Day 16 - Stage 2 of Intro

It's Sunday.  We didn't make it to church today.  I am totally bummed about that, but we are totally wiped out!  Late nights cleaning up after a full day of cooking, waking in the night with fussy kids (less often now than before GAPS), waking in the night with hungry/teething baby, and waking early to start all over again takes its toll on a body.

It was a fairly relaxing day in between meals, but we barely seemed to have enough to feed this crew.  Right now they eat so much it is unbelievable.  I read many posts that said this was the case for a period of time, but it is hard to really get a feel for it or understand what it's like until you are going through it for yourself.  I eat all day long and my children eat a lot whenever they sit down for meals.  Our oldest is constantly in the kitchen looking for something to eat.

It's all about balance.  I keep telling them this.  At first they just wanted to eat meat, only meat.  The ones who ate mostly meat were the sickest at the beginning.  When they balance the meat, broth and veggies, they seem to do much better.  Today my oldest ate lots of green beans.  I mean that he ate LOTS of green beans.  We cooked enough green beans for today and tomorrow, I thought, but the green beans are gone!  He did not feel so good between lunch and dinner.  He says that he thinks that he ate too many green beans.  I think so, too.

Our 8 year old girl woke up on the grumpy side.  She was grumpy all morning.  Then we noticed that she still had marker on her hands from some art she had been working on at her grandma's house the day before.  We sent her to take a bath with some Epsom Salt.  It cleaned the ink right off AND she was in a more agreeable mood the rest of the day.  Amazing!

Our two year old had a pretty good day over all.  Eye contact was on and off, not great.  He conversed some, but also did some repeating.  He was a bit difficult to understand and he got frustrated often trying to get things done a particular way.  I miss the easygoing, take-it-as-it-comes little boy that he used to be.  *sigh*  He was a neat eater today.  That's a good sign.  We only had a little bit of fussing at bedtime.  He wanted matching top and pants pajamas, but would only pick shirts or bottoms that don't have a match.  That is a problem.  We got through that and he went to bed quite easily and fell asleep quickly.

Fish soup!  I made my first fish stock last night with red snapper.  I made soup today with the stock, the meat, carrots, onions, yellow and green squash, and celtic sea salt.  It was good.  Everyone ate at least two bowls, except for the two year old.  He had some fish and broth from my bowl of soup, but none of the veggies.  I was transported back to Japan as the smell and taste reminded me of breakfast during my first week of orientation when I went to Japan about 18 years ago to teach English in a Christian Church there through LIFE Ministries.  Ahh!  Good memories.

At dinner we polished off more veggies, we are out and I will have to make a late night run to the store.  They ate all of the stew meat and all of the pork chops the we cooked in a seperate crockpot.  Amazing!  I need to cook twice as much as I think we will be able to eat.  I am just scared that if I cook double that they will simply eat double.  You think???

WHAT WE ATE TODAY:

filtered water with lemon

pork roast

spinach

egg whites from hard boiled eggs

fish soup (red snapper)

green beans (too many)

cauliflower

squash blended with broth and fat (2 year old only)

chicken stock

peas

Stew meat and broth

pork chops cooked in the crockpot

3 kids had detox baths