Indiscretions and Exercise

This weekend has had its fair share of dietary indiscretions. For starters, Saturday mornings seem incomplete without syrup and something cakey. So, I made whole wheat waffles and we ate them with Agave Nectar, which is very much like maple syrup, but less watery.

That wasn’t too bad.

Saturday night, however, was Scout night with the Dallas Stars and Z and his dad went to the hockey game where they indulged on pulled pork nachos and… da da da daaaaa cotton candy!

Sunday morning we started our day with the appropriate protein and caffeine, and in addition began the Attend supplement. Z sat relatively well through the church service, and I actually received four comments from friends sitting behind us who said they were impressed with how well he did. Feeling super proud of the little guy, I went to pick him up after Sunday School only to find that he had not been so well behaved there. He had placed his name tag on his bottom and refused to move it, had made inappropriate noises during the lesson, and wrote his name in crayon on the table top, five times! His teachers were very encouraging, but I was very embarrassed.

With a brain consumed by the morning events, my car somehow drove itself to my favorite Italian restaurant where I post haste ordered a feast of grilled chicken, prosciutto, mushrooms, pasta, lemon, butter, olive oil, bread, mozzarella, feta, and parmesan…. followed by tiramisu. To my credit, this was the first time in 34 years that I left half a tiramisu on the plate. I simply could not finish it. I came home, plugged in Star Wars and fell into a deep slumbery Sunday afternoon nap.


When I woke I laid in bed for a while and meditated on the days events, our dietary journey, and my failures and successes moving us through it. I realized the peace and sense of ability that has steadily increased in me over the past few weeks. I've gone from utterly overwhelmed and needing to get us to a state of "fixed" ... to a willingness and openness to take each day as it comes and deal with it the way God has empowered me to do so. I recognized that I’ve been supremely stressed out and filled with worry about what decision to with Z, and once that decisions made, even more worrisome that it was not the right one. Our sermon this morning was on nothing other than worry and how we allow Satan to be victor with it consumes our lives.

The words that kept entering my mind were, one day at a time, do the best you can, and let God handle the rest. The movie now over, I could hear Z had gone on to his bedroom to reenact the scenes with his action figures. In my best effort to put on my big girl britches and be carefree, I told Z to get his tennis shoes on and we set out for an early evening bike ride.

This being our second attempt to ride together, I knew to expect the first quarter mile to be up hill. Then, we would reach the mostly level trail. I pushed, and pushed, and pushed ... all the way up to the top. Well, almost to the top. When I had the trail entrance in site I heard Z yell out from behind me… “mommy slow down.” I knew if I slowed down I would never make it, and I was right. I stopped and waited for him to reach me and that is were we stayed for the next three to four minutes while I endeavored to catch my runaway breath. Unsuccessful, I walked my bike to the trail entrance. We rode for a good little bit, but did not make it to the end of the trail. My body failed me and I turned us around, with tomorrows goal being to actually reach the end. Home is downhill, no pedaling involved so we were back to our house lickedy split.

My heart still pounding and my throat sore from sucking in deep breaths of cool night air, I sent Z to the bathtub and fell backward onto the sofa to recover. Once the shock wore of, I was nauseated. So I ate a banana and fixed Z a light dinner. I threw away the leftover container from our Italian feast and vowed to never again mix indiscretions with exercise.

Even as miserable as it was, I will conquer riding a bike. It will one day be as fun as it used to be. So far this journey to health has been very different than I expected. It’s been easier in many ways and tougher in some. The best thing is that it’s teaching me to slow down and to realize and enjoy the goodness God has provided through nature. I'm also learning to enjoy the provisions of grace, forgiveness, and the peace that comes by relinquishing control and trusting God.

A little bit of India and some of Italy...

My childhood best friend and her family have moved to the very city we call home! Her husband is a minister and for a few years now they have been patiently waiting for God’s direction. They have recently received a much awaited answer to prayer, and with it so have I. I love where we live, as well as the people here who have blessed our lives. But I still long for the friendships I once knew. She and I haven’t lived near each other in almost twenty years… and twenty years ago we were inseparable. So needless to say, their relocation has me very excited.

To welcome them, Tuesday I prepared a grilled hamburger dinner with steamed veggies and an assortment of fruit. We dined, visited, and the kids played... it was a great evening. Unfortunately, Z woke about 1 am Wednesday morning with severe vomiting that lasted almost six hours. I nursed him back with oatmeal and rice, and by dinner he was ready for a peanut butter sandwich.

I am still in search of something other than peanut butter that I can offer on a sandwich.

Today he’s feeling much better and was happily ready to go back to school. This morning's protein shake was altered a little by lessening the amount of protein to two tablespoons, and using ½ tea and ½ organic pressed apple juice – not from concentrate. He really liked this one. I added the protein at the end and stirred it in to keep the consistency of a smoothie so it would be less like drinking air.

Lunch for Z was another peanut butter sandwich on ezekiel bread, with a couple clementine’s and iced tea. I had a mid-morning meeting so by the time lunch rolled around for me I was starving! Not sure what to eat, I perused the pantry and refrigerator a couple times before deciding to try the Holy Land hummus with roasted red pepper. I was pleasantly surprised with the explosion of flavor and the wheels in my brain started churning. I decided it would be really good mixed with rice and tomato. I started the rice and diced up a roma tomato and waited. And waited. And waited… brown rice takes 45 min to cook so it’s usually better to plan ahead when using it. While waiting I sliced up a few strawberries and ate them outside. I came back in and still had a lot of time left, so I snapped off a broccoli floret and dipped it into the hummus. It was so good, that chopped up the remaining head of broccoli and tossed that into my bowl of patiently waiting diced tomato. Finally, when the rice was ready, I drained it, dumped it into the bowl, then added two heaping tablespoons of hummus. Quickly I stirred that up and dove in. This dish now tops the list of my all-time favorite meals. Very savory and flavorful, and took me through the remainder of my day feeling great.

my favorite meal of rice, hummus, tomato and broccoli

The 4pm phone call from Z’s teacher diminished that great feeling. I was glad she called, but each of our conversations leave me with an overwhelming feeling of her incompetence. I know, that’s harsh. As I’ve mentioned before, we have been blessed with amazing teachers up to this point… but this year has been rough in so many ways. On several occasions Ms. X, as I’ll call her, has expressed her exasperation with Z and has no problem admitting that she has no idea what to do with him or how to handle his behaviors. This is her 18th year to teach, and I honestly do not know how she has made it this far. I only hope that our future teachers will have a better handle on how to direct a difficult child. Today, she relayed to me a conversation that she and Z were having which started with her questioning Z about his work, and ended with him saying to her “I’m not going to argue with you about this anymore.” She expressed to me her concern that he took over the authority in that situation. When I asked her how she handled it, she said she was really just confused by it and didn’t know what to say, so therefore just walked away. Hmmm. Well, that explains a lot. As nicely as I could, I explained to her that she should have immediately corrected him and let him know who’s in charge. She agreed, as she always does, but I don’t see that happening. Every suggestion I make, she is responsive to, but when it comes down to it and she is in a situation with Z that requires immediate response, she flounders and eventually becomes overwhelmed. She’s exasperated, confused, and in my opinion inadequately equipped to handle a challenging child. Z has also reported to me on many occasions inappropriate things she has said to him, that I’ve had to address with the administration. She becomes overwhelmed and because she cannot handle the situation appropriately, she resorts to demeaning and hurtful remarks. It’s just been a bad year.

I’ve been pretty open with Z and we discuss things in an almost adult-like manner. I do my best to support Ms. X, especially when speaking to Z, and he knows my expectation is for him to respect and obey all his teachers. For the most part, each of them are able to get him back on track. That’s not to say anyone has had it easy with him, but it all boils down to who is in control… and Ms. X is letting Z win. Our conversation ended with her agreeing that she needed to be more in control. She was heading off to her class, she's getting her Masters degree in education... but later this evening she would review a cd she has on how to handle a defiant child.
I'm just at a loss.

When it was time for dinner, I was feeling pretty discouraged and decided to sit on the patio for a bit and take in the beautiful Central Texas evening. Seeing all that fresh basil I have growing in my herb garden made me decide to somehow incorporate basil into dinner. All this from scratch cooking requires either lots of planning or complete spontaneity. Because I’ve been too busy to plan, spontaneity has been my guide. The only dish I could think of with basil was insalata caprese, so I just went with it. We can't have cheese, so I decided to incorporate the flavors into our standard chicken and rice staples. First I put on the rice… for obvious reasons. Then, in the wok (which has become my favorite pan) I heated a little evoo. Before adding the tomato and basil, I tossed in a small sliced onion just because caramelized onion makes any dish better. To the onion, tomato, and basil mixture, I added thinly sliced chicken breast. I’ve found that slicing chicken very thin and cooking it quickly makes for the tastiest morsels. Although it did not have the taste of caprese, it was very good. Z’s favorite dish so far, he even had seconds.

chicken caprese, a la carrie

We see the Neurologist tomorrow. I have no idea how he’s going to take our new plan. We shall see.

Ciao. Namaste.

Carrie