Gluten Free-Casein Free Holidays

I am a five star camper. Really. I think it is a stretch if the hotel doesn't come with its own blow drier and a good mini bar ( I don't drink but I like chocolate).

  This diet has put a crimp in my idea of "holidays!" Holidays in my mind are all inclusive, cooking free, mindless stretches about 7 days long where mommies everywhere wander around in flip flops and coverups NOT thinking about cooking. How does one do that on a gluten free-casein free diet?

  In November my two of my favorite girl friends and I took all of our kids ( five total ranging from 4 to 14) to Drumheller. This involved transporting all of my gluten free-casein free foods in a huge cooler. Three meals a day for 2 nights and 2 days. We booked a kitchenette and away we went. Now I have never thought much about a man having multiple wives. The idea never really appealed, but at the end of that weekend I could have made a great argument for sister wives!!! The three of us laughed and decided we made a fantastic team! Everyone needs and deserves a wife. One of us would cuddle and amuse children, one would prep the ingredients, the other would cook, someone cleaned up and got us all ready for the next meal! The kids were all clean, fed and happy. We were like a well oiled machine. However, that was a holiday with two other very capable women. The idea of doing this all by myself , defied the very idea of the word "holiday".

 All that comes to mind are the words planning and preparation. As well as the phrase "luggage restrictions". With only one suitcase and a mind for fashion and shoes, I cannot take my whole kitchen with me on a holiday. On the trip to Drumheller the back of my XTrail was full to the roof. The airline companies would be rubbing their hands together with glee thinking about the charges they could rack up with me.

  The kids have done such an amazing job complying with this diet, and getting good grades at school, that we really wanted to do something special for them this spring break. We decided to book an all inclusive week somewhere in the sun. My concern was the diet. If you mess up with the gluten it takes six months to get the traces out of your system. Milk products are eliminated faster, but still.

  Our wonderful travel agent made inquiries for me and finally booked us into a resort called the Grand Palladium in Jamaica. They got back to him and told him they could totally accomodate us with the Gluten and Casein free diet. I could have cheered! The only thing I am going to bring with me ( don't laugh) is a few loaves of frozen bread in my luggage and some Agave syrup. And maybe gluten-free pancake mix. Mitchell doesn't eat eggs so without toast or some sort of carbohydrate alternative he really can only eat frut for breakfast. Other than that they said that there are so many people showing up with food allergies that the awareness for the hospitality industry has become a must. I am sure they would cook Mitchell a steak for breakfast if he asked.

  We will be gone for a week starting tomorrow and if they have internet you may get a few blogs from sunny Jamaica! If not, I will let you know how the experience was from a diet perspective when we get home. It would be interesting to start a website that listed vacation spots that were willing to accomodate our children's dietary requirements. How easy would that make holiday planning? Everybody deserves a break and I can't wait to have a full week of video game free time with my handsome boys and my amazing partner.

  Our boys are at such a fun age, we are looking forward to zip lining, climbing the falls in Ocho Rios and just logging some much deserved time in the sun. It will be a great chance to take them out of their comfort zones just a bit and try some new activities. Maybe even a bit of scuba diving. I will keep you posted!

  So think of me tomorrow, armed with my loaves of frozen bread, my syrup and pancake mix, methyl B12 shots for the week and the 560 pills for the week all stashed in my carry on and have a little giggle. And wish me luck !!!!!!!!!!

  In love and light,
Kathryn

My Misguided Attempt To Avoid The World of Gaming

 No one wants their child to be left out. It doesn't matter who you are, watching your child struggle with friends takes us all back to the playground.

 As a working parent, I hate the concept of play dates. I was never around to arrange them. Other mothers would dutifully exchange numbers, but the kids who had nannies picking them up were kind of out of the loop. My nanny once explained to me, "mom's hang with mom's and nannies hang with nannies". I thought, that's dumb. But she was right! And the nannies were a bit shy of me  So she had numbers, but when I was home with the kids on the weekends, I didn't! I felt terrible not to be able to hook my kids up with any friends. The schools no longer allow student directories because of the privacy act. How about a box you could check that says " don't include my number" to help working parents?

  We were the first in our group of friends to have kids by a long shot ( seven years! ) so somehow without the school contacts, we were a bit out of the loop. Mom guilt is a tough thing anyway when you work full-time, but this really confounded me. I started to worry when the boys had these social issues that somehow it was my fault for not arranging more playdates. That maybe they were missing out on crucial social skills. I managed to completely block the fact that they were at school all day with endless opportunities to socialize! I yearned to be able to toss them out the back door and have them hook up with whomever was loose in the neighborhood like we did as kids. Playing just didn't seem that hard back then. I don't remember my mom endlessly on the phone making playdates. We did it ourselves!

  We often hung out in the playground in the evening but usually, we were the only ones there.

  Now although very different, my boys have gotten along very well over the years. My oldest could usually be counted on to include his brother if we did find a playground playmate. Mostly though, my youngest gravitated to very small kids. He is amazing with them. When we had staff functions at work he would have a small train of toddlers following him everywhere. He would get right down on their level and they loved him.
He would tirelessly read story after story. When my oldest son took his babysitting course and was successfully taking babysitting jobs, my youngest was eating his heart out with envy. That was what he wanted to do but he was two years behind. Young kids saw how amazing he was. They looked up to him and thought he was a demi god, or at least some sort of part-time superhero. When he was with them, he knew himself. He was totally in control and comfortable. Peers were another story.

  At school, my children were handicapped by their mother.  I was totally against video games.

   I thought they were the root of all evil. Everything I had read told me they were bad for boys, who already have trouble expressing emotion and caused a lot of aggression. I banned them from my house. As we approached grades two and four the 'friendship issue' reached a peak. My oldest came to me and told me none of his friends wanted to come to our house because we had no game system. Still, I stood my ground, sure that one day they would thank me. That is until one day I was proudly telling one of my "mom" patients that I didn't allow them in my home. She is really a funny lady and has three older teens. She sat up in the chair, locked eyes with me and made the following statement,

" Kathryn, do you remember when you were young, there was that weird kid, totally out of touch whose parents wouldn't allow TV because it was the root of all evil? Do you remember how we all laughed at that poor kid? You have become that parent!!!! " I froze. I totally remember that kid. I remember his name to this day!! OH GOD, What have I done!

   She laughed and seeing the stunned look on my face she said " they don't speak the same language as the other kids, how can they have friends? Stop at Best Buy on the way home and be a good mom! "
So I did. I came home with an XBOX 360 and neither of my kids could believe it. Now it didn't obviously solve all of our problems, but it did solve some.

  And the best, was yet to come. The best thing to ever happen to Asperger's kids was online gaming. No mom required. Both of my boys have possey's of young dudes with names like " Spanky spanky" and "Piggy" and "ROFLcopter" that they play online with. They use headsets and have more fun than I have seen in our house in a long time. They laugh and shout and cheer. They have never met these kids, they are from all over the world. One kids is from Australia.

The lesson I learned was that you can't fight progress, (but I can set time limits on it!). But in retrospect, to ban it all together would have limited a really important source of socialization and friends.

  The funniest thing is that while they are playing I can hear them laughing and joking and occasionally just to be funny I will toss in a " mom" comment like " don't yell move, ask him nicely!" and I can hear their friends laughing. Sometimes I even get called over to say a quick "hi " into the headphones. A cameo as "that mom" that makes the Canadian kids be polite while gaming!
 
  It is hard to stop being a mom, even when it makes you kind of uncool!

In love and light,
Kathryn

A Single Candle......

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of your comments and feedback on this blog.

  I have no way to reply to most of you, but I hear you. And you are not alone.

   I started this blog as a way to share information on books I have read, conferences I have attended, even ideas that come to me in quiet moments. A way to distill information, to share with you the pearls without having to feed you the whole oyster. I know time is at a premium for those of us walking this path. If you have something you are curious about or are having trouble with, please send me your comments. If there is anything I have read that applies or anything I have experienced that I can share I would be happy to.

  There are three of us in my office with children on the spectrum, and already they have given me enough material to write volumes. If there is anything I have touched on that you want to hear more of , again, let me know. I have tried in the interest of keeping this readable to keep it short and to the point.

  Your comments have touched me very deeply and I appreciate your taking the time to reply. Perhaps we will be able to share our secrets and our successes on this journey until a single candle ignites a bonfire.

 In love and light,
Kathryn

Visual Supports- Encouraging Independence

  To make up for the lack of blogging this weekend, my brain has gone into overdrive this morning and I have another interesting topic!

  We have chatted before about the challenges that our kids face at home and at school around organizational situations. Executive function tasks, anything where you need to get from A to B to C to D is a struggle.
Linear is easier for them than multitasking but there is a limit. There are situations in my life every day where these things leap to mind with both of my sons. For my oldest son, it is making it to the top of the stairs and not having to turn around and ask me what he was going up there for again! For my youngest, it was the dreaded seatbelt in the car.

  Before I understood the significant issues around executive function, I thought these behaviours were defiant. I set about trying to correct them. Much to my frustration and their despair we didn't make much headway.  Not doing up his seatbelt immediately when he gets in a vehicle, although he has probably ridden in a car over 12,000 times in his life, was a source of complete jaw dropping angst for me. I asked nicely. I asked crossly. I yelled. I described horrible car crashes and what happened to people who don't wear their seatbelts. He would just look at me without any reaction. His mother looked like a crazy person, about to blow her top, but he was completely  unfazed. And yet when I turn around and say put your seatbelt on. He does. There is no defiance. No attitude. He simply for some reason does not connect seatbelt with car. There is a complete dangling cord there.

  I went to an amazing educational conference put on by the Children's Autism Services in January. There was a fantastic speaker who talked a lot about executive function issues as they relate to school and life. It was my first view into why I have the troubles that I have had. Her suggestion was that instead of hoping this was somehow going to change, that we learn to play to their strengths. Support them in their areas of need. This can be done with pictures, or lists. She called them "visual supports". To put it in the context of the seatbelt issue, she suggested a black and white laminated picture of a stickman putting on his seatbelt, hanging around the headrest from dental floss. When he gets in the car, it is the first thing he would see and bingo, put his seatbelt on without being reminded. This would be what I would call an "ecological" outcome, good for mom, good for Garrett and good for the world!

  Needless to say, I went straight to Staples on the way home and bought the laminator!

  The one thing that she said that really stuck with me is don't take the supports away. With neurotypical kids we often will use these supports and then faze them out when they no longer need them. Our kids need them way longer, if not permanently. It takes a very long time for something to become routine.There is no reason why it is important to remove them, and her observation was that people were tempted to remove them immediately when they saw success. If you do that you are sabotaging our kids. Allow them their success their way.

   In a school setting, she talked about kids blurting out answers when the teacher was talking. We all know how much of an issue impulse control can be. Her solution was that she had a laminated construction paper circle about the size of a stop light, hanging from around her neck. One side was green and the other was red. She spoke to her class and explained that when it was time to answer questions that she would turn the green side out. Green means go. When it was time to listen and not interrupt, she would turn the red side out, and that meant that it was her turn to talk. Red means stop. Because she was standing at the front of the class facing them all the time, her there was a constant visual cue. Her startling epiphany was that not only did it work for the Autistic kids, it helped the behaviour of all the kids in a very remarkable way. What a reminder that we are all somewhere on the big continuum of all the things our kids struggle with. They are behaviours we all share, they just somehow get distilled in our children.  She eventually was able to use this technique and modify it for her Aspie student and he stopped blurting out answers and learned to raise his hand.

   This was the best "ecological" solution anyone could have ever handed me and our car rides have once again become peaceful opportunities to share each others company. I look forward with gratitude to the Universe, for the next helpful hint, the next gift of understanding for they always come.  I stand with my arms wide open, the stance for receiving. Bless you all.

In Love and light,
 Kathryn

Preparing For What Comes After- Job and Interpersonal Skills

Thank you for your patience!

  I know I usually can hardly sleep on a Saturday morning. I wake up my mind full and my fingers burning and I can often get off two, maybe three blogs on a weekend. This weekend however I had my hands full, I have a dear friend who received a cancer diagnosis and I found my hands burning instead to paint. I was wandering in a book store and found a book on healing mandalas which are to do with meditation, so that was where my creative energy went instead. I gave my healing energy to the mandala.

  I have been thinking for a while about a book I read by Temple Granding and Kate Bush about preparing our kids for life after school. This is a big topic, so I am going to break it down and deal with it in chunks. She talks a lot, especially about high functioning people, the Aspies and how she felt frustrated by the small number of people actually holding jobs that take full advantage of all of their skills. Most were tragically underemployed and under utilized. You see it is not the skill part that kills them, it is having a melt down over something silly like not getting the right sandwich from the sandwich cart, or getting into a confrontation with their boss or a coworker. Or about not being able to see someone else's perspective on a project or work within a group setting. There are very few jobs that do not require this on some level.

  She talks about how her own mother spent a lot of time expanding her comfort zone. I always think of my comfort zone as a bulls eye, the center of which is " home". Personal Best gave me this analogy. If you are standing in the center, "home", you don't learn much. You are too comfortable. One ring out from that is "Learning". Here you are a bit less comfortable than "home" and more open to new information. The last and outer ring is "Panic". That feeling where you are out on the ledge. The funny thing is that you actually do your best learning with one foot in "Learning" and one foot in "Panic". Once I figured this out, I now get a bit of a buzz when I get that anxiety feeling because I know I am on the edge of some pretty fantastic learning! Our kids spend a lot of time trying to stay in the middle of that bullseye as far away from Panic as possible. It is our job as parents to lead them towards the outside of that bullseye in a very controlled and manageable way as we can for short visits, so that they can learn to function here without blind terror. This is a slow process and it takes a long time, so it is never too early to start.

  Autistic and Asperger kids have areas of special interest. Those of us that are familiar with this concept know that whatever they choose takes over your life! At one stage we had every dinosaur known to man! Bed time stories started with " the diplodicus was 18 meters high and lived in the cretacious period.... ". Now my house has lego ships in ever corner and on every shelf. We have lego novels, Halo encyclodedias, the whole nine yards. Whatever they choose they can hold a monologue with anyone of any age, regardless of the sex or interest level about all the intricacies of their special interest area. Trying to get them to talk about anything else can be more challenging. Temple gave some great examples of how her mother tried to expand on her areas of interest to broaden her exposure to things and then got her started in small ways doing jobs for other people where she had to pay attention to what they wanted instead of what she wanted.

  That is a huge thing for an Asperger's child to get their head around and it really got me thinking. On a very practical level, I would like to start setting up some situations perhaps at school as well as at home where these skills get practiced on a daily basis, because I do believe that for them to be successful, she is right, they will have to be ingrained at almost a cellular level. It needs to be part of the training we do with our kids every single day. I think about the things we have had so much success with and they truly were the things we held in our conciousness every day. Things like eye contact.

  So much of their being successful will hinge on being able to fullfill someone else's expectation. And as parents, we can start to verbalize and create on a very small scale opportunities for them to practice these skills. Something as easy as setting the table.... properly! Don't laugh but I actually bought placemats and I am outlining the plates, the knives, forks and spoons! Normally when I ask I get all of the components on the table but all in random order and placement. What a simple way to create a successful outcome without a whole lot of effort, but instill the idea that "close enough" just doesn't cut it. There must be a thousand ways around the house to start this before the boys are old enough to have part time jobs! My mom and dad have been great about "hiring" the kids to shovel snow, and not only that, about having the hard conversation about the fact that the job isn't done until it's done to the satisfaction of the client!

  I look forward to your feedback and your creative ideas of how we can start preparing our kids for success!

In love and light,
Kathryn

NLP- How To Map Success For Our Kids

Nobody builds lego like my youngest son. And nobody is as creative around gaming as my oldest.

Everyone has things that they are naturally very gifted at. And we all have things that we struggle with. It is no different whether you have Austim or ADD or whether you are one of us (the neuro-typicals!!)

What if I told you that our brains create maps of those skills. Every time he gets a lego set, there is a way that he unpacks and sorts it. He gets it all ready to put together, reads the instructions page by page, being careful not to miss a single step. This kid has been able to assemble 1000 piece lego kits since he was about seven years old! He always follows the same process and it always leads to success.

It is kind of like setting out an agenda of how we are going to get from A to B. Now when we practice them over and over, our neurons set up "super highways" where those connections happen faster and faster and become really strong. That makes sense right? Whatever we practice gets laid down as a strong successful brain pattern. Well the same thing happens with things we are not so good at. But these are the connections that we don't want to anchor to because they become blockages. Limiting beliefs about what we can and can't do. Negative anchors.
 
  My oldest son has attention deficit, but you would never know it to watch him manipulate a gaming system. ( The other day he told me he figured out how to record what he was playing and he made a you tube video to teach other kids how to play. His video has some 30,000 hits! I was really happy when my blog hit 600!! I am starting to feel like an underachiever! LOL! ) He is really gifted when it comes to that stuff and very creative.

Asperger's and ADD kids have real difficulties in areas of executive function. They have trouble with organization and often with linking tasks to reach an outcome. Not true when you are dealing with their special interest area, but very true if you are trying to get them to do almost anything else that requires organization to achieve an outcome.

Now what if I told you that we can use the science of NLP ( neurolinguistic programming) to create an overlay of these successful skill patterns. Imagine it as a clear plastic page with the skills mapped out in black marker. Then through guided visualization, we could take the pattern from that overlay, and transfer it onto skill sets we struggle with to help our brains create another successful map. Would that surprise you? Doesn't sound that difficult does it. Professional athletes use visualizations, so do top executives. Why not our kids?

Here is a good example of what I mean. Let's use the situation of a young girl who competes in horseback riding. She is very successful in this arena of her life but cannot seem to write exams. It is possible to ask her enough questions about what she does to get ready to ride, what does she picture, what does she hear in her head, what does she say to herself. There will be a strategy that she uses that gets her in the head space for success. Once we know what she feels, pictures, hears and says to herself we can create a similar pattern for her around writing tests. The we walk her through a visualization where we compare for her the pattern between writing a test and competing on her horse. We can successfully link them and she will find she no longer has any issues writing tests.

NLP teaches us to follow a trail we are already good at walking and just change the markers. Think about the foundation we can build for our children when we start to look at the things they are already good at, and focus on using a tool that will help them use those very templates to establish new skills. This may sound a bit out there but I think the applications for teaching the skills for success are incredibly important. One of the biggest things we struggle with whether Asperger's, ADD, or not, in adolescence is self esteem. Anything that we can do to help our kids in this area is critical and definitely worth a shot.

I will keep you posted on our successes!
In love and light,
Kathryn

The Three Second Rule

    One of the more significant discussions that we had with our family in the beginning, was when you get a diagnosis like Asperger's or ADD, who exactly needs to know? Is it something we should hide? Pretend it's not happening? Do we tell the kids? How do the kids feel about what is shared? How do they feel when it is not shared?  Everyone has a different opinion on this depending on their map of the world, their own experiences.

 What I can share, with my children's permission is what we decided and what impact that has had on our family.

   Anyone who has lived without a diagnosis, with either of these conditions, knows that it is like having an elephant in your living room. Whether or not you are out there sharing it with the world, you are kidding yourself if you think people don't know. We have all experienced the hurtful whispers, the knowing stares, the shaking of heads. Our kids feel it too. They feel it from adults critical of their behaviours, and they especially feel the sting of it with their own peers. I will forever remember the first time in bed when my son whispered to me " why don't kids like me? What's wrong with me? " I wept.

   I read early on, before we had decided, in one of Michelled Garcia Winner's books on "Theory of Mind", that human beings pick up differences in people's ability to communicate very quickly. She states that when a person asks another person a question, if they don't respond appropriately within 3-5 seconds, their brain picks up that there might be something wrong.  They begin to unconciously judge the person standing before them. With our kids, it takes a lot longer than 3-5 seconds for them to take in a situation. How can you read another person if you have lost them within 3-5 seconds? Already the wall has gone up because they have read you as "different", as "not like me".  A gulf opens between you.  A gaping chasm.

    Human beings are interesting creatures. Michelle also talked about a strategy that she employed with one of her Asperger students. He was feeling very isolated and frustrated with his attempts at connecting to other people. She suggested that he change one dynamic. When he was standing in front of the person he was wanting to communicate with, the moment there was any hesitation, she asked him to immediately stop, and explain to the person that he had Asperger's syndrome, and that sometimes he needs a bit more time when asked a question to think about his answer. The results were amazing. People instantly smiled, and often related knowing a friend or a relative with Autism or Asperger's. They threw out a rope bridge over that chasm, that gulf. And with every understanding comment and smile they pulled the edges together until there was not any gap at all. They built connections and " alikeness" statements instead of "different" and "not like me". There was generosity of spirit and kindness that showed up. That boy's feeling about communication was astoundingly different. That statement of vulnerability made the listener feel protective and trusted and that, seemed to make all the difference.

   I am sure there are some who feel I am going against what they perceive to be right in sharing my families journey. Bless you. Bless you all. My children have experienced a radical shift in their world when we opened up and shared what was happening for them. Our extended family, who have always been so amazingly supportive have become even greater cheerleaders. Teachers have become brilliant mentors and role models of patience and kindness. Friend have helped in eductating others about the things people with Asperger's and ADD face. Vulnerability has been transformed into strength.

  I honour everyone's personal choices. I honour everyone's right to privacy. I honour my children's right to be celebrated for every beautiful thing about them. And I am eternally thankful for all of the acceptance they have found in the world in having the courage to stand up and declare who they are. They are truly remarkable human beings. They are my heros.

  In love and light,
Kathryn

Animal Spirit Guides- Part Two

   Both of the boys totally enjoyed the experience. It is basically a guided meditation where you wander through your mind and see who shows up! Contrary to my worries, they found it easy! Perhaps because unlike adults, they don't have all the mind chatter going on about what if they have already decided what the animal is, will they be able to see it, what if they see nothing...... you know! They just walked in, laid down and completely trusted that because their mom said their animal would just show up and they would know it when they saw it, that they would! And they did!

  By birth, my oldest is an Otter, which, like our horoscopes pretty much fits him to a tee. Playful , sociable, loyal and perseptive he is a really fun guy. Gentle and loving, and very intuitive. He feels the world though his skin. He can get along with anyone, anywhere, anytime. He is very in touch with his inner child! Otter people view life as a game to be played and enjoyed. They are the people who are very intune with family and awakening a sense of wonder about life. He definitely has done that for me in our journey together. Otter medicine is the capacity to listen to your inner child and create change and bring newness into all areas of your life. It is about tremendous creativity and passion.

   His spirit animal  in his journey, came along as a bear. Bear medicine is about awakening the power of the unconcious. Bear teaches you to go within your soul's den to find your answers, to find your resources necessary for survival as you already carry them all. It also teaches that those with a Bear totem may find a natural active and "hibernation" pattern at play in their lives that enhances their creativity.  He teaches that what you go inside yourself to seek, you must remember to bring out and share with the world, making your mark as a bear marks trees with his claws. Don't keep your passions to yourself.  Have the courage to share your creations with the world, to make your mark so to speak. Wonderful balance to the creativity of Otter.
His animals balance each other in an interesting way, teaching that we can never be too far off center. One can be playful, but to accomplish in life, we also need to spend time searching within and bringing our creations to light.

    My youngest, who was so excited he had to go first, is born under the Snow goose. Also a remarkable fit.
The description of Snow Goose would be very close to the description for Asperger's funny enough.
They are patient, disciplined, prudent, uncompromising, respectful and sincere. They are headstrong and rigid. His learning according to Snow Goose, is to let go and open up to new ideas. To move out of his comfort zone and a life that is too well structured. Ringing any bells for anyone out there with an Asperger's child? Snow Goose people need a lot of structure, and they have strong beliefs about right and wrong. They are remarkably loyal individuals. They fuss a lot about details, but they have hearts of gold. They have an incredible drive to accomplish and often become very successful.

   His spirit animal showed up as a very interesting looking wolf. Now my kids play their fair share of video games, so it might be fair to say the the graffics around his wolf were influenced by that. Wolf and Bear are considered by the Native Americans to be the two last true symbols of the natural primal world. Interesting that we would end up with both in our family. Wolves have a sense of smell that is one hundred times greater than humans. My son relates to this too, with his hypersensitive senses.Wolf medicine is about guardianship, ritual, loyalty and spirit. Their sense of family is extremely strong and they thrive only within a strong pack. Again they have a very structured society and a complex communication system involving ( of all things) body language. Wolf teaches that all postures and gestures carry great meaning. The message of learning for my son here, is very clear. He teaches you to empower your voice with meaning from your body.  He teaches the lesson of governorship, again, a balance between listening to your own authority and taking the input of others.   Wolf teaches that discipline can create freedom,, a lesson that I know will speak volumes to him on his journey.

   It was interesting to me that both of my children's spirit animals and totems speak about the strong importance to them of family. Our journey in both parent's homes over the last few years has been about recreating that for them in two strong places.

   After the sessions, I printed out both of the boys animals and all of the information associated with them and we talked about what we read meant to us. The things that fit, the things we didn't yet understand. I love the moments where I have their full engaged attention. So often I lose them to the computer or video games that what I cherish most are the times that we share something meaningful to all of us.

   Who knows what they will choose to do with the experience. Like all things in our lives we either store them and use them, or store them and forget. But my intuition tells me that what we have explored together may yet serve them in their lives to come. If only to bring them to balance,  where they can experience life with the joy of being connected to all creation.

  As a parent, what more can we offer?
In love and light,
Kathryn

The Animal Spirit Guide Journey- Part One

   Each of us is born under the protection of a specific animal.

   Under Native American beliefs we take on some of the characteristics and lessons of that animal. Imagine it a bit like a big animal horoscope wheel except instead of being a Libra, I am a Raven. My spirit animal connects me to the fundemental forces of nature. I did not choose her, she chose me.

   Raven has huge significance for me in my life. She is considered to be the messenger between worlds. Raven medicine is magic, diplomacy and healing. It is the bird of birth and death. The influence of Raven is the ability to go into the dark and bring forth the light. This comes from the story that Raven stole the sun from one who would keep the world in darkness.  The Plains tribes believe that Raven is able to see beyond the illusion of the material world which is the spiritual journey I have chosen.

   Native Americans also believe that beyond your totem or birth animal, we also have Spirit Guides or messengers that either travel with us a lifetime to help us learn, or bring us wisdom from Nature in a time of need. In a guided meditation with a Shaman I went on an Animal Spirit Guide Journey and learned that my animal is a beautiful Blue Heron.

  The Blue Heron was a surprise to me. I didn't think I was much of a bird person, funny to end up with two birds! The message however, I couldn't ignore. Heron's message is that of self-determination, and self reliance, as well as attaining balance in life. The length of a herons legs determine how deep it can wade to fish and sustain it's own life, the spiritual significance of this being how deep will you wade into your own experience to nourish your own spirituality. Learning the medicine of the blue heron helped me to understand my own nature better. To embrace my own learning.

  You might wonder why I am posting this in a blog about Autism and ADD. The answer is that this process grabbed my children's attention like nothing I have ever seen . From the moment I came home and told them about my experience, all they could talk about was when they were going to meet their spirit animals.  Maybe for the same reason people are drawn to horoscopes, except these don't tell you you will meet a tall dark stranger. They tell you about your strengths, and they talk about the lessons we are here to learn in life. All the boys could ask about was when they were going to see Rae Ann to find out who their animals were.

  We are busy and with all that we have been doing with the diets I kind of forgot until just before Christmas.
And then as I was trying to come up with gift ideas, I remembered. This year in their stockings my boys got a gift certificate from their mom for an animal spirit guide journey. They were exstatic!! They could hardly wait!.

   We booked the appointments and as always, I started worrying about the process. They have never meditated before. Would they be able to? Would the Asperger's and ADD turn this into a frustrating melt down rather than the gift I was hoping? Well, surrender was inevitable once we were there in the midst of the process and as usual all my worry was for nothing.

    Those of you who know me, know that I am a person who runs pretty much on instinct and intuition. Those two traits are like the blood that flows through my veins. Did this seem like a pretty flakey thing to do?
Sort of, but I have to tell you my instinct and intuition were driving me there like a freight train. I have learned to trust them over the years. The fact the kids were so attracted to it added to my certainty. Learning about my animals and their strengths has added a great deal to my life. Expanded my understanding of my place in the world.  Everyone needs an identity. Some way to belong, and for our kidsespecially, to feel safe, accepted. To understand what makes them tick. I think this is why my kids locked on to this idea so strongly. It would be there to support them in their journey. What was the harm?

    In order to keep this short and readable I will post our experience and the gifts it brought in Part Two of this blog.
In love and light,
Kathryn

The Monster Under My Bed: Anxieties and Fears

  Every child has fears. The dark, monsters under the bed.
 
My little darling had fears that went way beyond these rights of passage. We did the normal fear of the dark, and we had a spray bottle with water in it and a felt marker label that said MONSTER SPRAY in big red letters. Every night I would spray in both of the kids rooms, under the beds, in the closets and any dark corners that looked like a monster could fit.
  
About the time that we were conquering these normal fears, the Tsunami hit in Thailand. It didn't matter what channel we flipped to there were pictures of people and animals getting swept away by an avalanche of water. It was on the news every day for weeks. We made a point of limiting our kids exposure to it but even on the channels were their shows were on, commercials would announce new coverage on the news that night.
  
   One particular piece of footage I will never forget was of a displace toilet, outside in the middle of a sea of water,  with water exploding up out of the center hole. My youngest son, with at the time undiagnosed Asperger's, never forgot that picture and developed a pathological fear of plumbing and tsunami's. Even pipes rattling in the wall when we flushed toilets when he was really little would send him into hysterics. If we ended up with a plugged toilet he would have a complete meltdown.

   Every night for years he would ask me if we could die in a tsunami in Edmonton. Every night my answer was the same, " Honey, we live in the middle of a very big country far away from the ocean. Even if a tsunami came, the water would never reach us. If it did we would have much bigger issues than the tsunami! "
Thinking back on it now if I had understood how an Asperger's person's mind works I would have given a much different answer.  They need a black and white yes or no. I left the door wide open, which is why he kept asking. 
  
   I got really creative with the toilet fear. I tried to take him to the worst case scenario to show him that nothing was that bad. " So what if the toilet overflows" I said, "we live on a hill! We'll just open up the door and that water will run right out the front door and down the hill! " He looked at me like I had lost my mind and continued flapping his hands with full anxiety.
  
    The first thing I would point out, would be that in so far as a fear could be logical, these are not logical fears. There is no way to talk them off the ledge around whatever fears they develop. The more I rationalized why they didn't make sense, the more he clung to them. In the end I talked to him when he was older about taking a plumbing course with me at Rona. I figured maybe feeling like it was something he knew how to control would make the difference. He just couldn't fathom that.
  
   The other thing that plagued him was nightmares. I haven't read much about whether or not that is common in Aperger's or Autism. I do know that you tend to remember what you dream mostly when you wake up at a specific point in your sleep cycle and because we had desperate sleep issues my son had sometimes two or three nightmares a night. This made him afraid to close his eyes and go to sleep at all.
  
    Since getting our diagnosis and starting him on the Melatonin to regulate his sleep and putting the kids on the gluten free, casein free diet our life has dramatically changed. With regular sleep, we now have the odd nightmare,  but not three a night. The other day the toilet was running in my ensuite. He and I were reading on the bed. He jumped up, and walked over, took the back off the toilet to see what was happening and pulled the chain a bit and said " Mom, the flappers stuck!"
  
   I was glad he couldn't see me, with tears in my eyes clutching my book to my chest. I wiped my eyes trying to look normal and jumped up to help him fix it. Never in a million years did I think he would ever be able to manage something as simple as checking a toilet. One of this greatest fears.
  
    Sometimes life's greatest blessings come in funny packages. I would also never have thought I would shed tears over a toilet!!! LOL!

In love and light,
Kathryn

As I Cast My Gifts Upon The Water, So Too Do I Look Upstream For The Gifts That Are Coming To Me

I found that message on a plaque in a Hallmark store. It was a gift that I decided to give to someone in my life who is very dear to me. It practically jumped off the shelf and into my hands.

 That message for me is completely about Abundance.  Abundance for me comes down to one statement shared with me by my mentor.

 " I trust there is always enough."

  And in fact more than that, I am responsible, as one who is part of all things, to keep the flow of abundance happening. To contribute, knowing that the more I give away, the more I can expect back in return.  I had a conversation with a friend one night about the fact she grew up in an environment of scarcity. Her family believed that there was "only so much for everyone" and that if you wanted more from your life, you were inevitably taking from someone else's pile leaving them less. Wow! What a Karmic downer that would be!

  An easy way to think about the concept of abundance is this. If I have a candle burning, and you need yours lit, you can touch your wick to my candle and suddenly we both have light and warmth. Does my candle emit any less light for having lit yours? Of course not. How about less heat? Ridiculous right?

   What about love? When you have only one child you are completely absorbed with love. When you suddenly have another, do you have to take half of the love from that child to give it to the new one? The nature of the Universe is that when we learn to surrender and allow in our lives, we realize that these things are all renewable resources, and that by sharing them, we actually increase the amount of love and light in the world. Think of the state we are in now, and the beautiful healing that would create.

  I trust there is always enough. And I hope that I am living this out loud in a way that teaches this important lesson to my children and anyone else who is open to the lesson.

   Of all the gifts I have been given in my life, the greatest are my children, just exactly as they are.  I would not change one hair on their heads. Thank you for being my teachers.

In love and light,
Kathryn

The Spelling Strategy- A Reminder That We Have The Power

  I took a Neuro Linguistic Programming course last fall. My understanding of the field at that point was that it was the science of body language.  I signed up for the course hoping to help my youngest son.

  The course was from a company called NLP Live With Power and the instructor was amazing. She is a lady with a very strong commitment to assisting children who have been labelled in the school system, reach their full potential.

  It is interesting to me how many parents are resistant to having their children labelled. I have seen many parents actually go out of their way to avoid letting the school in on any testing to avoid this. Not that I don't understand this, as it often disadvantages these children, as once they are labelled, no one ever expects much from them and they tend to live up to that expectation.  However, I guess in my situation, both of my children had such significant challenges that I welcomed the labels. In fact we personally had to pay for all of the testing as the school missed the diagnosis on both children. The labels for me, were the key to accessing resources. In my own mind I had dismissed the negative connotation of that labelling.

   One afternoon in the course, the instructor was explaining that we all have unlimited potential for visual, kinesthetic and auditory recall. What does this mean? It means that our brain potential can be unlocked in a very funny way by our eyes! Our eyes? Now the funny part of this is that I am sure we can all recall hearing about someone being able to tell whether someone else is lying by watching which direction their eyes go.  I remember hearing people talk about the fact that was why some experts felt that OJ Simpson was guilty. Our eyes can't lie! It would take an incredible amount of awareness to be able to get your body language to lie consistently.  Now it isn't as easy as everyone doing the same thing. An individual must be asked calibrating questions that there would be no need to lie to, for us to establish a baseline. However, unlocking our brains hidden potential is not all about lying or not lying.... Where is this going you might ask?
 
  Well my oldest son is a pretty cool cat, very calm and centered. He has attention deficit but definitely without the hyperactivity.  He is also an atrocious speller. We have spent hours copying out spelling lists over the years. I used to make him copy the words he missed out five times before I retested him. On the next go, he would get entirely new words wrong, words he had gotten right the first time!  It was exasperating.
During this course we were taught that anyone, and I do mean anyone ,can be trained to have a photographic memory. One of the practical applications of this was called " The Spelling Strategy".

  "The Spelling Strategy", broken down very simply works like this. For most, (and I do say most to warn you that if this doesn't work, ask a few questions that the person you are teaching would not lie to, recall questions, and watch whether their eyes go up to the right or up to the left) right handed people, the visual recall whiteboard is accessed when your eyes go up and left. Left handers are generally the opposite.
What this means is simple. If you look at a picture and really study it, when I take it away and ask you what you saw, your eyes will go up and left without thinking trying to recall the details of that picture.

  To practice " The Spelling Stragegy" you need the following. A pack of coloured markers and an easel or white board, and of course some age appropriate spelling words (to start at least!) You can do this with anyone of any age ( as long as they are old enough to communicate! ) Start by printing the word, one letter at a time, about 2 inches tall on the easel, each letter a different colour. The board must be standing up at eye level for the person you are working with. This is very important. What you say to them as they are looking at the board is also critical, the wording is as follows:

   " I want you to take as much time as you need to look at this easel and see everything that is on it. When you think you can remember everything that you see, I will turn the easel away from you. I will then ask you to spell the word for me forwards and then backwards. Your brain takes pictures every second and stores what it sees. You have no control of this, it happens for everyone. I am going to teach you how to look for and find any one of those pictures you may want to see again."

   They will look skeptical, but assure them that they cannot fail at this task even if they wanted to. Their brain is like a computer. The answers are encoded every second. We simply don't always know how to retrieve them!

   So I came home from my course absolutely so excited about this spelling strategy I couldn't wait to try it. My hours of grueling spelling testing on him were over. I was going to prove to him that he was brilliant!
He met me in the kitchen when I got home and I explained my plan and he was less than enthusiatic.

" Mom" he said, " I have attention deficit."
Now NLP teaches that when attempting to change someone's belief system you need to point out inconsistencies so I countered with
"Really, where was it when you were playing the computer for three hours? I didn't see any deficit of attention then!" Smirk.
" Come, let's get started. "
" I can't. I don't learn like that. I am an auditory learner. " Labels from school. Wow. I had no idea he had internalized those labels this much. I stepped it up.
" What am I wearing ? "
"  Blue jeans and a black shirt."
"  What ? How did you know? Did you hear that or see it? " Smirk.
"  You have eyes, you should gouge them out if you don't intend to use them. You have a choice. You can do five spelling words with your mother and prove my theory or you can get grounded. Your choice. "
  
    I don't have to tell you what he picked, but as I picked up my coloured markers I was praying to God this was going to work. I didn't realize how much he had limited his world based on the labels I helped to give him. I wanted to break down those walls and quickly. I was stunned.

   I picked up my coloured pens and wrote the word " CREATIVE". He grudgingly studied the page and then told me to turn it. Spelling it forwards he looked right at me going off short term memory. When I asked him to spell it backwards, he hesitated. I gently said to him, "look up and to the left with your eyes, you will see a white board and you will see the letters and the colours. Just read them backwards for me. He did as I asked and I watched the astonishment dawn on his face as he realized he could see just what I had told him.
We had tears. We practiced five words a day, every day for a week and ended with "ACCQUAINTANCE". He spelled it perfectly forward and backward. I explained to him that from now on you need to just know, that every word you read is stored in the same place. You just have to look for it to spell it!
 
   I saw his whole demeanor change. I had given him a key. He got 97% on irregular spelling words one report card! But for me this was less than watching him discover that the labels that he believed limited him, no longer applied. The world opened up for him on that day and what a beautiful moment for me as a mother.
  
   The application of this technique is so wide I know I have not even scratched the surface. I repeated it with my youngest son with the same results. I would love to train them to have photographic memories, as I have one and it helped me immeasurably in school. But there is only so much I can convince them to do, so for now I am settling for this small victory. We broke down the limiting beliefs but I know there are more to go after. As I continue to learn, I pray that they will continue to trust me and allow me to push their limitations to the breaking point. I love them more than words can say. There is nothing I would not do to ease their way.

  I look forward to hearing about your successed with this method.  May you break down a few limiting beliefs of your own!
In love and light,
Kathryn

In Case of Emergency, Secure Your Own Mask First Before Assisting Others

That statement pretty much sums it up doesn't it?

   And yet how often on this journey do I find myself clutching the covers at night trying to steal a few precious moments for myself, or sick and run down from burning the candle at both ends without any thought about what is happening within me when I don't take any time to recharge my own battery?

   This discussion is about the self care that we as mother's, father's and caregivers of children with special needs often neglect. But it is a critical component of running the long term marathon, because if your own cup is empty, you have nothing to give to those around you. And what is worse and more concerning than that, you are actually depleting your own core life energy which is harder to replace. 

   I am not the poster child for self care as those in my life know, so I am not writing this as your teacher, but as someone also on the path just trying to figure out what works for me. In Personal Best Level three we did an exercise about what the three levels of nurture look like, Self, Others, and the World. Now in my life, World and Others always came out of the cup first, and whatever was left floating around in the bottom of my cup ( the dregs) was for me. In the course of that exercise for the first time in thirty some years`, as they wrote ideas on a white board the picture started to come together in a much more concrete way. If I wrote a list myself the same way we did as a group, of things that would be nurturing to me, for example, a hot bath with bubbles, a few hours of solitude to paint, an hour a day to walk. If I made the effort to set aside small chunks of time just for me, I would in fact be filling up my own cup. Which would actually be adding to my patience and adding to my ability to cope. And when that cup runneth over, guess what? There is lots to share with others and the world, but the very best of that spring always goes through me first.

    It is not easy to find the time. That much I know. I run a full time dental practice, I have shopping and meals and cleaning just like you. We have after hours sports and activities to drive to. And I am a single mom.  I have tried a few things to find a few more moments in the day, some successful , some not. I tried to hire a personal chef to help me with the kids meals since we were banned from so many different foods cooking was getting tricky, It wasn't that expensive, the same as our groceries for the week, but the kids really didn't like mushy cooked vegetables and frozen cooked meats with sauce. So, that didn`t work. But on the up side, the kids suddenly realized how much work was happening behind the scenes to get an edible dinner ready and now one offers to set the table, the other chops salad and many hands make light work.
 
   One of the things that takes me at least an hour a week is counting out all their pills into their pill containers each week,  and harassing them to take them twice a day as well. We sat down and had a family meeting about how many things needed to get done in the morning for us to leave as well as for us to sit down for a meal as a family and the kids have been amazingly helpful. I wonder why I never asked before! Part of it, is that from a purely selfish perspective it makes me feel needed. All those little things are ways to tell them that I love them. However, from an energy perspective, all those little things add up and pretty much drain the joy and happiness right out of me and replace them with fatigue and sometimes, despair.

   I have always been a person who is very high energy and to be happy, I need to move. My mom figured this out when I was studying hour upon hour in dental school. When I get into helpless mode, she would kick my ass out the door and send me for a run. She did some reading about large muscle group activity and it`s ability to decrease anxiety. Well it certainly works for me. And interestingly, it also works for my kids.

   Never being able to find any time to go to the gym, I finally went to the YMCA and bought a family pass. Now when I need my walk, my boys get tossed in the car and they either swim or walk on the treadmill, or workout on the machines. They actually are enjoying it as much as I am and I have no guilt, because I am looking after myself and getting them away from the infernal video games. Better than that, we laugh and we talk all the way there, and all the way home. It is family time.

   Keeping contact with friends has been difficult as anyone with these issues knows. There just simply don`t seem to be enough hours in the day. But nothing is more important than hooking up with some sort of support group. I have my amazing partner who is truly my soul mate and has learned so much with me. I have the support of my wonderful immediate family and extended family.  I have 21 beautiful women in my practice who make my every day inspiring.  I have deep friendships that nourish my soul even when there are no words between us, when we pick up again, no time has passed. I thank God for all of these things in my life.

  I am adding meditation and yoga to the mix because my soul seems hungry to learn more. Seek meaning in this journey. I am a very intuitive person and also a very busy minded person. The study of meditation is helping me to ask my mind to step quietly aside for a few precious moments and allow my intuitive self space. I feel sometimes in this process like a child again. In the best possible way. In that time before everything got so very complicated. When the answers just seemed to pop into my heart without any effort. I am amazed at how clearly my answers come when I still myself to listen. The yoga has been important because I realize that I mostly live in my head. That I have disconnected in a funny way from my body. Through yoga and dance I am reclaiming the whole of myself with joy and abandon.

   Take care that you take care of the beautiful vessel that houses your soul, for you yourself are an amazing gift to the world. Healing must start within, and become a beautiful light inside you that grows and radiates outwards to warm all of those around you. Start small. Make a list today of things that nourish your soul. Make it a long list even if you don`t intend to do all of them. Then pick one a day and start this very moment.
And smile because heaven knows you are worth it.

  In love and light,
Kathryn

  

The Three Things

Okay, so let's get back to those three things, shall we?

  So I started thinking as I left his office, about inspiration. These three things were supposed to be like my prime directives ( yes that's right I am a closet trekky). They were not to be burden statements and in fact they were really supposed to be statements that set me free. It took me close to another three weeks to come up with my three things.

  In thinking about your own, here's something that may help.  Now later on in some of the coaching I did with a very special mentor,  I learned how to sort out whether I had hit the mark or not. In a totally untelated exercise, she told me to write something down. Now, read it outloud to myself.  If I had trouble reading it without getting really emotional, then I had hit the mark. That meant I had brought something out from my heart. If I could read it without any emotion coming up, it was just mind speaking. Mind is not nearly as powerful as heart.
  
   So as you are trying your own statements out, read them outloud to yourself. If you get a lump in your throat, or you feel tears brimming at your eyes, you are probably right on track. I tried to think of how I get through tough things in my life and these three things suddenly became very clear. They were essentially unearthed. Truisms that were there, as though I was an archeologist sweeping away dirt to uncover something precious that had always been part of me. I had just never seen the whole of it.

** The first of mine, is that I love life. All of it. In my heart there is no good or bad, only lessons. Even the things that people do that hurt me, are only opportunities to understand myself and the world in a deeper more intimate way. I embrace life like a passionate lover and I look forward to every moment. I don't fear what is coming because I believe that every experience is a precious gift.

**The second is that my life is about courage. I am not afraid to do what I need to do, or stand up and be heard above the crowd. I am not afraid to be different.                                                                              

** The third, is that I am never alone. I have felt since I was a child that no matter what there is always a presence with me. Call it God, the divine or whatever has meaning for you, I know I am as connected to the sky, as I am to the ground. There is a shaft of light that connects us to the heavens, passes through us and into the earth. that connects us to each other and all of creation. The core of that light for me is my faith. If all else was taken from me, I could live on that alone.

 Somehow unearthing these things at such an early point in my life has allowed me to go forward with less fear of the unknown. How you might ask? Well, the older I get, the more pattern I see in life and in the world around me. Fewer coincidences. I truly believe we are exactly where we are supposed to be learning exactly what we are supposed to learn. It is easier to believe in times of joy than in times of hardship, but I truly believe it even then.

  These things have reinforced the core of me, the center of who I am.  I carry them gently in my heart and in the dark times that I have had to face, I cling to them like a life raft. Thank you Patrick for helping me find my own treasure, for surely the gifts you have helped me find are beyond value.

 In love and light,
Kathryn
 

 

The Message Is In The Receiver.....

  Several of us in the office have children on the spectrum, and we all track our progress together, sharing triumphs and disappointments. We were talking about what it would be like for just one day to be able to view the world through our children's senses.
  My dear friend and associate looked at me with her Shaman like gaze ( she is a very old soul ) and said very cheerfully,
 " You know, really, the message is in the receiver. If you are standing on one mountain and you are sending the smoke signals for D, O, G, and the guy on the next mountain reads that as C, A, T,
then the message was CAT!"

  I have let that sink in for a few weeks and you know I can't get it out of my mind! It goes back to what I spoke about in the first few blogs about perspective. That filter that we all carry around with us that determines the meaning of what we HEAR regardless of what has been actually SAID to us. Our crab shell. 
 
Our kids can't change their filters that easily. The inflexibility that characterizes Autism, Aspergers and ADD make it difficult for them to interpret the subtlies of communication and meaning.  But it really is food for thought for the rest of us, don't you agree?
 
Clean communication in our lives requires being very concious of what we are saying without saying anything. The statistic is that 70% of communication is non verbal. Wow. How's that for a mind blower!
How often do you pay attention to your body language? How good a listener are you? Do you often hear CAT when someone is trying to say DOG?

  Truth is a concept framed by perspective. My reality is my reality. No one can change that, but me. My truth is different than your truth is different than that of the guy next door. But within my own framework or map of the world, I can change how I interpret the information that comes in through my filter. Especially if how I am currently interpretting is not serving my highest good.

 ( I am often struck by how much self talk goes on for me while someone else is talking. A Personal Best lesson that has really stuck with me is trying to remember to put aside my stuff for a moment and be present for the person that is trying to communicate with me. To honour that person and their message. But boy it is a lot like paying attention to the breath hitting the triangle under my nose when I am meditating. It takes a lot of continual refocusing! The mind is an undisciplined child. I am truly working on mine!)
 
  What about your filter? Is is clogged up with self doubt, or negative self talk? Are you really hearing what is being said? We have the ability to change our filters, eliminate that self doubt and negative chatter that we all hear, and be more present in our lives. Maybe it's time for a little spring cleaning, shake out the beliefs that limit us in our lives. Clear up our visions of what is truly important to us.

  I challenge you to think about that over the weekend and the next conversation you have, pay attention to what is happening for you. Are you really hearing what is being said?
  In love and light,
Kathryn

The Shoes

Looking back now the most significant thing I see in my rearview mirror about my son's diagnosis is a small pair of shoes.
  For me, those shoes were the first red flag.  Putting on shoes, tying shoes, finding shoes, all a universal part of a normal childhood. For our family, shoes were the threshold to a doorway we did not want to walk through.
  A pair of small white spiderman shoes, with blue and red spidermen sprawling across the toes. Favorite shoes, he won't wear anything else. Shoes sitting by the door as we play at a friends house. Time to go, and we call to the boys to come put their shoes on and a quiet happy afternoon ends up in chaos. One hysterically crying, inconsolable, a flat out rage, no longer resembling a child, but some sort of bone-less chicken as we finally, embarrased give up on the shoes all together and drag our traumatized family sheepishly out the door with the shoes in our hands.
  We must have repeated this scene a hundred times. We tried everything to do it differently. Shoes were not a problem in our own home if we were not in a rush. The moment we had to meet a time deadline we were dead in the water. He would freeze up and go into full resistance. Lock up. I couldn't understand it. It didn't make any sense to me and it pretty much made it impossible to go anywhere after a while.
  To be honest, I was a coward. I couldn't stand the condescending looks that screamed " get control of your child! " I felt like the worst mother in the world. A complete failure. The only thing that saved me was having a first child. He was the ruler by which everything was measured and he didn't do the shoe thing. That told me perhaps we had a problem.
  Eventually we ended up seeing a psychologist who did a ton of testing. He assured us that he was not autistic but that he had a "social intuition disorder" . The plug in between his brain and his social center was never hooked up. What we were experiencing around the shoes was an anxiety reaction that built up in reaction to unpredictabilty in his world. If he couldn't see it coming he had no way to prepare for it. Presto, meltdown commence.
  "It's okay though" he said, "he is brilliant. You will just have to teach him social skills the way other kids learn math times tables. Repetition will be the key and remember if the situation changes even slightly, it will be a whole new experience for him. There will not be generalization of understanding as there is with most children." And so that, is what we did. And amazingly for the most part it worked!
  We learned to give him advance notice if we could of what was coming. We are leaving in 10 minutes. Five minutes until shoes, okay I am putting your shoes by the door and presto there he was putting on his shoes. No problem. Bigger issues we would handle by starting with "Hey, we are not mad at you. This is just not the right thing to do in this situation. This would be a better way to handle that. Let's practice that." The bigger issue was that because my whole life at work runs in ten minute blocks I am very resistant to scheduling in my personal life. But hey, I am a mom, and we suck that stuff up for the sake of our kids.
  We managed like that for about 8 years. Until he started to get a bit older..... but that is a story for another day!
In Love and Light,
Kathryn

What Three Things Are True About You..........

  I studied with a terrific life coach for a few years. 

  He asked me all sorts of brain twisting questions during that time, but a few of them have really stuck with me. He asked me this question around a discussion we had about staying centered. I was in the period of my life where I was going through a lot of change in my business and my personal life and I really was looking for someway not to be so affected by other people's decisions. Aren't we all?

  "If you took away money, your job, your family, your religion, basically eliminated everything you currently use to define yourself, what three things would still be true about you? I was stumped. Three weeks later (yes three weeks of twisting my brain into knots) I returned and gave it my best shot.

 "In my life, I am the rock upon which all things are built'.
  "Nope". He said.
  "What do you mean Nope?"
  " It can't be a burden statement, and that is a burden statement if I have EVER heard one!" he laughed.

Okay, I thought, I think I am missing the point of this assignment. I have no clue what the answer might be. I am flunking Personal Growth 101.

"Think of it this way", he said, " The whole point of figuring these three things out is that if you suddenly found yourself out on a buoy alone in the middle of the ocean , they would anchor you into yourself. You would not feel afraid. Those three things are like your ultimate truths. No matter what your circumstance, you can bring those three things to mind and suddenly the rest of what you are dealing with doesn't seem so significant.

  And with that, he sent me away for another three weeks.

  I won't make you wait nearly that long, but if you are up to it, ponder the question for a few days. Do a bit of soul searching. In a few days I will share with you what mine are , and if you are still stumped, maybe my explanantion of what those three things are to me will lead you in your own direction to find your own truth.

Good Luck and Happy Brain Twisting!
In love and light,
Kathryn

This IS My Happy Face!!!!!!!

Temple Grandin is such an inspiring figure for me.
 
She came to speak in Edmonton this January at the Children's Autism Services Conference. It was my first time to attend and it was fantastic. I bought a few of her books (well, all ) and although I never ever get books signed I went and stood in the line just for the chance to meet her. I watched her signing book after book, head down, one after another never looking up.

  When it was my turn I put all the books down in front of her and I think because I had so many she stopped and looked up at me. She put her hand on mine, which was symbolic to me because I know how much she doesn't like to be touched , but she was reaching out to make contact. She asked me if I was a parent, I said "yes". "Tell me about your kids" she said. I told her about my boys and where we were in the process. "Good, good" , she said.. "Try mexican food, down where I live that is the easiest and cheapest way to go gluten and casein free, just no cheese on their quesadillas". And with that our interaction was over and she was on to the next person, but I was very touched with the effort and the understanding that she had about the mechanics of how and what she should do to reach me. And the understanding that I have. that she would have had to have watched , learned and practiced each of those small social niceties until she could perform them when intellectually he brain told her it was time.

  One of the things I bought that day was her movie, starring Claire Daines. Claire gives an amazing performance as Temple, to the point where as we were watching it we really even recognized body postures as familiar. There was one scene that just made me die laughing because it was one that had been exactly repeated in my own car few years ago.

  Temple (Claire ) is on the farm with her aunt and they are sitting in the back of a truck talking about why she doesn't want to go to college. Temple says " It's the people, I just don't get the people. They are always asking me what's wrong, why am I mad. I'm not mad, I'm happy! " Her aunt says well what does your happy face look like? " And Temple (Claire ) throws up her arms with a totally vacant expression and yells " Like this! "

  I remember a car ride a few years ago ,with my youngest son sitting beside me in the front seat looking a cross between bored and angry. I asked him what was wrong. Exasperated he flung his arms down and said " Why does everyone keep asking me that. I am happy ! This is just what I look like when I am happy! Jeez you are the tenth person today to ask me why I am mad! "

  I laughed and just like Temple's aunt, I asked him to pull down the visor and look in the mirror. When he saw his own face, he did laugh. We talked about the fact that you have to make your face match the emotions or the down side is that they just keep trying to guess where you are by what they see ( which he finds very very annoying) "So the easy way to put a stop to that," I said "was to practice putting on the expression which matches how you feel just like you would put on a Halloween mask". As easy as that. He figured that would be better than people bugging him all the time.

  Temple's Aunt was smarter than me. In the movie, she took pictures of Temple's expressions and together they wrote the appropriate emotion in black marker across the bottom so Temple could memorize them.

  Enjoy the movie, it is called "Temple Grandin, The Way I See It "and it is well worth your time. I hope you see as much humour in it as I did.
  In Love and Light,
Kathryn

The Assaulting World of Sensation

  When I look back, there were many signs that my youngest son experienced the world differently. The five senses, sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste are experienced as hostile assaults, instead of simply ways of gathering information.
 
  As a baby, he loved to be held, but could never be rocked to sleep. He has always been a child that fights to stay alert and awake regardless of the time. Bright lights exhaust him and as such he sometimes opts to wear a hat with a brim or sunglasses. Sounds that are a whisper to the rest of us sound like a noisy symphony to him. Even taste and texture of the food he eats are carefully sorted into acceptable and not tolerable. The texture of clothing is important, the best clothes are the ones that have been washed a thousand times, the fibres soft and not scratchy against his skin. Tags must be cut out right to the seam and even then some are not tolerable.
 
  Before the diagnosis he barely slept, often wandereing the house while the rest of us slept. Full of anxiety because he was alone and awake. A sound like the furnace kicking in would be enought to wake him out of a dead sleep and it was all he could do to find every pillow and blanket in the house to try to cover up all of the vents and make the sound go away.
 
  I remember when he was four he would go sit by himself a lot, telling me that he needed a "time out". Not time out for misbehavior, but time out from the rest of us! We are all fairly noisy people with loud voices and he just gets to the point where he needs a bit of quiet time. He told me from the time he was very young. We were lucky he was so articulate and able to share his needs.
 
  Melatonin and exercise have done a lot to help us cope with these sensitivities. He is able to take the melatonin to sleep and he and I go to the YMCA several times a week to either swim or walk on the treadmill. In the summer we walked or rode bikes almost every night. The large muscle group activity is very effective as wearing off the anxiety that builds up for him over the day.
 
  Once he was able to sleep through the night, we noticed that many of the other sensitivities were far less of a problem. Melatonin has been a gift. It was offered as a solution by the professionals at the Glenrose who told me that sleep problems are very common.  Interestingly, if he sleeps with one of us, he sleeps right through the night. It makes sense though when I think that the underlying emotion in Autism is fear.  Now that I see how happy and relaxed he is I realize how terribly sleep deprived he was and I think about how I myself would have functioned under the same conditions. Anxiety is a key component in Autism and ADD and I would humbly suggest that if you can manage to create good sleep hygiene you will be laying a good supporting foundation for your child.
 
  We have a system that he uses himself. The tablets are 3mg each. If he is having a good night, he only takes one. If he is feeling pretty good but has had any sort of issues during the day he takes 2 tablets. If he is really having a hard night and is scared to go to sleep he will take the full 9 mg or 3 tablets. Most nights he is fine with one or two. My son is 12 years old and it has worked really well to give him control of this aspect of his rountine. He is very responsible and I think it also reduces his anxiety to feel he controls it. He reminds me that it is time to go work out. He is learning what works for him and then being dilligent at doing it. We are trying to give him coping mechanisms that will support him for life.
 
  I know that he will always experience the world differently than I can. I am trying to explain to him that we can choose to look at that as a deficit or a strength. Someone who views things differently can give the rest of us a chance to see things from another angle. He just lives life outside the box, that's all. And what an adventure that could be if your heart is open. And both my son's hearts are. As wide open as they can be, they are my gifts from the sky. I love you both so much. Thank you for your support in allowing me to share our journey with the world. I am so very proud of you both every single day.

 There truly are no words to tell you,

but then, you already know.
In love and light,
Kathryn 

A Little "Horsing" Around.......

I am horse crazy.
I have been since I was born. I didn't grow up around horses but my earliest recollection is that our neighbor had one. We lived on an acreage when I was growning up, and when I was young ( like 8 or 9 ) that horse somehow got out on the road.
  
Someone must have left a gate open.

All I could think of was not the easy option of running to the neighbors house to tell them, but that this was my chance to ride it back to their house! After manouvering that big beast over to the fence I climbed up and hopped on without a thought and rode it right up to their door. Proud as punch.
  In my thirty's, I got the chance to own my own horse and I charged in full speed. I got the gear, and for that first year I practically lived at the stable. I was out there in -23 dressed like the Michelin man.
 
  Now horses have been some of the greatest teachers in my life, my horse in particular. Understanding how their minds work has helped me learn in some areas of my life that are far away from the arena.
  Horses are prey animals. Their survival depends on knowing their rank in a herd, which horse is above them, and which horse is below. The need to know who the leader is.  Everytime you add a new horse into a herd they have to reshuffle the deck of cards again until everyone knows their number. Not always a peaceful process, but an effective one. In times of danger guess who they look to? The horse above them. You can only boss around horses below you on the totem pole. In teaching or training horses, you must earn the position above them. You need their respect and their trust.

 I had been fooling around with my horse about a year when he started to figure out how little I really knew.
That sewed the seeds of distrust and suddenly I was the horse below him and the thousand pounds difference between us made that a bit of a problem. I was watching a fellow in the arena work with a horse one day while I was in there wrestling with mine. He was doing incredible things with this horse. My jaw was somewhere around my knees. When he finished, I wandered over and asked him if he would consider teaching me lessons. He said yes.
  He started teaching me Parelli, which is horse whispering, a program developed by Pat Parelli. You can google him and learn all about him. Parelli is about teaching horses in a positive, learning based environment. It is not about bigger whips or harsher bits. Parelli is about asking and then allowing a horse to find the right answer. My teacher used to say if you ask a horse to do something, and he does something else, you asked the wrong question. BUT, you should quickly memorize what you just did so that later you know how to ask for that!!!!!

 Most horses, like people, just want to do it right because when they do what we ask, we leave them alone!
Relief! Just like kids and employees! He used to tell me that when you are teaching a horse a new skill they will often find every wrong option. Your job as a leader, is to close all the gates but the one you want him to go through so that he can be right. He wants to do it right.

 I try in my daily life to remember that lesson, and whether dealing with my kids or working with employees, I get my best results when I spend the time ahead of the process to really visualize what it is I want them to achieve. Then one by one I go through all the possible wrong turns and I close all the gates but one. When given a task where someone has thought about all of those things, you will find people are eager to learn because after they have done it once or twice, it doesn't take long for them to figure out no one is waiting around the corner to whack them. They can explore the task like a horse in a round coral, and when they find the open gate, they walk through into a new skill feeling really good about the process.

  He told me something else that I think has far wider applications. He said with horses, generally women have their trust but not their respect. They allow themselves to get pushed around. With men, it is the opposite. A good leader, is a balance of both, because without both they can't put their faith in you.

Firm and Fair.
Words to live by,
Yours again in Love and Light,
Kathryn

No Matter Where We Are From, We All Love Our Children The Same

    I am sitting here tonight and I have to share something that tickles me with you. Writing this blog has been the most fun I have had in a long time ( I know, that is really not something I should be proudly admitting )  But since it is the first one I have done, the thing that is intruiging me the most is tracking where you are reading this from! My own Canada, the US, Hungary, New Zealand, China, Singapore! Wow! Welcome!
  
  It is late here and we have been watching the news about all of what people are surviving in Japan after the earthquake and the tsunami. People who have lost everything, loved ones, their homes, trying to simply to keep themselves and their children warm and stay alive to greet another day. People in the middle east fighting for their freedom, so that their children might enjoy the opportunties that we mostly take for granted.  I am awed by the need to somehow touch the world and reconnect our universal conciousness, to remind each person that no matter what religion we are, where we live, what we do or who we are, we all love our children just the same. We all have the same needs and the same desires.  I think somehow, thinking about these kind of conflicts and fears for ourselves and our children, as human beings, make us all a bit more able to drop our own maps of the world and worry and care for those a half a world away. Suddenly they, don't seem that much different than us. Suddently their children are all of our children.

    I am sure Autism and ADD feel the same to a parent in Canada or the US as they do in Hungary, China, New Zealand or Singapore. What binds us all is hope. Hope that tomorrow will bring a few words, an easier day at school, or the gift of a friend. Our strength is knowing that there are people out there changing the future for our kids one step at a time. People like Temple Grandin explaining from her perspective what the world looks like through our children's eyes so that we might find some way to reach them in the dark. To all the professionals that make the difference in our lives everyday, from teachers, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, doctors, psychiatrists, I extend a sincere thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all that you do and the love, understanding and care that you share with our children every day. We all sometimes think we are walking our path alone, but we don't have to. Our strength and our sanity is in sharing our joys and our struggles and knowing that no matter what, we are never truly alone. Thank you for taking this journey with me and bless you whereever you may be this night.
 
In love and light,
Kathryn

The Rules of Engagement

I didn't realize there were so very many rules to social engagement.
 
Autistic and Asperger's kids are incredible at picking up details. They will look anywhere but at your eyes. They pay incredible attention to all the little things that just blow by the rest of us. They see the many components of the picture but miss the integration of the whole. That often means they miss the important social cues that the rest of us seem to absorb through our skin.
  
  How about body positions? Most of us would never even think about how we would know if it was okay to join in an intense conversation between two individuals. As we approached, our brains would already be interpretting the subtle message of someone opening their shoulders towards us as we were welcome, or the firm closed shoulder stance if we were not. Someone with Asperger's might stand for quite a long time on the edge of two people having an argument not really understanding why no one is speaking to them or inviting them into the conversation.
 
   Michelle Garcia Winner talks about teaching kids with Autism to "enter a conversation as a nobody to become a somebody". What this speaks about, is that our kids have no idea how to hold a conversation with another person in terms of the natural flow of conversation. Our kids have areas of special interest that they can become obsessed with, and conversations are more like a monologue on that particular topic regardless of the age or interest level of their audience.  We need to teach them the art of asking and sharing, asking and sharing. We also need to teach them to pay attention to their own bodies and what they tell the people around them. If you are standing 20 feet away with your back to the group, how do you think they will know that you too want to play?? The gift is, once we have the awareness, we can teach these things quite easily. There are fantastic books about body language that will open up bubbles in your mind and make you aware of things in a way you never saw the world before.
 
   In a humourous way, in this age of technology, couldn't all of us use a little brush up on our conversation skills?
 
   I found some great options that could really be implemented in any family. I am sure you can find them on the internet. They are small round boxes with cards in them, conversation starters if you will. The title on the box is "A Penny For Your Thoughts", and "Tell Me About...". Our family loves them and the questions are really quite creative. What a great way to reinvent the art and joy of family time!
 
  It's funny the things that squeeze your heart, but at the end of the day when Garrett or Mitchell look over at me and ask me how MY day was, I know we are making great progress.

In love and light,
Kathryn

So Mom, Do I Have Hamburger Disease?

  Again, blessings go out to my patients. A beautiful, amazing family doctor in my practice was responsible for finally getting us a diagnosis. After relating a family situation, she said to me " you know, I think you have missed the boat here. You should have been referred to a pediatric Psychiatrist." And within days bless her soul, she had taken us on and done just that. We saw Dr. David Shih for a full consultation and at the end of that appointment he looked at me and said " I wish I could tell you no. He needs to be seen at the Glenrose for a full assessment." June of 2010, my youngest son went through two full days of testing and at the end when it was over we met with the head of the team who assessed him and they told us their findings and wished us good luck. My mom and I cried on the way home, and talked about whether or not we should tell him. What were the rules about this? Should they know? Should they not? Would the label hurt or help?
When I got home, I asked him how he was doing. He said fine but that the testing was really hard and tiring. He never once asked what they had found. Days and weeks went by as I was amassing my Autism/ Asperger's library, every table top covered in books. There was not a moment at home I didn't have some sort of article or textbook in my hand. Still he didn't ask. A few weeks went by and out of the blue one day he called to me from the family room. "Mom" he said, " Do I have that hamburger disease?"

"What?"I said.
"Hamburger disease. You know, hamburger disease!"
"You mean Asperger's?"
"Yah, that one."
"Yes, sweetheart, you have Asperger's, but it is not a disease, it is just a different way of seeing the world. Einstein, Bill Gates, all sorts of people that thought outside the box and added amazing things to our society have had Asperger's. "
" Oh, that's good. " Smile.

As I watch his face I think I read a flicker of relief. He has people. There are other people just like him.
In a funny way, we have come home.
Kathryn

The Perfect Storm: Biochemistry Gone Awry

 Children on the spectrum are like snowflakes. No two are exactly alike. It is what makes diagnosis and treatment of these children so challenging. I read an interesting line somewhere that talked about a theory that Autism spectrum disorders may be the perfect biochemical storm with the last wave hitting the brain. This would be in opposition to the theory that it is a purely neurological disorder. This would fit with the snowflake analogy because no two children would be missing the exactly the same bits of biochemistry. I have actually witnessed this in my own children. Dr. Hoffman did extensive testing on both my sons revealing a whole list of biochemical anomolies. When the testing came back, he sat with me and pretty much told me who my children were and what symptoms they would likely be having based on what they were missing. It was stunning how correct he was.
 
   At the end of October our family went completely gluten-free, casein free, sugar and caffeine free. You would be amazed at exactly what items we consume on a daily basis that contain these ingredients. We started to read every label. We learned that almost all processed food that is thickened in any way including soups, salad dressings, spice mixes all have some form of gluten in them. Ketchup and BBQ sauce, as well as soy sauce, worchestershire, all full of gluten. There are many foods now where companies are switching to cornstarch and that we were able to have. We started to shop at Planet Organic and Ed's Gluten Free Specialty store. Both have a fantastic variety of gluten, casein free foods. Ed's is on 93 st and 34Ave and he is an amazing resource as he is highly allergic to both. He gave us a full tour of everything in the store being careful to point out what was just gluten free and what was free of both. They have gluten free ketchup, BBQ sauce, soy sauce, taco seasoning, chili seasoning as well as spices. He even carried my groceries to my car! Now that's customer service! We switched to rice and corn pastas which are really very tasty, and rice wraps and corn tortillas. I had the opportunity to see Temple Grandin speak when she was here in person and she suggested that Mexican food is an easy and inexpensive way to pursue this diet with kids, just skip the cheese on their quesadillas!

  We shop now around the outside of the store and skip the interior processed food. A sample of our daily diet would be as follows:

Breakfast : eggs ( a protein source is very important in the morning) , Mitch prefers Chicken breakfast sausages from Safeway as he doesn't like eggs , gluten free pancakes (kinnickkinnick) ,Agave     
syrup which is low glycemic index) or brown rice bread with sugar free jam

Lunch: lunches are a bit more challenging as we aren't allowed sandwich meats as they have too many chemicals and preservatives in them. Lunches are usually leftovers from a past nights dinner, for
example, a piece of meat, chicken or fish, some rice, pasta or quinoa, and a vegetable. They take fruit that is low glycemic index ( no tropicals) a bag of peas or carrots, a water and sometimes
gluten free pretzels or nuts

Dinner:    fairly standard again, a protein, rice or rice/ corn pasta or quinoa, a green leafy salad with other
vegetables thrown in and either raw or cooked vegetables. The kids prefer raw.
After school snacks consist of either fruit or some raw veggies or rice/ corn chips. Be careful of chips, not all flavors of potatoe chips are equal. Some have gluten in the flavoring.
  
  In December all of our test results came back and Dr. Hoffman eliminated another layer of foods that came up reactive for the kids. This round removed all of the night shade plants ( potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant) as well as a number of other foods.
  
  I would like to give some of the background of why these foods in particular are eliminated as part of the biomedical treatment of Autism and ADD. The theory is all around inflammation. As those of us with these children know digestion is always a big issue. Chronic diarrehea and constipation are an ongoing problem. Children with inflammed digestive systems end up with leaky gut walls. Things that are not supposed to escape the intestine slip out and end up in their blood stream.  Children missing biochemistry like digestive enzymes to break down things like gluten (wheat products) and casein (milk proteins and milk products including cheese, yogurt and butter) end up incompletely digesting these items. Instead of breaking them down into single building block proteins like the rest of us, they can only partially digest them. These partially digested proteins then slip out of the gut wall and up mimicking morphine derivatives in the brain. In short our kids can act a bit stoned or foggy. They perform repetitive behaviors or spin or self stimulate in a variety of ways for hours. This was facinating to me, as my mom had given me Dr Oz's book "You on a Diet". We were both reading it about the same time as we were going through all of this with the kids. My mom was reading it because she suffers from arthritis in her knees and her doctor kept talking about inflammation. She wondered, is that inflammation hereditary? Where does it come from? Do we have any control over it? The book said a huge percentage of inflammation comes from the type of foods we consume. One of the worst cuplrits is high fructose corn syrup. Guess what is in almost everything we eat that is sweetened these days?
This also causes our gut to be inflammed and leaky and when that happens, all sorts of things get out that are not supposed to. During one of our meetings with Dr. Hoffman, I asked him what my mom should do for her arthritis. He said, same thing your kids are doing, only no grains at all, no caseins  and no nightshades as they are very inflammatory for arthritis pain. He also suggested she take Kurcumin ( tumeric) tablets. They supposedly really help. Did I not mention how all of the things in my life were starting to funnel into one picture?

  Autism spectrum kids do not have the same mechanism of damage as someone with Celiac Disease. In Celiac disease, the little folds in the intestine are actually damaged by the gluten and these folks have pain and digestive issues that are a bit different. Our kids don't have any pain persay other than constipation and diarehhea, and they are often carbohydrate or milk product junkies. My youngest son ate little else. These foods give them a high or a hit. We also had all the issues with texture and consistency that are so often a problem with Autism. He was a very picky eater. My biggest concern about starting this diet was that he would starve to death!
 
   We chose to do this as an entire family for one reason. My kids are old enough to help themselves, and I couldn't see testing their resolve by having tempting food in the house. My partner who is Libyan,  ( think bread and pasta culture) has been a great support choking down all manner of alternative foods to replace all his favorites! Interestingly enough, the first week was the toughest, and then slowly when everyone was hungry enough, the salad started disappearing at dinner. The plates were cleaned. The fruit bowl was empty.
Our teachers, whom we had notified of the change so they could support health choices at school started calling asking who these kids were and what we had done with the old ones.
 
  My oldest son woke up. The fog was gone. The difficulty in concentrating replaced with normal teenage distractions. Honour roll marks showed up for the first time in our academic history. Wow was the comment from all of our family and friends.
  My youngest's progress was a bit less tangible. He did lose some weight and he is already very thin. His mood and sense of humour though improved dramatically. He became the joke guy at the table for meals. His smile came back. He was a bit frustrated though, as for him the changes were not as dramatic as they were for his brother, but he had still given up all of his favorite foods.
  The test results revealed that he had some other issues going on in his stomach that his brother didn't have. Dr. Hoffman assured us that once we supplemented the biochemistry and corrected his stomach flora that he would see more of a difference. We began a regimen in January of about 40 pills a day. Twenty with breakfast and about the same with dinner. The kids were amazing.  I gag on pills and each day I watch them dutifully choking back all these tiny pills. He was right. He has gained 8 pounds and is looking healthier each day. Both boys are thriving. The difference makes me want to cry with relief. I think about what might have happened if Carol hadn't set me on this path and I say a quiet prayer of thanks to the forces of the Universe that guide our lives. Faith has been my constant companion on this journey. It is to that I have pinned all my hopes.
 
  To date we are still on a very restricted diet, and continuing with the supplementation. We get some of the testing repeated in April to see where we are in terms of having to continue supplementing their biochemistry.
Dr. Hoffman is hopeful that at that point the inflammation will have decrease to the point where we can remove some of the pills. From the initial test results I doubt either of my kids will ever be able to eat gluten or casein again, however some of the other foods may be added back if they do not trigger any reactions.
It has been a long road, but one that I would seriously suggest you try if you have any inclination. We were told not to bother, that it wasn't mainstream. It certainly was a different story for us.
 
   If I can do anything to answer any questions, please feel free to post and I will do my best to find answers or offer suggestions. My hope is that in sharing our journey, if this helps even one family not to feel so alone in the dark, that my prayers will have been answered. So much of this has been learned by trial and error that if I can spare anyone that process, the journey will have been well worth it. It already has been for my family.
In love and light,
Kathryn