first week

Gluten free for the first week has been fairly easy. I think it is the novelty of it all, and well i don't eat out too much, so it is quite easy to watch what i am eating. This week has been one of trials- trying new recipes, trying old recipes tweaked to be GF, and trying some of the GF foods that the grocery stores sell here in Scotland.

I have made 4 kinds of muffins, 3 of which were great with the Doves Gluten Free Flour that I have been using. I also tried to come up with a pizza dough by using a gluten free recipe mixed with my fave pizza dough recipe. Total disaster! Instead we ate GF pasta which is fantastic by the way.... And lastly, tonight i made some vanilla cupcakes, which again were really good without the wheat.

I really want to attempt Gluten free bagels this coming week, and maybe making some other types of bread that i am beginning to miss. the one thing i have learned with gluten free baking is that once you remove the wheat taste, you really taste the other ingredients in the food. vanilla is stronger, chocolate is more pronounced. i am thinking with bagels i will have to make a flavoured bagel in order for it to taste like something. perhaps cinnamon or garlic?

David and the girls are going GF light, they are more on a low-gluten plan than a gluten free one. David is GF in the house, but when he is out of the house he eats what he wants. The girls are too picky in what they love and will eat to make them adhere to any drastic changes in their diet. Plus, i feel it wouldn't be fair to them. fine if they had some health problem that we had to wrap our diets around, but they don't, so why make them worry about what they are consuming.

So, am i feeling better? is there a difference? I think so. I can definitely tell that i am feeling less bloated after a meal. I don't know if it is psychological, but i do feel like i have more energy, that my mind is less cloudy. It might just be because i am trying something new, but i do think it is helping so far. I am also trying to take my vitamins regularly and change up some of the things i would normally eat on a daily basis, so that could also be having some effect.

Ready for week 2! woot!

gender neutral

before i had children, i had some serious opinions about them. Opinions like kids shouldn't be at the movies, they should be given sleeping pills and muffled when on an airplane.... you know, that sorta thing. I also swore that if i ever did have kids, they would be brought up gender neutral. down with the pink and blue, up with the green and yellow!

Then i gave birth to ruby. before she was born i put a moratorium on pink things, the nursery was earth-tones, stroller was black, and car seat was black too. The only things that were pink were bought for us, although most people who knew me knew to try to find things in anything but pink. At first it seemed to work, Ruby loved her overalls, she loved her duplos and her trains and her soft toys. Ruby also didn't seem interested in playing with dolls or babies. It appeared we were on our way to gender neutrality! so easy peasy, and we didn't have to be too wacky nazi-esque about it for it to take hold. what was all the fuss??

Then the shoe dropped. Ruby wanted to only wear skirts, no trousers. Ruby declared that her favorite colour was pink. Ruby fell head over heels in love with the Disney Princesses and slowly stopped playing with her trains and cars. It seemed no matter what we did, Ruby's personality was to be girly, and we couldn't and ultimately wouldn't fight it. We decided to step back and let it rip, we didn't want to force boys toys on her, it would not be fair. If we were going to have a girly girl, we may as well embrace it and let her character show.

Next comes Esme. We didn't fight the pink as much, it seemed to us that it might be a losing battle. Again, we let Esme play with what she wanted and did not only buy girl toys for her, instead buying whatever she seemed interested . Amazingly, it went differently. Since she could talk, Esme has told us that she is a boy, wants to be the boy characters in her favourite shows, wants to play with cars, trains, and her favourite colour is blue. Esme still likes her playmobile doll house and some disney princesses, but is definately more of a tom-boy than Ruby ever will be. It is Esme being Esme, simple as that.

To be honest, i do think gender neutrality did work on both girls, to a point. Both of our girls have learned that there are no toys that are just boy-toys, or girl-toys. They learned they had a choice, and that as girls they shouldn't be pigeon-holed into having only pink/girly things. Truthfully, Ruby is more girly than Esme, but still not over-the-top girly. She loves riding her bike, playing in the garden, using her RC car, building things, and is still not very interested in dolls or babies. She much rather do drawing or crafty than get out her princess toys. Esme loves her Cars and Diego, but she still loves to wear her Rapunzel. This is neutrality in the best sense; Ruby and Esme know anything is an option. What didn't work was us trying to push either girl into a personality that wasn't theirs to begin with.

I do see other little girls who are brought up with stereotypical gender roles, and i cringe. How could someone put such limits on someone they love? But then again, there are still people out there who think whites are superior, or that homosexuals are going to hell, so i guess i shouldn't be surprised.....

gluten free

starting on monday our house is going gluten free. i know this may sound weird to anyone who knows me. how could i live without my staples of bread, bagels and pasta!?!?! it is a little daunting, but i have committed to do it for a month to see if gluten free living is right for me.

I don't think that i have celiac disease, but i have been reading up on the ties between some health issues and gluten. there is much information out there that a gluten free diet is good for people with thyroid issues, and GI issues, both of which i have. supposedly a gluten free existence will help my energy levels, and this is something i could totally use, especially in the throws of winter.

in the past i have gone processed sugar-free, because like carbs, i love me some sugar! the cutting out of sugar didn't make me feel much different, but it did make me pay more attention to what i was putting in my mouth. like most people, i eat on the run, or eat when i am doing a gazillion things at once, so i don't really stop to think about what i am consuming. i just grab and go. but if i am paying attention to what i am not supposed to be eating, i make better choices, and i tend to plan my meals out in advance. plus, like sugar-free, gluten free is quite hard to do, and to do it right you end up doing more cooking/baking. i like making things from scratch, especially baked goods. they taste better, and have less crazy additives that we don't need to be taking into our bodies.

so wish me luck. david has agreed to go GF with me! this will make it easier, but he thinks it is going to be really hard for him to do. tomorrow i am going to attempt to make some bread (for his toast) and some muffins (for my breakfast) gluten free. i wonder if i can find a good GF bagel recipe online.....

hibernating

Christmas break has been a time of low activity here. It isn't that the weather has been horrible, it actually has been quite mild. But with Ruby off of school, and David off of work, any sense of schedule was thrown out the window, and there were days where we stayed home and just enjoyed the cozy life of hibernation.

Christmas was great. Ruby is at the perfect age for all of the excitement, and her enthusiasm was easily taken up by esme. Christmas through the eyes of a 4 and 2 year old is very magical, and I really enjoyed it this year. Getting ready for Santa's arrival was possibly the best part, Ruby was so worried that we would forget to put out his cookies, or the reindeer dust, or that for some reason Santa would not come to our house. The girls went to sleep easily, but Ruby was up at 3 am wondering if Santa had come yet and if it was time to go downstairs yet. Luckily I got her to go back to sleep until 7:30!

Esme has now joined the ranks of the "big girls"! we took advantage of the holiday slowdown and finally potty trained her. It has been 6 days now and she is doing fantastic. We are very proud of her, and she is quite proud of herself. She is enjoying the freedom of wearing only underpants, and she keeps telling us "i have a bum!" We keep trying to reassure her that she always had one, but i guess it is easier to touch now that it isn't covered up in a diaper.

Although i don't deal very well with the winter, this year has been quite easy on me. There has been more blue sky than normal in late fall/early winter, and the tempertures have not been as

debilitating as the past few years. No snow so far, and only the occasional freeze! Strangely my spring bulbs are starting to break through the soil, and i guess they are probably about 1-2 months ahead of schedule. i usually get a little perk from this first sign of spring, but this year I am worried that the mild weather might change and my bulbs might all get killed off.

the quiet hibernation is coming to a close. david was back to work today, and ruby heads back to preschool next tuesday. time to kick the cobwebs off and get back into action....