Wheat Free, Worry Free by Danna Korn

Last week as I was furiously trying to run last minute Thanksgiving preparation errands I stopped by the post office and was surprized to find that I had two packages to pick up. The first was from Jen at Not Calm (dot com) which is the most clever blog name I have ever seen. Jen and I had an international exchange - Lemony Snicket, gluten-free flour and brownie mix for Japanese stationary. Thanks Jen.

Our other package was this book. Danna Korn is a mother with a child who has Celiac disease and has written a few books about how to deal with it all. This information has been so helpful and soothing. It is always nice to know you are not alone in your struggles.

Lily has not been diagnosed as having Celiac disease. In fact she has taken several blood tests and all have come back negative. Negative blood tests are encouraging but not a diffinative, she does not have Celiac Disease, and not a she will never have Celiac disease. Currently she is labeled as being Gluten intolerant. It is so complex with all the labels and tests, but the long and short of it is Lily cannot eat gluten, which is science speak for wheat. She also has the same reaction to corn, oat, egg, apple and tomato so she can't eat those either. It may be a life long sentence and it may be until she is a bit bigger.

I was able to make Thanksgiving almost completely what we refer to as Lily friendly. We had some corn on the cob and some rolls but other than that we were good. Amazingly enough Butterball Turkeys have corn starch in them, what is up with that! They somehow shoot the turkey full of corn starch. I am so amazed, I thought meat was safe, turkey isn't processed meat it is still on the bones, so frustrating. I also discovered that her toothpaste is not Lily friendly. Toothpaste, what a pain. Plus, she has a cold and there is not medicine on our base that is Lily friendly.

I have been a bit frustrated by this over the last year that we have been trying to manage her food issues. Reading this book and the blog Gluten Free Girl have been a real help with my attitude problem. It is possible that if we didn't discover her intolerances at such an early age (9 months) that she could have developed a whole host of serious problems. Now she has no real problem just that she has to have a special diet. A diet with no junk food, no processed food, only health lovingly prepared food. Intelectually speaking that isn't such a bad thing, having to eat healthy, not being able to tolerate junk. We should all be so lucky. But, in my heart I feel like she is missing out.

I guess through this process of dealing with Lily's food issues I have discovered that I have some crazy food issues myself. It is nice to read in the book that I am not alone. It is not crazy to want to take part in the rituals I grew up with. Traditions like eating birthday cake, dessert, and crackers. It is hard to give up those things. I am having to wrap my mind around the fact that those traditions are harmful to Lily and giving them up is not taking away something but giving her something, the gift of good food. I associate tasty food with more than just the pleasure of eating it, I associate being deprived of that food with more than just not having a bit a pleasure that only lasts a moment on the lips. The whole food issue is amazingly complex. So I am trying to look at this whole experience as a gift to both Lily (to grow up eating well) and myself (to see food as simply food and not as a metaphor for being left out).

Harry Potter

Our obsession with Harry Potter began Christmas 1999. Mandy received the first book, The Sorcerer's Stone as a present from my parents. Thus began our complete love for all things Harry Potter. At that time Mandy didn't care for reading. She was good at it, just hated it. I had to force her to read with me for an hour every night. We took turns each reading one page. It was excruciating. It reminded me of my childhood hate of reading and sitting in the living room being forced to read aloud.

And then there was Harry. I can still remember that evening that it all changed. We usually read after I washed the dinner dishes. After washing the dishes I went into the living room and caught Mandy with her nose in the book, reading of her own free will. She quickly apologized for getting ahead of me in the book. I think she had read a couple of chapters, on her own. From that day to this, Mandy is a voracious reader. She has read all the Harry Potter books multiple times. And everything else. She can read on trains, planes and automobiles. She can read all night, she can read all day, sometimes I have to force her to eat and sleep, because she wants to read.

After reading the first book we were excited to start the second book. Luckily for us that book had already been published. My parents insisted on buying the second book for us, so we had to wait for it to come in the mail. We read the second book and low and behold the third book was about to be released in July of 2000. We bought an advanced copy and were so excited that we stood in line at midnight in order that we could read it as soon as humanly possible. Mandy had never stayed up that late, but we read the first chapter at about 1am. Our Harry Potter tradition is to read all the chapter titles and look at all the pictures and then read the first chapter. Always together and aloud. Mandy went from wanting me to read everything to wanting me to read nothing in the few months since the first reading of the first page of Harry Potter.

After the third book we had to wait forever for the fourth book. I am pretty sure that the fourth book was published before the release of the first movie, but I am not 100% sure, because I am not obsessed, Mandy I am sure knows. Having to wait, she discovered so many other books and series and she is always reading.

When the first movie came out in theaters, we were living in Italy. The base theater was awful and we were horrified at the prospect of seeing Harry Potter in that theater. Plus, while the movie came out Thanksgiving weekend in the States it wouldn't come to the base in Italy until who knows when. Now I am not saying that we went to London just to see the Harry Potter movie. I mean London is nice. Mandy and I had never been there. Ryan Air has plane tickets from Italy to London that cost our entire family about $150 round trip. We found a B & B that was very reasonable. So we went to London to watch the movie. We were so disappointed. Jeff was pretty upset that we were disappointed. Our love of Harry Potter was not adequately portrayed in that first movie. Jeff, who has never read a single Harry Potter book, loved the movie, Mandy and I hated it. We are better now, but we were both almost in tears by the end of it. You just cannot do those books justice on the big screen.

Here we are years later and the fourth book came out as a movie. Here in Japan we wont get the movie at the base theater until who knows when. But, here in Japan, we can go to a Japanese movie theater and watch the movie in English with Japanese subtitles for about $10 per person. Yesterday was opening day of Harry Potter here in Japan, and yesterday we arrived at the mall with the movie theater 5 hours early to stand in line and watch the fourth movie.

So we bought our tickets and we wandered around the mall for four hours. We ate, we browsed, we played air hockey, and we watched the movie. It was so great. I don't know if it is that I am over the fact that it can't be exactly like the book, or if it is the fact that I read the book so long ago I forgot most of it. I am old. Mandy can point out every detail that was different, like the color of Hermione's dress at the Yule ball. But to me the movie was great and so worth the wait. Much cheaper to go to a local theater than to fly to another country too. We did go to see movie two and movie three at the base theaters, one in Italy and the other here in Japan. Man, they are putting out those movies at an amazing pace, the books too. So Mandy has grown up with Harry Potter. He brought to her one of her most treasured gifts, the love of reading. We will be forever grateful to JK Rowling and her amazing boy Harry.

Productivity

Lily was up all night. She has a cold and an allergic reaction all wrapped up in a neat little package. The other day at the jumpy castle on of the moms gave their kid a baggie full of crackers to take into the jumpy castle. Crumbs everywhere. I don't know, Lily might have even eaten a whole cracker. Poor thing. I didn't notice the kid with crackers until it was too late. Too busy chatting. So no gymnastics today.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we are having guests. So you would think I would be spending my time, cleaning house and planning the cooking. I have a ton of homework from my sadistic history teacher, you would think I would be working on that. When I get overwhelmed instead of being productive, I goof off. I also think that the added stress of last minute stuff is a bit thrilling. Is it any wonder I drive Jeff nuts?

I guess the thing I am most excited about is that Mandy is going to help me cook the meal. She is even going to make her world famous yellow cake. Hopefully Lily will get some sleep today as she was up all night. Right now she is so sweet sitting in the big recliner with her blanket watching cartoons. It breaks my heart that she is in so much discomfort. I sometimes feel like just hiding her away from the world and all their crackers. How old are kids before they can play without eating a cracker? I guess it wont be much longer before I can explain to Lily not to eat other people's food. But, the crumbs of the sticky fingered little monsters everywhere, when will it end? Hopefully as she gets a bit bigger she will not be effected so much by little bits of crumbs. For today we will hide from the world and hope she feels better soon.

I will attempt to be productive today so as not to stress out the family tomorrow. Hope y'all have a great Turkey day.

Thanksgiving in Japan

I have a turkey in the oven right now. It is about 45 minutes past the time I calculated it would be done. Yikes. Our oven is American our electricity is Japanese, so I never know what temperature my oven is at. This turkey is for a potluck dinner the base puts on for the Japanese orphanage here in Misawa. I guess the city of Misawa or who ever it is that is in charge of funding this orphanage doesn't do a great job, so the base has adopted it. There aren't enough beds for the kids, that says a lot.

This year for Thanksgiving we invited the whole office over, only our Japanese friends accepted, and a friend of mine whose husband is working. I am really excited. Mandy and I are cooking to meal together. We are making it Lily friendly. I am getting pretty good at cooking gluten-free. Our Japanese friends prefer foods that are not terribly sweet or laden with fats so I am presenting the foods a little more nutritiously than perhaps I have in the past. Instead of a green bean casserole we are having green beans, instead of sweet potatoes smothered in marshmallows we are having roasted butternut squash. I am switching to the butternut squash because I really don't like the Japanese sweet potato and I don't like the canned ones. All that and turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy. I am making the gravy out of a broth I will make out of the turkey I am cooking today, so that should be good. I am thinking of trying to make a homemade cranberry sauce. The canned one is full of corn-syrup, Lily is allergic. That should be fun. For dessert I am making a traditional pumpkin pie and a banana pudding, both of which are not Lily friendly, but incredibly important to Jeff. Our Japanese friends don't usually eat dessert, they get full from our enormous dinners. I hope it all turns out edible. It will certainty be memorable, the year we shared our Thanksgiving with our Japanese friends.

Anniversary

Today is our five year wedding anniversary. We celebrated by going to my favorite restaurant on Saturday night. It isn't a fancy restaurant, I think my love of it comes more from our wonderful experiences there than for the extra ordinary food they serve. Most of our friends think of it as mediocre at best. But, it is my favorite restaurant in Misawa and that is where we went. The New Myaki serves Chinese food not Japanese food. But, the Japanese really do know how to cook, wow. We had a seven course meal. They brought us our seven entrees on beautiful china each dish on a separate plate with enough for two. We got several small plates so we can take what we like of each entree and put it on our own individual clean plate. Our table for four was completely covered in dishes so much to eat and all of it so good. We usually only order on entree each as this method is so expensive, but it was our anniversary.

So we had, chicken with cashews and leeks in a savory sauce, egg rolls, wantons, fried rice, corn soup, sweet and sour pork, beef with bell peppers, and fried chicken. It was all so amazingly good. Tons of MSG, I get a headache but it tastes so good. It was so much fun. We went to this restaurant on the day we got off the plane in Misawa for the first time. We had previously been stationed in Italy and we had spent a couple of weeks in America visiting family. Finally after all the plane rides and hotels we had arrived at our new home. It was snowing, it snowed 19 inches that night. We were so tired and hungry. We took a taxi to this restaurant our cab driver didn't understand that we wanted to eat, he took us to the police station first and we finally convinced him to take us to a restaurant and he took us to the New Myaki.

We sat down and looked at the menu. Everything was so expensive, we had just come from Italy where one could get a meal for the whole family for the price of one dish at this restaurant. We ordered appetizer and soup and entrees and dessert. We were used to Italy. This was so much food, we barley touched it all, so much money so much food. We were amazed that each table had a button one could push at any time for service. So once we had made our decisions we pushed the button and our waitress instantly appeared. We ordered our meal and it was brought to the table in minutes. In Italy the waitress comes to take your order about a 1/2 an hour after giving it to you, even if you are the only family in the place and then your food comes about 45 minutes later. Italians are all about the socializing of the moment and not about eat and go. The Japanese are all about service. We ate our delicious meal. I swear it was the best thing I had ever eaten. Me four months pregnant and having just spent two weeks in airports and on airplanes.

One time while we were eating at The New Myaki there was a huge earthquake. We were actually in the parking lot getting into the car. I was about 50 months pregnant and it was a 7.2 earthquake. The buildings around us were swaying as were the light poles it was really wild. No damage, amazing.

After dinner yesterday on our anniversary dinner we went to an Irish Pub, an Irish pub in Japan, run by a real Irishman. There was a live jazz band. There were Japanese jazz musicians. It was really great. Jeff has a beer and I had a coke. They have Guinness and Kilkenny on tap here. We paid a fortune. But, it was so worth it.

I was planning to write the story of our wedding. Jeff was stationed in Italy and I was living in Fort Wayne, Indiana when we met. The paper work for a military wedding for an Airman stationed overseas is astronomical. But, we made it through. Going through all that bureaucracy at the time drove me crazy now it is just a normal part of life, amazing what you get used to.

Jeff and I met through a friend. We had a friend in common, for me she was my dear friend from junior high school until today, for him it was someone who was moving from England to Italy at the same time and they made the drive together. Our mutual friend suggested we email one another, why she made this suggestion I will never know, everyone asks me, but she doesn't know either, just that she sent me an email one day telling me to email this guy and I did.

So we struck up a friendship via the email. I noticed right away what an amazing guy he was. I always replied to my emails right away. He was always online when he said he would be. I had never met a guy who was willing to meet me half way before it was really nice. To this day Jeff is like that in everything. Then we talked on the phone, that lasted for hours. We spent so much money on phone calls I swear it was cheaper to move to Italy than to continue our relationship via the phone. Every conversation was at least four hours. I have no idea what we discussed, but it must have been profound.

Jeff had to come to America for a class so he took some leave and came to meet me. That was wonderful We had such a great time. He is so handsome. I was expecting a big dork, due to his pictures not being an accurate representation of his handsomeness. Funny, how different we all look in real life. But, I have never seen anyone who takes such bad pictures as Jeff. I never really think of it anymore, because I just see Jeff when I look at pictures, but it really is weird.

After that Jeff went on a cruise. He took a cruise from Italy through the Greek Islands and to Croatia. At that same time a Greek Cruise ship sank near Greece. I was so worried. I called my friend like everyday to see if she had heard anything. She thought I was a nut case. I guess I was, she said I had no idea y'all were so serious, I said, neither did I. After that we started to talk of marriage. At first we were going to wait a year. But, then we decided why wait. We really couldn't date, via the Internet so why not get to know one another while we are married. I know that sounds really crazy. If you know Jeff and I you know that we are both usually very prudent people but this is love. So Jeff sent me a dozen roses at my work place, saying Marry me in December. Notice that he never asked me to marry him, he told me to marry him. He is still like that. He had planned to take leave at Christmas to visit his family and he thought he could swing by and marry me and take me to meet his family.

We actually considered having the wedding in Virginia so his family could be there. Then we considered having a big church wedding in Indiana where I lived. Planning a wedding in another state seemed a little difficult to me. In the end we discovered that I had to be married to him before we could start the paper work for me to be recognized as his wife by the military and move to Italy. This paper work took a month at least. So he just flew in the next day and we got married on a Monday with about three days notice. I am pretty sure we remembered to call our families before the wedding. A couple of crazy kids.

Jeff and I were married. Then he went back to Italy for 6 weeks before I saw him again. Once the paper work was done, Jeff came back and picked us up and we went to meet his family and then flew to Italy. Where we lived happily ever after. Turns out you can really get to know someone over email. The first year was rough at times, but I think that is true of all marriages. So this is my military style long distance wedding story. Happy Anniversary babe. Jeff keeps telling me it feels like 50, ha.

Our mutual friend quit speaking to us. Our family and other friends at first thought we were nuts and now they just laugh and say we are perfect for each other. A couple of nuts, with our nutty girls. May all your dreams come true. To all those reading this, I think there may be two people, tell me how you met your spouse and about your wedding story. I am in the mood for romance.

Terrible Twos

I have never known anyone like Lily. She is amazing in her love of life and in her compacity to defy me. Today at gymnastics she spent as much time executing her moves flawlessly as she did screaming and running in the other direction. She has managed to escape the house and run through the neighborhood in nothing but a diaper. She learned to climb on top of the dinning room table by 10 months. It took six months to teach her to walk to the playground and home again without running away or throwing a fit. My neighbors love me. So I took some time off from school and spent it one on one teaching Lily some basic behavior. Now I would say she is a typical two year old. While we still have defiance and fits it is managable. So I am back at school. I am so thankful that Lily is only head strong and we were able to get past it with structure and patience. So many people are not able to do this and have such difficult heartbreaking struggles. Even though this is just typical terrible twos I get so much unasked for advice and judgement my heart goes out to parents whose children don't respond to behavior modification stratagies.

My defiant Little Miss Lily. It is so funny to see what a combination of mom and dad she is. She sings to herself while concentrating (mom). She loves life with abandon (dad). We are split on deciding which of us gave her the stuborn fit throwing difficult gene, since this is my blog, here we will say that it comes from dad, but most people say that comes from me. My sweet Mandy was potty trainned by two, she ate with a spoon and drank from a cup. Umm, let's just say not Miss Lily.

I was feeling a bit sorry for myself, especially when the other moms at gymnastics make nasty comments about her constant defiance. Just when I think I have it bad, there but for the grace of God go I. A friend of mine just gave birth to her third baby in three years. It hasn't even been a month yet. Last week her oldest (her defiant one) decided to get out of bed during her nap and take the sleeping new baby to the playground. Mom was asleep too. Neighbors called the cops.

No More Volleyball

The volleyball season has ended. Mandy made her goal of getting onto the JV team. She did great. The entire first quarter of school she stayed after school and practiced for three hours. She had games on Friday afternoon and all day Saturdays. She was able to maintain her grades, her paper route and her sanity. An unbelievable accomplishment in my mind.

I guess I should relax, but I can't help but worry. Her 15th birthday is just around the corner. I don't feel like there is enough time left in her childhood. I don't know what I am doing. I am worried about walking that fine line that separates her from me. When she is successful is it because I taught it to her or is it because she did the work. If she fails, did I fail? Everyday it seems like my influence is more in the background and her efforts are the determining factor in her successes or failures. Does it matter anymore what I do?

I want her to learn to stand on her own two feet. I want her to make her mistakes and learn her lessons now while she has our support and a safety net. But, I really don't want to see her fail. Don't we learn life's lessons through struggle? Wouldn't it be better in the long run for her to struggle now instead of later? But, I just can't watch her struggle. I can't let her stay up late on a school night to learn the hard way what happens when you don't have a good nights sleep. I can't let her eat a bunch of crap and then learn how it makes you feel. A part of me feels like I should be setting the boundaries so that she becomes accustomed to living in an appropriate way, a part of me thinks she needs to struggle and figure it out on her own.

My parents gave me very few choices and becoming an adult with all that entails was difficult for me. I was forced to follow all the rules and never make mistakes, then on my own the freedom was too much for me to handle. I stayed up all night, even if I was tired, just because I could. Now when I ask Mandy why she is doing something her answer invariably is, "because I can". At this age I just don't know my role anymore. I don't know where the explaining to her the rules stops and the learning it for yourself starts.

I guess it is a gradual progression, two steps forward, three steps back. I let her have some freedom when it goes well a little more freedom, when it goes bad a little less freedom. My main concern isn't really about sleeping and eating, it is about entitlement. If I do too much for her she feels like she is entitled to be treated like a princess and she feels slighted when the rest of the world doesn't treat her that way. Trust me I learned that one the hard way. So in essence being overly nice to her makes her feel cheated, gives her unrealistic expectations when dealing with friends or teachers. I know this in my head but in application I don't like to be mean.

We have been watching the tv show Brat Camp lately and seeing the blatent manipulation of the kids is a bit eye opening. Keeping a clear headed persective at all times is unrealistic. I guess the best I can hope for is to not let things get out of hand. Looking at her all grown up and feeling her childhood slip away I wonder if I have made the right choices. I wonder if she will be ok. I have always been so set in my ways about parenting, to parent exactly the opposite of my parents, that now at the homestretch I am second guessing myself. She is on the right path, but I guess this is the time when I left the right path and got it all screwed up. As I see her exert her independence I get so scared of the choices she might make, but she isn't me. She is right at the cusp, right at that age where she still sees the world as black and white, smoking, drinking and sex are all bad. Anyday now she will awaken to see the all the gray areas.

Drinking may be dumb but being uncool is worse. A little bit of drinking wont really hurt me, but it will make me a part of this group of kids. They sell beer in vending machines here in Japan. They sell narcotics over the counter in the drug store here in Japan. When the newspaper interviewed the kids, 85% said they drank. I just want to lock her up and start homeschooling. But, then I will have to eventually send her off to college.

As I look back at my youth and all the criticism I have for my parents, I can't help but notice I have no idea what I am doing. I love her, I want what is best for her, but there is no way to do this right. No matter what choices I make there will be failures. No matter how hard I try and how much I sacrifice she is destined to hate me too.

Switzerland

In the summer of 2001, Jeff and I took a romantic weekend trip to Interlaken, Switzerland. We were living in Pordenone, Italy at the time so it was only a train ride away. We stayed in a youth hostel with breakfast included, which was a hunk of bread and some cheese. The very expensive fondu dinner made up for it.

I have been thinking of this trip a lot lately. Mainly because I am taking a Western Civs class and we are reading about Calvanism's origins in Switzerland. This brings back to me memories of the play we saw on our romantic weekend getaway.

The play was about William Tell. Maybe you have heard of him, he shot the apple of his son's head with an arrow. The play was in German, they did however, provide us with an English translation to read. The setting of this play is amazing. The audience's seats are built up and facing the side of a mountain.

This play has been being performed in Interlaken every summer for more than 200 years. There is a cast of more than 250 towns people. But, most importantly now that I am taking the class and reading about the history of this time period, I am reading about the leaders and not about the people. I was given such a gift to be able to see history from another perspective. When the leaders and the religions are changed and am thinking to myself about how this effects the average person, the mother, the child. We read about the leaders who changed the world, I envision how this impacts the people. This being the reason I have been reading chapter 1 for three weeks now.

I have a photo album of our adventures in Interlaken on the left. I loved it there. One of my favorite places. Very expensive, but incredibly beautiful. Hope you get the chance to see it.