Operation Gluten Elimination

As of the start of today our gluten elimination trial has begun.  I am not jumping on the new craze of eliminating gluten just for fun.  In fact,  I am not extremely excited about this new journey.  However, we decided after constant discipline problems at home along with attention difficulty of our oldest daughter, Addison (age 7) we would give it a try.  Honestly, we were at our wits end of constantly having to get onto her and the tantrums that should have dissipated about 3 years ago. 

My turning point occurred after a day of extreme annoyance and getting in trouble.  Addison is a spunky girl and has a lot of wonderful traits.  However, she also has some sensory integration issues that we have been aware of for a long time.  She often gets upset and tells us that she "can't help from being bad" or "can't control herself".  I often times find that as an excuse, but also often time don't believe that she has control of her actions until it is too late.  On this particular day, she was sent to bed early secondary to her behavior.  I went down to discuss her actions for the day and why she was sent to bed.  As I calmly talked to her, her sweet little blue eyes began to fill with tears.  She could no longer hold the tears in and began to cry.  As I held her and asked why she was crying she told me, "I feel like the stupidest one in the family".  My heart broke, we are hard on her, but in no way want to make her feel like less of a person. 

After this day, I began to think of options that we had to help her in her life.  I think she also has ADD/ADHD issues and considered taking her to the doctor to get medication, but who wants to stick their kid on a stimulant if there is another option.  She does not have many issues in school either so, to me, that was another reason to explore other options.  However, recently one of her computer based tested scores dropped from September to January and that to me was a red flag.  After a particularly bad tantrum about homework last week (and a lot of research), I decided we were trying the gluten free diet.  I had a long discussion with her about it and let her know why we were doing it and she was ready to start that day. 

So, this is day 1 of operation gluten elimination.  I will keep you updated on how this process goes.  I really dread the upkeep (especially with parties and going out to eat) and the increased grocery cost.  We are giving it a month and based on results, will decide from there.  If you have any tips to pass along to make this transition cheaper/easier I would love to hear. 

Welcome the my crazy world!!!

So here I go, I decided to start a blog.  As if I don't have enough things going on, but this girl loves to share her opinion and talk.  I am a member of a free site www.buzzagent.com that will randomly pick you to trial items and give your opinion.  I will be posting some of those reviews on here.  I will also probably share random bits of our life that I find crazy, interesting, or just plain irritating.  I may never get a follower, but hey, it will keep me busy in my ever so abundant "off time".