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!