Chemicals

This information was in the Nature's Sunshine March 2012 newsletter that Lora Jean sent to me.  It amazes me, makes me angry, but also encourages me in that maybe I'm on the right track in ridding our home of these chemicals!

• Prior to the 20th century, only 1 out of 8,000 people were stricken with cancer. With the myriad of chemicals introduced since the industrial revolution, the rate of cancer has risen to 1 out of every 3 people.
• Since WW II, we have developed more than 80,000 chemicals for use in cleaners, pesticides, plastics, hygiene products and more.
• 80% of exposure to chemicals occurs in the home.  A 5 year study concluded that many homes have chemical levels 70 times higher than outside air.  
• Cleaning products found in the home are 3 times more likely to cause cancer than outdoor air pollution.
• The average American home uses more chemicals than were found in a typical chemistry lab in the early 1900’s.
• Laundry detergents contain harmful chemicals that are known to disrupt endocrine systems. They also contain synthetic fragrances that effect allergies and asthma. 
• One third of the substances used in the fragrance industry are toxic. 
• Glass cleaners and spot removers contain chemicals known to cause cancer and disrupt the nervous system. 
• Antimicrobial soaps contain a pesticide that causes reproductive problems and promotes the growth of E. coli. 
• Oven cleaners, toilet bowl cleaners and air fresheners contain extremely toxic chemicals that are neurotoxic & known to cause cancer.

I'm pleased to say that I finally switched over our kitchen to natural dishwasher detergent and regular detergent.  I've been making my own laundry soap from natural ingredients for several months now.  I am still using Spray & Wash Oxy for spots...any suggestions on what to switch to?  And I'd LOVE to make my own lotion...anyone have any good recipes to share (besides the one that involves a bottle of baby lotion...I think I want to start from scratch).  Articles like this one from Nature's Sunshine fuel me on to continue to make improvements to my home!  You want to know something about using natural ingredients in the home?...things are simpler (less bottles of cleaner, less boxes of "stuff" that we don't need to eat in the pantry, less soap choices, less beauty products, less, less, less!).  I love a simpler home!

Why Real Milk?

I had a couple of comments asking why we've switched the children to real milk and in turn real butter and other seemingly "fattier" foods so here's the "skinny" (or not so skinny) on why:

I went to a conference a couple of weeks ago with Dr. John Taylor and in it he spoke about how all children, but especially children with SPD (sensory processing disorder), autism, ADHD, & Asperger's, exhibit many of their behaviors and symptoms because they aren't getting enough real good fats and amino acids.  He noted that the easiest, #1 way to increase these for children would be to put them back on whole milk.  For adults?  The verdict is agreeably the same.  Mike and I are working our way to whole milk...maybe we'll never make it to retraining our taste buds to love fresh cow's milk but whole milk would be a step up from the 2% we're drinking. 

So why did WE choose fresh farm milk instead of just whole milk from the store?  Well...we didn't.  It chose us.  Actually, I don't believe in coincidence but I do believe in God's power and His work...a couple of days before my conference when I was dropping the children off at the babysitter I commented to her that Xabe hadn't eaten well but thankfully he was still drinking his milk by the gallons.  I joked that I was going to have to buy a milk cow for the back yard and our sitter's husband graciously said, "if you all want milk, just let us know...we have plenty to go around" (they are dairy farmers).  So after the conference I texted our babysitter and asked if they were serious???  And, {blessing to us} they were serious!  I do not in any way feel like the fresh milk will harm our children, and in reality, they've been drinking this milk since they were weaned from the bottle (while at the sitter's) so their bodies are already adjusted to it.  Here's what I considered before deciding for certain to make this switch, given the warnings by many people and organizations about how dangerous raw milk can be:  God designed the cow and it's milk WAY before he made machines and 'stuff' to 'fix' it, my mom grew up drinking raw milk (they were dairy farmers) and it didn't kill her, my brother-in-law grew up drinking raw milk & it didn't kill him, my sister's friend, Leann, grew up drinking raw milk & it didn't kill her and she's sure it made her have super healthy antibodies (ask her...she'll tell you!)...do you see the trend?  So now you know...our children are happy little cow juice drinkers and I'm learning new things like shake the cream before you pour. :)

If I had it to do all over again I would have never switched them off whole milk after starting them on it when they weaned from the bottle and I probably would have searched for a healthier alternative than soy milk for Natalee when she was going through her stage of allergies.  But we're in the here and now...not the past!

We have also switched completely to butter in cooking, baking, etc., however I mentioned in a goals update post that I hadn't convinced Mike it would be a great idea to get rid of his soft tub of margarine to go to butter.  Little did I know that you can leave butter out so it's soft & servable but I've gotten many comments telling me that you can!  (Thanks you all!!)  While at the store this weekend I bought a small tub of butter just for trial - ingredients are only cream and salt and we had it with bread tonight with no complaints from the eating crew.  It looks like the Beeler's will be looking for a butter dish just like Grandma had!  (Wonder how I thought SHE kept her butter soft??)  I'm not currently making my own butter but I'm intrigued by trying new things so maybe someday...probably not until summer though.

So there you have it...how our dear friends and children's babysitter & her husband saved us from putting a cow in our back yard {smile} and why we switched to whole milk & butter when all of America swears they'll make you fat.


Photo Courtesy of: http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/raw_milk_health_benefits.html

We've also been blessed to find a co-worker friend of mine who will sell us good brown chicken eggs.  During the spring & summer we were able to buy eggs from my niece's very happy, wholesome chickens but they are taking a season off so we were back to the store for our eggs until just today when I got 3 dozen pretty brown eggs!  Thanks, Leslie!

This article gives a lot of good information on the benefits of raw cow's milk:
http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/raw_milk_health_benefits.html

I really do enjoy & appreciate your comments AND questions!  Answering them helps me remember WHY we're doing this and how we're getting there!

NO Surprises!

Ah, another weekend down.

Another lesson learned.
Imagine that.

What would this life be if I wasn't able to still learn new lessons every day?

So here you go - my lesson for your benefit...maybe you can learn from it too:

Sunday was "church day" and as always my children were happy to get ready and happy to go.  Mike's sister and her boyfriend had come back to town for an overnight visit and gotten in early enough to make it to church.  Natalee LOVES all her aunties and uncle figures and has especially bonded with her Miguel.  I thought it would be nice if I would not tell her that they were coming and let her be surprised.  Everyone likes surprises, right?

Yeah, right.
WRONG!

We arrived at church and Mike immediately shuffled off to the sound board.  In our congregation everyone is mixed - gender, ages, etc., when we are seated and generally our families sit together.  Our church family was slim because of the slick weather but, as I suspected, Kea & Miguel had arrived.  I expected Natalee to get excited, immediately run to them, and ditch me for the rest of church (provided she was sitting nicely and I allowed it!).

Instead,

she immediately withdrew, became very quiet and very sober, and came directly to me.
This is very unusual behavior for Natalee - especially if you know her and she knows you.
All during the service she kept putting her head on my shoulder, looking around with big eyes, and occasionally her eyes would fill with tears.  I asked her several times if something hurt her - her tights, her shoes, etc., and every time she whispered back, "no" but still she was sad and withdrawn.

Had I not just read the chapter in Raising A Sensory Smart Child by Lindsey Biel & Nancy Peske I might have missed what was happening.  I might have told her to straighten up, liven up and get over whatever was wrong.  Instead I recognized Natalee's behavior as an overreaction to an unexpected situation.  In this case, as described in the book, Natalee's response was to withdraw, to seek the safest place she knew (mom), and to try to block out her overwhelming feelings by shutting down.

Confused yet?

You see, in my opinion, Natalee was really actually overjoyed, super-excited, ecstatic to see Kea & Miguel.  But by me not preparing her for their arrival like I ALWAYS do she didn't know how to respond.  Unexpectedness.  And what looked like underreacting was actually overreacting.  Later in the day, once Natalee had warmed to the thought of her dear loved ones being home, she WAS able to show her joy and her emotion and she visited, rocked, played, and loved on them.

So what's it matter?

It matters because:  the next time something surprises Natalee she could totally flip the other way and become a human pogo stick - bouncing up and down, unable to sit, totally overstimulated.  Or...she might withdraw again. The key is that I (& we as a community that love & support her) recognize these emotions and these reactions and help her work through them.  If I had been callus and told her to buck up she probably would have had a meltdown during church.  Maybe not about me saying "buck up" but about something miniscule that didn't amount to much.  But by understanding her, being in her shoes, and loving her enough to help her work through it I not only avoided a meltdown but instilled in her that she is worthy of my deepest love and understanding.

Truly, my heart broke so much for her Sunday, not being able to express herself, that tears ran down my cheeks twice when she buried her head on my lap.

A mother of one of my dearest preschoolers journaled to me today a reminder that said, "Natalee is of God's most precious design and nothing about her is a mistake."  I know this - I know that He didn't error when He made her but sometimes I carry a lot of guilt wondering if I errored in the decisions we made when she was young - round after round of antibiotics, allowing vaccine combinations we weren't comfortable with, starting so many types of foods so young...

but alas, we can't go back so we must charge forward and vow that everyday we'll learn something new and figure out how it applies to our life.

Lesson #2 - Natalee is much like her mother and all other kids on the autism spectrum that I've met in this way:
surprises = NO fun!

I'll know better next time!

Sensory Smart Supports

Last night the sensory smart mommy & sensory smart daddy went on a faux date and left the sensory smart babies with the sensory smart grandparents.  Translation:  my husband and I went grocery shopping and pretended it was a date and my folks were gracious enough to keep the children all night.
I was anxious to have them spend the night but only because change (even fun change) is hard for Natalee.  She, of course, was excited and jumped at the opportunity to stay and Num's and Papa's and never wavered when we left.  Neither did Xavier for that matter and he's been kind of clingy lately.

However, today I was reminded of one of the key elements I learned in Dr. Taylor's lecture:

Treat" SPD by emphasizing prevention using the "Big Four" factors:

• Sleep
• Nutrition
• Stress
• Chemicals

To minimize stress you have to:

• Prep for the Stress
• Cope During the Stress
• Recover After the Stress

Let's be clear about 1 thing:  stress does not always mean a "bad" or unpleasant situation.  In this case, I'm referring to a "good" stress, simply a change of routine.

So I feel like I did an okay job of preparing Natalee for a change in routine...although I didn't give her much notice we did talk about it before and she was allowed to come home and back her overnight bag, choosing favorite toys and loveys to take with her.

I know my parents did a fine job of helping Natalee stay grounded while she was with them.  My mother is the epitome of calm, they used the time-out method and did not spank, and she slept all night.  I also know that, while my folks might not totally 'get' all of the changes we are making ('get' meaning understand why or what we're doing...hey, I'm not sure I 'get' it yet, either!) they would never deliberately go behind me and give the children something they know we're trying to cut.  We are blessed with having accepting, understanding, open-minded parents.  So, I did not worry about the children's nutrition or their care at all and my mom was even gracious enough to double check a supper idea with me before forging ahead (have I mentioned how much I love my mom?).

Coming home today I should have thought about the "recovery" portion of this 3 tier scheme and helped Natalee become regrounded at home.  But...I didn't.  I didn't think about it.  Mom even mentioned this morning that she was a little "busy" but it still didn't cross my mind to help her reorient her sensory system.  Weighing against us also today was the fact that she'd had a sugary ice cream sandwich with the babysitter on Friday so that was working out of her system.  Needless to say this afternoon was wiry, combative, full of NO, and "busy."  I should have brushed Natalee, found her a quiet place, helped her bring it back together...instead I put out fires all afternoon and was very exhausted by bedtime.  Couple that with a grouchy toddler who I'm struggling to figure out right now (cranky, not hungry, super tired = growth spurt or teething??) and it seemed like a long day.

I'm determined to not get myself down with all the "I done wrongs" so want to spend a minute on something "I done right".  I did give the kids a nice soak upstairs in the big tub with Epsom salts and baking soda.  The salts are good for muscle relaxation and combined with the soda they are supposed to work with Natalee's herbal therapies to help pull the toxins from her body.  They splashed a huge mess upstairs but I ignored it and allowed them to because they were giggling together and that's a huge step up from shrieking at one another.

Just another day, just another learning experience, just another reminder that the sensory smart mommy has to be "on" all the time, except for when we are blessed enough to have one of our "sensory smart supports" volunteer to be on duty!

Conference with Dr. John Taylor, Ph.D.

For some reason this is the post I've been avoiding. Telling you the "stuff" I've learned. Admitting what I know means being responsible for changing bad, unhealthy habits. And that's tough stuff.

Here's what you should know about me:

#1 - I'm cheap!
#2 - I like easy!

Basically, that's it. Cheap and easy...not exactly a stellar bi-line, huh? Meaning that when change is costly or time consuming I'm resistant. No one said this mommy gig was easy...

This past week I went to a conference with some co-workers. I was wearing my "teacher hat" while I was there but my "mommy heart" was shining through. The conference was with John F. Taylor, Ph.D. and titled Autism, Asperger's, SPD, & ADHD. Let me tell you - this guy was rocking! Totally into natural alternatives...not condemning modern medicine but offering so many other options to try first. And he was FULL of such good, wholesome information.

He challenged me.
He appealed to both my teacher hat and mommy heart.
He made my mind roll.
At one point I leaned to the co-worker next to me and said, "my heart is racing!" I'm pretty sure she was concerned I was going to crawl over the table and run to the front of the room to hug Dr. Taylor!

(I'm such a nerd!)

So here's what I learned. To many this might be long and boring and you won't offend me by skimming it (okay, maybe a little but I'll get over it)...but maybe, just maybe it'll help someone, and at any rate I'll have it to look back on as a resource. In the following post I'll lay out some short term and long term goals to get the Beeler family to a healthier lifestyle...but for now here's an "info dump" of my new found knowledge (mostly adapted from Dr. Taylor's seminar & taken from his manual):

From the section on Autism:

• People with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) cannot eject toxins/poisons like a "typical" person because they are enzyme deficient.
  
• Petroleum is the #1 poison. The toxin doesn't go to the liver for break-down, it goes to the brain which in turn messes with functioning. (SIDE NOTE: Did he say PETROLEUM!? Like that's in everything!? Oh. dear.)
• Dr. T. listed a large amount of visual anomalies in ASD kids...the one that stuck out to me was that they often have difficulty understanding where they are in a physical space which can lead to balance problems and trouble interpreting space and time (4).
• Huge correlation to the digestive system...children with ASD have gut overrun with yeast, mold, & fungi which leads to food allergies (hello, Natalee Beeler!). Emphasize importance of Probiotics!! Allergies cause brain disruptions! On a "flare up" day symptoms will be worse.
• Treatment Do's: TOXINSULATE! (more on this later), wise nutrition & digestive care, minimize allergies, integrate social competence (training in social do's & do not's)

Dr. T's section on Asperger's was the section that rang the most "true" to me out of the Autism, ADHD, and Asperger's groups (all of the children with these disorders have SPD). Hearing him talk about Asperger's children made me realize that he was pretty much describing Natalee, meaning I have more on my hands than just sensory processing disorder...that's okay, but was just a new feeling for me. There was also a lot in this section, however, that did not describe Natalee - lending me to realize that a diagnosis really wouldn't help us much b/c no two cases are alike. The highlights of the Asperger's section included:

• Children have muted body language (can make eye contact but resistant to it, etc)
• Trouble with peer relations
• Difficulty predicting what others will do or feel
• Extremely naive socially, easily duped, easily talked into mischief (9)
• Repetitive motor (jumping)
• Likes to talk about "safe" subjects
• One track mind
• Gross/fine motor impairment
• Produces overly precise enunciation of words
• May speak out of the blue, talking about something not connected with what's being talked about or what's happening
• Tendency toward auditory sensory avoidance (not just loud noises but new noises, repetitive noises, low continuous sounds, etc) - INDICATIVE OF A MAGNESIUM DEFICIENCY (EPSOM SALTS!!!)
• "Binary Logic" way of thinking - this makes a lot of sense to Mike b/c he understands binary logic...basically it's an "on or off" way of thinking. Black or white. Yes or no. No abstracts, rule bound, can seem oppositional to adults b/c the child can't get outside their "norms" or "rules" even if it means obeying a request. The computer analogy he gave was: huge hard drive but very small processing chip: the child can handle huge amounts of information but process only a tiny amount of stimulation or thought at any one time, and the more abstract, the more difficult and overwhelming (11).
• Easily annoyed, low tolerance, perfectionist, EMOTIONAL VOLATILE MOOD SWINGS, often has anxiety that looks like anger (SPD).
• These kiddos crave routine, structured activities, & clear communication.

The ADHD section was intriguing because we have SO many kids in the public school system with diagnoses ADHD & that are taking medication as a treatment. Basically Dr. T. describes ADHD as having 4 symptoms: hyperactivity, distractibililty, impulsivity, and indecisiveness.

• Petocin given during or immediately prior to birth doubles the chance of ADHD (teardrop - by are OB/GYN's pushing this drug???)
• Children with 3+ ear infections before 24 months have a higher rate of being diagnosed ADHD (correlation with prescription antibiotics) - SIDE NOTE: Did you know it takes 24 months for good bacteria to regrow after 1 round of antibiotics??? (Dear Natalee - please forgive a naive mommy for allowing you to have some many antibiotics and prescription medicines when you were little...I promise, I didn't know better, but my heart still breaks at the trouble I've caused you.)

And the section that holds my heart and wins the prize for most highlighting during the conference...Sensory Processing Disorder:
He had SO much meat in this section that it's impossible for me to highlight it all now. This is the section that I'll use to help Natalee understand her body and her world... he gave parenting tips, therapy tips, play tips, socialization tips...the whole gamut. A couple of high points to note included:

• How to prevent sensory overload using the "Big Four" - (1) Sleep (9-10 hours at least!), (2) Stress (help child stay cool, calm, collected), (3) Nutrition (proteins, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, water), (4) Chemical Exposure (there are 6000 petrochemical poisons in foods!!)

Okay - so there is my information overload "dump." In coming posts I'll be blogging lots more about SPD; about how to teach stress prep, coping & recovery; and lots more about how we are integrating these things plus healthier eating and living into our daily lives at home and in my classroom!