Our Busy Week and a Few Links to Fun Stuff

We are experiencing some busy and stressful days, lately. I've been hoping to have time to review a couple of things here, but I can't seem to gather enough coherent thought to actually write any reviews. Hopefully by next week.  Of course, the world is trembling in anticipation to read my tedious thoughts on math curriculum.


Our biggest concern, this week, is Max. He is scheduled for a procedure at the hospital in two days. To say it will be epic and terrible is not me being a drama queen. When neurotypical children are afraid of the hospital, one can reason and comfort them through their fears. With Max, reason is impossible. The question is How many health professionals will he kick and hit before the day is through? We are trying to prepare him as well as we can, but I doubt it will have any bearing on his behavior. He's a kid who screams during baths, and can't even have his hair combed without yelling. The sensation of baths and combs feels like real pain to him. This procedure will involve actual pain combined with a place he is unfamiliar with and strangers with needles. I would do anything to spare him this trip to the hospital. I hate for my sweet, little guy to go through this, but it's necessary. To make up for everything, we are throwing our frugality in the toilet to buy him a huge, ridiculously expensive Lego set he's been coveting. Mom Guilt: Making children's dreams come true since the beginning of time...

But enough worry and complaining. Here are a few links to cool stuff I found this week.

Bess is nuts about anything to do with ancient Egypt and archaeology, so I thought it would be fun to try out this Mummification of Barbie. That's the plan for next week.

Since the kids have been begging me for a big, crafty project, I thought we'd also try this Geometric Art project. Both of them love painting, and the weather has been cool enough so we might be able to do this outdoors.

We're about to read The Great Wall of China which came with our BookShark curriculum.

We've chosen to make our own Styrofoam Great Wall. Max and Bess are super excited. If Max has anything to do with it, many brave Lego men will die in battle on top of that wall.








And here's one last link: One family's BookShark Box Day on youtube. I love box day even when it is someone else's. I'm looking forward to more BookSharkers posting videos. Yes, BookSharkers is a word, despite what spell check says. As Bess is fond of telling me, when she makes up words, "I wrote it, so it's a word." Hard to argue with that logic.

Until Next Time!

Archaeology, and the GFDF diet so far

We've been having a ball reading about and playing at archaeology this week. We read Archaeologists Dig for Clues and Tut's Mummy Lost and Found which both came with our Sonlight Core B materials, and supplemented with dig magazine and the Geosafari Egyptian Dig kit. The kit was fun, but not terribly educational. We found at least one inaccuracy in the history pamphlet which came with it. But Max and Bess had fun making a mess, and afterward they created their own dig in the backyard. They found lots of acorns and one rock which led to a half hour argument about who owned said rock, because apparently it's a valuable dinosaur bone the likes of which the paleontology community has never seen. Fortunately, they settled it out of court. The acorns were cataloged as proof of an ancient squirrel civilization.

Archaeologists at Work

A few weeks ago, we put Max on a gluten-free, dairy-free diet for his GI symptoms(chronic diarrhea accompanied by slow weight gain). Many children on the autism spectrum have issues with gluten and dairy. We've been pleasantly surprised by Max having fewer temper tantrums and being much more talkative since the change. I'm not saying it's a direct result of the diet, because I'm sort of a skeptic about anything that isn't proven in a controlled, clinical study. I'm just making an observation. It's possible the change in diet happened to coincide with a cognitive jump. It's not unusual for Max to be completely incapable of doing something one week, and then become a master of it the next. So I don't know. But here are the changes I think can definitely be attributed to the diet change: fewer GI problems, better sleep, and increased appetite.

I'm not a natural when it comes to gluten-free cooking, but I'm slowly learning. It feels odd to have eggs in the house again, as we've been vegan for years. But Max is very picky about the texture of the foods he eats, and vegan/gluten-free foods were not getting eaten. So we buy eggs now. I only purchase free-range from a nice,local farmer, but I'm not naive enough to think the hens are sent to a retirement community when they stop laying. We are choosing our son's health over our moral stance. Maybe, one day, we will be in a situation where we can raise our own chickens who will have full access to retirement benefits.

I've created a page here for gfdf recipes and product reviews which I will periodically update.

Until next time!