A series of fortunate events

We finally got the van out the other day and have been driving it. It needed new tires badly, so we were waiting until we had the money for new tires before we started driving it around. First thing that happened was the windshield wipers turned on and wouldn't stop. The next day I got the new tires and the windshield wipers weren't acting up anymore. But the check engine light came on. Being one to take these types of signals seriously (I admit to having burned out the engine of one, possibly two, cars with the "check engine" light on. I don't remember the second one having a in the dash, but I did ignore a prompting to check the oil which I ignored), I started to panic. I checked my oil, and sure enough, it was low.

After adding a quart of oil, the check engine light shut off. And I went on my merry way. Until later, when the light came back on again.

Frustrated, Dave and I talked about what the possible problems could be. He determined it was probably electrical. We went off to run errands today and encountered more problems. Finally, Dave decided it was the alternator, and that he was going to go to the scout office and then to the repair shop. But before we got much further, the van was showing signs of distress so we turned into the McDonald's parking lot, which was right next door to an auto shop. We turned the corner, and the van totally died. 20 feet from the garage. Dave walked next door and came back with four guys, who pushed the van right into a stall.

The timing was perfect. If the van was going to die, that particular moment was the best exact moment for it to die (even better would be if we had actually made it to the garage!). All four of us were together, with a cell phone. The garage was reasonably priced. The Placeplace was next door, which is also owned by a friend of ours from church (which makes me feel slightly less guilty about eating there!). The Boy Scout office was down the street a ways so Dave could still get his Scout stuff. Our friends were also visiting the Scout office and stopped by the McDonalds to eat and play. And, the van was done just in time for Dave to make it to his neurology appointment! The icing on the cake is that we got our tax refund last week, so we even had money to pay for the repairs!

I shutter to think if this had happened yesterday when I took the van by myself to take the girls to preschool and run errands. I was by myself, with no cell phone. The only helpful thing I had in the van was a stroller (which I normally don't have). We really lucked out with how this happened today!

The girl loves her clothes

We had family home evening tonight (we weren't home last night), and we played a game of strawberry jam (similar to hide and seek, except one person hides and when another person finds them they hide with them, "jamming" everyone in the hiding spot). Dave, Lacy and I were all waiting for Rose to find us. Since she's two, we were trying to give her hints, such as "Roooose! Rooooose! We're over heeeeere!" Very subtle hints, you know.

Finally she found us. She had changed her clothes while all the rest of us were hiding! She is so obsessed with clothes, changing her outfits, and dress-ups. She then changed her clothes again while we were reading scriptures. I guess she's always going to have to share a room with Lacy so that Lacy can find her clothes, since I'm sure Rose will constantly be borrowing them! Either that, or get a padlock for Lacy's closet.

Allergic Reaction

Recently Dave was tested for food allergies. We already knew of some sensitivities that he has-- bananas, pumpkin, and walnuts, and milk. He has eliminated the first three from his diet, and milk he took out for 6 months and gradually put back in his diet. He can handle small amounts of dairy, but has trouble with plain milk. He thought he might have more food allergies related to his recently diagnosed Eosinophilic esophagitis. His test results came back positive for a wheat allergy and a banana allergy, but nothing else came up (I think the pumpkin and walnut allergies are oral allergy syndrome which wouldn't show up on a regular allergy test, and the milk is a sensitivity not a true allergy).

The doctor said he was surprised with the banana allergy-- it's the worst he's ever seen in someone and when he took a look at the test results, the first thing he thought of was "wow, it's amazing he's alive." Well. I don't know about that, since banana is very easy to avoid and the only time he ever accidentally ingests it is when he gets careless with reading labels and buys a fruit drink that has banana in it. While he does have reactions to being in the presence of bananas, it's usually not that bad as long as he keeps his distance. Wheat, on the other hand, was not nearly as strong of an allergy, so at first we thought he'd be okay with our regular diet. Then he had a severe reaction to whole wheat pancakes followed by a snack of mac and cheese not too long after. His body completely rejected the food and he felt awful for hours after the fact. And we eliminated wheat from his diet immediately.

Today we visited with some friends who made a lovely dinner of corn spaghetti (the noodles actually tasted pretty darned good! I was surprised) and pie made from spelt flour, which was the best tasting pie crust I've ever eaten I must say (spelt+homemade lard=deliciousness). Well, in their house, they buy bananas, unlike us, and Rose saw them and went crazy! She must have a banana, right now. So I allowed her, since this was a treat she doesn't often get. I usually buy a small bunch and they are eaten in 2-3 days, being stored in a plastic bag the whole time so Dave doesn't accidentally come in contact with them. Later on, she grabbed another banana and took it to me to have me help her peel it. I was about across the room from Dave. This banana was pretty ripe, which Dave has a stronger reaction to, but I figured being 20 feet away he would have no problem. Within a couple minutes, he was choking and having a severe attack. He started wheezing after his body rejected his entire dinner. He was worried about a potential headache that often follows an attack like this, and told me this was the type of reaction he gets (minus the food rejection part) when he is in contact with perfume, which often ends in a headache for the rest of the day, with the longest lasting half the week. This makes sense, since he didn't actually come in contact with the banana, just the smell of it. Quickly, my friend Emily and I made the kids finish their bananas, took all the banana peels outside, and washed the table.

I'm still in shock how quickly the reaction happened and how severe it was. Dave thinks the reason the attack was so severe was because his body isn't used to fighting all the time anymore, since he's been without wheat for about a month now. The banana fumes just overloaded his system entirely and his body went into panic mode.

I guess I'm not ever going to buy bananas again, which is okay since I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and am trying to eat food more locally anyway.

Okay, maybe the occasional banana as a bribe to my kids at the grocery store. But that's it.

Who's been eating the cheese? And other silly stuff kids do.

Rose likes her dairy products. She especially likes cheese, in the mozzarella or cheddar varieties. We brought home a 2 pound block of cheese and Rose decided to be sneaky and eat it without telling us. Only, she couldn't get into the package. Sure, lots of kids do this, I'm sure. Lacy did it. But Rose really tried a lot harder than Lacy ever did.

All four corners on this side


She got both ends, too.


It's a little easier to see the tooth mark definition with the packaging off
Finally, she is rewarded for all her hard work!

Lacy was having a hard time falling asleep tonight. She kept fidgeting and fighting off sleep. She was apparently playing around in her room, too. Because I found her like this when I went in to check on her:
My children make me laugh so much.

Happy Birthday to my Love

Today is my husband's 31st birthday. Happy birthday to you! And a few pictures of him in celebration.

A few weeks old:
A few weeks after that:

This one reminds me so much of Rose. He's probably 1 or 2 here.
Another one around the same age:
Three or four years old, with a smile that he gave to Lacy:
And this one totally reminds me of Lacy when I look at it:
Age 8 at his baptism:

Dave was the Forest Festival King, aka Paul Bunion:
And pictures from today: reading to the girls, one of their favorite things to do together:

Whose birthday is it, anyway? We didn't want to go through the hassle of getting a burn permit, so we did 4 candles to represent "3" and "1."

Curly hair girl

Lacy's hair is pretty straight, but every once in a while she likes to get it curly and pretty. Which isn't too bad with the hot curlers, but they do get pretty warm on her head. Last night we did something a little different.

Recently we had a sheet casualty in our home-- all of a sudden our fitted sheet had huge holes in it. So I ripped it up with the help of the girls, and we made long strips, which I cut into pieces about 12 inches long. After a long bath and shower, Lacy got out and I rolled her hair up into the strips of fabric.


She slept with her hair like this, and in the morning she couldn't wait to get her hair taken out of the rags.

The back looked great!

The front... a little frizzy.
But I put it back with a ponytail and it looked pretty good. And it's almost 5 and the curls are still holding strong!

The funny thing is, she was wearing her cousin Regan's old clothes, and had curly hair, and my sister Les and I kept thinking for a split second we were looking at Regan (never mind that Regan's hair is now straight and brown!).

Kudos to you Moms

I am exhausted. I only have two kids, and I feel like I've been chasing 17 all around today. Rose is in that stage-- still-needs-a-nap-but-won't-go-to-bed-when-she-gets-one. That fun stage. She was grumpy pretty much from 3 o'clock onward. And I would have given her a nap today, but it was so crazy, and then she fell asleep in the car, and then I couldn't find my keys to open the door (but I was holding her) so I had to put her down, then it was all over.

Then Lacy. She thinks she's an adult. She really has no idea that she can't do everything that any grown up can do (but she still needs me to wipe her, and she even has a song about it that she made up-- she's so talented).

Thursday nights. Those are my hardest nights of the week. I'm in the Young Women's presidency. Dave's the Weebelos leader. And Dave worked today up north and got caught in bad traffic on the way home (he got off at 3 and we met at 7... one of those commutes), so we met at the church. I brought him dinner because I'm awesome like that. And because he can't eat anything but what I cook for fear of wheat (and, apparently, ham now, too). So, the girls have to come with us on Thursday nights. Lacy will not stay with me. And Rose has to follow her big sister. So usually Thursdays involve me leaving every 5 minutes to figure out where my girls have gone off to, which is mostly the stage or the nursery. Tonight Rose stayed put (I think due to exhaustion), but Lacy was all over the place. At one point, I couldn't find her. I circled the church twice. Looked in every room. Where did I find her? The Young Women's room where the hunt began (with a brownie she swiped from the Stake Choir rehearsal). She must have sneaked back in when I was running around like a mad woman, panicking because Lacy has no fear of strangers (there were two abductions of girls from LDS churches last year, so my fear is not unfounded). After a scolding, we tried to load the kids up and Lacy began to run off again. And then Rose freaked out when we wouldn't let her sit in Lacy's booster seat, only calming halfway through the drive.

Upon arriving home, Rose cried through prayer (she was ready for bed and wanted to go nurse *right now*) and Lacy did everything she could to stay awake longer. She had to make sure that her pillow was arranged correctly, and that I knew Reading Rainbow is having a contest. And to look for the stickers under the basket. And to get her new water. But not in that cup. You know, the usual tactics. But the good news is, she's sleeping in her big bed in her own room now! And she's been sleeping there all week! *sniff* my big girl is growing up.

I totally admire all of you moms out there with more children than I have. Maybe I have difficult children (I doubt it) or maybe other moms have better parenting skills than me (likely). I just can't imagine how it must feel to drop into your pillow after chasing more little ones around all day! It must be heaven (until it starts again at 4 in the morning when you have to change somebody's sheets, then you get elbowed in the eye because you have three extra visitors in your bed at 5...). Seriously, ladies, how do you that have more than two do it? Sometimes I wonder how I can do it with just these two. I told someone in my ward that I'm waiting 10 years to have more kids because than I'll have teenagers to help me out. You moms of many? You have my greatest admiration and my query: How do you do it???

Attack of the Cat-Dog Girl

Rose is a very confused little girl. She loves to pretend! And she really loves animals. The girls will play with animals all day long, and will pretend to be animals (as long as they can wear dress ups while playing animals). When I talk to Rose about animals, I ask her what certain animals say. Her responses are either "Moo" or "Meow." She only deviates if she has recently heard another animal sound demonstration, such as "woof" or "oink." I guess she likes "M" animal sounds.

So it seems to follow that she would be confused with actual animal behaviors as well. Rose will randomly drop to the ground on all fours and start crawling around. "Meow!" she will declare. "Meow!" And then, out comes the tongue and the panting. And she licks anyone she can find.

Perhaps I should be reading more animal books to her.

Feeling more secure

I am back open to the public again, people! Sorry about the temporary inconvenience. I thought I would have to be private for longer, but as it turns out, I am able to reopen my blog. YEA!

And some good news... CPSIA's implementation will be delayed for a year! This is awesome news, and it's all thanks to the huge grassroots movement that made this happen. Many, many people calling asking for change, and we made it happen! But this is no time for us to be slothful and do nothing further. We still need to all be in contact with our senators and representatives asking them to reconsider the bill and to revise it completely, allowing small and micro businesses to stay in business.

Blog-In against CPSIA

I know you've seen my rants and raves about CPSIA on this blog before. And I urge you ALL to contact your representatives and senators! Or write! Or email! Whatever you can do.

Did you know of the huge impact the law will have on libraries? From the American Library Association:

Under the current opinion issued by the General Counsel of the CPSC, the law would apply to books for children under the age of 12; therefore, public, school, academic and museum libraries would be required to either remove all their children’s books or ban all children under 12 from visiting the facilities as of February 10.

This law can not go into effect. Too much is at stake with this poorly written law. CALL TODAY!

And check out BrightonWoman's blog with lots of links to other bloggers writing about this today.

Need Help figuring out what to do? Try the CPSIA action kit.

Vitamins

"MOM! I need to have a vitamin or my TEETH WILL SCRAMBLE!"

I was unaware that vitamin deficiency lead to scrambling teeth, but now Lacy has educated me.

Surprises since going Wheat-Free

We've had a few surprises in our wheat-free adventure over the past couple of weeks. Mostly, I've been pleasantly surprised with the good surprises!

• It IS possible to bake a good tasting loaf of gluten-free bread! I make a variation of this recipe. I use two whole eggs instead of four egg whites. Leaving 4 yolks for another recipe means I may or may not have use for them, so the yolks could go to waste. Also, we liked the bread better when I used whole eggs rather than egg whites. I don't have a french bread pan, so I just stick it on a cookie sheet. This bread sticks really hard, so I also use some parchment paper. Since the dough is sticky, I wet my hands and shape the bread with wet hands into a rustic shaped loaf. I bet this recipe would also work for making hoagie rolls or dinner rolls, too.
  
• We like the gluten-free oatmeal pancake recipe better than the regular wheat pancake recipe. Yeah, it's a bit of a pain to make because you use cooked oatmeal as well as oat flour, but they come out nice and fluffy, and a teeny bit crunchy on the outside, just like we like them.
• Dave prefers gluten-free brownies to my old recipe. And my old recipe was GOOD. My version of this is slightly different: I use unsweetened chocolate instead of bittersweet chocolate.
  
• Cheerios and Life cereal both have wheat in them! WHAT? I knew most cereals are not gluten-free, but we're not a gluten-free family, just wheat-free. The reason many cereals are not gluten-free is because they use barley malt, which Dave is not allergic to. So yesterday when shopping for cereal, I was only able to get Snack Balls (aka Kix) and Rice Chex, which actually is one of the few mainstream cereals that is gluten-free. YEA CHEX!
• There are tons of naturally gluten-free meals that you can make! Chili and cornbread, tacos with corn tortillas, stuffed green peppers, curry and rice, polenta and Italian-style sauce... yeah, we'll miss pasta, but getting control of allergies is so much more important.

Next month Dave and I have our birthdays. This cake that Dave's cousin made looks soooo good, but it is made with coffee. It's strange... I don't feel weird cooking with alcohol, but coffee is a different matter to me completely. I guess because alcohol usually burns off most of the way, but coffee is still going to be coffee. I'm going to have to test it out with some sort of coffee substitution to see if I can make a delicious wheat-free cake.

Zip it!

Lacy likes to talk. A lot. She's been talking non-stop since she first figured it out when she was a baby. Last night she was talking too much. So Dave told her to zip it.

"No, I'm not going to zip it. I'm going to button it. Button, button, button, button. Now I can't talk anymore! Mmmmm, mmmm, mmmmm, mmmm, mmmm. Mmmm mmmmm mmmm mmmmm mmmm. Dad, when we get home can you read me a story?"

"I thought you buttoned your lips!"

"I unbuttoned them."

Of course. And she talked until about 9:30, after several threats of a frowny face on her sticker chart, she finally got quiet and fell asleep!

How Will the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act Affect You?

Please read this great article in the Seattle Times by Allison Brownrigg. If you haven't yet, please call your senators and representatives and tell them to stop the implementation of the CPSIA on February 10th. It will have a devastating effect on our economy! Big children's product manufacturers like Matel will be able to afford the testing on their products, but small to medium sized businesses may not be able to stay afloat with the types of testing that are required.

If you have a child, THIS WILL AFFECT YOU!!! If the law goes into effect as written,

• LIBRARY BOOKS and school supplies will all be suspect. There is no "grandfathering" in this law, so all products will have to be compliant.
  
• Sellers of used children's items will have to abide by this law. They won't be required to test products, but how will they be able to know if their products are safe without testing? Fines are up to $100,000 and jail time!
• Stay-at-home moms who make handmade items to sell online in order to support their families will be forced out of business. I know of one mom who is a single parent and has a disabled child that cannot attend daycare due to his complicated health issues. The testing will be more than she can sell her products for. What does this mean for us? Either she will have to get a job and put her child at risk, or she will have to seek public assistance and use already scarce tax dollars to support her family, which she does not wish to use!
  
• Importers of quality children's products will no longer import to the US because of the new regulations. It's easier to just leave the US out of it rather than to get expensive testing done.
• Medium sized businesses will have to cut their product line drasticly to stay afloat. They'll still be able to provide products to the public, but we won't have the selection we once had.

Implementation needs to be pushed back until all these issues, and more, are addressed. Call, write or email your senators. Call, write or email your representatives. Phone calls and snail mail letters are more effective than email. There is one person who can call a hearing to delay the implementation of this law, but so far he has not done so. In addition to calling your own representatives, call Rep. Harry Waxman. Here's his contact information. Do what you can! He needs to know this law is disasterous to the small businesses, schools and libraries of the United States! (You need to have a zip code in the California 30th district-Los Angeles- to send him an email message)

In Washington, D.C.
2204 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225-3976 (phone)
(202) 225-4099 (fax)
In Los Angeles
8436 West Third Street, Suite 600
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(323) 651-1040 (phone)
(818) 878-7400 (phone)
(310) 652-3095 (phone)
(323) 655-0502 (fax)

Push Day

January 24th is "Pushday" in the campaign to help recognize Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, known as the Big Push for Midwives. Currently, only 24 states legally recognize CPMs as licensed medical providers. By recognizing CPMs as the legitimate, trained professionals that they are, this will improve maternity care for all women and allow many women who wish to birth at home or in a freestanding birth center the option.

Some women don't have choices in maternity care other than a highly managed obstritian's office. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but some women want a different kind of maternity care that is just as safe and effective as traditional OB care. Some of these women have the choice of going it alone (unassisted childbirth or UC) or using an OB. I support unassisted childbirth for women who choose it and educated in their decision, but I don't support it as the only alternative to overmanaged OB care. Women should have real chocies when it comes to birth.

In areas where the is no recognition of CPMs, women who choose midwives for their homebirths will have to use midwives that are unlicensed and uninsured, so it is more difficult for them to find out if there have been problems with their midwife in the past, and they can continue to practice even if they have a "bad record" since they don't have a license to suspend in the first place. And good midwives in these states can be prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license, even though in many cases they are more trained and experienced in normal childbirth (and sometimes even more complicated vaginal childbirth, such as breech, twin deliveries and vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC), which are increasingly not allowed in a hospital setting) than other birth professionals who are granted licenses. CPMs are required to go through schooling to get the certification, and also assist other midwives and attend a minimum number of births before being tested and granted the title of CPMs.

Women deserve real choices in birth! I chose a CPM for both of my births. Lacy was born at home, and while my sister, who was there, will claim that it was a scary experience (Lacy was a little blue but she pinked up right away and I passed out a couple times, which was no biggie for the midwife who handled it beautifully by administering a little oxygen which she carries with her in her birth supply kit), to me it was a wonderful birth experience, despite the minor hiccups we experienced. I was able to have a waterbirth, which wasn't available at the hospital at the time, which reduced my pain and the length of my labor. Rose was a more complicated birth, and my wise midwife knew when to transfer me to the hospital. Although she was confident with her abilities, she knew with the complications I was experiencing, it could quickly turn into a real emergency which would require a stat c-section, so we went to the hospital. Thankfully, Rose's heartrate when down when my water was broken at the hospital and I didn't experience cord prolapse like she feared would happen if my water was broken at home, so I didn't need surgery and ended up with a nice hospital birth with my midwife by my side. I want all women to be able to choose competent and caring midwives, so I support the Big Push for Midwives and encourage all of you to do so, too.

What you can do: Write to President Obama and ask him to include CPM's in federal healthcare reform. You can use either of these websites to send him a message:

http://change.gov/page/s/healthcare
or http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Just copy and paste this: Please be sure to include Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs), who specialize in providing out-of-hospital maternity care, in federal healthcare reform.

Thank you, dear readers!

We're making a difference!

Check out this letter from members of Energy & Commerce to the Chairman, Henry Waxman, regarding Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. We're making a difference!!!

Haircuts!

The girls got haircuts today! It was Lacy's very first haircut, and Rose has only had her "rat tail" trimmed, when she was 13 or 14 months old, but other than that, no haircut for her, either. Our wonderful neighbor Lindsay did it for us, for free (she went to beauty school and she just loves cutting hair! She is so sweet). We were looking at $40 at a children's salon, maybe $20 at a discount place, so that really saved us a bunch! Considering our budget for haircuts is $0, that was perfect for us!

Lacy's hair was getting pretty scraggly. And Rose had a short side and a long side. As an illustration, check out this picture from Christmas. Note the right side of her head has a spot without any long hair. It looks fine when her hair is up, but when it's not, it looks terrible.

And it only got worse between then and now. She likes to pull out her ponytails. Pretty much the only rubber bands that will hold her hair are the teensy tiny little rubber ones (her hair is super fine and anything else just falls right out) and they tend to grab other hairs on their way off the hair. So every time she would pull out her ponies, she would grab a good clump of hair, and she always went for the right side first.

So, since I can't keep her hair looking good while it's up anyway, I may as well have it looking good when down.

So today was the day. Lacy was so looking forward to it. We went over to Lindsay and Brandon's house at about 4 this afternoon, and got started. Rose was up first.

I don't think she really knew what was going on yet.

Our lovely neighbor beginning the haircut... Rose is still a bit unsure, but very cooperative.

I'm including this one because you can see how scraggly Lacy's hair is. And, oh, her eczema is getting bad again. Bummer.

The finished haircut.

Lacy's turn!

She was a little bit excited.


The finished cut! She looks so cute, if I do say so myself.

The girls with their stylist for the afternoon


MUCH better!

They were both so well behaved. I was impressed with their behavior, especially considering we've had a really hard week. They both were angels through the whole process.

My adorable firstborn

I went in to check how the girls were doing a second ago, and I had to take a picture of Lacy. I have more weird sleeping pictures of that girl!

Yes, she is snuggling Woody, even though she has two perfectly good babies in bed with her, and she's wearing a tiara. That's my little princess.

We're Going Wheat-Free

So, it's official. A couple days ago, Dave ate whole-wheat pancakes followed a short time later by mac and cheese, both of which are wheat-based meals. Dave has tested positive for wheat, but we weren't going to worry too much about the wheat allergy quite yet. But then, his body rejected everything and he felt sick for the rest of the day. So now, he's wheat-free, and the rest of us are gradually transitioning with him. I'm sure Rose will be disappointed to no longer get to eat her beloved mac and cheese, and Lacy will really miss quesadillas, but it is all for the best. If Dave has a wheat allergy, it is very possible that the girls do, too, or may have it sometime in the future. Especially considering they both have eczema.

Going wheat-free is tough. Most everything at the grocery store that is pre-packaged contains wheat. But that's not a big deal, because I cook mostly from scratch, anyway. But there are a few things we're going to have to do differently. For thickeners and gravies, I will have to use something other than flour. I've used tapioca flour before, but that was a little weird with the end result. I'm thinking maybe I'll try rice flour or potato flour next time instead. We'll have to start buying a different soy sauce, as the kind we currently get contains wheat. There are several brands that are what-free, however. We will no longer eat pasta, since most pasta is wheat-based, and the non-wheat pasta we've tried is disgusting. I may try corn and quinoa pasta to see if they're any better than the rice stuff we've had before (yuck!). Bread is questionable, because it is so delicious made from wheat, but we can have gluten (just not from wheat), so I'm going to have to look into that. Wheat makes the best bread because its gluten content is so high. I'm going to experiment with other grains to see what works best. Breakfast is going to have to change. I typically make a lot of pancakes, so I'll have to get a new recipe. I do make spelt muffins which are great, so that's one thing we'll still be able to eat! Woo hoo! I may make some tomorrow for breakfast, since I can. I often add pecans and dates to the recipe, and it is delicious.

Meals that have worked for us since going wheat-free include stuffed green peppers, baked potato bar, and steak and fries (one of Dave's major comfort foods-- thank goodness he can still have that!). Our starches are mainly going to be potato and rice from now on. I'll have to start stocking up on rice for our food storage now instead of wheat. And we'll grow potatoes every year, too. They're a lot of fun to grow and they store really well. We still have a few pounds of blues left from last year (we harvested in October I think). I'll probably plant double or triple what we did last year.

Dave's disease in his throat, Eosinophilic esophagitis (EE), is an allergic reaction that was described to us as an asthma attack, but in the esophogus. Dave only tested positive to two allergins, wheat and bananas. We already knew he had an allergy to bananas, but we didn't know about the wheat. I think that an overload of wheat or bananas in his system causes the allergic reaction to occur, and by eliminating wheat he will be able to lead a relatively normal life, perhaps even enjoying some wheat-based meals on occasion once we've eliminated wheat from his diet completely for quite some time. I am so thankful for all the great resources out there for wheat- and gluten-free living, especially all the great pastry recipes! I love to bake, so I'll just have to learn to bake differently. Dave's cousin, Theresa, is gluten-free and is a baker, and has a blog full of lots of great ideas, information and recipes for gluten-free living. Another resource that I've found is Gluten-Free Girl, who not only has lots of recipes and info, but has lots of links to other gluten-free blogs and websites, too.

Tomorrow I'm going shopping at the co-op and I'm getting myself lots of little tiny bags of flour! I have a few already, but I'll be adding sorghum flour and potato starch to my collection, and probably some others, too. I already have xanthium gum, tapioca flour, potato flour, arrowroot flour, and some others, plus I have lots of rice and oat groats and a grinder, so I make my own rice and oat flour, and any other kind of flour that I need (I have a collection of different grains that I can grind into flour at any given time, including spelt, kamut (which I'm not sure if we can eat or not as it's pretty close to wheat, but a little different), quinoa, millet and a few others).

Call, Write and Email!

February 10th is not too far away, people. Soon the government will be taking over our right to sell and buy quality, unique, handmade items by requiring testing that is prohibitively expensive to small business owners. Testing for one kid's telescope is estimated to be $24,000, but the annual sales of this product are only $32,000! How is this going to help the economy? This will force thousands of businesses to cease doing business!

This could also affect your local library-- books will be subject to this law, too. The price of books will increase, and the books already in the kid's section will be suspect.

And even though there is an "exemption" for second-hand stores, they are still liable if they sell something that has toxins in it, even the tiniest amounts. Violations of the law can be met with federal prison time and fines of up to $100,000.

I know I'm just another "mommy blogger" that the CPSC (consumer product safety commission) hates so much. They said "mommy bloggers" are spreading misinformation and paranoia. Well, is Forbes Magazine on the same level as "mommy bloggers," CPSA?

Seriously, you guys, I am terrified at the detrimental affects this law will have on our economy, on our children, and on our future! Please call, write and email your senators and congressmen about this issue! This doesn't just affect small business owners, this affects our economy as a whole. This law is too restrictive and unfair! Call your senators and representatives!