Boden, as cute and snuggly and sniffably adorable as he is, is COLICKY~ DUN DUN DUN! Oh yes that dreaded C word. Every night from 1-4am he’s been howling and shrieking nonstop… well WAS. At my doctor’s prompting I dove onto a special diet in hopes of reducing his reflux without medication and, in turn, hopefully reduce the wailing.

I started out looking at the low acid / low gas diet (here, scroll down to #14) but that was so overwhelming - my head felt like exploding from information overload- that I turned to one of my favorite bloggers who went on a similar I will keep breastfeeding anti wailing crusade of her own. She pointed me towards this. MUCH simpler

at only range-fed turkey and lamb, baked or boiled potatoes and sweet potatoes (with salt and pepper only), rice and millet as your only grain, cooked green and yellow squash for your vegetable, and for fruit, pears and diluted pear juice. Drink a rice-based beverage drink in place of milk on cereal or in cooking. Do not yet use soy beverage. Take a calcium supplement. (Rice products, such as rice beverage, rice-based frozen dessert, rice pasta, rice flour, and millet are available in nutrition stores.)

Only I can’t even eat everything on that list. Sweet potatoes seem to cause issues; heck, veggies of any sort outside of avocado seem to be fartoriffic so the yellow and green squash are out for now too. Then there are pears, ewww pears. I am not a fan at all. I rarely will willingly consume a pear. They are MEALY and gross unless picked at the peak of pear harvest perfection and even then I loath them unless slathered with some type of caramel sauce and sunk into a torte or dumped over ice cream. I’m just NOT pear person and the thought of drinking pear juices makes me gag.

Then, where does that leave me? I’m SO glad you asked. That leaves me with oven roasted turkey on millet bread. Jasmine rice with sea salt, white pepper and avocado and on occasion a boneless skinless baked chicken breast. I also found some puffed rice cereal that’s been sweetened with the tiniest touch of honey. I could have vanilla rice milk over said cereal but I gave that a whirl the other day and nearly vomited in my bowl of $5 a box cereal. It wasn’t a problem with the rice milk, nor with the cereal but apparently when combined the two became vomitrocious.

In any event, that is it. That’s all I’m eating and while it IS helping Bo, I on the other hand have become a snarling raging beast of a woman. I’ve had a headache now for three days. I’m not a headache person, never have been, and coping with one is not my forte. “Coping” and I use the term loosely means jabbing my finger into my temple as counter pressure while I yell at people to be quiet and stop breathing so loudly. I generally do this while pacing back and forth through my galley kitchen rifling the fridge and pantry shelves for ANYTHING mild I might add to my diet. There is nothing in there to add, I know it, but I still persist, longingly staring at shelves of forbidden foods like eggs, cheese enchiladas, peppers, blueberries, beef stew, hummus, ice cream, shrimp *drooling*…. you get the picture.

My body is reacting in other ways too. On day 3 of the diet, my face massively broke out. I looked like the teenage fry cook at my local fast food joint- much worse then i ever did in my teens. Day 3 also brought about the BO plague- I smell so bad I can’t live with myself.

I have to leave the house tonight to pick up more food supplies for my self imposed torture TED diet. I’ll be easy to spot. Just look for the woman crying in front of the cheese case with a horrible case of body odor and some whopping festering facial zits and heck by then I may even have a scrumptious case of backne.

Mira tattled on her Aunt. Her Aunt is annoyed that my daughter shows such passion for rules. I think that she thinks that I have Mira brain washed. If only that were true. Believe me, I have worked long and hard to try and teach Mira some amount of flexibility, though on occasion her ridged perception of right and wrong has been a bit of a blessing.

A few weeks ago, we attended a family function where there was lots of food. Most family functions are brimming with food. If you mouth is full of food, it’s harder to put your foot in there. These functions are particularly challenging now that the girls are gluten free. There is so much that looks wonderful and right within reach, that I find myself having to patrol the food areas. I thought that if I just watched where the food generally is, that things would be well under control, especially in the presence of family. I was wrong.

Apparently, the girls Aunt has taken a position of indignation over their gluten free status. She feels that kids should be free to gorge themselves on what ever they please and should not worry about food. She believes that overall kids will make the right dietary choices. While this is not a bad position to take so long as you have educated your kids about proper nutrition and modeled good food relationships, it’s very apparent that she does not understand the dynamics of food allergies and how your body craves fiercest what it is most allergic to.

So righteous is her anger over the situation, that she could not even bear to speak to me. Every room I entered, she fled with not a word. I knew something was going on, but did not know what until Mira tattled,

“Mama!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Auntie G is going to make me eat gluten!! I don’t want to, it might make me sick!”

*blink* What? Your Aunt that you love and admire is threatening to make you eat food that I have removed you from in an attempt to determine if it is causing your body harm?

I went and had a talk with The Hubster, who brushed it off as a joke. later I spied my girls eating COOKIES. Not being one for ruining other peoples parties, I swallowed the hard angry lump in my throat. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I seethed. I was especially seething 20 minutes later when Tessa’s body reacted to the cookies with copious amount of diarrhea.

It is quite apparent to me that Tessa has inherited my gluten issues. It is also quite apparent to me that certain family members think that I am either making up these issues or wholly blowing them out of proportion. Additionally, it is now apparent to me who I can trust to honor my decisions as a parent.

All that being said, I now know why my husband has been pressuring me to remove the girls from their gluten free diet to “see what happens.” This has been the prevailing attitude for the last month until he caught a few moments of Jenny McCarthy talking about how the GFCF diet has dramatically improved her son’s quality of life and reduced his symptoms of autism. That little blurb, a moment where he could see it’s not just me reading some crack pot journals, seems to have drastically changed his stance of things. That night he turned to me and said;

“Maybe we should give this GFCF thing a real try, see what happens with the girls”

After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I told him I would start researching things. The Hubsters biggest worry about this now, is the prohibitive cost of alternative eating products. Our grocery bill already jumped when I removed gluten but now casein too? I worry about how his family will receive the news of even bigger dietary restrictions; will we have to bow out of future gatherings, knowing that they are hellbent on undermining us? My biggest worry, though, is that cheese, much like crack rock, is highly addictive. I wonder if the withdrawals are as bad…

I’m happy to report that the NINE pounds I gained last week have fled my frame. I’m down two pounds and comfortably wearing pre-pregnancy clothing (the non-elastic ones)!! 10 lbs till, what I consider to be, a MAJOR milestone on my weightloss journey. I hope you all are doing well too.

Despite two unavoidable forays into the drive through of Burger King this week I am down 1 pound since last weeks weigh in. I cut dairy from my diet to see if it would impact my son’s screaminess. It seems to have helped not only Levi, but my ass too. On Friday night I was trying on clothes in a size I haven’t worn in over a year. I hope all of you who are playing along in Blogland are finding success on your weight loss journey.