Author Archives: Melissa | Growing Green Nutrition

Family stomach weirding

On several occasions, I’ve thought about writing a blog post on our eating habits and how they contribute to good gastrointestinal health (I haven’t done a study, but I feel like we contract GI bugs at a lower than average rate, and I imagine that our high-fiber, high-prebiotic, low processed food diet has a good bit to do with that).  Anyhow, I’m not superstitious, per se, but writing such a post seemed like tempting fate a bit too much — you know, write post, get slammed with stomach bug from hell — so I never wrote it.

Of course, generally good health or no, we all get sick once in awhile.  Many stomach bugs hit fast and hard, but then they’re over.  Or not . . . .

Our timeline:

  • January 28: G has some kind of 24-hour-ish stomach bug.  It hits fast and hard, with three hours of vomiting starting in the early morning hours.  By the next morning, he’s almost back to normal (but we kept him home from school).
  • January 28-29: Matthew and I both felt a bit off; Matthew enough so that he stayed home from work on the day G was sick, thinking that he might decline quickly, but that never happened.  In general, we had mild nausea, lack of appetite, fatigue, and feelings of being overfull when we did eat.
  • January 30-31: We think we’re out of the woods.
  • February 3: Matthew wakes up feeling not so great.  Stays home from work, continues feeling bad, and finally vomits late in the afternoon, after which point he feels much better.
  • February 3-4: I have similar, low-level GI symptoms as in the previous week.  I’m not sure if I actually have a mild case of something, or if it’s simply the power of suggestion.
  • Several days of feeling pretty normal.
  • February 11: I start feeling pretty yucky after lunch; after a few hours on the couch, I feel better.

Since then, we’ve all had intermittent “weirdness.”  I had a 36-hour period where I was burping almost constantly, and I felt overfull anytime I ate anything.  My burping subsided, but it seems to have infected Gabriel (it’s clearly not something he’s doing on purpose or to be funny, but something he can’t control — he calls it “hiccuping,” but it’s not).

G has also had several instances of low appetite, enough episodes clustered close enough together to be odd, and not just normal preschooler appetite fluctuations.  Matthew and I both continue to have intermittent instances of low appetite, feeling overfull, very mild nausea, and/or mild stomach cramping.

We’re not sick exactly, but it also seems that we’re not 100% well.  I think our GI flora (i.e., the normal population of “friendly” gut bacteria) got thrown out of whack back in late January and never got back on track.  The high-fiber foods that are good for GI health in healthy guts are currently not our friends.  We’ve been intentionally upping our yogurt intake, trying to reintroduce some good bacteria, but I’ve been at it for two weeks with little effect.

I found this study talking about cases of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) that start after a gastrointestinal infection, and that kind-of sounds like what we’re dealing with.  I’m also looking at information on small intestine bacterial overgrowth.

I’m ready to go ahead and try a probiotic supplement (pill form, instead of just the yogurt) to get things back on track, because I’m really ready [for all three of us] to get off this grumpy stomach roller coaster.

Bicycle boy’s new ride

Ten days ago, on a bitterly cold Sunday morning, I ventured to West County to check out a Specialized Hot Rock.  Big thanks to reader Melissa for pointing out this listing on Craigslist (and for sharing her positive experience with this bike)!  I’m pretty sure I’d skimmed right over this listing multiple times, probably due to “Hot” making me think of the Hot Wheels bikes, and the fact that, although I know that Specialized is a good brand of bicycle, my radar was looking for Giant and Trek, since those are the brands of kids’ bikes that I’d looked at in bike shops.

Anyhow, the bike was well-loved, but the price was right (or right-ish; it didn’t come with training wheels, and I might have tried to bargain more if I’d known that new training wheels would cost $25 — in my head I was maybe thinking half that?).

Here she is:

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It could use new hand grips, and I’m thinking something colorful would be nice.  The current Hot Rocks come with chain guards, and we’re looking into adding one, but it may be more trouble than it’s worth.

Unfortunately, the weather is conspiring against us, so we have yet to even SHOW the bike to Gabriel.  We’d really like him to be able to hop on and ride when he first sees it.

The Sunday I brought it home was just too bitterly cold.  I mean, we probably could have bundled up and gone out, but it didn’t sound fun AT ALL.  That night, we got our first significant snow of the year, and for the next week, he would have needed studded tires to ride the thing.  And then more bitter cold.

The bike is nice and light, which was one of our goals in getting a bike-shop bike.  It has coaster brakes instead of hand brakes, which is not my first choice, but it should be fine for a first bike (and probably less confusing than having both coaster and hand brakes).

If you’ve been reading for awhile, you’re probably aware that our plan was to do the balance bike thing and skip the training wheel phase.  At this point, I would say that we’ve sort-of done the balance bike thing.

G has had his Strider balance bike for over two years now.  He’s perfectly happy to scoot around on the thing, but I can’t get him to take his feet off the ground.  In general, he’s somewhat cautious/risk-averse, so, while this is a bit frustrating, it’s not terribly surprising (and we’ve benefited from his cautious nature in other ways, no doubt).

Anyhow, we’re planning to introduce the new bike without training wheels, but I’m keeping my expectations in check.  I really doubt it will work, but it will be easier to add training wheels (I already bought a set) than to take them off.  Now we just need the weather to cooperate!

 

Wearing wool

I’d been considering trying a few pieces of merino wool clothing for over four years, after trying on a few Icebreaker items in late 2010.  At the time, I was several weeks pregnant with G, and I didn’t think I’d get much use out of the well-fitted clothing while pregnant, so I tabled the idea.

I’ve also been hesitant to invest in wool due to pest problems.  While we don’t have any visible moths, Matthew has lost several nice wool sweaters and vests to moth larvae, and I didn’t want to go that route.  (I have some SmartWool hiking socks that have been problem-free, but they are a wool blend, not 100% wool, and I think that makes a big difference.)

Anyhow, after my friend Rebecca (Fiets of STyLe) raved about the Icebreaker underwear as something that doesn’t feel gross during sweaty, hot-weather biking, I put trying a pair on my “things to do somewhat soon” list.  I finally got around to ordering some Icebreaker items after picking up a couple of merino wool items from another brand, Dakini (two light-weight sweaters and a pair of leggings for a great price at TJ Maxx).

The Dakini purchase spurred me to actually look at the Icebreaker website, and I was just in time for their winter sale.  Of course, I felt the need to get to the $100 free shipping level (they offer free returns on all orders), so in addition to ordering two pair of underwear, I also tried some tanks, long-sleeve tops, leggings, a variety of hats . . . well, let’s just say it turned into THREE different orders.  Oops!

0206151550-01In the end, I kept two pair of underwear, two tank tops, and a thin beanie (pictured above) that works under my bike helmet.

Even on sale, I’m pretty sure this is the most I’ve ever paid for a pair of underwear; I usually go for the 5-pack for $10 variety, so the per pair cost was 10x what I usually pay.  My friend assures me it’s worth it.

IMG_6763While both the Dakini and Icebreaker merino wool is very nice, at present, my sensitive torso begs to differ with their claims of “itch-less” wool.  I can do the wool underwear, and the leggings (in small doses), and the long-sleeved shirts with a cotton t-shirt underneath them, but I can’t handle the wool directly against my back, stomach, or chest.  I’m hoping that it’s just just my overly sensitive winter skin (which is much better this year compared to previous years), and that I’ll be able to wear the tanks come summer.  If not, I think I can still return them.  (If I am okay with wool-on-torso in the summer, I may try one of Icebreaker’s very lightest-weight long sleeve tops as a sun shirt.)

My efforts to prevent moth issues include:

  • Relatively frequent washing.  All of these pieces are machine washable.  The Dakini directions say “delicate cycle.”  While the Icebreaker pieces say that the regular cycle is fine, I’d just as soon baby them.  Unfortunately, our washing machine doesn’t have a delicate cycle, so I’m stuck washing by hand.  Clean, wet wool smells like [clean] wet dog.
  • Bagging.  I’m storing all of the clean items in plastic freezer bags.  Theoretically, moths should not be attracted to clean wool (it’s the body oils and food scents that they like), but I’m not taking any chances.
  • Freezing.  I’m not actually using this method yet, since I shouldn’t have an issue with brand-new clothing, but putting infested items in the freezer for at least 24-hours is another tool in the moth-fighting arsenal.

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Any other tips or suggestions for successfully caring for and wearing wool clothing?

Someone like you

I started writing this post back in December of 2011.  By “started writing,” I mean there was a title (inspired by Adele’s eponymous song) and a bunch of white space.

So, December 2011.  I was five months postpartum.  I’d been seeing a counselor, which was helping, but I was still well-stuck in the snares of postpartum depression.

Adele’s hit song, “Someone Like You,” was released in 2011, and from the beginning, it was a tear-jerker for me (apparently I’m not the only one, see this interesting WSJ piece on the use of appoggiatura in music).  In the months after G’s birth, it became deeply personal.   And I don’t mean I got a little bit teary, I mean sobbing, to the point that when it came on in the car, I probably should have pulled over.

For me, the words weren’t about finding another lover, but about finding myself again, and not the sad, depressed, wanting to go back in time self.  I couldn’t go back to my pre-C-section, child-free self, I had to figure out how to move forward.  Slowly and surely, with help from a lot of people (and with a few bumps, like the winter of 2012), that has happened.

For me, 2014 felt like a real turning point.

Matthew and I acknowledged the many ways that my depression had affected our relationship (in addition to the normal affects of having a child), and we sought help.  We had already started working with John Gottman’s book Seven Principals for Making Marriage Work, and we found a local therapist who had trained in Gottman’s methods.  Turns out that staying married, especially staying happily married, takes work, ya’ll.

Individually, I completed the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course and integrated mindfulness practice into my daily life.  This, too, is work.  It’s not a cure-all, and it requires real commitment, but I’ve seen real changes.

Back to the title of this post — in late October, I was driving home from the final MBSR course.  I often enjoyed driving in silence after class, but at some point that night, I turned on the radio.  When I was within two blocks of home, “Someone Like You” came on, and it felt like a sign.  I parked and the tears flowed.  But it felt different this time, mostly happy tears.

Sitting there, I felt like I had finally found the “someone like me” that I’d been searching for — someone scarred, but stronger.  Someone who wasn’t wishing for a different, long-gone life.  Someone living in the present.