Wordless Wednesday 20 May 2009: Giant Guinea Pig (a.k.a. Patagonian Cavy)--and this is a young/small one!

Bullet Points of Busy

• M&M is doing her last Singapore math lesson for the school year! She's very excited that she's about to finish her book. AJ has quite a ways to go in hers, but I may not have her finish it because she has been so insanely frustrated with it lately. We borrowed Ray's Arithmetic from my mom, and both kids are really enjoying the all-verbal/hands-on approach it takes in the younger grades. I think we will use that for summer math.


• The girls all had big milestones recently. AJ learned how to ride a bicycle without training wheels, M&M learned how to use the monkey bars, and Ebee is picking up letter sounds, writing simple words, and rhyming like crazy.


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• The two older girls and I are going to our third rabbit show this weekend. We're excited about that.
  
  One of our mini satins won Best Opposite of Breed in the last show, and the judges really liked our junior full-sized satins but said they were slightly too young to really compete against the seniors. So we're hoping for good results this show. We're also taking some rabbits to sell, to cut down on the number we have.
  
  AJ and M&M each picked one of the baby mini satins to work with and train to pose for showing, so they're very excited about showing them this weekend.


• Our homeschool co-op and AWANA are over for the summer, but we're not finished with school yet. I trimmed our school schedule down to the bare essentials, though, and structured it so that we (or at least AJ, who seems to need the extra structure and predictability) are doing the same things in the same order every day.
  
  If we work diligently at it, the kids are done with school before lunch. It's nice to have the afternoons free for playing/pets/resting/reading/whatever.


• I haven't blogged about this recently, but AJ is still having trouble processing things like change, transitions, anything being different from the way she thinks it "should" be, worrying a lot about little things, and general emotional outbursts/moodiness. The play therapist (and other specialists we have consulted) thinks she needs something beyond what we've been doing, and needs to be evaluated by a specialist.
  
  Due to a cancellation (and an answer to prayer!), AJ has an appointment with a specialist today. Originally the appt had been scheduled for the end of Sept, and the dr's secretary told me they are now scheduled out to the end of Oct, so it's pretty amazing that we were able to get in so quickly. I am not sure what kind of testing and/or evaluations he will do, but hopefully he will be able to figure out what's going on with AJ and what types of responses and methods would be most helpful for us to use as we interact with her. Mainly, we'd just like to see her be happier and less frustrated with life.
  
  She's rather excited about the appointment. I explained to her that it was a special kind of doctor who helps kids figure out how their brains work (because everyone's brain works differently) and that he would hopefully be able to help her (and us) figure out how to work best with her brain to help manage her emotions and actions better.


• Otherwise, we're all doing well. DH is working and thankful for a good job with great job security, we're involved with church activities and friends, I still struggle with health issues but the Lord is faithful to sustain me, we're again (still) trying to get our house decluttered and organized, the cleaner is still coming every 3 weeks or so, Mira is doing very well with her training, NLASS the college student is still living with us (and we're still finding it a blessing for us and for her), and we're enjoying our pets and other activities.


• Ebee still has no signs of food allergies, though she still has mild reflux and aspiration issues and we still have to be careful about feeding her too much fruit or sugar because of her sensitive stomach and frequent diarrhea.
  
  Now that we know (thanks to the research study I was in) that excititoxins are a big factor for my IBS, FMS and CFS symptoms, as well as the neurological and migraine symptoms, we're trying to avoid those as much as possible for the whole family. Those particular ingredients aren't particularly healthy or necessary to be eating, anyway. Who needs MSG? So that's brought us back to a bit healthier (though still much less restrictive than before) diet. We had gotten in the habit of eating more junk and convenience food again once we didn't have to worry so much about allergens, so this is a healthy move for us.
  
  Interestingly enough, I noticed in looking back over the notes I took on Ebee's symptoms, that some of her "unexplained" diarrhea and stomach issues may have also correlated with excitotoxin ingestion (though I didn't know many of the hidden sources of it at the time). It would certainly explain why Ebee and I (and the other kids to some extent, too) got so sick the week we were eating a lot of bread made with modified tapioca starch, for example. So that's something I'll be keeping an eye on to see if it has any effect on her still-frequent bowel issues. We know that MSG and other excitotoxins also affect the health issues in my extended family, so it's definitely something to at least keep an eye on if not completely avoid.
  
  M&M's legs seem to hurt less when she wears shoes with good arch support for her flat feet, and we all generally enjoy one another's company. The girls all have appointments with the pediatrician next week, but they're just routine checkups.
  
  We will have to decide what vaccinations, if any, we're going to do for Ebee now that she no longer has allergies to corn and soy derivatives, which are in all the vaccines. I still have concerns about some of the other ingredients (like MSG and aborted fetal tissue, among many others) in some of them, and some just simply aren't really necessary at her age, so it will be something we discuss with the pediatrician.


• Oh, and the older girls have learned how to play Dutch Blitz, which is a riot. M&M is particularly good at it and begs to play it often. And the whole family, including Ebee, enjoys playing Carcassonne together.