Unexpected Turns in the Road......

Well, it has been a really long time since I blogged. I guess it is time for me to fill you in on some details that have changed drastically in my family's life.

First of all, approximately one week before I was to return to College fulltime for the Fall semester....I came across a bump...that thwarted me from that journey. I discovered over the summer that Audrianna was struggling with being able to focus in school. When school started for the kids in August, I discovered that my once happy-go-lucky sweet girl was very upset and struggling more than I ever knew. She couldn't seem to be able to keep herself focused on her work, without the world pulling her away. The week before school started she began to tell me how much she would really like to be homeschooled. This was a path she was familiar with, because we had homeschooled 4 years prior to this. At the same time, during the summer God had begun to work on my heart. He had again returned the love of homeschooling to me, that I once had. After just two days and hours of homework in the evening and morning, the solution was obvious. The only problem was the answer that I was seeking didn't seem to come, just the answer that I already knew.....and that was that I was suppose to homeschool her. It wasn't that I didn't want to homeschool her. I was just having a difficult time giving up what I loved and that was learning and getting my degree.

By Thursday(day 4), I had fully engaged this decision and by the afternoon I had spoken with all 4 of my kids and given each of them the decision to come home or stay where they were. Everyone decided that they would like to remain at the Lutheran School. On Friday, I informed the school and Audrianna was able to say good-bye to her classmates. I spent the day at the college dropping out and talking to my professors about what was going on. It was a really rough day, but I made it through...with God's strength.

We started our homeschooling journey on August 17, 2009. We have good days and bad days, which is to be expected in any situation. Her focus has improved and continues to improve, due to some more changes that we are going through.

After a great deal of research, we decided to implement a new eating plan for our family. All of the information that I researched led me back to the same place and that place is www.feingold.org. This company believes(as do I) that there is a link between the food that we eat and behavior. This company is also a non-proft organization. From the company, you get information that helps you to remove all of the harmful preservatives and artificials that are in our food. These preservatives are used to keep the food in the stores longer. The problem is that many adults and children are sensitive to these chemicals. These preservatives are made with petroleum. Petroleum is for cars, not for us! You may think this is crazy and yes it is crazy! What is even more crazy is that the government knows about this and won't do anything about it. These same artificial colors, flavors, and sweetners have been removed in other countries, but not in ours. What is wrong with that picture? Okay, I am done complaining about the government. The research is clear that there is a HUGE link between Behavioral, Learning/Development, & Health/Physical reactions to artificial colors, flavors, sweetners, BHA, BHT, & TBHQ.

The Program is basically an elimination diet, consisting of 2 stages. The first stage helps you remove all of the above harmful items, plus a certain amount of natural salicylates. Salicylates are naturally found in many fruits and veggies. Salicylates are things that people that are allergy sensitive, tend to be allergic too. The first stage is approximately 4-6 weeks, but it really depends on when you or your family stop having reactions and become stable on stage one. This really will depend on how faithful and consistent that you are with the program. It is different for everyone. If you are still having symptoms when you reach the 4-6 week mark, you must continue until you have determined what is causing the problem.

This is the point that we are at. We reached the four week mark of charting. You chart each meal and reactions such as: physical or behavioral symptoms for each person. It is amazing how you can track down specific things that bother each person. Currently, we are trying to figure out why Jaden continues to have a rash on his face. We have been consistently charting for 4 weeks and having changed our diets, personal products(such as toothpaste, soaps, shampoos, etc.), but he continues to have a rash around his mouth. I know that we need to figure this out before we move on. After some research and some advice from fellow Feingolders, we have decided to remove dairy for one week and see if his symptoms improve and then we will reintroduce and see what happens. We started on Saturday, but a slight glitch has caused us to restart our week again this morning. We are currently drinking Vanilla Rice Milk, which isn't that bad once you get used to it. Hopefully, this will be temporary....but we all know that the possibility exists that somebody just might be allergic or even lactose intolerant. We will just have to wait and see. The changes in the children have all been noticeable, somedays they are more apparent than others. Reactions are my least favorite part of all of this, but I am learning that they expose the changes....that I didn't notice at first! It is amazing when the old behaviors return with a reaction, when I was questioning if there were changes at all. I would love to give anyone more information about this amazing diet plan. Please feel free to ask anything!