No crowd at the mall today...the Gluten Free one that is

For some one that is short on time and occasionally short on kitchen skills, it sure took me a long time to dig around on the internet to find pre-packaged--frozen--ready made meals. But yesterday, as I was sitting down cleaning out a big pile of "to do" things, I found an email address I had saved for the Gluten Free Mall.

And $137 later, we are going to try out two brands of chicken nuggets, lasagna, fish sticks, carrot cake, brownies, and many other types of frozen items. I was shopping like mad going through those web pages yesterday.....finally "Schwan's" for my son who is on the GF/CF diet.

I made a promise to myself a long time ago that if I could find GF/CF foods that were good, easy to prepare, and types that my kids love like lasagna, brownies, and nuggets that we all might start on the GF/CF diet. I don't think it would hurt any of our household to eat this way. Sure, some of you who live where I do, might be thinking that we do have a store or two that carries these similar frozen items, but either the brand hasn't been one that my son would eat or it was simple math. Simple math meaning that a small serving of brownies for about ten or eleven dollars does not equal something that I want to buy a couple of times per week. HA. :)

I will keep everyone updated on how quickly these purchases arrive and how my kids enjoy eating them.

Kuddos to a fellow spectrum family

I just have to start this out with a great big compliment to my friend, Heidi. She is the mom of a wonderful little boy who is on the spectrum. We sometimes have a lot of negative stories on our blogs because life can just be tough sometimes but this is so awesome I had to share it. She and her son are both performing in a local play. I am so sad because we cannot get tickets...the play is sold out for the entire run! Which is fabulous. I just think that speaks volumes to what great parenting does for our kids. She has a fabulous son and I just think it is wonderful that they get this great opportunity to be in this play together.

As for our household, it has been pretty good. We took two of the kids to a family wedding in Texas. Packy stayed home with his grammy; his little brother stayed also. I think that has probably upset his schedule a little bit because he has been pretty stimmy. He keeps running that low grade fever which I have a feeling is part of the strep infection......(refer back to a prior column on PANDAS). He is doing his 8th IVIG on January 5th. I think the IVIG has really helped him in addition to the vancomycin and the arithromycin. Right now, he is not taking anything other than some Motrin to keep the fever knocked down. We are hypothesizing that the low grade fever probably has a headache along with it. He has had some acting out the last couple of days...some yelling, some silly talking etc. After the Motrin he settles down, all the yelling, silly movie talking stops.

Patrick has a great behavior therapist, Ms. Joni, who is integral in his home schooling. I posted a photo of her with the kids. The other photo shows the kids all dressed up for a party and play that she worked with them on. She helped them make costumes for a Thanksgiving play and they wrote out parts. The kids even used props they found around the house. It was a very impressive little show! :)

We hit another milestone in November, the day after Patrick's 7th birthday, my husband and I celebrated our Ten year wedding anniversary. Not that we haven't had our rough moments, we hit a really bad spot about two years ago, but it seems like the last while has been really good. We laughed and said that celebrating ten years is like the "new silver" anniversary. HA. I think we have finally gotten to a good place with working out our parenting and understanding what both of us can and cannot contribute.

The most important thing is that we have a happy family and I think that from the smiles on the four kids faces that we are accomplishing that. My prayer this Christmas season is that all families who are dealing with autism issues will have peace and that someone, somewhere can find some answers to the myraid questions involving this epidemic.

One Happy Little Guy

Patrick has really enjoyed spending some time riding the horses. Things are still going really well for him. We had an IVIG two weeks ago and he is doing great. He is a little stimmy but I have a feeling that we are needing some Diflucan for him. We have had some really great moments this fall.

Pleassse....don't get me wrong.....we still have major struggles with autism and all the adjoining issues but overall, we have had some great things going on.

We have been very strict on his gluten free diet in addition to making sure he gets his HBOT therapy in (which we are still working on getting him in there more). I have to say that I feel he is healthier than he has ever been. I would attribute that to the IVIG...he has had seven now.

I hit a few rough spots as a parent where I let myself feel down. I wasn't sure if I was doing the right things to help Packy. I questioned the biomedical we were doing and thought maybe we had hit this plateau that we couldn't seem to rise above.

However, I feel good in knowing that it was just a speed bump and that I was right to hang in there. It gets hard at times, but it sure is worth it. Every time I look at the smile on Patrick's face or he says "I love you mama" then I know that everything we do biomedically is worth it.