I wrote this post back in February 2014, just as we embarked on a two year adventure of a detoxification and healing program. Maybe someday I will blog about that experience. But for now, this is a little snapshot of our imperfect but charmed life.
Wow. For the first three hours of today it seemed like catastrophes and stress bombs were going off non-stop.
It all started at 6 AM with Bruce crying. He didn’t stop crying when we got him out of his crib. The whining, crying “mama”s kept going as background music for the next hour. My own stress bomb was my abdominal pain (I thought I’d recovered from the flu by now). My stomach was acutely screaming at me again, the same as it was the night before. It was accompanied by it’s favorite friend, mr. headache. I try not to doom the whole day by how it starts out, because when I first get up in the morning is generally when I feel my worst. I don’t want anyone touching me until my pain goes down a few notches. So my poor husband was not well received when he came back to bed to hug me. All the while is the Brucester crooning his sad song in the background.
Kadie got up and asked me something. I don’t know if I coherently answered her.
Once I was up, I put my portable microcurrent machine on to try and give my body a little peace. We moved the circus downstairs where David asked me “what’s for breakfast?” Why does that question send stress signals to my brain? I had told him last night after he had finished rolling all the meatballs that that is what’s for breakfast. If I don’t write it on the marker board it’s harder to tell what’s going on, so I’ll give him that. It’s also an unusual choice of breakfast foods too. I’ve been making lot’s of changes to our diet lately, so it probably feels pretty stressful to him to not know what’s ok or not for which particular meal. He’s probably thinking “cereal would be so much easier.” At any rate, I don’t remember if I gave him an answer because my head and stomach hurt too much to think straight. I just started making breakfast while he started putting away the mountain of clean dishes and washing all the new ones I make for him.
Bruce’s incessant whines grew louder. Normally we put a binkie in his mouth, but recent tests showed mixed plastics to be the main stressor to his body right now. David was growing increasingly grouchy with him. He started grumbling about the dishes. I don’t blame him at all. It’s hard to get used to doing things differently when our dishwasher recently broke. I started to work as fast as I could to get Bruce pear sauce. Now why can’t I just dump some cold into a bowl for him? No. I must do things the hard way. I tried to warm up a bowl of it in the steamer so it would help his digestion. I ended up dropping it all over the rug. Bing. Another stab of pain due to the loss of hard work and expense to make homemade organic pear sauce.
After cleaning up as best we could, I put more in a pot to warm on the stove, served up three bowls, and started to add the specialized supplements for each child when Violet announced at the top of the stairs that she had a wet bed… I just kept going on the supplements so I could remember who’s was who’s and how much I had put in. When David figured out I wasn’t going up there, he stopped his dish washing and took care of her and started the washing machine.
I got Bruce his pear sauce. Check. Bruce scarfed it down all too quickly and returned to his whining. His crying got too unbearable for David and so he put the iPad in front of him at the table. Home videos come in handy at times, I must say.
Meatballs and broth were ready. I cooled it with a little cold broth and added some live probiotic sauerkraut juice to each bowl. I was annoyed at the stickiness of my socks from treading back and forth over the spilled pear sauce. (Who in their right minds puts carpet in the dining room?!) I got ready for the next battle with Bruce to get him to drink the broth/sauerkraut juice. I drew some up in a medicine syringe and, to my surprise, he took it with only a little fuss. Check!
Somewhere in the middle of all of this I checked to see if one treatment session was done on my microcurrent and found that the battery was too low. It had stopped. Ugh. Time to hunt for batteries and try again.
Meanwhile the washing machine was thumping around rather loudly. I was trying not to stress about waking the neighbors at 7am with all the racket (we share walls in a row of townhomes). At one point I heard a particularly loud thump, but quickly dismissed it as I had other time sensitive things to do.
Everybody ate. I mashed up avocado to add to the meal of meatballs. Kadie and Vi requested sauerkraut. All the while I was figuring out what Kadie should have for her lunch and snacks. David brought in the cooked rice from the garage. We are trying to go grain free but can’t eat enough other foods (allergies) to do it quite yet. More meatballs, broth and a little rice for Kadie’s metal thermos (getting rid of lots of plastic eating things). More sauerkraut for before her meal. I chopped carrots, ripped off a piece of broccoli, and peeled and sliced cucumbers for snack number one, and sliced half an apple for snack number two. David got her in the car, came back for her lunch. Don’t forget a little love note on a napkin for my sweet Kadie girl! Whew! Got her out the door sort of on time.
Bruce was asking for rice and more avocado. Good! I’m relieved he has an appetite, which isn’t always the case. He stopped eating after two bowls full and told me he had to poo. I just let him down instead of sit with him while he was on the potty as I was trying to get David’s lunch packed.
Bruce’s poo… well, let’s just say the poor boy was fussy for a reason, and now he needed a bath. David surprised with his return home, as I was still in my pain fog. Before he could walk out the door to catch the max to work, I had discovered the loud thump from upstairs was the whole tub of cleaning powder crashing to the floor off of the washer. David brought up the vacuum for me and was about to clean up, but I kissed him and shooed him away to work.
Whew! What a crazy morning! Then I sat down and read today’s devotional verse: “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.” James 1:2
As I recounted everything that went wrong, I started to see all the little nice things that happened as well.
