Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Failure!

Well my son told me today that he didnt like that weird chicken from last night today. UGH!!! I figure it is part of the stubborn or habit that he has where all things need to be the same. If it were a real issue he wouldnt have eaten it at all; this I know. So I did make him deal with having it tonight at Great Grandma's house. I am so bummed about how this diet will work for us at her house. She is a sweet woman who LOVES to feed her family. It literally is how she shares her love with them. And the snack foods..... Oh my goodness it is insane and it sits on the counter right next to the dinner table. Im talking Fruit Gummies (GM's favorite) Pop-Tarts, Pop-Tarts on the go (small strip sort of things) an entire rotating cookie jar holder with four different jars filled with different varieties of cookies (mainly chocolate, which GM also reacts to). Plus many, MANY more. So it is like taking an alcoholic to a bar where all his favorite drinks are right in front of him, while under stress, and depressed. It is IMPOSSIBLE to not have a sad little boy, and I mean, sad!! So today I took the kids and we hit the road in search of yummy Gluten-Free snacks to add to Great-Grandma's collection. We did ginger snaps and chocolate chip cookies (the one bad thing I did, but give an inch......) plus some really yummy frozen juice pops that GM begged for in the store. I was going to buy them for him without having him have to wheel and deal for them, but, as bad as it sounds, I wanted him to really really want them. This was to offer in leau of the pop-tarts or fruit gummy things. Is that mean? Well, it worked.
However I was bummed to walk in and see a kitchen table filled with GM's favorite gluten filled foods. Quesadillas on flour tortillas, frozen boxed chicken nuggets, and his absolute favorite pie that Great-Grandma made just for him. Now, let it be known that I did call my MIL this morning and I told her of my plan to bring GM's food and to bring some GF snack choices for him and to give them the heads up not to mention to him that he is on a new "diet". He obsesses over the diet part and believe me, it is better if I can make the transition almost fully before telling him. He literally will walk around the world saying "I cant have this.... I cant have that either...." I know because I have been there and we tried it this past fall. Anyhow, I thought they understood that I wanted him to not eat gluten, not that I wanted him to not eat gluten except for gluten great-grandma makes special for him. UGH!!! I dont know, I know I shouldnt expect them to understand, its just exhausting to feel like you gain one tiny inch and then BAM another challenge for he and I right in front of us. The good news is that I got that child out the door with only one slip on the gluten; the pie. However I did make a point of asking to see the box after dinner and acted like "oh no, this isnt on his diet, I guess that slipped past me" so Im hoping it wont make another appearance. But that is naive of me!!!!

I was thrilled to see that at Wild Oats almost all foods which are Gluten-Free have a tag hanging below them that says so. WOW did that save me some time, and a headache since I forgot my glasses. Im going to suggest it to our coop. Heck, I'll even make the darn tags for them!! Also they stored their GF flours away from the non-gf. This seemed thoughtful and showed how much they took it all seriously. Now if only they werent so pricey! My goodness!!!!!!!!!

I bought a gf frozen cheese pizza for GM to try for dinner tomorrow night. If he likes it (for real) I will bootleg the crust recipe and make him some at home.

Here is a silly question.... Arent most cheeses GF?? Some of the cheeses (actually the soy cheese) had a GF tag on them at the store, I thought, huh?

3 comments:

Sunshine Alternative Mama said...

I understand that particular frustration very well too! Hopefully he will come around.

I don't get the family, unless it because you've eased into this and don't want GM to know much about what he can and can't have. Easing in and letting things slip does give them the impression that it is something you "want" to do and not something you "have" to do. From the beginning we explained the situation and told them we didn't want any slip-ups.

My parents have all sorts of food at their house that J-Baby (and T-Guy) can't have either. He deals with it really well, but then again his smptoms are physical and he doesn't want to be uncontrollably itchy or unable to control his bowels, so he has some motivation. He does go around telling people that he can't have gluten, but then again T-Guy spent a long time telling people that he couldn't have dairy, and he'll still bring it up sometimes.

Sometimes J-Baby cries though, because it seems so unfair. My dad always has cookies and he is sad that he can't have them. I eventually found out that Smarties candies are GF, and they are really cheap. I don't like the small amount of artificial color, but they help when he feels like everyone else has something great and he doesn't.

When we went to my grandma's (their great-grandma's) she just expected us to have food that he could eat. When I read the chip labels she asked what I was looking for. She has a grand-nephew with celiac, so she gets it.

Good luck! Once you take him completely GF he may feel better and want to stay that way (not that J-Baby wouldn't kill for a piece of naan bread).

For the quesadillas, have you tried the Food For Life brown rice tortillas? They are pretty good. We don't do any dairy or soy at the moment, so we don't have a good cheese alternative at this point, but the the tortillas work well for quesadillas or wraps.

Blissfulbee said...

I agree about them not taking it quite so seriously since we arent walking in with Dr.s orders and it something that he has a physical reaction to. For him it is a full on addiction, and it makes him feel really, really good. Like opium. The last thing he wants is to not have gluten. We tried before and I told the family and it was very serious and we sat down and explained it all to GM and holy cow did it backfire. First off the family still didnt take it seriously, they think Im a crazy overprotective mother who should "just leave that boy alone and he would be fine".... and GM (who suffers from major obsession issues, coupled with enormous negativity) was beyond control with the whole diet thing, and I realized that I didnt have my ducsk in a row first. I made him go on this diet without first finding things for him that he could eat, and enjoy. So this time I decided that I am going to first get everything rolling and "test" out different foods on him to see if it would work, so the transition onto the diet wouldnt be so depressing and negative. So that is where we are now. I hear what your saying and your so right! I do need to talk with them about it and explain that it is very serious for our family. Unfortunately I dont think they will honor it, but I will certainly try, or else we wont be able to go over there anymore. It just has to be that serious. I wish we started when he was younger, like with chocolate. He knows he can only have a tiny bit of chocolate here and there, or it will make him crazy and so he avoids eating it. Only in a cookie or here or there, but you will never see him sitting down to a bowl of chocolate ice cream, or eating a chocolate bar.

Right now I explained to him that I want him to eat the snacks we brought because they are organic, and he is obsessed with organic. LOL it is a good version of his obsessions, he wants to know "is this organic, is that organic" he will ask before eating most anything. So he was good to go on that one.

I almost wish he could "feel" what gluten does to him and could understand how much happier he will be without it. Right now it is too abstract to him. I am going to do the diet with him (to see if it helps with my fatigue and digestion issues) and hopefully if it is a "we" than it may be easier for him.

We are almost there, and as the gluten leaves his system (sloooowly) and we find foods he enjoys that are gf I think he will latch onto it. Im hoping we can get the obsession working for the gf diet rather than against it. But who knows, according to some research, we may not be so obsessed at all.

My goal is to be completely gf before August. We are almost there. Thank you so much for the tip on Smarties, they are his FAVORITE candy!!!

On an interesting side note, he keeps asking for crackers. He never really eats crackers. I wonder if he is craving the gluten in them. It is so random for him to be wanting to snack on a cracker, especially when their are other things he likes so much more.

PS. Yes we love those tortillas. I make him homade corn tortillas and he likes them, not as much as flour, but he does enjoy them. They also freeze very well.

Sunshine Alternative Mama said...

I'm pretty sure I react to gluten too. I 'll write a post on my blog about GF reactions and going GF.