before i take you on my wild vacation ride, i just found this AMAZING article connecting ADHD to food sensitivities and it 100% correlates to our family's experience.
read.it.now. then check out & bookmark this sweet ADHD blog later when you have more time.
a lot of people wonder what in the world "to the mullies" means...
we're all trying to get somewhere
whether we are
in our house
or on a vaca
swinging from a tree
or a zip line
or some monkey bars
or simply trying to get down the stairs
it's time to take a chance
and try to get where we want to be
there's nothing to lose
we may fall a bit awkwardly
but it is always and forever
worth
it
now you know how i like to go for it... balls out baby. no regrets... i guess until i break my face in la la land.
me and my guy love the dominican republic.
i'm that blog right now... jet setting and showing off... but this here's my little diary and one must share when we get to swing far away into wonderlands.
it was two vacations in one:
the first five days were spend with my wonderful sis and bro-in-law.
the second five days with a big group of lovely friends.
from cabarete's el magnifico hotel to cabrera's villa de flor - thank you from the bottom of my full belly up to my big heavy heart - i hope the memory of good-family-friends-food-sun-surf will live in my brain forever.
i have fallen for you, mi republica dominicana... with a big splash.
enjoy my super serious zoolanderillustratedportfolio. katie made.me.do.it.
do you think i could kite board like that someday?
everyone fought over reading tina fey's bossy pants. hold on to your b-holes, you'll lol on every page... i'm not kidding about that... the entire beach could hear us.
the best.restaurant.in.cabarete = la casita de papi. i will be chasing this "a la papi sauce" for the rest of my life... stay tuned for that adventure:)
and then we landed in cabrera's villa de flor...
whaaaaaaaaat!!!
we still have water in our ears from waterfall jumping, cliff repelling and scuba diving... wicked stuff.
my best and biggest wishes to a new friend, ty. have a ball in your upcoming adventure to pennsylvania and i hope you get to connect up with food revolution pittsburg. when and if you ever return from the states to your lovely dominican home, may the food rev follow you and your wonderful dreams. there is no doubt you will light.it.up no matter where life takes you my friend.
thank you thank you thank you
miss you, love you and we.will.be.back with our three little amigos soon:)
it still amazes me how quickly abbie slides downhill when given any amount of gluten.
i bought some peanut butter corn puff cereal to mix in with our more expensive gf granola abbie loves. when i grabbed it off the shelf, i of course looked at the label, but my eyes just glossed right over the "whole oat flour". my head was clearly up my arse.
we had such a bad morning after she ate her bowl of granola/cereal for the second day in a row. we had major & ridiculous argument about wearing a coat (it was only 34 degrees outside) so i sent an email to her teacher warning her that we had a rough start before i connected the dots with her food. here is what her teacher had to say about her behavior on the gluten goof-up days. it takes abbie about 2-3 days for the gluten effect to wear off.
"Yesterday and today Abbie has been a little off. It makes sense now that I read that she had a rough start to her day yesterday. During school she was very focused during a few of our classroom activities, but not all. She almost seems upset and would easily become frustrated. There were a couple instances where she had trouble getting along with the other students at her table. They are usually able to cooperate well. I don't know if this is in relation to something she ate, or if it's a result to a sour start to her day yesterday. We will see how her afternoon goes."
crazy isn't it?
whole oat flour (unless it specifically is labeled gluten free) is not to be trusted and i have learned my label lesson yet again. i haven't bought cereal other than a good quality, gf granola in over a year and i won't be doing it again unless there is a clear gluten free label on it... the funny part is abbie didn't even like the cereal anyways!
abbie's back on track again and we have three great reasons to celebrate this mistake:
#1 abbie has yet another experience where she can directly understand how gluten effects her.
#2 her teacher now knows how gluten effects her both socially and behaviorally in the classroom so she can really help me pin point another food blunder. just a week earlier she asked me how abbie acted before the food change! though i hate that i goofed up, i love that her teacher now knows what symptoms to look for in abbie.
#3 abbie is starting to take the reigns: "mom, quit giving me gluten, ok!?"
yes, abbie, my bad.
whether you are in the process or simply thinking of making a real food change in your family, i have found another amazing resource for you. i am so happy to find it cuz i don't have to write the post!
check out this 6-week ADHD clean eating guide by a fellow food revolution blog of the month, ourfamilyeats.com. the only thing i would add is removing gluten week 4. moreover, you can check out the salicylatic content of foods (case in point, abbie goes coo coo if she has too many strawberries which are high in salicylates) as you gain speed. over the course of the past year, i too have slowly gone "clean" with our household products and beauty supplies and it sure has made a difference for all of us. this is the make-up i use now and i'm seriously hooked.for.life.
you can do anything for 6 weeks. if it doesn't work, good riddance. if it does work... well now that would be something to build your city on - no regrets, just rock and roll baby (i couldn't help myself with that song, the mullies kitchen is currently jammin to the 80's).
enjoy love bugs
xoxo
ps
happy halloweeeeeeenies - no need to buy a costume to be little orphan annie and daddy warbucks:)
that's how curly my hair is if i let it go cray cray. i need my sis/bro/niece's red hair and i would have been PERFECT!!!!!
a year ago this weekend, i went to my oldest son's flag football game and talked to my girlfriend jen about what i was about to do: clean out my fridge and pantry and go grocery shopping for "cleaner' food.
yesterday we had another flag football game. i saw her, gave her a big hug and said, "you and i spoke exactly one year ago today. today was the first day of my food change."
i really don't even know how to describe how i felt watching the game. reflecting on how i took my family's food life by the "go-nads" without any guarantees that it would work.
man, am i glad i did.
today is the day i tackled blogger and signed myself up for one crazy ride.
oh jen. thank you so much for cheering me on that day, for not telling me i was crazy and for sharing your successful experiences with food and family. you were such an inspiration that day and you still are. totes to you my dear.
it got HOT sitting on those bleachers, so i went down under to see where the kids were all hanging out and popped a squat myself in my beach chair.
i told abbie what day it was and she gave me that face. HA!!
so far so good in 2nd grade.
i still feel like i'm in a cage sometimes, with the weight of the bleachers on my shoulders.
and sometimes i feel like this. like i just won the lottery. because i really have. this life of mine. i love it and i hope that i leave some realgoodstuffbehind.
bring on the yin and yang spiderman.
what will year two bring?
ohhhhh dolly miss molly... a lot of sunshine i hope.
hope #1: to inspire more families to get their lean.mean.fighting.machines cleaner and having fun cookin in their kitchens.
hope #2: it's sunday people. today marks the 1st day of the bears road to a superbowl victory.
DAAAAAAAA bears da bears da bears da bears da bears da bears da bears...
xoxo
ps
and how about this timing? the top 5 finalists in jamie oliver's search for a food tube star have been announced TODAY!!! i didn't make it (drat) but i sure had a hoot making this entry video. i'm really glad i didn't have to narrow down the field, and i'm really happy to see these individuals as finalists. i love them all. ***if you look fast at the first block of videos in the beginning montage, i get a shout out on the bottom middle square... look quick! i think jamie and the food tube liked it!!!!! yea baby yea!!!!
NOW GO VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE(s) TO WIN!!! i'm voting for 2 i think:)
here we all are. three generations of the mullies. my sister katie just visited from colorado with her super sweet family for a wonderful, long weekend. we all (my dad really went all out) threw my mom a sweet retirement party at my house to celebrate 33 years of teaching kindergarten. can you believe that? that's over 1000 children whose lives she touched at 6 years old. she is one popular person when we go out shopping together around town.
she is so excited for this new chapter, this new pace of retirement. though, i don't think she plans on slowing down anytime soon.
change is a funny thing. sometimes you're ready for it, sometimes you're not.
when i jumped into our food change 10 months ago i had a little bit of resistance from her in the beginning. i think the family and social fall-out was the hardest to contend with in the beginning, middle and always...
to top it all off, my parents live next door so my new food rules were a constant tazer gun in.the.face.
here is how it went in a nutshell from sept 8th - nov/dec 2012:
me:
mom, we are extremely limiting refined sugar and we also can't have any artificial colors, preservatives, gluten or dairy right now cuz i'm going to see if this makes a difference with abbie's ADHD and sensory processing symptoms in the classroom. kay?
mom:
come again?
are you nuts!?
what are the kids going to eat!?
they look gaunt already! (that was said on day 2... HA!)
what can i feed them!? what can they eat!?
where are they going to get their calcium?
what is gluten anyways?
what's wrong with artificial color and preservatives?
i've never seen or heard of this working in all my years as a teacher, but ok, give it a try and i hope it works:)
she was a skeptic to say the least... as was most everyone else.
my dad jumped right on board my crazy train. cuz he pretty much does whatever i tell him to do... and he had been trying to find the magic cure for his GERD & stomach ailments for years. see, he and i get a tad overly excited sometimes: "this is the BEST THING EVER!!!! you have to try it!!!!" my mom just waits it out to see if we crash and burn. she shares her opinion, but let's us go. if we fly back to the nest with some feathers missing, she fixes us up and we charge onwards together with a little "i told you so". if our bright new idea succeeds, she becomes our strongest ally and will devour anyone who gets in our way. it works out pretty well, this arrangement of ours.
my mom is my biggest advocate/supporter/partner now. as a veteran teacher of 33 years, she's seen a lot of kiddos similar to our abbie. however, she hasn't been a grandparent to any of them, so this was a tricky situation. i would ask her to evaluate abbie's reading countless times throughout kindergarten and first grade to double check what was going on in the classroom. we both knew something was wrong with her ability to pay attention and to stay focused. she couldn't even get abbie to focus or read for her. and she gets e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e to read. when i chose the food change path she feared i chose the wrong one. i can't blame her, for she was only familiar with the path i was so very afraid to travel down.
she watched the tantrums at my table escalate, she came over to scrutinize the new dishes i began preparing. she tried everything i made, the good the bad and the ugly. she watched my abbie transform before her very, watchful, judgmental eyes. on the flip side, i got to watch both abbie and mom transform... boy o boy it was scary at first to be alone in the first car of my newly designed roller coaster. chris had one leg out of the second car, clutching his peanut m&m's. my dad had his hands in the air yelping for joy in the third. my screaming kids had their hands over their eyes in the middle cars and my hot mamas cheered me on from the rear. my mom patiently waited with a tool belt on the platform as the maiden voyage ran it's course, speeding through some super dark tunnels. would we come out of space mountain alive!?
so here we are today. we're all on a lazy river together, coasting along (with an occasional rapid or two) getting wet and feeling the sun on our faces. the roller coaster waits for now. it's summer time and it's time to celebrate.
thank you mom. thank you for being next to me, watching me with your tool belt ready to go if it didn't work. thank you for jumping into the coaster with me so quickly when you realized it was working. thank you for sharing my success story with your co-workers and families who were interested in hearing about it all. i'm so happy you're here with me. i don't want one moment to slip by of your retirement. cheers to our next mom and cheers to your shrinking waistline...
you and dad are looking HOT.HOT.HOT. way to turn back the clock.
oh miss briana, you are the one and only couture caterer and i am so honored that you are my fellow jamie oliver food ambassador and the fashionista of food. you truly outdid yourself. this was my family's first catered party and it was a homerun. thank you so much! we will never forget what you created for us!
is your mouth on the floor or what? this was one.exquisite.cake. not only on the outside but the inside was literally the best cake i've ever tasted. really, it was. it was such a work of art nobody wanted to cut it open!
it made her cry she loved it so much.
just in case you want one for yourself too. tina can pretty much can do anything in the universe with a cake. thank you from the bottom of my heart. it was the magical icing of the party:)
yup, we're sisters...
and we have a calendar in place to keep mom busy through 2020:) hee hee!
now, go have a lovely 4th of july and celebrate with everyone you love.
oh my lovely america, happy birthday and i'm looking forward to helping your stars and stripes get even brighter in the coming year.
the mullies are lighting it up and not waiting for the next 100 to pass us by without some action jackson.
light.it.up.
xoxo
ps
just in case you're wondering... did this real food party follow all of the food guidelines i cook by?
nope... but it was pretty darn close as it was all cooked from scratch!!! yea baby yea.
