I have become “that” kind of Mom

sigh….

I swore I never would,

but I did it.

You know the kind of mom I am talking about. The type that has to pack separate snacks for their kid when they go to a party because there might be corn syrup in the food, or food dyes, or milk or…..etc…..

Yes, yes

that is ME!

My oldest daughter has ADHD and we have been treating it for several years with medication that seem to help. In the last year we have added a couple more medications because her symptoms have become increasingly hard to manage. I have wavered a lot on my level of comfort with her medications. On one hand they do help, a lot, they make her behavior manageable and her social skills better, on the other hand she is taking some powerful psychotropic medications and I wondered if we were just covering up the problems instead of teaching her to cope.

At the first of the year I visited a “witch doctor” (really she is a Nurse Practitioner who does Biofeedback) and she healed my chronic fatigue (thyroid). I decided to take my oldest daughter and see what she had to say. We found out that she is very sensitive to cow milk, corn syrup (and any other highly processed sweetener, like cane sugar and fructose) , peanuts and artificial sweeteners.

Pretty much anything that is found in a package.

Which isn’t much of a problem, I am a “from scratch” kind of gal…but…I do use a lot of milk and sugar in my cooking.

It has been a bit of an adjustment, but not too painful. She uses Goat milk or almond milk and honey for sweetener (going to get some agave nectar soon). In my cooking I too have switched to honey and Goat milk (I need to find someone who has a goat…). We also have started to wean her off the medication, and have added some supplements. There has also been a lot of prayer.

So what have we found a week later? I am cautiously optimistic. We won’t see the full effect yet, she is still on her medications, but some very promising things have happened. On Friday evening we went to an event, an open house for the newest LDS Temple, she was great (her medication had worn off by this point, usually I would have given her a booster pill, but I didn’t) until I let her have a cookie at the end, about 15 minuets later she was bouncing off the walls! I thought it was an interesting occurrence and took note of it. On Sunday we were at my parents house and she sat quietly and visited, a little angel, typically she would have been causing all sorts of trouble with her cousins and would have been banned to the corner. Our evenings have been calmer and she is more obedient.

I am excited that this just might work.

So, I guess I am “that” kind of mom!

I don’t know how many time I have sat at a wedding shower and the bride-to-be has said “I totally don’t know how to cook!”

“Rice-a-Roni is really easy….”
“As long as you can ready the back of a box you will be fine…..”
“We lived on Macaroni and Cheese the first year we were married, it was all my husband could cook!….”

“Memorise Domino’s number……”

Inside I am a little horrified.

It use to be that a young lady would never have married without knowing to to cook, much less bragg about it. Being a good competent cook was something to be proud of! I wonder if we focus too much on educating our daughters on the things of the world and forget to teach them to be heart of their homes. Not that book learning is a bad thing, it isn’t, women should be intelligent and well learned, but it isn’t everything.

As part of my oldest daughter’s homeschool I have added what I like to call “life skills”. She is learning how to cook! I have also included her younger sister in this project for the summertime and they are both really enjoying the process.