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Don’t feed the animals

November 8, 2009 by fawnahareo

Keto KidThe last week of October marked Jade’s one-year anniversary on the ketogenic diet.  I’d been thinking a lot about it in the weeks leading up to it, but somehow the actual anniversary date came and went without fanfare, and without any one of us remembering it.

So much has changed in the past year.  The biggest change, of course, is slowly winning our wonderful little girl back, but there have been lots of subtle changes, too.  I remembered with wonder last night that when we started the diet, Jade was still drinking a bottle every morning.  This past week I’ve finally gotten around to preparing our supper at a reasonable time so that the four of us could eat together as a family.  And we didn’t feel guilty that we were eating different things.

Social situations have become easier, too.  The first few times when we had supper at a friend’s house, I felt very stressed about feeding Jade separately and watching that she didn’t get food from anyone else and denying her things that she might ask for. 

We are blessed that Jade tends to be very compliant (so far!) and she seems to understand that she has her own special food, but it’s still important to us that people are aware of her special diet, partly for her safety, and also because the more people know about the ketogenic diet, the better!  People understand they shouldn’t offer candy to a diabetic child.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if one day they’d automatically protect a child when they heard she was on the ketogenic diet?

That day is a long way away, though, so for now we still need to be vigilant in social situations, particularly at parties where there is lots of food and lots of people around.  At Thanksgiving, I finally made a reality out of an idea that has been bouncing around in my head for a while.

I wanted to make a shirt for Jade that would warn people not to give her food, but that she’d also enjoy wearing.  I came up with two designs, one with a princess and one with a monkey.  Then I let Jade choose the one she wanted to wear.  Through the magic of colour printers and photo-transfer paper, I was able to make her the monkey shirt just in time for the Thanksgiving potluck.

Jade's Monkey Shirt - Picniced

She loved it so much she asked for it again the next day!

I haven’t tried the princess design yet, but I think it would look sweet on a little t-shirt dress, which would be nice for a dressier party.  (Haha!  A dressy party in the Yukon!)

Posted in Jade, epilepsy, ketogenic diet | 17 Comments »

Teeth and feet and hair, oh my

November 5, 2009 by fawnahareo

Halia did something amazing last night.

Our lovely friend Linda came over to babysit so that Michael and I could have a night out and I don’t know what kind of magic she worked, but Halia slept from 8 p.m. until 4 a.m..  That is eight solid hours, which she has never done in her entire life.

I, of course, woke up every couple of hours anyway.  But maybe, just maybe, this is a faint light at the end of that tunnel.  (She writes, just as she is interrupted by the cries of a waking baby.)

PrimaryTeeth - Halia 11.5 MonthsInterrupted nights (and blog posts) notwithstanding, Halia continually amazes me.  It is so fun to watch her personality develop. 

She is so physical and so curious.  She gets into everything.  She is a climber and she is fearless.  It was frightening but not surprising to find her one day, perched atop the child-sized chair in front of the baby gate and shaking the top of it delightedly. 

This week she got her mouth full of Orange Pekoe tea.  Tea leaves, that is.  Apparently, having all the boxes of tea at baby-reachable height is a bad idea.

We can never keep socks on her feet.  I don’t know if the socks offend her or if she just enjoys the independence of pulling them off.

She can practically run now, never mind the walking.

She grew three teeth in the last month.

I have to decide whether to keep putting her hair up (which she always pulls out and which Michael thinks looks ridiculous) or give her her first haircut.

One Tooth

Mid-October, before the other three teeth came in. Can you tell she's going to make trouble?

In the Bin

The troublemaker in the toy bin

On the Piano

On the piano. She climbed up from my lap, grinned at me, then tried to climb even higher.

In the Tea Trolley

Rearranging the teas

Helping with Keto Cooking

Helping us prepare one of Jade's meals

 In less than a week, she’ll be turning one.  One!  How can that be?!  Someone pinch me.  (On second thought, don’t.  My arms are sore from getting flu shots.  Also from constantly being scratched, poked, and gouged by Halia.)

Sharing a Picnic

Sharing a plastic picnic. The best part about having two kids is watching their relationship bloom.

She may not exactly be gentle.  But when she runs over to me and buries her head into the crook of my neck for a cuddle… she sure is irresistable!

Posted in Halia, Teeth | 5 Comments »

Halloween happiness is…

October 31, 2009 by fawnahareo

IMG_7532

...picking my own costume

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...having my picture taken

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...making magic

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...giggling up a storm

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...dancing like a fairy

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...beautiful butterfly wings

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...the glow of anticipation

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...sharing the fun with my sister

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...inspecting the haul

 

Posted in Halia, Jade | 9 Comments »

Tweet, tweet

October 25, 2009 by fawnahareo

I have purposely avoided signing up for Twitter.  Michael had an account, did not like it, and cancelled his account.  But I know I would be addicted in an instant because a lot of my favourite bloggers also tweet.  It’s hard enough to keep up with my blog addictions subscriptions as it is.  Besides, there are so many moments in my day when I think, “I should put this on my Facebook status”.  Often there isn’t enough time to sit down to blog, but there is enough time to write out a sentence about something funny that happened, to announce a small victory, or just whine a little.

Here are some of the things you might have seen in my Twitter feed over the last couple of days, if I had such a thing (and yes, some of them were on FB):

  • Finally got around to brushing Halia’s four little teeth tonight. Halia was SOOO pleased that she got to have her teeth brushed after watching me do Jade’s so many times. She even knows how to dip her toothbrush into the cup of water.  How adorable is that??!
  • I feel cheated. The book had an interesting title and an interesting cover. And was a good read. Now I found out it’s the first of a trilogy for which the third book has not yet been released. This is doomed to be yet another series I never finish.
  • I am unsure whether I am happy or sad that I taught Jade how to say “monitor” instead of “mawtimer”.
  • When do babies learn to be afraid of heights?  Because Halia climbs EVERYTHING.  After falling off and clonking her head she cries bloody murder.  Then climbs the damn thing again.
  • Jade had broccoli in her keto soup tonight AND SHE LOVED IT!  She told me several times, “I like broccoli!”  Hurray!  A new ingredient!

Thrilling isn’t it?  Admit it, you’d follow me, wouldn’t you?  You can thank me now for not adding to your online addictions.

Posted in Life, the Universe, and Everything | 12 Comments »

Talk to me vegetabley

October 23, 2009 by fawnahareo

I’ve lost a bunch of weight in the last couple of months.  This is because I started a diet called “between-getting-the-baby-fed-and-the-keto-kid-fed-there’s-no-time-to-eat”.  I am frequently having breakfast two hours after I get up or supper at 9 p.m.

BubblyBunny and I have made a pact to eat better and we’ve developed meal plans.  Sort of.  I’ve yet to actually start using mine, which is pretty awful considering it was all my idea.

Part of my problem is balance.  I do eventually eat when I’m hungry, but I’m definitely not getting my 5-10 servings of fruits and veggies in a day.  I find it so hard to squeeze them in now because while most meat I can throw in the oven, pot, or slow cooker with just a few extra ingredients, I find vegetables much more work, what with washing, peeling, coring, chopping…

I’m getting so tired of red peppers and zucchinis, something I never thought I’d say.  I know I should buy more squashes because they really are dead easy to fix (as long as there isn’t also meat in the oven) and I can use them for Jade AND for Halia.  But squash will only take me so far.

Tell me: what are your favourite veggies and how do you prepare them?  Extra points for super-duper easy or fast!

Posted in Food | 13 Comments »

Trooper

October 23, 2009 by fawnahareo

It makes me want to cry.

Jade asked for sausages for breakfast this morning.  “Okay,” I said, “we can do that.”  Then Michael mentioned that Halia had had watermelon for breakfast.  Jade said she wanted watermelon, too.  I said, “okay, Jade.  It will just be a small piece, but you can have some watermelon.”

I got her breakfast ready and put down three things in front of her.  A ramekin with the sausages, another one filled with vegan margarine and coconut oil, and the lid from one of the ramekins with a tiny piece of watermelon, smaller than your average playing die.

Jade was sitting on Michael’s lap and the first thing she went for was the watermelon.

“Mmmmm!” she said in delight.  And started in on her sausages.

All I could see was how tiny that piece of watermelon was.  But Jade?  Jade was happy that she got some watermelon.

Posted in Jade, ketogenic diet | 6 Comments »

A thankful pause

October 10, 2009 by fawnahareo

Although the dark emotions were really genuine, I’m feeling slightly sheepish for getting to such a low point last week.  I know it was a culmination of single-parenting, stressful travel preparations, and lack of sleep, so I have been doing my best since then to slow down and get to bed earlier.  I’ve even spent a few minutes on a couple of nights writing down things I am grateful for, and I’m hoping to make it a habit.

Things really are so much better than a year ago.  It’s not that I don’t appreciate it; it’s just that sometimes I’m so focussed on the end goal (seizure-freedom, seizure-freedome, seizure-freedom…) that everything else is a blur.  So this week, I’ve also been trying to regain perspective, to be thankful for the things that are great in my life. 

Appropriately, this is Thanksgiving weekend which is a fact that somehow escaped my consciousness until a few days ago. (And, might I add, neener, neener, my American readers have to wait a while yet for their turkeys!)

I won’t bore you with an exhaustive list.   Instead, a few thankful highlights in no particular order:

  1. Two beautiful, loving, and funny little girls I have the fortune to call my daughters.  This week I have tried to be more present for both of them, instead of being focussed on mundane tasks that had to be done.
  2. A loving and supportive husband whose talents and accomplishments I am proud of, and who I am happy to finally have home!
  3. Daily support from Amanda, which enables us to function as a normal family.
  4. That the Jade of today compared to the Jade of one year ago is like comparing a ray of sunshine to a shadow.

I have heard that the secret to being happy in life is not getting what you want, but being happy with what you get.  I still think it’s important to strive, to stretch, and to challenge ourselves, but, for this moment, I am happy to pause for a little bit and thank God — thank God! — for the wonderful things in my life.

Posted in Life Updates | 7 Comments »

Keto crisis

October 8, 2009 by fawnahareo

We all left the house around 4:00 p.m.  The two girls and I were heading downtown to run Halloween-related errands, and Amanda was leaving early for a bachelorette party she had helped organize. 

I don’t often do errands with both kids in tow because, given a choice, I’d rather not buckle and unbuckle, load and unload, entertain and feed, while I’m trying to just get stuff done.  But since Michael is out of town, I’m on my own for handling that whining  witching hour before supper, and this was a good way to keep everyone occupied.

Jade had just woken from her nap (always a bit of a crank-fest then) and I had my hands full of baby and toys and keto snack and diaper bag and sundry, so I tossed out, “Lock the door please?” as Amanda came out of the house.

Since Amanda had premade both Jade and Halia’s food, I timed our return for about 5:45.  That would give me fifteen minutes to strip off boots and coats, wash hands, warm up and finish mixing food, and then serve it to my hungry birds.  I hauled everyone and everything up our front stairs… only to find that the large bunch of keys in my pocket did not include the house keys.

Leaving our purchases at the front door, I schlepped the kids four houses down to Heather’s place for an extra set of our keys.  (The ones that had been over at Tom’s house across the street had already been collected a couple of months ago when I forgot my keys on the sailboat, and — oops! — they were now hanging on the key rack inside the locked house.)  I got to Heather’s and she said, “No, we gave those back to you ages ago so that Ryan could get in.”  Riiiiiight, back in June, when we were in Ottawa and he was coming by to finish up some work.

Crap.  Crappity, crappity crap.

Suddenly, my boneheadedness wasn’t just a minor inconvenience, but a huge problem.  How in the world could I get Jade fed?  Heather offered the contents of her kitchen and pantry, but there is no way I can concoct a dairy and egg-free keto meal (without a scale!) at some random everyday kitchen.  No coconut oil?  No coconut milk?  No egg-free mayonnaise or dairy-free margarine?  Then enormity of not being able to get into my own house was like a punch in the gut.

I called Amanda’s cell and left a message.  I waited a few minutes.  I tried phoning again.  Then I tried the spa I knew she’d gone to, but it was after their regular business hours, so no one answered their phone. 

Thank goodness for living in a small town.  Heather let me leave Jade there (playing happily her kids’ toys and books) while I scooped up Halia and drove downtown to the spa, hoping I hadn’t misunderstood, hoping Amanda wasn’t somewhere else altogether.  I got a parking spot right in front of the spa, snatched Halia from her carseat, and raced up the stairs.  The bachelorette party appeared to be in full swing, but I spotted Amanda right away.  While I was driving downtown, she had gotten my message and was waiting to give me her set of keys.  (“I hope the rest of your weekend is better!” she wished me as I swooped back out the door.)

Halia was in full hissy-fit mode by the time I collected Jade, but by 6:30, both girls had were eating their suppers, and they were even in bed pretty much on time.

And me?  My neck and shoulders are incredibly stiff and I am thinking with much longing of that spa downtown.   Don’t you love it when a story has a good ending?  Because then you can look back on your own stupid self… and laugh.  But this older and wiser me is going to have a whole new strategy for keys from here on in.

Posted in Life Updates, humour, ketogenic diet | 6 Comments »

Monsters in the living room

October 7, 2009 by fawnahareo

Today we built a couch-cushion fort.  I don’t know why we’ve never done this before, but I figured it was high time Jade was initiated into the ritual of furniture fort-building.  She absolutely loved it.  (And, in fact, pretty much pitched a fit when it was time to stop playing to have supper.)

Of course, when you remove the cushions from your couch, you inevitably remember that you never vacuum there.  And you may be disgusted by what you see.  So, if you’re feeling as if you really ought to at least try to do some household work now and then and it might as well be now seeing as the kids are busy and happy, then you just might haul out the vacuum cleaner.

And you might discover, tucked tightly into a crevice, and perilously close to being swallowed up by the structure of the couch, one of the missing cordless phones (dead as a doornail, of course).  And you might wonder, why didn’t I look for it in the couch sooner?

Then, you might gingerly feel under the back and arms of the sofa, in those tricky spaces where eyeballs can’t reach and sharp things might linger, and squishy things might exist.

You might be surprised to find a piece of Lego that is so foreign and unidentifiable, that it is clearly a leftover from the previous owners of the couch.  You might find the ear wax digger (I am not kidding you) of a former guest.  (Apparently, persons of Chinese descent have harder ear wax and a specialized tool is required to get it out because Q-tips just don’t cut it.  And that is your totally disgusting PSA of the day.)  You might further find the beloved “Camping” model Swiss Army Knife your husband has been missing for months if not years.  And you might wonder at the finding of it, since your own identical (but newer) knife, which was also lost for a similar amount of time, was found earlier in the day when you cleaned out an old purse you never use to give it to your daughter for “dress up” purposes.

Then you might just conclude that the real monsters in your (w)rec(k) room are not your children, but the fuzzy-from-cat-and-dog-hair and all-too-innocent-looking green couches. 

And they’re hungrier than you think.

Posted in humour | 4 Comments »

Thanks heaps, Dad! (And thanks to Aroma Borealis!)

October 6, 2009 by fawnahareo

Well, Mother Nature sure rained (or, rather, snowed) on my parade by cutting off the game before it really got a chance to get started.  As you may have read in my updated post, I declared Dave and MFA Mama as winners when I closed the contest around 10:30 a.m.

Luckily for you, my Dad gleefully pointed out how complicated things really were by using my carefully-worded rules against me.  In case you missed it:

Alright, kiddo, hold them horses. Before you declare winners, you may have to do some serious sleuthing yet. Let’s see – if there is one cm on your deck on October 5th I will readily concede defeat for myself, but if you are going to declare runners-up, it gets one whole lot more complicated.

First of all, Stacie bet on “today”. But Dave beat her to “today”, so by your rules, Stacie should be moved to October 6th, which will make HER runner up.

Then there is the question of Murray – your “update” was not time-stamped. This leaves the serious question as to whether or not Murray posted his comment before or after your closing notice. If it was before, then by your rules, Murray would have to move in line after Stacie, which would make him second runner-up. And by the same immutable logic, MFA Mama will be third runner up.

And since you already promised a win to MFA Mama, I hope you got lots of Kleenex in the closet, including the extra box you’ll need to dry off your tears of laughter.

Dang it, I hate it when he’s right.  (Which, he would tell you, is always.)  Murray did indeed post his comment before I closed the contest (which I totally meant to “time stamp”, argh).  So instead of one winner, I now have four!

Mailing out four boxes of Kleenex would totally break my budget for this game.  Happily, I was able to find a prize that I think the four winners will enjoy a lot more.

Aroma Borealis LogoI called up the lovely folks at Aroma Borealis, which is a local company that creates herbal skin care products, aromatherapy products, and herbal teas, all inspired by the northern boreal forest.  (I luuuuurve their hydrating facial cream and their all-natural shampoos and conditioners!  And I love going into their store because it smells so good in there without being overwhelmingly perfumey.  *happy sigh*)  

ab-tea-pouchAroma Borealis has agreed to make up special bags of their own Arctic Wildflower Tea for our four winners, perfect for boiling up one pot on a cold autumn (or winter) evening.  There’s even an extra bag for Dad, since all you winners can thank him for making sure I didn’t cheat you out of your prizes.  (Do you think he missed a calling as a lawyer?)

Well, it was short-lived, but I declare this game a success on the basis of raising the humour quotient around here.  Thanks to Dad and Aroma Borealis for stepping in when they were needed.  This time again next year, okay?

Posted in Living in the Yukon, Online Contests | 10 Comments »

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