Don't Go Grocery Shopping Hungry

Y'all know the saying that you shouldn't go grocery shopping hungry? You know, because you'll come home with a bunch of things you didn't plan to buy? I also advise that you not go to the humane society "just to look". That's how we ended up with Oscar. And don't go with someone else to get a kitten. Greg and Tess love to tell the story of how I "stole" Zillah from them and they ended up with Rat the evil devil kitten instead.

On a related note, don't go to the feed store tender-hearted. Y'all will remember how we only had one chicken left - our hardy black sex-link, Dixie. Dottie and Gidget passed away last summer and fall, and we're frankly amazed that Dixie made it through the winter all by herself. But she's plump and happy and laying eggs again, and now that it's spring, it was time to go get her some companions (chickens hate to be by themselves).

We headed to the feed store to get two more pullets (that's a female chicken that is less than one year old, which is when you can officially call her a hen) for our flock. The place, Coastal Farm & Ranch, was a great adventure for the family. In addition to pullets of many breeds, there were also baby turkeys, quail, pheasant, and chukars. We had planned to get a barred rock and a Rhode Island red, though I was also rather taken with the golden sex-links. Unfortunately, the araucanas and Buff Orpingtons were straight run, which means they aren't sexed (and we're not allowed to have roosters in the city).

I came back from walking Elliot around the store to find Thomas staring at these two pals:


Yes, that's a duck. It was the only duck left in the store, and no one buys just one duck (they cry pitifully when alone). They had put a little bantam chicken (that's sort of a miniature chicken) of unknown sex and breed into the tub with the duck (also of unknown sex and breed) to keep her company. They also told Thomas they were going to "dispose of" the duck soon if no one bought her. Needless to say, these are the two birds that came home with us. We are such suckers.

Apparently ducks and chickens get along famously, as you can see here.


You can keep a duck right in the chicken coop and feed it the very same things. You just have to have some water available for head-dunking and occasional swimming for the duck. And we're learning that ducks make fantastic pets. They imprint easily on humans and will follow you around like a dog. Thomas is absolutely in love with the duck, who we've named Joey after the character in Friends (you Gen-Xers will remember that Joey and Chandler kept a chicken and a duck in their NY apartment). Here's another shot of Thomas cuddling the fluffy buddies.


We've named the chicken Pippin, because whatever breed of bantam she (hopefully she!) is has feathers on its legs, which reminded us of furry-footed hobbits. There's a darn good chance that Pippin will be a girl, since she's a few weeks old and is showing no signs of rooster-ness (no comb, in particular). Hopefully she won't be a rooster, or we'll have to find her (him!) a new home, and we'd hate to break up this adorable friendship (though we found out at the check out stand that they had only been pals since that morning, not the days on end we had been led to believe...).


Joey (or Lonesome Joe, as we like to call him) and Pippin are currently settled in a tub in the guest room for about 60 more days until they will be old enough to move to the chicken coop and meet Dixie. We hope she likes them as much as we do. I'm sure she'll be thrilled to have company after a dreary Portland winter all alone! Here are some videos of the birds in action.



Peep peep quack quack!

What We Did On Our Spring Vacation

We're probably the only folks out there who are glad that spring break is over! Elliot really misses school when it's not in session (which, luckily for us, is only for a couple of weeks of the year!), and it was a long week coming through the gluten withdrawal. Elliot is now back to his usual, spunky self, and we hope to have positive changes to report in the weeks to come. Here is the happy boy himself.


We also started Methyl-B12 injections last night. Mama made a quick jab at Elliot's tushie while he and Papa were wrestling before bedtime, and he barely noticed the little poke (which he'll get once every three days). We'll let everyone know how things go now that we've added the last of our new treatments to Elliot's routine. His regimen now includes the GFCF diet (we've also eliminated all food dyes), digestive enzymes, B12 injections, and supplements of zinc and vitamin D.

Little miss Imogen is also a happy camper. Still no teeth to report, though! Here she is looking cute as a button, hamming for the camera.


Also this week we had some light snow showers and hail, which is very unusual for Portland this late in March. Apparently the last accumulated snowfall on record this late in the season was a storm in early March of 1951. The little snow flurries were very pretty, but darn it, we want to see that sun! We occupied ourselves with indoor pursuits, such as Elliot playing dress up and acting out Blues Clues.



And Papa tickling Imogen...



I'd also like to let folks know about the upcoming auction at Elliot's school, School of Autism. April is national Autism Awareness Month, and the school is hoping to top last year's successful auction to raise money for the school. Money raised is going to the renovation and addition of an extra 1100 square feet to the school (which will add grades 1-2 in the fall), as well as supplies, therapy equipment, and computers. We're thrilled that Bubba Joe and P. will be coming to town and joining us at the auction dinner, and I'd personally like to thank several of our friends who donated items for the auction, including:

Kevia Jeffrey-West, who donated a gorgeous pair of earrings.
John Cosgrove, who donated a beautiful vintage rhinestone bracelet.
Kate Wadnizak, who donated a handmade skirt.
Christopher Yarrow, who Nancy currently works for, who donated a handmade hemp dragon from Thailand.
And my dad, who donated 3 first edition books from the collection of his business, Eagle River Books (time to get a website, Dad!).

Thanks so much for everyone's support! Here's to March going out like a lamb and to an April with not too many showers!

The Bunny Trail and The Rabbit Hole

Happy Easter! We've had an interesting weekend here in P-land. On Saturday, we had a glorious, sunny, spring day. We spent the afternoon outside doing yard work and planting seeds. Here's Elliot picking out mammoth sunflower seeds to plant, and little miss Idgie helping out in her super cute strawberry hat.



Today Elliot spent the morning opening the many eggs the Easter bunny left him, filled with toy animals, stickers, and jelly beans. Imogen was fond of the eggs, even if she couldn't get them into her mouth well enough to teeth on.


Then we headed over to the fifth annual Easter brunch bash at the home of our pals Fez, Christine, Soren, and Jasper. There was an Easter egg hunt for the kiddos, and the Easter bunny (sounding suspiciously like a certain member of the McElroy household) made an appearance.


There was even some snuggling by our own little bunnies.


This weekend has also been all about food. In addition to the yummy Easter treats enjoyed by Elliot, Mama, and Papa, Imogen had her first taste of rice cereal. It was not a hit. But Elliot managed to get one spoonful in as a helpful big brother before the squalling began. Who can blame her for being upset about getting soggy rice cereal instead of chocolate on Easter weekend?



We also discovered today that Elliot's unusual mood and health symptoms the past few days are a result of gluten withdrawal. For some kids on the spectrum, glutens and caseins can act like opiates on the brain. De-toxing the body of these proteins can cause actual withdrawal symptoms. For Elliot, these symptoms started with a fever that lasted 3 days, constipation, canker sores in his mouth, and our usually happy and peppy boy turning into a cranky, tearful, tired boy. Today when he woke up he could barely walk due to the joint pain in his legs, leading his mama to start researching gluten withdrawal before completely freaking out and heading to the ER. Needless to say, we didn't stay long at the Easter party, even though the jelly beans and Easter bunny did cheer Elliot up.

Even though we phased gluten out slowly over the past few weeks, I wish someone had warned us about the potential for withdrawal. Elliot's last hurrah was a graham cracker on Wednesday morning, and so we are now on day 4 of no gluten, which is apparently the peak for withdrawal symptoms. Now that we know what's going on, we're giving lots of extra love and understanding to our little boy. Things should be shaping up in the next few days. We're also hopeful that once the gluten and casein are out of his system that we'll see some tangible differences in his moods, behaviors, and eating habits, since these foods definitely were affecting his body and brain. We'll keep everyone posted!

Until then, have a very happy Easter, and go for a walk to enjoy the spring flowers! Here in Portland, the daffodils, crocuses, cherry trees, and camelias are blooming, soon to be joined by the tulips and rhododendrons. Happy spring!

A Very Merry Un-Birthday

Imogen turned 6 months old last Friday. She can now roll over both ways and can sit up by herself for about a minute before falling over. Go, girl! And the siblings continue to look alike. Here are Elliot and Imogen in the exersaucer, both at 6 months old.



Imogen has also discovered the cats. She loves Rufus, and whenever he walks into the room, her arms and legs flail with delight and she tries to launch herself out of whatever she's in to get to him. Like mother, like daughter, I guess. I wish I had pictures of myself as an infant with Happy Kitty, but y'all will just have to use your imaginations. The scene might have looked a lot like this video of Imogen with Rufus.



We hope everyone had a festive St. Patrick's Day, and stay tuned for Easter pictures soon!

Idgie in the Emerald City

Mama took me on an adventure this weekend. She strapped me in the carseat with my pink star blankie and my little teether dog, Pavlov, and off we went. I fell asleep because we were driving fast and it was raining so much, and when I woke up I thought, Pavlov, we're not in Portland anymore! Mama took me to the Emerald City, Seattle, to have a girls' weekend with my Aunt Tess.

We went to restaurants where I tried to grab Mama's food (I get to start eating rice cereal this month - I hear it's delicious) and did lots of shopping. On Saturday, we followed the cobblestone road down to Pike's Place Market to look at the pretty vegetables and watch the crazy guys throw fish around. Here I am at the market.

Mama and Aunt Tess always stay at a great hotel in downtown Seattle for girls' weekends, the Mayflower Park. I didn't really like being away from home and my Papa and big brother, but it was cool because we could walk everywhere, and I like being outside. I was also teething, so to keep me happy Mama and Aunt Tess took me on lots of walks. Here I am down the block from the hotel posing with the Space Needle and the monorail.

And here I am getting ready to don my ruby slippers (well, pink, actually) and head back home. I sure did like playing with Aunt Tess all weekend.

When I got home (after I cried for the last 50 miles!), I was so excited to see my big brother, Elliot. I was really proud of him when I found out he was wearing big boy underwear all weekend and using the potty. He showed me this video of himself.



There's no place like home!

Spring Fast Forward

Daylight Savings Time caught us by surprise this past weekend, even though my lovely sister reminded me about it on Friday. Somehow I had in my head that the time would be changing Sunday night instead of Saturday. Thank goodness for NPR, though, which got me back on track on Sunday morning just in time to have a houseful of people over for brunch. Luckily, everyone else was behind too, so the coffee cake made it to the table on time.

Spring forward was definitely not invented by someone with small children in preschool. But Elliot did make it to school by 8am today, despite being up happily talking to himself for an hour at 4:30am. And there are some advantages to the time change, like this gorgeous sunrise I got to witness Monday morning while changing Imogen's diaper. Not too shabby for Portland.


In addition to having a wonderful brunch with our Barn Raising Collective (a group of folks who have work parties at each other's houses to do things like yardwork, painting, and fence building) on Sunday, we also had a visit from Denny, Phyllis, Gwynne, Cassidy, and Finn. Here is Imogen getting to know her family.


Tess, Imogen, and I are off to Seattle this Friday for a girls' weekend away, so stay tuned for pictures of Imogen in the Big City.

Entering the Gluten-Free Zone

Y'all may remember that we had Elliot's blood drawn a few weeks ago for a food allergy panel. We got the results back this week, and we are about to enter the gluten-free zone. The panel tests allergies to about 100 different kinds of foods which are then rated on a scale of 0-3, 3 being the most allergic. Elliot didn't have any 3's, which is great. His level 2's were to peas (bummer, cuz he likes those!) and all of the glutens: wheat, barley, rye, and malt. He also had several 1's, but we're not going to worry about those just yet. Those included all meats, peanut, corn, and soy, as well as some foods I can't imagine any kid eating anyway, like lobster and eggplant.

So here we go on the gluten-free adventure! We're already quite familiar with the lifestyle adjustment this diet entails, since our niece has been GFCF (gluten-free, casein-free) for a couple of years. Luckily, Elliot eats so few kinds of foods to begin with that taking a few of them away isn't such a big deal. We're now working on finding acceptable substitutes for items he loves like crazy - crackers, in particular. I see a lot of baking in my future.

On the up side, while Elliot did have a level-1 allergy to cow's milk, cheddar cheese checked out a-ok. And he LOVES cheddar cheese. So he's happy as a clam to be getting to eat it again (we had eliminated all dairy recently). And we're also lucky ducks to have an amazing, independent, locally-owned grocer a few blocks away from us - New Season's Market. They have plenty of gluten-free options.

Hopefully we will see big changes in Elliot's moods and behavior over the next few months as the gluten leaves his system. We'll keep everyone posted! Until then, here are some pictures of the kiddos. First is Elliot doing one of his favorite things - kissing Imogen. And next is little miss Idgie trying out Elliot's old exersaucer for the first time so that Mama can write this blog.


We have another big weekend of fun ahead, so stay tuned for more pictures next week!

Thus Spoke (and Wrote) Elliot

Elliot is very much boy in that he has boundless amounts of energy, enjoys a good wrestle, and loves all thing vehicular. He is not so much boy in that he doesn't destroy things and cause utter mayhem on a regular basis. So this little incident from yesterday was a new one on his parents. He wanted to have a pencil to use as a "clue" in one of his many daily re-inactments of Blue's Clues, which I happily gave him. I found him a few minutes later in the dining room with this masterpiece:

Y'all will remember that Elliot learned to write his name all my himself last week. Well, that's his name on the dining room wall. Next we expect he'll be roaming the neighborhood tagging the sides of buildings. Ah well. At least it was only pencil!

While her brother was expressing his artistic side, Imogen was sticking to the girlie pursuit of infant fashion. Here she is in her first pair of overalls.


Yesterday was a big social day for us, as we had several visitors. Our friends Ned, Sarah, and their daughter Lyra stopped by while in town from Seattle. Here they are posing next to the gorgeous rainbow that stretched from one end of our house to the other after an afternoon shower.


We also had a visit from our friends Tina, Mike, and Ashton. Here is Ashton, rock-n-roll girl extraordinaire.


And here are Elliot and Papa doing the fantastic space puzzle that Ned, Sarah, and Lyra gave him.



And finally, here are the kiddos playing on the swings. Good thing Imogen was strapped in!



Happy March to everyone. We're counting the days until spring!