Lovely Day Part Two

The face of all our problems.

I like to start my notes to you like we're already in the middle of a conversation...

Another fun example that sticks out in my mind from this summer, I think we were up till like midnight trying to get Kendall down, we finally got her to sleep then 3 am and she's up again. And we didn't go back to sleep. We started our day at 3 am. It was madness. We had planned to have another family over for dinner that night, they came over, we had a great time but the whole time my mind is in a fog and I'm like "3 am, I've been up since 3 am, how am I functioning?" Ahhh good times. 

After a few nights like that, we started splitting up the nights into shifts and one of us would sleep downstairs while the other one took care of Kendall. Never in all my kids have we ever had to not sleep together. 

The bottom line seems to be that Kendall reacts to certain foods, and I was eating boatloads of them. We discovered this from doing muscle testing with a natural chiropractor (who I now owe my sanity too. Healing Hands Chiropractic what what 🙌). Now, if this was me from a year ago reading this I'd probably start skimming and then eventually click away because food allergy stuff - just doesn't interest me. So if I'm losing you here, I totally understand. But yet, now here I am. Writing this. Which just proves that sometimes you just can't understand something until you go through it. 

Here's the list of things Kendall (me because I'm nursing) can't eat: Potatoes, potato flour, potato starch, modified food starch, dextrin, maltodextrin (unless it's corn), sucralose (which is in Tylenol!), artificial sweeteners, and blue dye. 

You would not believe how many of those things are in everything! There is basically nothing I can eat at McDonald's that doesn't have one of those things in it. Literally. I have dove into this huge researching what's in everything. I read every label of everything that I eat now. I have learned so much about what's in our food and how that affects the price, etc. I used to not care about this at all but now I find it so fascinating. 

For example, I used to not understand why anyone would waste their money buying drinks from Caribou or Starbucks when they can literally get the exact same thing at McDonald's for $3 or $4 dollars cheaper. Well, my drink at McDonald's (shout to McDonald's for actually having their ingredients available, I'll give them that) a Mocha Frappe has modified food starch, artificial sweeteners, and blue dye in it. Blue dye! The things not even blue! Who would have guessed!? The drinks at Starbucks and Caribou have actual ingredients in them. The whipped cream IS whipped cream. Where McDonald's whipped cream is a whole paragraph of words I can't pronounce. 

Now, if you're not sensitive to any of those things, then you have no worries, I suppose. And carry on and save yourself the $3 bucks. But now I know that's why they're priced so differently. And I thought I was just paying for the brand. 

I'm a huge fast food person and the only fast food I've had since July is Culver's cheeseburgers with sourdough bread instead of the bun (their buns have potato flour) and cheese curds instead of fries (fries = potatoes in case you forgot 😉). And I know I'm hardly suffering, that's still a fine option. But I haven't had McDonald's or Taco Bell or Arby's or Burger King... since July. And did I mention I love fast food? I just recently discovered that maltodextrin (which is sometimes made out of corn sometimes made out of potatoes) is in Dominoes pizza crust, so the only take out pizza I can have is Dominoes thin crust with a certain kind of cheese because their pizza cheese has food starch. And basically, all shredded cheese with the exception of Kraft and organic options have modified food starch. No more cream of anything soups because they've all got food starch. There's just so much. It's like all-encompassing. I can't just eat something and not think about it. Because if I don't we will not sleep.

It's crazy what I have become. But it is LEGIT. The other weekend we had bagels and cream cheese for lunch and without thinking I ate two bagels. The next two nights were awful and we couldn't figure out why. Kendall was awake from 1-3am, Micah went downstairs to sleep in the basement, and I wracked my brain going through everything I could have eaten that would have caused this. And then I remembered! The bagels and cream cheese! Sure enough, the cream cheese had modified food starch in it, and I ate two. And that was IT. Two nights of horrible sleep because of some cream cheese.

Where I nurse the babies and Kendall throwing up the peace sign.

Now in hindsight would it have been easier to quit nursing in June so I could eat whatever I want and get some sleep? Maybe. But, I mean we'd still need to know this about Kendall going forward. The thing with nursing is, it's not something that I was like really set on doing. It's free and I didn't want to wash a bunch of bottles... Basically, my parenting motto is to do whatever makes my life easier. 

I actually think nursing has been fairly easy for me. There are always points where I've felt like this is it, this is too hard. But somehow we push through and here we are. But yeah looking back straight up formula feeding does sound easier now, knowing what we went through. Then again, I've had to change so much of what I buy, cheese, ranch dressing, soups, breads, jellies, mac and cheese, chips, drinks, so much I've had to change brands or types to avoid the things and I imagine I'll still need to do that for Kendall even when I'm not nursing.

I'm really curious what this will look like when she is older and can communicate. Because right now it seems to cause her not to be able to fall asleep and be awake all night - what's that going to look like when she's three and can talk? Hopefully, she'll grow out of it? Maybe? 

Although Kendall has definitely been THE WORST, Lily has also had her share of rough nights too. She used to do this thing where she'd wake up 45 minutes after we put her to bed and just yell/cry. We'd run in there, calm her down, and then she'd be ok after five minutes of screaming. But often she'd wake up Kendall and it was just chaos. Two screaming, crying babies. This went on for a couple months. Every evening. Lily, you weren't perfect either little lady. 😂

Not really much of an ending on this one other than to say - hang in there mamas. Thankful to be on the other side of that mess! Only smooth sailing from here on out right?! 😂😂 ✌