A Sunday morning breakfast

I'm really bad in the kitchen. I can do okay with dinner as long as it simple but forget breakfast and anything that has to do with baking. A friend sent me this recipe in an email forever ago and I love it. I like omelets but I always always mess up when it comes to flipping/folding them. This recipe is simple and can be fun especially if you have guests over or your child(ren) is having a sleep over. The omelet I made for Austin is above. I only used one egg for him (because he won't eat any more than that) so it is smaller than what you would normally get. In his, I only put ham and seasoning this morning. But if I had some veggies on hand, I might have tried some diced cherry tomatoes and spinach as well. He also had some fruit on the side.


ZIPLOC OMELET

(This works great !!! Good for when all your family is together. The best part is that no one has to wait for their special omelet!!!)

Have guests write their name on a quart-size Ziploc freezer bag with permanent marker.

Crack 2 eggs (large or extra-large) into the bag (not more than 2) shake to combine them. Put out a variety of ingredients such as: cheeses, ham, onion, green pepper, tomato, hash browns, salsa, etc. Each guest adds prepared ingredients of choice to their bag and shake. Make sure to get the air out of the bag and zip it up.

Place the bags into rolling, boiling water for exactly 13 minutes. You can usually cook 6-8 omelets in a large pot. For more, make another pot of boiling water.

Open the bags and the omelet will roll out easily. Be prepared for everyone to be amazed.

Nice to serve with fresh fruit and coffee cake; everyone gets involved in the process and a great conversation piece.

A heartbreaking yet inspirational read

I started and finished "Louder Than Words" today. It made me cry several times because I know personally what it is like to be going through some of those same situations. No, we don't have a dx and we may or may not at some point but it is hard to read about the things your child is experiencing and knowing that it may be autism. However, I really did find inspiration and hope in the book; Knowing that if it does come down to Austin being on the spectrum, there is possibly a way to treat him and make him feel at his best. I am already on my way down that path by starting the GFCF diet, having him in EI therapy, and by seeing a developmental pediatrician. A must read for parents who have children with Autism and want to try or believe in an alternative treatment for our children.

Yummy Mexican Food!

I am so happy! My MIL sent me 2 boxes of rice penne pasta b/c I haven't found any yet and she also sent me some Red Mill flour so I can try those grinch fries I have been wanting to make. Next week Austin should finally get some variety! She also sent me the Jenny McCarthy book so I am really looking forward to reading it.

Nothing new to report today, except the potatoes I made for Austin at dinner for a different side. I just cut up some red potatoes, drizzled them with oil and seasoned with garlic powder, salt, and pepper, and baked for about 15 min.

I'm not sure where this recipe came from but my MIL sent it to me via email today and I'm going to try it with Austin next week after I make it to the grocery store. It is GF and you can make it CF by not using cheese at all or by using the veggie cheese/toffuti, which I still have not found btw. And if everyone is lucky, I just might post pictures ;)

Open-face Mexican Chalupas (serves 4)

2 Tbs. veg. oil, divided
1 lb. lean beef
1 15 oz. can black beans, drained & rinsed
1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes with green pepper and onion, drained
4 corn tortillas
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese (not essential since you are not doing dairy)
chopped iceburg lettuce or romaine
1 red pepper, diced
1 green pepper, diced
Other Topping Options: guacamole, corn or other veggies

1. Heat 1 Tbls. oil in large skillet . Add ground meat, and cook until evenly browned. Add black beans and tomatoes, and simmer 5 minutes.
2. Heat remaining 1 Tbls. oil in another skillet. Cook torillas till golden and puffed then flip. Repeat with remaining tortillas add more oil if necessary. (Actually, I left the tortillas soft)
3. Place one tortilla in middle of plate. Top with generous amount of meat mixture --sprinkle with cheese and lettuce and toppings.

4 days down; so far, so good

Not much new regarding food here today. Austin didn't eat much of anything he hasn't been eating except for breakfast. He ate a Van's GF blueberry waffle and loved it. I would like to give him some more fruits besides grapes but he loves them so much, plus he only eats like 8 at a time so I am trying to hurry and get rid of them before they go bad.

However, there was something new that happened with one of his toys. He has 3 riding toys and has had them since last Christmas but he has never really known how to ride them/make them go. Every now and then he'll sit on one of them and I'll push him around for a minute or move his feet for him to show him how to do it but if I stop, then he loses interest and gets off the toy. This morning, he was looking at his car so I asked him if he was going to ride it and he got on it and started moving his feet and made his way across the living room and into our entry way! WOOT! I am excited that he finally learned how to ride it.

Now, ask me if this is the diet's progress and I'll tell you I'm not really sure. I don't think it could be effective this soon and I'm a skeptic by nature anyway.What I think is that he probably would have learned soon if not today, just like with the waving and the "more" sign. But whatever it was, it was funny to watch him scooting around. :)

Am I boring ya'll?

Ok, so I guess the pictures were cheesy or so my friends said! :) But I really wanted to give moms of toddlers some ideas and show ya'll how I'm feeding my little guy. When Austin first started eating solids, I literally had no idea what to feed him or how to serve it to him. I even got on message boards looking for ideas on meals. My plan all along was to post a picture or two of the first few meals and then going forward to only post pics of new recipes I come up with or try out.

Speaking of, if you are reading this blog and are already pretty familiar with GFCF, you probably have heard of Kimmy Krocker. But if not, I posted a link to her you tube videos on the right hand side of my blog. I read about her in a few other blogs and decided to check it out. She makes videos of herself trying GFCF recipes that she gets out of books or that people send to her. Since I'm a fan of food network, this is great for me. It lets me see how the food is actually cooked and I get to decide if it looks easy enough for me to try.

Today, the only new thing Austin had was baked beans with cut up hot dogs in it and for a morning snack he had the envirokids organic rice bar. I pictured those being more like a granola bar of sorts but they are more like a rice crispy treat and Austin loved them!

Tantrums, Tantrums, Tantrums...

On my friend's blog, she noted that her son has had increased tantrums and wondered if it could possibly be due to gluten withdrawals. Today, Austin had 3 tantrums but could this be the cause already? Or was it a combination of that and lack of nap because huge, loud trucks kept driving down our street and woke him up early?

Today's menu was about like yesterday except for dinner. He had yesterday's dinner leftovers for lunch today and will probably have them again tomorrow for lunch or Thursday for lunch. For this morning's snack, he had 100% grape juice watered down and 1/2 cup of applesauce. For an afternoon snack, he had 100% apple juice and Mott's all natural fruit snacks. I have always bought 100% juice and have always watered it down. Regular grocery stores carry the Motts and when I found out that they were GFCF, I was really excited b/c those were already one of Austin's favorite snacks. Dinner (above) was Ian's GFCF fish sticks, Ore Ida french fries, peas and carrots, and grapes. And once again, his plate was emptied!

Our First Day GFCF

Above are pictures of lunch and dinner.

Today went really well and Austin didn't turn any food down except for the Glutino pretzels. He actually gulped down the vanilla soy milk so I guess that was tasty. I'm not sure what the deal is with the pretzels but he just didn't want to eat them. He's had pretzels before but the little sticks so perhaps he really wasn't sure what they were with the shape. Today he had:

Breakfast: 5oz soy milk & 1 bowl Gorilla Munch
Snack: 1 cup 100% apple juice (watered down) and a few pretzels
Lunch: 4oz soy milk, diced ham, peas & carrots, and grapes
Snack: Juice again and 1/4 organic apple
Dinner: 4oz soy milk and a meat mixture that I made using meat, rice, & tomato sauce, green beans, and grapes
Bedtime Snack: 4oz soy milk
Also had bottled water in between

I mentioned this before, but I have a toddler who is not picky at all regarding food. I have looked at many GFCF recipes online and I'll admit that many of them seem too difficult and time consuming for me especially considering the fact the DH and I are not going on this diet. The dinners I currently cook for DH and myself are very simple but good and don't require many ingredients or time. I'm going to try to do the same for Austin with this diet. For tonight's dinner, I made him the same thing that I use for stuffed bell peppers minus the cheese. And, if I would have thought about making this a few days ago, I would have picked up a bell pepper and sauteed it and chopped it up as a side for Austin instead of the green beans. Anyhoo, I had some leftover plain ground beef from last night's meal of nachos so I just cooked up a cup of rice, mixed in the ground beef, and added about 4oz of tomato sauce for flavor. His plate was empty after dinner :)

Day 2 Grocery Shopping

Today I went to another grocery store in our area called Bloom. They are a normal grocery store but they do have a small section of organics so I decided to see what I could find there. I was going to go to a Healthway store but we are new to this area and I didn't really know if I could find the way there. Anyhoo, today I picked up:

2 boxs Vans GF frozen waffles (1 regular, 1 blueberry)
1 box Envirokids Gorrilla Munch Cereal
1 box Envirokids Koala Crunch Cereal
1 box Envirokids Crispy Rice Bars (Berry Flavor)
2 boxes Ians GF fish sticks
1 bag Glutino pretzels
2 cartons of Silk soymilk fortified for kids (vanilla)

Total Cost: $43 (ouch!) Cha-Ching! Wow, I don't know if this stuff would be any cheaper at the Healthway or any other health food store but I'll have to make my way to those stores next weekend to compare prices. If not, it doesn't matter really. If this diet works, every penny is worth it :)

The only two things that I really wanted to pick up today that I couldn't find were the GF pasta, preferably the Tinkyada brand and Vegan cheese. I talked with a store associate and they are actually supposed to carry the Tinkyada but she helped me look and it was not there. She said that maybe it is a new product to their store and something happened with warehouse shipping and hopefully it will be there next time. For now, Austin will have to do without the cheese until I can find it somewhere. The store also carried several GF baking mixes and flours but like I mentioned earlier, Austin just isn't picky enough yet for me to have to experiment with those, although I would like to try the GF brownie mix some time soon for a treat.

Shopping at a regular grocery store

I'm not sure how many gfcf families have had this problem, but our local grocery store carries next to nothing gfcf! I knew that I was going to be purchasing many items at health food stores but I had no idea just how much. Here's what I picked up for Austin today at the local grocery:

Hebrew National all beef hot dogs
ground beef (for hamburger patties)
diced ham
Prego 100% natural spaghetti sauce
grapes
plums
pears
silk yogurt
Quaker apple cinnamon rice cakes
Bite Sized Tostitos Rounds
Bush's Baked Beans (original)
Rosarita Refried Beans

I also bought some freezer storage bags and froze individual servings of the meat and hot dogs. This method will ensure that I don't waste anything and I can pull out just enough for Austin at meal times.

I was at least hoping to find some gf pasta and some vegan cheese but no such luck. They actually carried the Silk milk but I am hoping to find some rice milk tomorrow when we go the the health food store. One good thing is that my toddler is not very picky when it comes to eating and I feel like at first, this diet maybe simpler than what I had originally thought. He is not a bread eater so I can wait a while before I have to get brave and try my hand at baking. I have read on several other gfcf blogs that this diet can be quite easy if you go back to basics, like meat, rice, veggies, and fruit to start with and that is exactly what I think we'll be starting with.

Our History and Before the Diet...

This is my first time to actually blog so here it goes. My son Austin is 20 months old and at the current time, he does not yet talk. There are some other things that he does not do as well but let me go back to 12 months. At 12 months, DH wondered why Austin did not have any words. My understanding is that most boys are slower to develop than girls so at 12 months I had no concerns at all and told DH he just wasn't ready to talk yet. At that time, I felt that he had met all other appropriate milestones but then I realized that Austin wasn't waving, gesturing, pointing, an d basically had no means of communicating with us. I still just figured he needed more time. Then came 13 months, 14 months, and 15 months, and still nothing. I made an appointment with the pediatrician to discuss my concerns. I forgot to mention that at 12 months, we had moved from Texas to Illinois and left ALL of our family that we saw daily. I wondered if this could be Austin's way of stressing. My pediatrician said that Austin would have been stressed but not enough to not improve at all 3 months so he referred me to the Illinois Early Intervention program. My coordinator, along with an OT, DT, and a ST came to evaluate Austin. I was shocked to learn how far delayed they considered him. They only category that he was not delayed in was gross motor skills. I found out that he needed fine motor skill and hand eye coordination help. He expressive speech and responsive speech skills were delayed both over 50%. And on top of that, they told me that he had low muscle tone in his upper torso and mouth, and he was seeking sensory input when he hand flapped, walked on his toes, and would spin in circles. Austin qualified for ST, DT, and OT and we began. The therapists were a big help. They showed me how to play more interactively with Austin and how to model words and play correctly. They also brought up other things that needed improvement, things that I never would have given a second thought. This month, we moved to Virginia due to DH's work. I had Austin evaluated once again and this time he only qualified for ST twice a week. We are going to see a developmental pediatrician at the end of October and try to see a private OT as Austin still has many sensory issues. He has improved greatly on some things but like I mentioned at first, he still has no words. He is able to wave, sign the word "more", bring us a book when he wants to be read too, and most importantly he understands about 70% of everything we tell him if not more. Now that you have our history, onto the reason I am blogging. My biggest concern is Autism. I know that we will love Austin no matter what and do what we have to do for him no matter what happens but at this time, we are doing everything possible to strengthen his development in hopes that this is just a developmental delay. I am giving Austin Nordic Naturals CLO and have been for a few months. I have not noticed any huge changes and I have to wonder if the waving was just a natural development; like he just finallly grasped the concept of it or was finally motivated enough to do it back. For months, I have been researching the GFCF diet, the benefits, the negative aspects, how it can be helpful, why people do it and so forth. I have spoken to my therapists in the past about it and they all thought it might be good to try. I also brought it up to our new ST this week at our first session. We got on the subject because she wondered if I gave Austin sticky foods like peanut butter to work his mouth muscles. I told her that I have never given him peanut butter because I am terrified of a peanut allergy. She immediately wanted to know why I thought that way and so we got into a discussion of my DH's allergies. He is allergic to chicken (yes, chicken!), many fruits, soy, and a few other random foods. When I our pediatrician found out about DH's allergies, he told me it was best to wait until Austin was 2 before he tried peanuts, eggs, and chicken. The ST was very interested in this information she told me because it is generally children who have allergies or sensitivities to food that make improvements on the GFCF diet. Austin may not be allergic to wheat or to dairy but he may be senstive to these products and they could be causing him more damage than doing good. This conversation got me really thinking about the diet but then I came back to what I always did; Is this diet right for us? Will it be too difficult? Will it work? etc... Then, later that day, I saw the Oprah show with Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson Peete talking about Autism. Jenny's son Evan is an exact description of Austin minus the seizures. Her son was actually diagnosed with Autism and she found out about the GFCF diet online and decided to give it a try. In her words, her son is now recovering from Autism. I know this diet may or may not work. Austin may not improve greatly but just stem less and/or be able to focus more but at this time, I feel like this is the right decision for us. I have found several blogs, stories, and discussion boards on this subject that have helped me find out more about the diet and have hope that there is help for my child. If my blog helps at least one person with this diet, then I will be happy.