guilty as well.  My friend D hides over 100 eggs for her precious daughter.  Her daughter is in 8th grade now and just told her mom this past Easter that she knows the Easter Bunny isn't real.  D cried. :(

My girl has lost 3 teeth.   For her first she got a 5 dollar bill and I told her that sometimes the Tooth Fairy hooks you up big time on your first tooth.  She subscribes to the "Rise of the Guardians" Vision of the Tooth Fairy. One Queen Fairy and several baby fairies.  This works in my favor like WHOA!

The other night after I had gotten home from work with the kids (And no cash!!) my 5 year old comes to me:

Girl: Check out my tooth! Pull it!
Me: OH no.  Lots of boys and girls lost teeth today. I think the tooth fairy is all booked up.
Girl: PLEASE Pull my tooth.
Me: Oh i'm pretty sure that she is booked solid.  we can pull it but she might not make it here.
Girl: YES! PULL IT NOW!

I pull it. I still have no cash.  As i'm drifting off I consider going to an ATM or borrowing from my father (The only other adult in the house) OR from their piggy banks..which is a bad plan because surely in the morning she'll want to count ALL THE RICHES and not just the new ones and....why....who stole $2 from her piggy bank? She would then fly into a rage.  So I decided the heck with it.

I went to bed.  And the next morning the girl was SUPER disappointed that the TF didn't come to our house : (  So i felt like mom failure of the century.

I stopped at JoAnn's and bought a variety of clearance items to build a note from the TF along with a sparkly notebook for a quarter and a hello kitty bracelet for $3. (Yep. I paid the stupid tax)   SO I built my note:

Glitter letter stickers for the names, a small tub of cheap glitter for the edge. we already had Elmer's glue, the gemstones came from a 50 cent iron on thing from clearance and the paper was 49 cents.  All in all it wasn't too expensive.  I like the excuse I came up with.  She was amazed by the note and she decided the toothfairy leaves extra stuff if she's late to make up for it.  So we are good, for now.

Our battle with ADHD.

As i've mentioned before, I am the single mother of two small children.  As of this writing they are 4 and 5 years old.  My daughter will be 6 in approximately 2 months.   She just started Kindergarten about 3 weeks ago.  We are struggling because she seems to be unable to pay attention at all.  The first few days were semi-okay but now we are down to getting notes EVERY SINGLE DAY from her teacher. Today it was "Playing. Off task. Didn't do work. Talking." and her teacher emailed me to tell me "FYI - she called me a meanie today :( "

So...to be honest the ADHD doesn't come as a surprise. to me.  I have it. Her father has it. My father has it and I have several cousins with ADHD. I bought a book called "fire child, water child" several months ago but I didn't put it into practice because I got busy and sometimes life just be's that way.

In reading this book I have figured out that my daughter is a fire child.  She is a TOTAL fire child.

Fire:  The True Leader 

Strengths:

Attracted to Novelty
Sensory-Aware
Enthusiastic
Dramatic
Lives in moment
Learns by intuition
“High Engagement”

 Weaknesses: 

"The Class Clown"
 Distracted by boredom
Impulsive
Over-stimulated
Melt-downs
Panic attacks
Hypoglycemia
Sensory integration difficulties
Sensory craving
Diarrhea
(For more info or to identify your child's type please click here for Dr. Cowan's site)

Life as we know it:

My girl is living in a household with 2 adults who suffer from ADHD also (I am an earth child and my dad is a metal child...her biological father who she seldom sees is most likely a Wood child.) My boy shows NO Signs of ADHD (THANK GOODNESS!) My dad and I have both learned coping strategies over the years that have allowed us some success in life. (My dad is very successful.  I can fake it pretty well. )

Our solution according to Dr. Cowan is:

Wood nature feeds the puppy heart 

*I am going to provide my daughter with more opportunities to feed her puppy heart with wood.  Exercise is key in this I think so I included 2 blocks of exercise time for her in her daily map.  The first thing she does when she wakes up is exercise.  That's a lot for a 5 year old I guess but she REALLY loves this Cosmic Yoga I found on youtube and if she enjoys getting 15 minutes of exercise first thing during the day and it teaches her to center herself then I'm not complaining.  We will probably take a 2 mile walk when she gets off of the bus on my days off.

*Diet Change: I am also reducing her carbohydrate load, increasing her proteins and i'm going to increase her number of meals a bit each day to help her stabilize her blood sugar.  Personally I HAVE to have small meals throughout the day and absolutely MUST have lots of protein.  I know she's not really all that physical yet so i'm shooting for her getting about 35 grams of protein a day.  A serving of greek yogurt is about 2/3 of that.  She started her day with 2 eggs and some greek yogurt and some dried fruit. she'll have a snack at school and her lunch is chicken bites (non-breaded chicken breast nugget sized), green beans, fruit, sunflower kernals, greek yogurt, milk.  When she comes home we may have some popcorn then go for a walk.

*I know I need to find some more things to help feed her puppy heart but this is a lot of planning for a single mom and i've already done a ton! i'll have to think for a week.

Water nature helps train her puppy heart

"Training the puppy heart means offering a secure path for her nature through repetition and reward." - (Dr. Cowan, fire child, water child p.112)

Water cools fire.

*I am scheduling 2 bath times for her each day on her day map. She takes a shower in the morning and i'm going to give her time to play in the bathtub each night.

*I am also having her drink about 70 oz of water a day. (She weighs 72 lbs so that's not excessive and even if she only hits half of that - i'm happy)

*We are going to add a fish oil supplement for her to take 2-3 times a week.  it's a very low dose DHA EPA pill.  it contains more EPA than DHA.  *We are reducing the amount of sugar in her diet (it's already minimal anyway but i'm adding foods from the "Salty" list provided in the book)

*Massage - I have started giving her massages each night to help her settle down for bedtime and it worked last night! I massaged her back and legs a little bit while she did her homework and she actually settled down and focused on the work then she fell almost immediately to sleep when she went to bed. That is the first time that has happened in a long time!!  I used spearmint oil for her massage.  I need to get some lavender oil to use for that time of night. I put Spearmint on her this morning to help her focus. 

*Reading more - we already read a lot but we are going to read a lot more. I also need to practice being quiet and still.  I have a very hard time with that.

Earth nature expands her big heart 

*We've started practicing analogies to help her get better at that skill.

*We are already the flashcard queens. We have flashcards for EVERYTHING but i foresee flashcards in our future. I'm a huge fan.

*helping cook - My little queen helped me cook dinner last night.  I need to look for MORE earth activities for her.

Metal nature (Rules) help her to master her big heart

*We created a map of her day to help her see the order and sequence of activities. I am going to laminate it for her and let her take it with her in her backpack to help her out. She can read SOME things so I may glue some pictures to the map for her before laminating it.

*We are going to start learning to meditate. We did SOME meditation last night when she simply WOULD NOT FOCUS on her homework. After that I told her to get her work done and she sat up and finished coloring her work without any problems.  This was after 2 hours of her refusal to work!!! She said that the breathing helped her to want to color.

*The book lists a Fire Qigong exercise called "Standing like the sun" which we will definitely try doing with her.  it's like a yoga move.  We are incorporating a lot of yoga.

We'll see how all of this works.  At the very least, I do NOT WANT my child exposed to chemicals this young in her life. She is only 5 years old!!! Here's hoping!!
Aromatherapy stuff
Geranium
ginger
Lavender
Mandarin
Neroli
Rose Otto
Spearmint
Sandalwood
vetiver
yang yang

Flower essences:

Indian Pink - sensory overload
Madia - inattention to detail
White Chestnut - Overactive mind
Saint John's Wort - Hyperstimulation & panic

Meal Plan Tuesday

So i'm trying to get off my ass and actually plan meals and such so i can save money. I'm struggling but we'll see how this goes.

I'm doing 2 weeks worth of meal planning here. My kid is going back to school August 1. So i have precious few days left of summer. I'm not sure if i'm working overtime next week or not. So there is a reason for why I am planning meals the way I am.

Wednesday Jul 10  Popcorn, cookies, sandwiches/rollups,  cotton candy. (We are going to the drive-in so I'm packing a delicious spread to have with my kids in the car while we watch monsters university and despicable me 2)
Thursday Jul 11 vegetarian lentil tacos (Make enough for me to have some left over for work 2 days)
Friday Jul 12 Pumpkin Hummus with kale chips. (Make this thursday...with enough for me to have some left over for work 2 days)
Saturday Jul 13 Lentil chili recipe = figure it out. (Other lentil recipes here)
Sunday Jul 14 Greens Omelet
Monday Jul 15 pancakes

Tuesday Jul 16 tenative drive-in night. Popcorn, sandwiches/rollups, cookies (Planes is in the drive-in!!)
Wednesday Jul 17 Creamy pumpkin sauce on pasta recipe here.
Thursday Jul 18 Lentil burritos
Friday Jul 19 pizza casserole
Saturday Jul 20 kale chips and pumpkin hummus
Sunday Jul 21 Pancakes
Mon Jul 22 ???
Tuesday Jul 23 ???