A few months ago, I was having horrible problems with nausea, bloating, and other, ahem, issues. (Feel free to just click away now.) I suspected that I was having some type of food allergy. Not the kind where you get hives and your throat closes, but the other kind. The kind that affects your gut -anywhere from 4-48 hours after you’ve eaten. (Makes figuring out the trigger really not fun.)

After some trial and error, I figured out that I felt 1,000 times better when I wasn’t eating gluten. Gluten being anything made with wheat, barley, or rye. Gluten being in 75% of the foods I normally eat.

So I went gluten-free for about two weeks and felt and looked so much better. Then I would occasionally think I was eating gluten-free only to find out it was hidden in some restaurant food I thought was safe. Or I would do great all day and then get hungry and grumpy for dinner and order pizza. (There is a place near us that has gluten-free crust, however the rest of the family likes a different place better, so I get to decide if I’m going to order pizza from two different places – I’m not, or if I’m going to listen to everyone else complain – maybe, but not likely, or plan ahead to have a gluten-free pizza in my freezer for when the rest of the family has pizza – I succeed sometimes.) Or I’ll be doing great and be out in a social situation where I feel it’s totally not fair that I can’t have the homemade strawberry shortcake (one of my all time favorites) and I say to hell with it and eat two servings.

And then pay for it for 2-3 days. Ugh.

The last time I had gluten turned into a 3-week whirlwind of traveling, being out in social situations, being lazy, and rationalizing that since I just had some yesterday, what difference does it make if I have some more right now.

Matters were slightly confused by my attempts to see if chocolate and dairy were also contributing to my, ahem, issues. Take away gluten, take away dairy, take away chocolate and you’ve pretty much taken away 95% of what I normally eat. Sob.

Then I would have no dairy for two or three days and no gluten for some but not all of that time and vice versa and I never really figured anything out other than the best way to torture myself.

During an evening out with friends this week, I pulled the old “I had a little gluten earlier, and I totally deserve these fried green tomatoes, so by golly I’m going to eat them.” And within 30 minutes I was miserable. I’ve been completely gluten-free since now for 2 days and my intestines are still swollen from Thursday. But I’m determined. More than I was. It’s time.

And that was how I found myself today, starving, in my car, waiting to pick Maggie up from a party, staring at the only edible thing in my car (a cereal bar) knowing that I couldn’t eat it. I ended up at Target getting a box of gluten-free cereal bars because for some reason I have yet to remember that gluten-free cereal bars are pretty horrible no matter how yummy then look on the box and Target is not the place to luck into something really good and gluten-free.

I have recently had four different GF sweets recipes fall into my lap. And I plan to make them. Once I get the ingredients. See, I don’t cook well to begin with. I have a few recipes that I know how to make and I make them well (most of the times. I still screw those up too every once in a while. It’s a gift.). Now I have to go start monkeying with them to change the flour and such. Not one of my strengths, to say the least.

And truthfully, from my two months already swinging back and forth off gluten, I know that the best things for me not only don’t have gluten, but they don’t have gluten substitutes either. Meaning veggies, fruit, eggs, and meat.

So, if I’m at your house and politely refuse to eat something, know that I’m dying on the inside to scarf it down. If you see me eating gluten, you have my permission to call me out on it. Warning: Call me out on if while you’re eating a pastry or baked goods you might come back with a nub where your hand was.

We have the sweetest neighbors who let our children play in their yard with their dogs. We feed the dogs and cat for them when they are out of town and they feed our cats when we are gone. We also check each other’s mail.

Imagine my surprise when our neighbor came over yesterday to kindly let us know that Nick has been “checking their mail” for the last three days. One day he put it on their porch swing. The next day he put it near the fence in their back yard. The third day it was scattered about near the garage.

My poor neighbors. They were mortified to have to tell us about it. We were so happy that they did. Sometimes Nick needs things explained to him is great detail. This was apparently one of those times. When all three of us talked to him about it, I think it finally sunk in. And I’ll talk with him about it again today when he gets home from school.

He usually comes home from school 25 minutes before Maggie. He checks our mail, comes inside to show me what’s in his backpack, washes his hands, gets a snack, and goes outside to wait for Maggie. While outside, he plays with sticks, digs in the dirt, swings on the play set and apparently checks the neighbors’ mail. 

Thankfully we have great neighbors and Nick is not going to spend five years in prison for committing a federal offense.

These are a few photos straight out of the camera. I had these still on my camera card when the old computer died, and I’m really happy to still have them.

A few weeks ago I was working on my laptop getting things done and feeling quite proud of myself. Then all of a sudden it started to run slowly. And by all of a sudden, I mean at 12:04 it was fine and at 12:05 it was slow. I realized it had been a while since I had restarted, and I am one to neglect updates, so I figured I was due.

Except it never restarted.

Cussing ensued. And a bit of panic.

Do I have Time Machine? Yes, yes I do. But that really didn’t help me since I hadn’t plugged in my external drive in 294 days. I swear to you, it was on my list for THAT DAY. Oy.

I went off to MacAuthority to see if anything could be done. Two guys worked on it for a total of two hours before pronouncing the hard drive completely dead. Sob.

One thing I will tell you, Google has saved me. My mail, contacts, and even some frequently used sites (like this one, for instance. I had no idea what my login or password were, or even the address to get to my admin page, but Google remembered it all.) Say what you will about big brother, I’m thankful that it didn’t completely wipe everything. I also have a lot of documents on Google that would have been gone if they had just been on my laptop. Whew.

Pictures? Yes, pictures are what hurt the most. Luckily I did back up a lot of those less than a year ago, so while I lost a lot, I didn’t lose the most important ones. And I still had our Disney photos on the camera card, so those are safe too.

I lost one freelance project that I was in the midst of, but have started to redo it and it’s much better this time around, so I’m not complaining.

Oddly enough, other than that, I can’t tell you what’s gone. I had tons of stuff on there, but I guess a lot of it was like the material stuff I don’t throw away that really isn’t that important after all. A bit of writing, I’m sure. But nothing that was bound for greatness. I have hard copies of most things that are truly important. I pieced together hard copy receipts for tax records which was a huge pain, but doable. I keep waiting for the moment I realize some item of huge importance was there and is now gone.

I have had to redo a bunch of passwords because I relied on the computer to remember them for me. And now that so many places require 8 letters, a number, an uppercase, no spaces, no this, extra that, I am having a hard time even remembering the ones I just reset.

I finally got a new laptop a few weeks later and appreciate its clean desktop. It can sync with my other apple devices which my old laptop was too old to do. I ponied up and paid for 3 years of Carbonite so everything is updated for me without having to do anything. Yes, it costs more than doing it myself, and yes, I have the ability to do it myself, but at 40 years old, I know myself. I know that having it done automatically is well worth the price per year.

One of our favorite books is The Seven Silly Eaters  written by Mary Ann Hoberman and illustrated by Marla Frazee. (Marla Frazee is one of my favorite illustrators.) In the story, the Peters family has a child who only like a certain food. Then another comes along and the second likes something totally different. The mother ends up with seven kids who all eat different foods and the chaos that ensues.

Hits a little close to home. Actually, Nick is a pretty decent eater. He likes sushi, dabbles in quite a few vegetables, prefers bacon and chicken to just about anything else, but refuses to eat eggs.

Maggie, on the other hand, refuses a lot. For a long time she didn’t eat anything red. We are over the red phase now, and when I made spaghetti and meatballs last night she ran up to me and hugged me instead of crying. She has just started to eat a little raw spinach, but only on odd days. Carrots are OK sometimes, but depends on the weather. Peanut butter and jelly, oh she eats about 5-6 of those a week. Cereal, oatmeal and eggs finish out another 3-4 meals. Her personal favorite right now is corn dogs. (wretch) The other day I tried to get her to try a (jarred dole, not fresh) piece of papaya she recoiled. Then she finally tried and now she loves papaya, “It’s my favorite fruit!” (We’re not going to comment on the fact that it’s jarred papaya and she would likely recoil from a fresh papaya the same was she does fresh peaches and oranges.) I slipped a piece of pineapple in her dish to see if I might get one past her lips.

“You can’t fool me!” she declared, casting the pineapple aside. It was all I could do to keep from blurting out that the corn dogs I have recently bought and she has recently starting consuming with vigor are veggie corn dogs. Ha. I win. This teeny tiny battle.

But the dinnertime battle – the showdown of mom vs child – veggies still on the plate, dessert lurking like a bribe hanging in the air. Do you do this? Do you make them try. Do you make them eat a certain amount? Maggie has taken to putting veggies in her mouth and gagging. At the table. While I’m trying to eat. OMG. They are real gags. She’s not pretending, and she is dramatic. So I tell her to go spit it out and try not to gag myself.

What do you do? I’m curious.

I was so proud of myself on Friday. Here was the Facebook status I almost wrote: I may not be the best housekeeper, but I know how to slow cook ribs, which has to count for something.

Foreshadowing. Foreshadowing.

I seared the ribs on the grill between rain showers. Then I slow cooked them inside all day just like I have many times before. They smelled so, so, so very good. I was all but patting myself on the back.

Here is where I venture off topic to say I’ve just started watching MadMen on Netflix. Season 1. Yes, I know, I’m tragically late to the party. Anyone else begin comparing themselves to the housewives of the 60s? No? Just me, then. OK. Do I call my hubs at work to ask what dinner he would like to have waiting for him? Um, only when I’m so frustrated from trying to figure out what to cook that I just want someone to tell me what to make.

Let’s just say, I wouldn’t have made a good 60s wife. In fact, I wouldn’t have done well at all back then.

But on this day, on this day I slow cooked ribs. And they were going to fall off the bone.

Except they didn’t. Oy. They turned out to be tough and horrible. I was sadder than I care to admit that my masterpiece had blown up in my face. Whoa is me. I took it very hard.

We ate them. Or at least gnawed on them. And my mood was getting sulkier and sulkier with every bite.

Then as Nick was helping clear the table, I spotted him walking to the kitchen with the foil rib pan. Rib juice and barbecue sauce were running out the bottom of the pan onto the floor. I grabbed it and plugged the hole with my hand to get it the rest of the way to the trash.

Too little, too late. There was now a trail of splattered, sticky, juice from one room to the next, which wouldn’t have been so bad if the ribs had been good! But now I was cleaning the kitchen and dining room floors because of a failed meal. Remember back to when I said I wasn’t a great housekeeper? Now I was cleaning the floors. Aaaarrggghhhh.

Stupid tough ribs that smelled so good, but sucked and then leaked sauce all over the floor. Next time I’m just going to order a pizza.

I’m a little behind on sharing my Savvy Source articles. Here’s one that I had a great time writing about relating books to places you can take your children. So much fun!

I also have some ideas stirring around and questions I have for you. Stay tuned as I analyze a few aspects of parenting…

You’re still reading? Wow. I’m impressed.

On Day 3 we headed to Universal Studios. We had an impromptu breakfast with Handy Manny, Special Agent Oso, June from the Little Einsteins, and Jake of Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Again, we likely should have had a reservation, but we lucked out. We even ended up being “The First Family of the Day.” Yay us.

Not pictured: Handy Manny. We had a long conversation about Handy Manny, who everyone in my family calls Handy Mandy. They still don’t believe me. I’m pretty sure the real Handy Manny was late and they had a sub in his costume, because he could barely walk, and had to be led out by another cast member. A few minutes later a much more comfortable Manny appeared.

Nick is a huge Muppet fan. I asked him if he could have any souvenir, what would it be. Without hesitation he said “a shirt with Dr. Teeth on it.” The boy knows his Muppets and knows what he likes.

And as luck would have it, we found an adult size shirt with Dr. Teeth and the whole band. He’ll have to grow into it, but at the rate he’s growing, he’ll be in it in a few weeks. Maggie was crushed that Nick had gotten something and she hadn’t. (To be fair, he also got a stuffed dragon at the carnival game the day before and she did not because she’d been on the Yeti ride.) So now Nick had two things and she had nothing. And she was forgetting for the moment that Disney is the happiest place on earth. Ahem. She requested Nala again. And again. And again. When it became clear that life was not going to continue without Nala, (and she was allowed to choose one souvenir too because I am not completely heartless) we began to search for Nala. Who, naturally was not to be found anywhere outside of Animal Kingdom, where we had planned not to go back.

Nala. Nala. Nala. Nala. I’m just giving you a bit of an idea how often the subject came up. Nala. Nala. Nala. Nala. “Now are we going to get Nala?”

Deep breath.

I love the picture below because this (obvious-to-me) spud was asking questions and they were both answering it. Look at them – with their hands raised. So cute. Little chuckles like these got me through many lines.

Hours go by. Nala. Nala.

We ended up back at the Magic Kingdom for the evening. Looking for Nala. She was nowhere to be found. Then we got stuck leaving the park while the parade was going and people wouldn’t get out of the way! This was seriously the moment where I almost lost it. Mike saw the look in my eye and tried to help the situation, but alas, too many people not moving. Finally we climbed over a small fence and broke free, right before I had to punch someone.

And then, of course, Maggie asked if we were going to get Nala now?

There are no photos from Day 4. It rained all day. As in, it never stopped raining. (Dear Disney, put some drains in the ground. All that rain has to go somewhere, and I prefer not to suck it all up through my socks.)

In the end, we found Nala at Magic Kingdom by Aladin’s carpet ride (ya know, in case you’re ever desperately looking for Nala.) We couldn’t even buy her then, because it was still raining so hard. So a few more “Can we go get her now?” hours later, we had Nala, wet socks, and a grumpy mom.

I championed on in my Disney-sponsored rain poncho for the morning. After lunch I was ready to wring out and get new socks. We changed out of wet clothes and hung out for a bit waiting for the rain to blow over. Hahahaha.

Our joke for the day was to add “in the rain.” to the end of every sentence. “Let’s go ride Aladin’s carpet again (in the rain.)” “You ready for lunch (in the rain?)” “Where should we go for dinner (in the rain?)” It made me laugh, possibly more than it should have.

Then we headed out to Epcot which was totally not in our original plan. We had the best meal, and I’m so glad we went. We did miss the Soarin’ ride because the line was 75 minutes long and I was in no mood to wait that long. Sometimes you just have to know when to leave.

This concludes story of The Day Family Disney Adventure. Please gather all your belongings and exit to the right. I reserve the right to have a random iPhone photo post and also random Disney stories that I remember at a later date. Thank you and come again.

Welcome back to the Day family Disney recap. First, let me say that Dumbo is not gone. Yay! Dumbo was being moved/added to/rearranged and is expected to make a full recovery. Whew.

On to Day 2. We headed to Animal Kingdom first thing. Two years ago when we visited Disney, we stuck to just Magic Kingdom, so this was the kids’ first time seeing the Tree of Life and all that Animal Kindgom has.

Ha. That picture doesn’t so the tree any justice. But knobby knees? We got ‘em. Maggie and Mike headed off straight away to the Yeti ride. It has a real name but will forever be known as the Yeti ride that Maggie loved sooooo much. In her report for school (her teacher’s idea) she talked twice about the part that “almost made her faint.” That girl has some spunk. The Yeti ride would continue to be not only her favorite of the day, but her “favorite, favorite of the whole trip” (comma added because it should be there) and she can’t wait to take her children on it, when they are 7 and aren’t scared easily.

Nick and I played carnival games and rode the triceratops ride (same principle as dumbo, but with dinos) 3 times in a row. We didn’t even have to get off, because there weren’t any lines yet. Score.

(Oh and the nose? He took a header on the concrete in the dark two days before we left. Scraped his forehead, nose, hand, and knee. Cried for 20 seconds. That kid is tough.)

Then we checked out the Dinosaur Ride which is totally different from the sweet twirling dinos. This one was dark and bumpy and scary. I was totally fine. Nick, wasn’t sure what the hell was going on and Maggie had her head buried in her lap as far as the seat belt would let her. Motion = good. Darkness and roaring dinosaurs = bad. Lesson learned.

The Lion King show was a huge hit with the kids. When we came out from that it has obviously rained, but had stopped. We went to get in line (did I mention there are lines. For. Everything. And I’m married to someone who can’t stand lines? And his daughter is his mini-me? Ahem.) for the Safari. This is where I break away to say that Mike and I are polar opposites when it comes to rides. He likes coasters, the scarier the better. I like shows and laid back stuff. So the Safari line was torturous to him because he didn’t even want to go on the stinking thing to begin with and the line. The LINE! The horrible, long line. (that wasn’t any longer than any other line, but those were FUN lines and this was a BORING line.) We just made it to a covered part of the building while waiting in line and the.skies.opened.up. People were drenched in a matter of 3 seconds. Even people who had ponchos and umbrellas couldn’t get them out fast enough. Wringing out their clothes wet. And there we were, waiting in a BORING line – completely dry. The rain stopped by the time we got to the uncovered portion of the line. And Nick was enthralled be the safari, and Mike admitted it wasn’t that boring and I WON! Oh, wait, it’s not about winning or losing, it’s about how long the line is and who has dry clothes. I WIN AGAIN!

Maggie spotted a stuffed Nala in the gift shop. Nala, for those of you without children, is Simba’s friend in the Lion King. I figured this would be the first of 1,000 things she would ask for, so I quickly put the kabosh on buying it. (Foreshadowing. Foreshadowing…)

We headed back to hotel for a nap and swimming for the kids/Mike while I read in the hotel room. It’s the little things, people. I needed a little quiet.

Then it was back to the Magic Kingdom for a few more rides and the Electric Parade.

Food, I keep forgetting to mention the food. Everyone will tell you to get reservations months before you go to Disney. But, we kind of like to roll with the punches and never know where we will end up, especially with the Park Hopper. So we made nary a reservation and always lucked out when it came to eating. Tip #1 eat at non-peak times. We ate lunch really late one day and dinner really early another. It worked for us. Not saying I would recommend it, but it worked for us.

The dining plan. Ha. That’s kind of an inside joke around here. We misread the information or rather, didn’t read the information, or possibly can’t add, because we thought we got 2 quick service meals per person and 1 table meal per person and a snack or two each day. Ha. Oops. After eating on that schedule for two days, we realized we were over eating by a meal each day. (But not before we took out our “someone made a mistake wrath on a poor hotel worker” and then we realized, oh wait, we can’t count. Duh.) It was still a good amount of food. I was plenty full. The rest of my family happen to be bottomless pits right now. Growing and all.

This photo below may be one of my very favorites. We didn’t watch the fireworks so we could ride a few more rides while the lines were shorter (my husband’s happiness factor with a ride strictly depends on how  long the line should have been compared to how long it turned out to be, thus, riding a “popular” ride with a short line during the fireworks makes us all winners. Anyway, in line, Maggie kept peeking out at the fireworks. Oh, the Magic of Disney.

And that wraps up day 2. Lest you get too bored, days 3 and 4 will be combined. Stay tuned.

I have no idea how many parts there will be. Maybe just one. Maybe I’ll be talking about it until you go bonkers. But here goes:

I am not a big park person. I am not a Disney person. I am not a crowd, lines, entertain me kind of person. I have nothing against those who are. I am married to one and have given birth to two more. So this will be my account of Disney (with a little grumbling done in italics, because whoever said there’s no whining at Disney has never been inside my head.)

Now that I’ve set the scene, let me start by saying we had a really great time. The kids were over the moon. Mike loved it almost as much as the kids did. I snuck in an hour or two here and there of reading to offset the overstimulation.

This was kind of the shot that I took just about everywhere we went. Nick spent a great deal of time on Mike’s shoulders. I was point person behind them yelling if Nick was going to hit his head on lampposts or beams or whatever else looms in the 8-foot range.

(Now I’m going to grumble for a minute – we booked the Polynesian Resort based almost SOLELY on the fact that it’s on the monorail which is our chosen form of transportation. Mike doesn’t like buses and I get lost easily <– if that wasn’t already in italics I would italicize easily because it doesn’t take much for me to get lost. Ahem, imagine our dismay when upon arriving we found out the monorail would not be running from 11:30am -6pm <— prime napping time when I would be taking Nick by myself. Grrr. We were not happy and felt justified in whining, even though whining isn’t allowed at Disney.)

Notice the huge scab on Nick’s nose. Poor kid fell on a sidewalk two nights before we left for Disney. His scab finally healed in time for us to be home and not take any more pictures. Oh well. He was a trooper. I am not a big coaster girl. But the spinny ones? I am usually all over those. Not sure if my ears having fluid lately or just getting old, but spinny made me a little whirly. Maggie saying things like “I wonder if Alice remembers me?” (that would be Alice in Wonderland who she met two years ago the last time we were there) kind of made up for the whirlies.

I should also point out that every time we do a big trip like this, someone somewhere vomits in my view. I’m a magnet. Or overly observant. And a little paranoid, but ahem, anyway, this trip is happily the exception to that rule! Well, unless you count the duck. I didn’t actually see it, but at out first meal there were some ducks waddling around and before we saw the “DON’T FEED THE DUCKS” sign, the kids, of course, fed the ducks. Luckily I had gone back in for utensils and condiments, so when I came back Mike told me the napkins were on the ground “for a reason” I knew better than to ask. The kids of course chimed in with the whole story – the fed the duck a grape. The duck threw up the grape and something that looked like lettuce, right where my foot would have been. I ignored them all and ate my lunch.

Maggie driving on the motor speedway. (All Disney buffs will shudder as I continue to massacre the names of all these rides. I left the maps at the hotel, and I’m not looking them all up. Forgive me.) I will have to be the one to teach this girl to drive, because her father drives like a crazy person. This ride made me appreciate the 7 more years I have of not thinking about that.

This was Nick driving. Oh my. He drives JUST LIKE HIS DAD. I may not make it through his driver training. Seriously. And don’t you love how Mike has to fold his legs up to fit in the little car? I will be the shortest person in my family within 5 years.

Rides the kids loved: It’s a Small World, Peter Pan, Adventures of Pooh, and the carousel.

Sad we missed: Dumbo. It’s gone! Being turned into an Under the Sea area. Dumbo was Nick’s fave last time.

Day one – travel and Magic Kingdom.

Enough for part one. This seems like a good place to stop. I know you’ll all be riveted to hear more…