Monday, November 12, 2012

Gluten free: Three-month update

It's been three months of no gluten for me now! My reflections:
  • Definitely my stomach problems are much, much better. I've had a couple days in the past three months where I was kind of sick, but it seems like each time it was from eating potatoes (odd since that food has usually agreed with me) or undercooked rice. Once it was from eating peanuts that were labeled as being processed with wheat products.
  • I finally only weigh 6 or 7 pounds more than I did before becoming pregnant. I can't definitely attribute this to being gluten free, but it may have helped. Partly it's probably also that I can exercise again, whereas a lot of the year was spent recovering from the ankle surgery and the hernia surgery and before that the awful, awful joint pain.
  • It's super easy to not eat gluten. 
  • Biggest change: I'm not hungry all the time. It seems like it used to take way more food for me to not feel hungry anymore. Now it feels like I need way less bulk to feel full. Here's my typical daily menu: Breakfast of Chex cereal and coffee. Optional midmorning snack of a banana. Lunch of two small cheese quesadillas on corn tortillas with milk. Maybe a yogurt if I'm super hungry. Supper of some type of meat and vegetables and milk. Nighttime snack of popcorn. 
I keep thinking that what I need to do now is eat something glutenous and see how it works out before determining whether to stick with it. The problem is, I can't think of any food that I really, really miss. What's your favorite glutenous food?

Toddler hilarity

Matthew is doing a million things that make us giggle nowadays.

One day, I was doing something in the kitchen while Matt was playing in the living room after his nap, and it suddenly got quiet. I went to look for him and found him on the guest bed under a blanket, pretending to sleep. He giggled hysterically when I found him.

When we see friendly animals––recently a ferret and a small dog––Matthew has been putting his cheek right next to their mouths, like he's saying, "Okay, you can kiss me now!" He does this with stuffed animals at home, too.

I was eating breakfast one day when Jeff and Matthew came out of the back room. Jeff said to Matt, "Say 'boo' to Mom!" (a game we often play). Matt looked at him with derision then ran to hide behind the wall before saying boo! I guess you can't just say it when you're not sneaking up on someone.

This one makes all of our excursions more fun––when we go places, Matthew almost always points at guys and calls them Dad or Grandpa depending on how old he thinks they are. It really makes some guys nervous, which I find hilarious.

Climbing! Matt climbs something, and it's like the most exciting thing he's ever done! He's all like, "Pshhh, that was nothing! Look at me on top of this really high thing!"

Everything is a hat or a drum. Cars are hats. Books are hats. Cups are hats. The floor is a drum. The elephant is a drum. Blankets are drums. It's funny when Matthew manages to balance, say, his stuffed dog on his head and insists it's a hat.

Matthew's also a little mimic now. It's a funny age. He's super excited when he helps with laundry or mopping up spills or carrying his stuff to his room or putting toys away or flushing the toilet or, really, anything he's seen us do. If only he had a tiny, working vacuum... We'd be all set.