I had already been wondering for some time if Lucie had some kind of food sensitivity. She never yet managed to sleep through the night, and not because she didn't try, but because her intestines where troubling her (or that's what my observations where, she cannot tell yet, poor dear). The aftermath of her first birthday (she woke up screaming, at least 12 times that night) left me convinced. She had always been such an sweet and easy child, and her frequent colds nor her first four teeth coming through had influenced her cheerful mood. But something in her food had. Of late she had become increasingly irritable, her appetite dwindled and she had gotten so restless and hyperactive she resembled a human bouncing ball. I turned to my invaluable
Mothering Dot Commune to look for clues, and the allergy board provided some enlightening information on the subject. What if Lucie's digestive system didn't agree with wheat/gluten, eggs or diary? She had hardly been interested in eating any solids until 10 months of age, and that exhausting night it finally dawned on me that her foul mood and colicky behaviour had also started -and gotten worse and worse- over those exact two months, just as her intake of solids had increased little by little. She still nursed a lot and wasn't eating anything fancy: some 'safe' fresh fruits and vegetables, potatoes, bread and occasionally a little plain yogurt. But at her first birthday she had enjoyed rather a large piece of her birthday cake, and when I came to think of it: all three suspicious foods were in there: wheat, eggs and diary. Obviously we needed to get to the bottom of this. I would keep her gluten free, egg free and diary free for some weeks and see what happened, and then one by one introduce them again. She improved quit a bit the first few days: night wakings were reduced by some 80%, and her mood cleared up immensely. After 4 days we experienced a setback that seemed to last and last, and I reckoned that since breast milk is still a major part of her diet, I'd better go gluten free too. Anything to resolve this, and get some sleep! And then the miracle happened. She only woke up once or twice a night to nurse, rolled over contentedly and slept on!!! When we cautiously re-introduced eggs: nothing happened. We also found out she can have hard cheese, plus lactose free milk. So: dairy is in, gluten is out. Over the past 6 months we've been busy getting used to our new gluten free life and although we had many a setback, once we got the hang of it gluten is no longer the party pooper at our house ;-)
Which has left me with a new challenge: gluten free baking! I'll be posting links to some real fabulous recipes I tried, but for now here's a pic of my first try at a flourless chocolate cake. This recipe is found at:
thirtyfivebythirtyfive.blogspot.com Baking it, sad thoughts of a life-long diet made way for shiny new horizons: there are thousands of recipes out there, just waiting to be tried (and/or modified)!
Our sweet Lucie is going to eat well, and her home will smell of freshly baked goodies ever so often!
This is what baby shower present you're bound to get when your parents named you Rafaël... Although the final result is OK, this wasn't one of my most successful projects :-(
When I stumbled upon this delightful (and free!) paper model by Fantasy cutouts.com, I thought my daughter might like to do a room box project with me. A shoebox was found quickly enough (my sisters don't call me Imelda for nothing LOL!). We collected some moss from the garden, and cut out landscapes from an old magazine for a background. With glue and sand we made a winding path to lead right up to the front door of the little shack. The shoe box proved too small for the cottage though, and she kept taking it out anyway, so the project was never really completed, that is to say... in my eyes it wasn't. I guess the concept of making this box 'just to look at' was a bit lost on my three year old ;-)) Laura sees it quite differently: she lets her tiny horses and care bears play in the 'miniature garden', as she calls it, with a swing, a slide and a seesaw. The cottage she just puts up wherever she fancies it, in the window between the plant pots for example. The roof is removable, so the cute little farm animals can stay indoors when it's cold outside. They are also free cutouts, located at Agence eureka (blog entry of January 22). I found her through Meggiecat, who's lovely and generous blog I truly like. Check them out, if you haven't done so already!
Half a year has gone by like a whirlwind, with no time to craft, let alone post to my blog! Slowly, ever so slowly, our baby is now learning to sleep through the night, leaving me a little less exhausted than I have been all these months. Arrival of the spring season makes me want to clean up and finish all those projects that had been put on hold! As each year, by the end of winter, mice become a real pest at our house. They raid our laundry basket and eat the stains in the children's clothes, thereby ruining many a favourite piece ;( Ofcourse I'm to blame too: because I can't bear to kill them, we set live traps an expell them from the house when we catch 'em. I bet they slip right back in when our backs are turned ;) Last week I found my daughters bow hairband full of holes, and man, was I vexed!!! Taking apart what was left of it, I proceeded to make a new one right away, taking pictures as I went. This little tutorial came out of it. Enjoy!
