Last night, Ilana went to sleep in her "star bed" in PB's room. She didn't nurse to sleep (she did nurse before sleep), she read books to go to sleep, with me popping in every so often and saying "I'm checking on you!"
Then, today at Tiny Tigers, she broke a board with a front kick!!!!!!! We were all very proud :)
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
3 years on SCD!
Wow...Can't believe it's been three years. Our lives seem so calm now compared to that very out-of-control time....
I would like to thank everyone who helped us get through three years of Chana being on the Specific Carbohydrate diet, from Elaine Gotschall (who created the diet) to my parents and BIL, Frank, who have spent a LOT of time helping me cook over the years.
Chana is 8 months without meds for Crohn's. Please G-d, it should continue.
We had a lot of experimentation with non-SCD foods before Pesach (mostly a lot of brown rice, but also a bunch of "sure, try a taste") with the result that she spent the first three days of Pesach on the couch with a hot water bottle as she dealt with a mini-flare. I wish the experimenting had gone better, but at least we know what does work for now, and we're back to experimenting, just with smaller amounts and not as often.
I would like to thank everyone who helped us get through three years of Chana being on the Specific Carbohydrate diet, from Elaine Gotschall (who created the diet) to my parents and BIL, Frank, who have spent a LOT of time helping me cook over the years.
Chana is 8 months without meds for Crohn's. Please G-d, it should continue.
We had a lot of experimentation with non-SCD foods before Pesach (mostly a lot of brown rice, but also a bunch of "sure, try a taste") with the result that she spent the first three days of Pesach on the couch with a hot water bottle as she dealt with a mini-flare. I wish the experimenting had gone better, but at least we know what does work for now, and we're back to experimenting, just with smaller amounts and not as often.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Chana Carlos Williams
In honor of National Poetry Month, we talked about William Carlos Williams' famous "not-really-an-apology" poem "This Is Just To Say":
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Chana came up with a great one as her version:
"I have ripped your skirt
it was your favorite
Forgive me
your head
makes a good trampoline"
Umm, this poem bears absolutely NO resemblance to life in the Goldberg house. Yeah, none :)
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Chana came up with a great one as her version:
"I have ripped your skirt
it was your favorite
Forgive me
your head
makes a good trampoline"
Umm, this poem bears absolutely NO resemblance to life in the Goldberg house. Yeah, none :)
3 is a very literal age....
Auntie Debra comes over.
Ilana: "Hi!!!!! Want to play a game?" (this usually means they play jump rope on the Wii)
Deb: "Sure! Twist my arm..."
Ilana takes her arm and starts twisting.
Ilana (excitedly): "Now twist my arm!!!!"
Alternately:
PB will say something like, "I'm hungry"
and instead of saying "me too", now that Ilana has had her birthday,
she now says, "me three"!
Ilana: "Hi!!!!! Want to play a game?" (this usually means they play jump rope on the Wii)
Deb: "Sure! Twist my arm..."
Ilana takes her arm and starts twisting.
Ilana (excitedly): "Now twist my arm!!!!"
Alternately:
PB will say something like, "I'm hungry"
and instead of saying "me too", now that Ilana has had her birthday,
she now says, "me three"!
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Is English My Second Language?!
Because taking a second look at this email I wrote yesterday really frightened me. I actually wrote:
"You set of two soap molds shipping this morning and may be tracked here:"
Oh my gosh! That sounds like the back of the chopsticks package.....
I see that writing an email shortly before Shabbat while cutting and pasting from the USPS website is, perhaps, not the best idea. Thankfully, it was about soap and not about, say, an editing assignment.
"You set of two soap molds shipping this morning and may be tracked here:"
Oh my gosh! That sounds like the back of the chopsticks package.....
I see that writing an email shortly before Shabbat while cutting and pasting from the USPS website is, perhaps, not the best idea. Thankfully, it was about soap and not about, say, an editing assignment.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Grandma's Been Found!
Got a soap order that included 4 jumbo "Grandmother" soaps. Which was great, except that I couldn't find the Grandma soap mold anywhere. Chana looked. PB (who is only a beginning reader, so I don't know how much it helped) looked. I looked again....
Finally, after three days of tearing apart our huge selection of molds I found Grandma. Canoodling with the Grandpa mold in our silicone mold section, rather than in the plastic mold drawers they should have been in! I should have known there was hanky panky afoot!
The soaps came out very cute. I have a picture somewhere (maybe in the silicone mold section?!)
Finally, after three days of tearing apart our huge selection of molds I found Grandma. Canoodling with the Grandpa mold in our silicone mold section, rather than in the plastic mold drawers they should have been in! I should have known there was hanky panky afoot!
The soaps came out very cute. I have a picture somewhere (maybe in the silicone mold section?!)
Sam's response to Pat Oliphant
Sam's fabulous editorial response to Pat Oliphant's totally obnoxious, antisemitic editorial cartoon of 3/25. If you haven't seen the original, don't bother--your blood pressure doesn't need it....
Murray!
On Sunday, Julie took Batsheva, Chana and I to Symphony Hall to hear Murray Perahia. WOW. That man is amazing. And he even played Mozart (not piano concerto #11, my favorite, but still incredible).
It was fun to, for the first time, be able to yell "bravo" and have it be totally appropriate!
Julie, classical musician that she is, corrected me, however, from brandishing the lighter I had saved from the 1980s and yelling "Freebird". (She brought the score from one of the pieces he played, and that was neat to see it as well as hear it [to the extent that I could follow along even the teeniest bit])
On my own, I decided that throwing my nursing bra onstage was not really appropriate :)
It was fun to, for the first time, be able to yell "bravo" and have it be totally appropriate!
Julie, classical musician that she is, corrected me, however, from brandishing the lighter I had saved from the 1980s and yelling "Freebird". (She brought the score from one of the pieces he played, and that was neat to see it as well as hear it [to the extent that I could follow along even the teeniest bit])
On my own, I decided that throwing my nursing bra onstage was not really appropriate :)
'pooky. Vewwy 'pooky
Ilana loves to "p'ay bocks in the 'pooky fowwest", especially with Sam, who will look at me, nod his head sagely and say "we're in the POOOOOKY fowwest" as they build block creations. We have found, unexpectedly, that our house contains many spooky forests. Who knew?!
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Only in my house....
would the question "where is the matza meal?" be answered with
"on the dining room table, next to the Easter baskets".
We're having a good ol' time trying to figure out how to make Easter baskets, and wondering which of our surplus Purim supplies are not "too Jewish" to put in said baskets!
"on the dining room table, next to the Easter baskets".
We're having a good ol' time trying to figure out how to make Easter baskets, and wondering which of our surplus Purim supplies are not "too Jewish" to put in said baskets!
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Clarifications re. Sleeping Beauty
Today in carpool, Annabelle (4 1/2) was telling the story to Devorah (4). Because we were close to school, she said, "I'm just going to tell you the end. So she pricks her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel.........(pause). Is that right?"
Me: "Yup. They're just words we don't use often, but that's how you say it".
Annabelle: "So she's going to fall down dead, but then she just falls asleep for a long time and the prince has to come and kiss her on the lips. Do you get it, Devorah? It's GOT to be on the lips b/c his name is 'Phi-LIP', so it's gotta be on the lips!"
Me: "Yup. They're just words we don't use often, but that's how you say it".
Annabelle: "So she's going to fall down dead, but then she just falls asleep for a long time and the prince has to come and kiss her on the lips. Do you get it, Devorah? It's GOT to be on the lips b/c his name is 'Phi-LIP', so it's gotta be on the lips!"
Monday, January 26, 2009
My "SCD Success Story" post
sent to the two main SCD groups I'm on after a newbie posted asking for success stories....
"When my dd first started the SC diet, I found success stories very helpful, so here is ours:
My dd was dx'ed at age 8.5 w. a very severe case of Crohn's disease. It took us three months to get a proper dx, and, by that time, her SED rate was 95, which was so off-the-charts that, if the GI consult didn't pan out, our next stop was the cancer docs, b/c it was most likely to be lymphoma.....
She was hospitalized a week and we started the SC diet two days after she was discharged. It's been (and I can't believe I can say this)
2 1/2 years.
Everyone has their trials and challenges when they start the diet. Ours were that dh and I had been vegetarians since we were teens and we felt that it was really impossible to eat only dairy and eggs and have a complete diet on SCD. So we added some fish, chicken and meat to our diets. Since we are Jewish and keep kosher, this meant adding an entirely new set of dishes, pots, cabinets, etc, and re-learning how to keep a kosher kitchen with two sets of dishes in it, something I had not done since I was a child.
Our other big challenges were that we had a newborn baby (dd got sick when I was 7 months pregnant), and one of our four children has an anaphylactic allergy to nuts [editor's note: for those of you not familiar w. the SC diet: no grains of any kind are allowed. Nut flours are used instead of grains). Whee!
If we could make it through 2 1/2 years with this @#$^@#!$ against us, I hope I have given some inspiration that, whatever challenges you are facing in implementing the diet, it CAN be done.
We also had lots of good things to help us: very supportive family (including my mother and brother-in-law who cooked all off dd's nut products at their house so I wouldn't risk "dosing" the nut-allergic child), a GI doc who STRONGLY supports the SC diet and tries to get all his IBD patients to follow it, parents who came to help with the baby [my dad] and help me figure out what the heck to cook [my mom], and the financial ability (for a little while, at least!) to hire someone to come 3 hours 3x/week to clean the kitchen that I repeatedly and continually trashed cooking for six people.....It was also a big help that dd has always been homeschooled so we didn't have to deal with packing her lunches for school and dealing with tons of parties.
dd left the hospital on a ton of meds and has weaned off of prednisone, flagyl, prevacid, and (the last one to go) Imuran. She's been over 5 months totally med-free (no supplements either) with only the SC diet for treatment. We have begun experimenting with her having a few bites of things that aren't SCD, and she's had two complete meals off for major family events (one was a year ago and her GI doc gave approval since she had been symptom-free for quite a while).
I am starting to use some ingredients that are not completely SCD (I bought my first package of pre-shredded cheese in three years recently!).
The way that I've presented it to my dd is that it's great we have the SC diet "in our pocket" for the future. I picture her eating mostly SCD but without the diet-recommended fanaticism. Like how I heard that Elaine Gotschall's daughter ate/eats 80% SCD and 20% SAD (Standard American Diet). Maybe/probably there will be times in her life where she'll have to go back to it (for women, notably hormonal changes of adolescence and pregnancy/postpartum seem to induce bad flares), but how great we know something other than meds and surgery.
Wishing everyone on this list good health,
Ellen
11 y/o dd scd since 5/06 for Crohn's
med-free since 9/08"
"When my dd first started the SC diet, I found success stories very helpful, so here is ours:
My dd was dx'ed at age 8.5 w. a very severe case of Crohn's disease. It took us three months to get a proper dx, and, by that time, her SED rate was 95, which was so off-the-charts that, if the GI consult didn't pan out, our next stop was the cancer docs, b/c it was most likely to be lymphoma.....
She was hospitalized a week and we started the SC diet two days after she was discharged. It's been (and I can't believe I can say this)
2 1/2 years.
Everyone has their trials and challenges when they start the diet. Ours were that dh and I had been vegetarians since we were teens and we felt that it was really impossible to eat only dairy and eggs and have a complete diet on SCD. So we added some fish, chicken and meat to our diets. Since we are Jewish and keep kosher, this meant adding an entirely new set of dishes, pots, cabinets, etc, and re-learning how to keep a kosher kitchen with two sets of dishes in it, something I had not done since I was a child.
Our other big challenges were that we had a newborn baby (dd got sick when I was 7 months pregnant), and one of our four children has an anaphylactic allergy to nuts [editor's note: for those of you not familiar w. the SC diet: no grains of any kind are allowed. Nut flours are used instead of grains). Whee!
If we could make it through 2 1/2 years with this @#$^@#!$ against us, I hope I have given some inspiration that, whatever challenges you are facing in implementing the diet, it CAN be done.
We also had lots of good things to help us: very supportive family (including my mother and brother-in-law who cooked all off dd's nut products at their house so I wouldn't risk "dosing" the nut-allergic child), a GI doc who STRONGLY supports the SC diet and tries to get all his IBD patients to follow it, parents who came to help with the baby [my dad] and help me figure out what the heck to cook [my mom], and the financial ability (for a little while, at least!) to hire someone to come 3 hours 3x/week to clean the kitchen that I repeatedly and continually trashed cooking for six people.....It was also a big help that dd has always been homeschooled so we didn't have to deal with packing her lunches for school and dealing with tons of parties.
dd left the hospital on a ton of meds and has weaned off of prednisone, flagyl, prevacid, and (the last one to go) Imuran. She's been over 5 months totally med-free (no supplements either) with only the SC diet for treatment. We have begun experimenting with her having a few bites of things that aren't SCD, and she's had two complete meals off for major family events (one was a year ago and her GI doc gave approval since she had been symptom-free for quite a while).
I am starting to use some ingredients that are not completely SCD (I bought my first package of pre-shredded cheese in three years recently!).
The way that I've presented it to my dd is that it's great we have the SC diet "in our pocket" for the future. I picture her eating mostly SCD but without the diet-recommended fanaticism. Like how I heard that Elaine Gotschall's daughter ate/eats 80% SCD and 20% SAD (Standard American Diet). Maybe/probably there will be times in her life where she'll have to go back to it (for women, notably hormonal changes of adolescence and pregnancy/postpartum seem to induce bad flares), but how great we know something other than meds and surgery.
Wishing everyone on this list good health,
Ellen
11 y/o dd scd since 5/06 for Crohn's
med-free since 9/08"
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Ilana Makes Soup
Ilana is pretending to make me dinner.
She hands me a soup bowl and pours something from her little pot into it.
"Yum, Ilana! What kind of soup is it?"
"it's chicken....pox soup".
I don't know why I didn't want seconds!
She hands me a soup bowl and pours something from her little pot into it.
"Yum, Ilana! What kind of soup is it?"
"it's chicken....pox soup".
I don't know why I didn't want seconds!
Sweet Words
There are words that are so sweet to hear.....
"Mama"
"I love you"
"Harei at mekudeshet....." (the "I do" line of a Jewish wedding)
but I am still, two days later, so unbelievably happy at the words "former president George W. Bush"
"Mama"
"I love you"
"Harei at mekudeshet....." (the "I do" line of a Jewish wedding)
but I am still, two days later, so unbelievably happy at the words "former president George W. Bush"
Sunday, January 18, 2009
posting again
What can one say after writing about the worst thing that can happen to a parent?
sigh
A few weeks back, a small group of us went with Jodi, Jon and Jake to scatter Katie's ashes in the woods near Jodi's childhood home (they also scattered ashes near Jon's parents, and brought some back to Malaysia). This was the home where Heidi, Jodi and I spent so many hours together, and the woods that we knew like the backs of our hands when we were younger. How unbearably sad, utterly surreal, and, in a small way, comforting, to be there scattering Katie's ashes....
Jodi read a beautiful and moving farewell to Katie, telling her she would be with her grandfather Joe there, in the woods where Papa Joe had so delighted in taking Jodi and her brother and sisters to play pirates after making paper pirate hats with them. Jon read a prayer that had been said at the funeral. They asked Jake (who is 5) if he wanted to say something. He had been playing with sticks and said he had found one that looked like a "7", which was good because Katie was 7. He had a pile of them and said something like it was his pile of "loving sticks". G-d bless him. So we all started collecting loving sticks for the pile.
Jodi showed him and her great-nephew the "fairy ring" of rocks there. Her sister went way back into the woods to see if something she remembered was still there. We all marveled over how easily the house they grew up in could be seen (having mostly played there in spring and summer, it was usually impossible to see the house at all through the trees, and, since it was a whole block away, felt rather far!).
Shabbat was fast approaching. Heidi and I were emotional wrecks. So glad I could go, though.
Jodi, Jon and Jake are back in Malaysia again. Miss them....
sigh
A few weeks back, a small group of us went with Jodi, Jon and Jake to scatter Katie's ashes in the woods near Jodi's childhood home (they also scattered ashes near Jon's parents, and brought some back to Malaysia). This was the home where Heidi, Jodi and I spent so many hours together, and the woods that we knew like the backs of our hands when we were younger. How unbearably sad, utterly surreal, and, in a small way, comforting, to be there scattering Katie's ashes....
Jodi read a beautiful and moving farewell to Katie, telling her she would be with her grandfather Joe there, in the woods where Papa Joe had so delighted in taking Jodi and her brother and sisters to play pirates after making paper pirate hats with them. Jon read a prayer that had been said at the funeral. They asked Jake (who is 5) if he wanted to say something. He had been playing with sticks and said he had found one that looked like a "7", which was good because Katie was 7. He had a pile of them and said something like it was his pile of "loving sticks". G-d bless him. So we all started collecting loving sticks for the pile.
Jodi showed him and her great-nephew the "fairy ring" of rocks there. Her sister went way back into the woods to see if something she remembered was still there. We all marveled over how easily the house they grew up in could be seen (having mostly played there in spring and summer, it was usually impossible to see the house at all through the trees, and, since it was a whole block away, felt rather far!).
Shabbat was fast approaching. Heidi and I were emotional wrecks. So glad I could go, though.
Jodi, Jon and Jake are back in Malaysia again. Miss them....
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