Mutiny

My kids are threatening mutiny if I don't relent on some of my new food restrictions and I must admit that perhaps I was a bit overzealous in my initial go at changing our diet. I jump into the deep water of anything I am attempting to do even if wading into it is a better avenue to take.  I seem to only have a stop and fast forward button with no slow motion speeds. It is part of my charm (wink, wink) except if you are on of  my children and then it is part of my mania. Either way, my kids have called me out on my insanity and I realize that I must relent and slow down on this new path we are going down.

But that doesn't mean that things are going back to the way they were before. Because they aren't.

Have you seen that new Oprah commercial? The one where she has partnered with Weight Watchers in which she talks about how every past stop and go, success and failure, triumph and trajedy has led to this moment? I believe in that wholeheartedly. When I first saw the commercial, before Oprah even opened her mouth to speak, I was rolling my eyes about another round of Oprah trying to lose weight. (Because I know nothing about repeated attempts at losing weight. Insert sarcasm.) As I listened to Oprah talk about each moment in life is leading up to the one we are living now I found forgiveness and self acceptance in those words. (This may seem completely silly that a commercial could point out something so obvious to the rest of the world, but I tend to be a slow learner sometimes.) I have been thinking repeatedly about that commercial and my own journey right now in trying to get things "right" in this house as it pertains to food.

If I am being completely honest with myself I began this journey because I am scared. And when I get scared I get desperate. When I get desperate I make rash decisions that I might not normally make (or maybe I would) in times when I am more calm and rational (which, although rare, does actually exist in my world). You see, I am so scared that Sarah's new leg issue is going to eventually lead to her inability to use her legs which will mean life in a wheelchair. And my deepest fear is that after being wheelchair bound she will lose her bladder function and then her ability to breathe on her own and that her life will be taken from her. (I cannot even type those words without tears welling up in my eyes, a tightness in my chest, and that feeling of absolute rage gurgling in the deepest recesses of my being.) I think about those things in times like these because my first and usual reaction is that these things will never happen to Sarah. That she will live to be an old woman just like she imagines teaching blind children as she now would like to make her adult profession.  But then I also remember that I never in a million years thought that she would be blind. Never in a million years did I imagine that her vision would have been taken from her so swiftly. So, yes, my does wander every-so-often to those things that we never imagine happening, especially to our children, because nightmares do come true.  Because this disease has been so severe and fast acting on her vision it is generally known that it will be fast acting and swift in its debilitation of other bodily function failures (should she have any). Her calf numbness is getting worse (as she informed me yesterday) and the only thing that I have left in my control is food and exercise. When I feel like I am losing control over one area of life I tend to try and overcompensate for it in other areas. Thus our complete diet overhaul.

This past week hasn't been without some major successes despite the outward appearance of absolute failure. I have realized just how far off the healthy food path we have gotten. I see now how much I have relied on things in a box and can to get our meals on the table. And how dairy and wheat heavy our diet has been. Seeing these things has been very good for me. It has helped me to get some clarity on where I would like us to go in the future.

So, what we will do now is this: we will eat a diet abundant in a variety of things. I am still going to limit dairy because I am still suspect of it. I am also going to limit our wheat, but only because I want to expose the kids to other types of grains. When we do eat wheat it will be the whole wheat variety. I am going to try my hand at making whole wheat bread as I do not trust bread companies to make my bread and I need something to fall back on for lunches once or twice a week. Our diet will focus mostly on plants just as Michael Pollan suggests, but we will be eating (or at least I will be serving) fish, chicken, turkey, & beef on a rotating schedule. I am going to try and make as much of our food as possible from scratch. For snacks in this house we will have nuts, seeds, air popped popcorn, granola (I need to find a good recipe for this.), fruits, hummus, salsa, and veggies. The kids are all on board with this as it means they can have pancakes once a week (albeit whole wheat) and they won't have to drink smoothies every day. I can rest easier because I won't be so worried about completely cutting out more than one food group. I know there will still be growing pains. Elizabeth especially has a knack for all things junk, but it will a good change for all of us. And it will be a more manageable change too.

As for Sarah, I do not know what her future holds. That is in God's hands. I do know that I will do the very best that I can to make the best decisions for not only her, but for all who reside within the walls of our home. No matter what the outcome I know that all of the decisions that I have made pertaining to her well being have been the best ones that I could have made (and will make in the future) at that specific point in time. And no matter how hard that is for me to be okay with I will need to make it so because there is truly nothing else I can do.