Day 9

Have you heard the Simon and Garfunkel song that goes, "Slow down, you move too fast, gotta make the moment last"?  Well, we're going too fast because nobody wants to make it last.  I'm pulling the brakes though.  We had our first bit of diarrhea today...I think mostly because the youngest two are eating lots of fresh fruit.  Their poop was pretty much undigested apple chunks.  Nice image, I know, but it tells me we need to slow it down.  I think we'll head back towards Stage 4 and hang out there for a few days.

Breakfast
Apples 
(Stage 6)
Yep, that's it.  I was out of EVERYTHING so we grabbed apples and ran out the door to the grocery store.

Lunch
Smoothies, Squash pancakes
(Full for smoothies with mixed fruit, Stage 3 for pancakes)
They've been dying for more fruit so I made a banana/strawberry/blueberry/apple/pear smoothie which they gulped down.  I'm not sure if we're going to repeat this again or wait a bit longer.

Squash pancakes are like I've described in previous posts (and as written in the GAPS book).  They were humming when they ate them and the 7-yr-old licked the bowl clean (no eggs were used so I was okay with it).

Dinner
San Antonio Tacos, leftover soup from Wednesday
(Stage 6 for tacos, Stage 1 for soup)

I used both beef chunks (pulled off my soup bones) and chicken breasts.  I served it with cortido, and we skipped the cheese and tomatoes (allergy to tomatoes, not to cheese yet in Intro)

The 'tacos' were delicious.  One of my sons had thirds.  The younger boys just ate the meat.  A few of us had soup.  I don't think we were quite ready for as much 'raw' as we had.  I felt very full, very fast.  Not painful, but definitely "stop now".  Maybe my hunger thermometer is working again!  It's been broken for years.  I'll see how we react over the next few days to see if we can handle salads yet or not.  It sure felt nice in our 114 degree weather to have something fresh and cold though!

Snacks
The younger boys (ages 7 and 5) had several spoonfuls of almond butter spread out over the day.  The nice delivery person brought our new juicer so a few hours after dinner we made carrot juice and each had about 1/4 a glass.  I was surprised at how sweet it was - too sweet even.  I guess my taste buds are adjusting to no sugar!

Reactions:
We did have the diarrhea with the younger boys this afternoon.  It may be that they ate too many apples (sometimes they eat them when I'm off doing other things and I'm unaware of how many are going down the hatch).  I was very firm tonight that they can't have more for another day or two.  If it clears up I'll let them have one a day for a while then bump it up.

10-yr-olds eczema is still there.  Some spots are almost gone and some are now looking crusty as opposed to bright red and almost weeping.  We're trying to decide if we go off ghee for a while (6 weeks) to see if that makes a difference.  He has an allergy to milk and tomatoes - not life threatening - but it causes eczema and who knows what else.

I'm still feeling rather overwhelmed by all this.  My husband would say I'm in panic mode.  And I am.  I'm very disorganized and it drives me crazy.  Things I ordered weeks ago are still not here so I haven't been able to juice or dehydrate the nuts or process them for flour.  No cod liver oil or olive oil.  Fermented foods didn't work the first time so had to re-do them which delayed their introduction.  ARGH!!!  I'm also not used to needing the meat to be defrosted for each and every meal.  I made a menu last night for the upcoming week with prep prompts which tell me when to take things out of the freezer or when to make bread the night before, etc.

We'll have eggs again tomorrow afternoon.  I can't believe how much I've come to rely on them.  I'm also learning that every night I need to have something in the crockpot making broth for the next day.  I had a shelf of broth made in the freezer before we started and we whipped through it in no time.  It's so much easier to throw a soup together if I have the broth already made.  Learning curves....oh the learning curves.