The Years of the Locust

People are always talking about how the years get away from them. It is always startling, nevertheless, when you wake up and realize that you're one of them. The years are flying by. Before having children, things were rather timeless. When you don't have short people standing beside you who begin to measure themselves against your height, it is easy to forget the passage of time. These days, every time I look at one of the Hobbits, I am astonished at how much they have changed since the last time I looked at them...even if it is just five minutes before. And the things that they say and do are equally astonishing. I keep having to remind myself that I can challenge them with more responsibilities, because they are certainly equal to more than I ask of them.

I'll admit that I was a bit nervous with the director/producer of our homeschooling group's drama department asked if Dog would be willing to step into a part that had been vacated by an uninterested teen. But since she asked, knowing fully well what she was asking...she lives down the road from us, after all...I agreed to put it to Dog and see if he was interested. He was. Big surprise there. Not. Heh. Playing Jackie Gilbreth in our version of Cheaper By the Dozen would be his first opportunity to do something more than don a bathrobe and carry a stick as a shepherd in the Christmas play. He accepted the part with alacrity and didn't even mind sacrificing gym time to go through the months of prep time and rehearsal. I did wonder if he'd be able to stay focused and involved for the three hours of being a supporting role, Jackie's part being only a small speaking part, but a frequent presence on stage.

I kept having flashbacks to the first time he stepped on stage in front of a crowd, five years ago. As all of his age mates filed obediently off the stage, he stood at the head of the steps facing the auditorium, raised his arms in Rocky Balboa fashion and leaped off the stage, bellowing, "I'm the CHAMPEEEEN!" It was in that moment that I became intimately acquainted with the underside of our pews and was able to take a complete census of the fossilized gum left there for archaeological purposes. The next year, he haunted the narrator's steps and, despite repeated redirection from both the directors and his parents, seemed unable to refrain from stalking the podium for a peek at what the narrator was reading. This would be a step forward indeed.

As the play loomed closer, the rehearsal schedule stepped up. Twice a week and late nights, too. Dog, who has a usual bedtime of 9pm, was staying out until 11pm two nights a week, rolling home via the generosity of our neighbor director. It was amazing to watch a new maturity settle over him like a new set of clothes. No grumping the next day. No attitude problems...well, nothing that wasn't there before. Can't have everything, can we?

The night before the play opened, I was spending some time online. Up late, I was emailing a friend and sharing with her what the past ten years had been like for Dog and us.

Parenting children who fall outside the box can have precious moments, but also moments that can be hideous. Actually, avoidance of that hideousness is the prime motivating factor for all of what I do. I didn't start out doing this for Love of Food. I've never been a foodie. Peanut butter and crackers sounds like a meal to me. Never did enjoy cooking. That's why I call myself The Unprofitable Servant. I've only done what was required of me. Meaning that I will do aaaaaaaaanyTHING I have to do to prevent that hideousness from rearing its ugly head. And that's why we never, ever, ever, ever, ever cheat. Nothing is worth that abyss.

Dog used to rage for hours while I tried to deal with him and get him calmed down. And as soon as we reached closure, he would loop back to the beginning of our conflict and it would be as if we had never had that two to four hour "conversation." That started when he was two and didn't disappear until we got off of gluten and later, after we'd eliminated all of the intolerances.

That's an abyss I never want to stare into again. My neighbor still hates my guts because she thinks I'm a terrible mother because my child/ren screamed all of the time. They told us that they had called the police and CPS because he needed to be committed to a mental institution. (We were never visited, so that may have been simply a threat.) Even after we got the diet cleaned up, every time there was the merest brush with a problem food, the world exploded. People would ask me what the symptoms of the "allergies" were and I would laugh and say, "Oh, their heads spin around and an alien bursts out of their chests." But that didn't feel like it was far from the truth.

We never had Dog evaluated for ASD. I don't know if he would have qualified for a diagnosis. Perhaps so. He was hyperlexic. He had no idea how to relate to other children. I don't know if my eldest would have been diagnosed as ASD as a child. I would take him to the playground as a toddler and he would stare at the other children without moving. I had to show him how to use the playground equipment and even then I had to guide him through playing with it...he never turned loose and took off and played. I would take him out into the yard to play, expecting him to
take off and do what kids do, run explore, eat bugs, whatever. He would stand there and look at me like, "Okay. What do I do now?" When my parents turned on their sprinkler, he just stood and stared, when any other child would have dashed into the spray....which he did a few years later, when we returned to visit--gluten free. But he is and always has been brilliant. Quick to connect the dots, understanding complex concepts at early ages. Practically a photographic memory.

A couple of years ago, he might have gotten an Aspie diagnosis, because he had NO clue about how relationships work, but he is losing those markers as well. He's doing social boy stuff with the other boys. He is recognizing when a friend isn't a friend, when someone is using him, when someone is lying to him. He's finding the courage to walk away. He's fitting in. He's stopped saying the weird, geeky things that used to make people stare at him. He used to stand out as a flake...he presented as someone a bubble off plumb. A stranger might not quiiite be able to put their finger on what didn't exactly click. Or maybe put him into a Computer Nerd pigeon hole in their mind. Now he looks just like any other kid.

And that's why I tilt the food universe. But I had to be beaten into submission. I didn't start out doing this because it was the best thing for my child and he needed the best nutrition. I'm The Unprofitable Servant. I did it to make the screaming stop.

This is Dog's favorite dish. It's mine, too, particularly since stir fry is something that allows you to throw in everything and the kitchen sink. Whatever your favorite vegetables are, they probably will taste even better in stir fry.

Asian Stir Fry

Whole chicken breast or beef steaks, partially frozen
Broccoli, chunked small
Sliced mushrooms
Carrots, bias cut
Celery, bias cut
Green onions, sliced
1 T minced garlic
small knob of ginger, minced
San-J wheat free tamari sauce
Toasted sesame oil

A day ahead of time, slice meat into thin strips. A mandolin is particularly helpful for this. Marinade in diluted tamari sauce...enough to cover meat...overnight. When ready to prepare, drain meat in a colander.

In a stainless steel wok or large skillet, pour enough oil to coat bottom and stir fry onions, garlic, minced ginger, and carrots, until the carrots are still slightly crunchy. Add celery and broccoli until medium soft. Remove all vegetables to a bowl. Add more oil, a dash or two of tamari sauce, and saute mushrooms until soft. Remove mushrooms to bowl with other vegetables. Add more oil and stir fry meat until done.

Sauce:

4 T San-J wheat free tamari sauce or to taste
2 cups water
4-6 T tapioca starch, dissolved in small amount of water

In heavy saucepan, bring tamari and water to a boil. Add dissolved tapioca starch to boiling liquid, stirring constantly until cooked and translucent.

Return all ingredients to wok and cover with sauce, adding a tablespoon or two toasted sesame oil for flavor. Stir until all ingredients are well coated. Serve over hot rice.

Opening night, I sat with all of us, including my parents, laughing and snapping pictures of the action on stage. Dunno how the rest of the kids did. I could only watch Dog...amazed at how well he did. And as I watched, I had only one thought,

"And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten..." _{Joel 2:25}

Pick Two

I adore interpreting. I used to be a workshop junkie. Workshop? I'm there. First there and on the front row. Conventions? Oh. My. Workshop heaven. While I was an active interpreter, I never missed a convention. If I couldn't afford to go as an attendee, I worked the convention. I got to listen and get paid. What's not to love? And I've benefited from the knowledge of some of the best in the profession. One workshop that stands out in my mind where Anna Witter-Merithew talked about the price of quality. The price of excellence. She recounted her experience getting her car repaired. The mechanic had a memorable sign posted on his wall: "Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick Two." She applied this to the discipline of becoming a good interpreter. There's a price to pay and you have to pick your priorities.

This principle came back to me after a conversation I had with another mom this past week. She was asking my opinion about her teenager and some food issues. I shared my opinion of the cause of the issue and what my experience showed me would work. As I was speaking, she stood there shaking her head. "Isn't there an easier way?" she despaired. I suggested a particular supplement that people have reported as helping, but tagged on the caveat that it was $60-$100 a month. "Isn't there a cheaper way?" I responded that I do things the way that worked for us....I know no other way.

After spending the week thinking about this conversation, my workshop experience came back to me. The same principle applies to dealing with this food problem thing: "Good. Easy. Cheap. Pick two." There are supplements out there that are helpful. Probiotic packed pills. They cost. Gluten free convenience foods cost. The bottom line is that the most effective therapies take time and discipline. They can be cheap, if you're willing to do the hard work over a period of time. It comes down to the prosaic point that this "everything free" diet stuff is like all other diet stuff. It's work, it's discipline, it's more about lifestyle changes than "diet" and there aren't any silver bullets. Each person has to decide if the cost of discipline is worth the return.

The evidence is mounting, beyond just the dismissed and minimized experiences of such parents as I, that doing this kind of work pays off. A study, hot off the press, has some validating things to say about eating effecting our brain function, particularly in autistic children:

"The bacteria produce propionic acid, a short chain fatty acid, which in addition to existing in the gut, is commonly found in bread and dairy products, MacFabe said." Fascinatingly, the study scientists were able to use this bacteria to replicate autistic behaviors in rats, as well as effecting the same kinds of physical changes that are exposed in autopsies of autistic patients. "Now we're learning that the brain and body can influence each other," she said.

This sent me back to thinking about "easy, good, and cheap." And discipline. Some of the best foods that feed brain function are foods high in Omega 3 fatty acids. Like fish. Grandma wasn't being poetical when she said that fish is "brain food." It literally is. That covers "good." And the price of wild-caught sardines qualify as "cheap." But for someone who doesn't really care for fish so much, the "easy" option becomes dicey...gotta pick two. Fortunately, thanks to my Gardening Mentor, sardines can be easy to fix, if requiring some discipline to eat.

Quick Sardine Supper

1 medium onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium tomato, choppped or a handful of cherry tomatoes cut in half
olive oil
1 can of sardines
fresh basil (a few leaves) or a pinch of dried basil
salt and pepper, to taste
crushed red pepper, if desired

Heat oil in medium skillet. Add onions and saute until softened. Add garlic and cook lightly. Stir in tomatoes, then sardines. Remove from heat, season to taste. Serve over pasta, crackers, or rice.

The CBC report continues to say:

"'Treating a child's health should be the first step in addressing autism...Behaviour therapy is certainly important. But the child's health controls the bandwidth that the child has for being able to benefit from behavioural therapy. If a child is sick, they won't be able to focus."

Parents should watch their children closely to determine what foods trigger reactions and to consider removing those triggers, she said. Herbert strongly advocates a balanced diet, consisting of all food groups, not just 'bread and cheese.' 'If you have foods that (a) child is sensitive to in their immune system, that can set up processes that can impact brain function, and it can do so in a negative way. And if you remove those foods, that negative impact can stop.'"

Incredibly validating to hear The Powers That Be saying it, too.

Easy, cheap, good. Pick two.

Why Bother?

Is it worth all of the effort? The work-arounds. The substitutions. The prepping. The planning. The budgeting. The economizing to make it all come together? This became a very heated topic of discussion for me--and the other poster to the thread--a while back.

A study, which I'm sure will cut a wide swathe across gf/cf circles, splashed down on an email list. It appears that a very small study of the intestinal healing in a handful of autistic children over two years showed dietary interventions to have no impact on digestive integrity and developmental outcomes. None.

The mom posting about this said she was struggling with these results. All of that effort for nothing? Why bother?

So I thought about why I bother and why it matters what I do.

It matters. It matters because it is about more than just getting from Point A with leaky gut syndrome to Point B with intestinal integrity. There is a life filled with days, experiences, and memories that are weighed in the balance. If making life as positive and successful as possible is a valid reason for medicating a child's behavior, then managing the diet toward the same end is at least as valid.

It's worth it. It's worth it to see a child, who complained about all manner of sensory input, now throw on his clothes without a whimper and manage his day with less and less scaffolding as times goes by. It's worth it to do less and less micromanaging and see a child able to complete tasks from start to finish without redirection, tasks that six months ago were impossible to surmount alone. It's worth it to watch a toddler blossom into doing all of the things that intuitively feel "right," and not be left wondering what's developmentally wrong or what's missing.

An argument could be made that all of this would have happened regardless of our choices and changes, but these advancements are too precious to me to have left to chance. And no one in our sphere can deny that any time there's an exposure to a food on The List that we have heart-breaking, soul-scalding reactions. That alone makes it worth the effort. I'll do any amount of work and make any amount of sacrifice to keep that from happening. Even if we get to Point B and find all of the other folk who chose differently waiting for us to catch up, losing just one of these episodes would make it worth it.

But fundamentally, I think it does make a difference what and how we eat, irrespective of food sensitivities. When first the issue of intestinal hyper permeability came up on my radar, I started rifling our library shelves on the subject. In addition to Food Allergies and Food Intolerances by Jonathan Brostoff and Intestinal Wellness by Elizabeth Lipski, I found Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. At first, I was daunted by the ubiquitous whey in all of her ferments--a rather nontraditional and, in my experience, often unsatisfactory solution--but what I did take away from the book was a resolution to get as basic and fundamental in our eating habits as was possible. In addition to live probiotics, another gut-healer caught my attention: bone broth.

It's amazingly cheap, since we already buy whole chickens anyway. Just save up all of the bones, carcasses, giblets and freeze until ready to use. It's almost like free food. Think of it as recycling. See? It even has a PC gravitas.

I did try it the prescribed way: slow cooker, longlonglonglong simmer, until the bones smooshed. The resulting broth was too....um....brown. Okay. It was burned. And I could make barely enough for the kids to have a half a cup a day. Which was just as well considering the effort it required to svengali them into drinking just that meager half cup.

The Glutenator first broached the subject of pressure cookers. On the NT-style list, this was met with the sound of acolytes ducking for cover from the lightening bolts. It seems that Sally just doesn't approve of pressure cookers. No explanation or citations why. Just waves vaguely in their direction and says, "They're dangerous."

Nonsense. Only if you have a mouse in your basement.

The Glutenator pointed out that pressure cookers provide for optimal mineral and gelatin extraction while preserving flavor. Guess what? She was right. Now we have a steady flow of delicious jiggly broth. Bug asks for it on cold winter days to thaw fingers and tummies after sledding.

Bone Broth

The recipe is simple, just time-consuming....like everything else worthwhile. The proportions can be tailored to the individual need. I have a 22 qt. capacity pressure cooker that I fill three quarters up with bones, giblets, veggie scraps, and 2-3 ounces of dried seaweed. Cover with water. Place the lid and control at 15 pounds and let it cook until the control has rocked for an hour to an hour and a half. I use a long handled colander to scoop out the bones and large pieces. Then I pour the broth into a large canning bath through a cheesecloth. I dump all of the bones back in, cover with water, and do it all over again. This yields about three to four gallons of broth. A batch this size is sufficiently salted with about three tablespoons of Real Salt. Finally, I pour into quart jars and refrigerate. This lasts us about two weeks. And since the bones are soft enough to compost easily, we're able to take the recycling full circle.

Why bother? Maybe I'm old enough now to know on a gut level that there is a long run and the effort we pour forth now pays off then. And two years is a sliver of a child's life, at once too short and too long. Too short to measure what the long haul will eventually show and too long to roller coaster through, hoping for the magic day when everyone pulls up even.