Quotes for the Day

"When two fond hearts unite, the yoke is easy, the burden light." --Quote from a piece of pottery in our beach cabin last weekend.

"It is important from time to time to slow down, to go away by yourself, and simply be." --Eileen Caddy

Poop

I had planned to write a romantic recap of our Memorial Day vacation on Camano Island, but instead I need to write about poop.

Cora has been potty training lately, something we didn't anticipate we would start at quite such a young age. However, she's shown such an interest in it that we're just moving forward without a lot of pomp and circumstance.

Until today. I think we've had enough pomp around this circumstance to last me for quite awhile.

Today, we had some friends visit for lunch. I was grilling the cheese sandwiches and we kept checking on the kids. At one point the oldest girl said, "Cora went poop!" And my friend said, "You know, she's not wearing a diaper."

I had dressed her in a sundress, without a onesie or a pair of bloomers. I had worried for a moment that perhaps this wasn't such a smart idea because her diaper was so easy to access and take off.

And then, while making sandwiches, I remember overhearing Cora say something about poo poo, but instead of sweeping out to the living room and carrying her off to her potty like a great mom should, I got distracted and layered cheese on bread.

My friend remembers taking Cora's diaper from the living room floor and putting it in Cora's room because she thought I had hurriedly changed her on the carpet and forgot to put the wrap in the diaper bin.

Hmm. Mental note to pay attention to such concerns next time.

Cora had been running blissfully through the house with an exposed bottom. While stacking blocks with the girls, she produced a nice little well-formed poop on our rug, which I found snuggled neatly between a block, a ram, and a cow.

The very worst part of it was that we started a search through the house for errant pieces, and found one smashed between the palms of a confused 14-month-old friend.

OMG.

Have you ever had a friend over to lunch and inadvertently fed them poop? I didn't think so. We are all crossing our fingers that the substance didn't transfer from hand to mouth.

After a wild search through the house, copious hand and feet washing, and a lot of exclamations, we all sat around the picnic table and ate lunch.

Aren't you hungry now?

Quote for the Day

One has to just be oneself. That's my basic message.

The moment you accept yourself as you are, all burdens, all mountainous burdens, simply disappear.

Then life is a sheer joy, a festival of lights.

--Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, The Sound of One Hand Clapping

Camping photos

This is beautiful, no? Water, mountains, and lots of blue:


We spent a few hours climbing on logs and stacking rock towers:



Brian carried Cora across the Deception Pass Bridge. The view was spectacular. Brian loved it. I sweated bullets the entire walk across the bridge imagining Cora suddenly becoming a ninja and springing from the confines of her backpack with superb ninja skills but then suddenly remembering she's a mere mortal toddler and thus falling like a boulder into the water below:


At the end of our weekend, Cora napped in the sun:

The rain reigns

It's raining the kind of rain that begs you to imagine waterways and deep underground wells. It's the kind of rain that runs in rivulets down dirt paths, etching out a presence there. It's the kind of rain that dredges up memories because you can't very well escape a rain like this. You're left with yourself.

I remember this rain. It rained like this when I was a kid. I used to look out my bedroom window, standing on tiptoes, at my backyard. Our yard abutted a 40-acre forest and I imagined places where I could hide from the rain, just listening to it hit the leaves above me. I used to put a leash on my dog and dress in rain pants and a raincoat and rubber boots, and go outside. Sometimes I'd bring a snack. Mostly I was excited to explore. I would often pack a journal and a pen, planning to catalogue what I saw out there. Sometimes I'd set out with a plan (find gnomes); other times I would plan simply to see how far I could go before the trees ended and I found road.

That solitude formed a part of my brain that is happiest when imagination reigns. I would sit quietly and imagine a big space up ahead of me, a life that was my own. Nevermind that I never did see a gnome or a fairy. The act of believing gave me a sense of energy and excitement. It made me feel like I could bend the ways of the world.

Age makes people stop believing in things that don't make sense. I remember a friend of mine telling me that we spend a lot of our time searching for Easy Street when in reality it just doesn't exist. This thought cracked against my heart while I sat across from her, sipping my tea and nodding my head in agreement. I might have been wearing heels. It's possible the 3-inch alteration of self is what tipped me over into a heady, sad spin. No Easy Street? But I want to believe in the idea of personal bliss. I love reading stories about people who find theirs. I love simple endings filled with a sublime sense of love, or of finding oneself, or of overcoming odds, or even of just believing in happiness enough to search for it.

I love all kinds of stories. I particularly like stories about people who refuse to believe all is as it seems. I like to think that everything gets better over time, that each small effort is a step closer to peace and satisfaction, that we become better people just be thinking about our place and by directing ourselves to where we want to be.

I think that's why I have an obsession with quiet, homey places, and the woods. I want a place in the trees that always reminds me of that sense of self that washed over me as a child, when it suddenly occurred to me that there were windows of opportunity up ahead, that destination and destiny could be altered by effort and hope.

I would like to be one of those people who deftly ties together a bunch of wildflowers from my backyard and places them in a blue vase on my driftwood mantle, where I store sand-polished rocks from the beach and spots of blue like blue glass or blue beads or an old blue marble, where everything is awash in calm, and where I know just exactly where to find my favorite pen.

I feel cluttered here. We own things we don't need. We have a junk drawer that is overwhelming. I have drawers filled with clothes I don't wear. We heard helicopters and sirens circling the neighborhood for the better part of an hour before Cora's nap time, and I thought well, now. This is not the peaceful song I want my girl to hear before she goes to sleep.

What I think I am trying to say is that I am obsessed with the ethereal. I like words like blue and sea and sky and clouds, rain and wind and magic and the future, dreams and hope and rushing and wild. I prefer to think of them than to look at the clutter on my desk or the unframed 1910 poster of Melinda's Wedding Day that I received for our wedding in 2005, and which I have been meaning to frame ever since. I continue to wash and fold my ill-fitting clothes and to look outside at the weeds.

The reason, for the moment? I have a girl calling from her bedroom. I will go open the door and lift her up and nuzzle my face into her sweet little neck. And we will go do something fun together. We have an entire, untapped afternoon ahead of us. Possibility poking its nose up from every playground and tree in town.

The first thing we shall do together? Go outside and clip some of the lilacs from our tree, and arrange them in a blue vase on our dining room table. We will put bluebells on the mantle.

Escape

We camped and hiked Deception Pass this weekend. It was just a two-day excursion but it felt like we reset our lives and everything going forward will have a new tone. I love that feeling.

We took a lot of pictures. I'll post a few here this week.

We wandered on rocky beaches, set our toes out to dry on sandy strips of sun, held hands as a family, and watched our daughter explore landscapes that made our hearts soar. We even, while Cora took an unexpected late-afternoon nap on Brian's back, clinked plastic cups of chilled sparkling wine while watching the sun make its lazy descent in the sky.

There were a lot of trees. Cora always says hello to trees. She pats them gently and gives them a sniff. There were also many bugs. She is fascinated by anything that moves, and wants to befriend whatever that might be. She tried to kiss a bug of questionable origin at our campsite; when asked not to do so, she bent down very, very close to it and said hello. She also waved.

The landscape and the sun was like a shot to our winter-weary souls. But it was the dreaminess we felt together that made me feel transported. (It is wonderful to dream alone. It is deeply comfortable to dream with a friend. Even more so to dream with a partner. The world seems to open up. Possibilities abound.)

There were long moments of gazing out at dark water catching light in the breeze, of wondering how fast we would go if the current caught us. We imagined boats, a variety of sizes and shapes, with sleeping nooks and sunny sterns; wind in our faces and little picnic baskets filled with small and delicious lunches; craggy ports and sunny scapes.

We dreamed about adventures and peaceful dwellings, old age and an old love, Cora growing up with a reverence for all living things and that which preserves them--for salt water and colored rocks and dandelion puffs, tiny bugs and warbling birds, cold night air and a sky filled with stars, views that change the way you see the world.

Fast

December 2007, two weeks old:


May 2009, seventeen months old:


Outside my window, leaf-covered branches cast mottled shadows on grass that has grown unexpectedly long in a short time. Cora is in her bed sleeping, curled around her piggy, tucked under layers of soft blankets.

I feel awash in gratitude. I could write a hundred lines about things that fill my heart.

I remember friends telling me how fast it goes, how quickly babies grow.

She used to weigh 5 pounds, 13 ounces. Newborn clothes were baggy on her tiny, curled legs. Her eyes were a deep, dark blue.

Today she sat at a table and spooned yogurt into her mouth, stopping periodically to blow kisses and say "yeah." She asked me to sing her a lullaby. (This is how it sounds: bubaby, bubaby, mama bubaby)

Her eyes light up when she leans in to kiss me. I see love in there. I never, ever, ever realized it would feel like this.

Her hair smells like sunshine. She crouches to examine grass and bugs. She loves to shout ICHIWAWAAAAA at the top of her lungs. When climbing stairs at the park this morning, she reached up and curled small, strong fingers around mine.

I didn't know her little hand would feel like that. I just didn't know.

Happy belated mother's day to all you mothers and mothers-to-be.

Cooking Green

Cora has been healthy for three weeks. Her current spirited vitality has brushed away the cobwebs cast over our lives when we learned about her IgA deficiency. I like to imagine it's because she's been fixed, that the problem doesn't exist and the tests were wrong.

Regardless, I think we're out of the woods for awhile and it feels great.

I feel like myself again. For one thing, we've slept a lot more these past few weeks. Rather than thinking about sniffles and coughs and diarrhea (and tending to such ailments several times a night), I am thinking again about writing, and food, and fun things to do with a toddler during a rainy spring season in Seattle--more difficult to do than one might imagine considering that we've sworn off indoor play areas. No more public petri dishes like the Zoomazium or the Children's Museum or kid-friendly coffee shops filled with cute but dingy toys handed from one hand and mouth to another.

That is one big frustration of late: I never, ever wanted to be one of those moms that cleans things all the time, and now I carry hand sanitizer and wipes wherever I go.

I am also much more focused on food now than I ever thought possible. As a vegan macrobiotic, homeschooled child who grew up on an island alfalfa sprout farm while listening to my mom talk incessantly about yin and yang, and as a gluten-free person since the age of 12, I feel steeped in food lore to the point of ridiculousness. But there is always more to learn, and I am enjoying the independent process of discovery--searching food blogs, thumbing through books, seeking recommendations from friends, and tinkering around in our kitchen whenever Cora will allow.

My sister recently told me that I am a better cook now that I am a mom. She also told me, years ago, that I am a better person when I am with Brian.

I've always teased my sister that she has a way with words. She used to tell me that, no offense, but my hair really looked quite awful. Or a few months ago on our way to a therapeutic spa day together, she confided in serious tones that my streak of gray hair aged me at least 10 years and advised me to go to a professional to get it fixed.

Of course the cooking reference was a compliment, but I went to bed grumbling; why was it that just because I talk more about food these days I'm a better cook than I once was...because I was pretty okay before, wasn't I? Think of the tortellini salads, for goodness sake!

(Your guess is as good as mine as to why on earth I thought of tortellini salads. Was that really one of my most creative ventures? Surely not. I finally conjured up my years of invested shopping and cooking--chopping a million different ingredients into gigantic salads, grilling salmon and potatoes, rolling homemade sushi, baking baguettes and serving them hot with melted brie and sauteed mushrooms, frying kale in sesame oil and soy sauce.)

But as with many of the things my sister says, the meaning lingers and I have to pause and consider. Has my hair ever really resembled a little dog atop my head? (She really did say that once.) Before she convinced me to get layers, is it possible that I did, in fact, look like a lampshade and a pair of legs wandering down the street? (She actually said that, too.) Does the grey really age me beyond an age I am comfortable representing in my early thirties?

I can agree that I have had a few more bad hair days than the average lady. And as far as being a better person because of Brian, I have to agree. One thing I know for sure is that it is useful to feel so much love, and to feel so loved. It feeds a nice cycle of give and take, making me more likely to smile magnanimously at the grocery clerk than if I were stuck in my head thinking about my latest thwarted attempt at something.

I have to admit that my sister has done the sisterly duty of helping me look a little bit more presentable--no more lampshade 'do, no more little dogs, no more college fare of parmesan cheese quesadillas heated up in the microwave.

So maybe she's right; I can certainly credit my daughter for being a more conscious cook. But am I a better cook because of that?

Several meals I made this week would pretty much convince anyone I was clearly on crack if I thought I was versed in the art of culinary adventures.

After having Cora, I suppose I did have a bit of a coming-out party about my love of food, and I certainly read more recipes these days than I ever have. Before Cora, I felt uncomfortable trumpeting my interest in the food-health connection. Now, because there is a small person's health at stake, I seem to feel more invested in discussing what I am sure is an intrinsic link. Still, I'm not really a better cook, I'm just more aware of food in general. I think about it differently, and I am more focused on whether it's useful--good for our bodies, good for our planet, good for Cora's future.

And lately, I have become far more interested in the iron and vitamin B content of foods than ever before. But I also have to be conscious of how to serve foods in such a way as to convince Cora to love them. And, of course, I want the food to taste good, too.

For example, I want her to eat more green things. Green vegetables are high in vitamin C, iron, B vitamins, and the simple component of chlorophyll, which helps speed oxygen through the bloodstream. She loves broccoli and green beans, and she likes peas because they are so fun to pick up and pop into her mouth. We've tried kale and nori seaweed with some success. Other green stuff? Not so much.

So, what I guess I'm trying to say, as I sit here writing after trying to entice Cora to eat a kale and broccoli grilled cheese sandwich with omega 3 mayonnaise (ha, not a success), is that I plan to adventure into the world of green food a great deal in the coming weeks. And I can't guarantee it'll be a delicious journey, but I'm hopeful that at least it will be an educational one.

And I'll have to convince my sister to come over for dinner so I can try out some of my new wares on her exacting taste. I know she'll let me know what she thinks. :)

Gluten-free Teff Almond Butter Cookies

Cora's doctor recommended that we put her on a gluten-free diet. Because celiac disease is diagnosed through unusually high levels of IgA, her absence of IgA makes it impossible to know if her body can process gluten. Added to the fact that I am allergic to wheat, Cora's tests also showed that she's slightly anemic, which can be another potential sign of food sensitivities. Gluten intolerance could interrupt her body's ability to absorb nutrients. She's been on a totally gluten-free diet for over a week. Combined with daily doses of multivitamins and probiotics, we've also added more dairy to her diet. It seems to be agreeing with her very well.

I wanted to share a nutritious, easy recipe with you, adapted from Leslie Cerier's teff peanut butter cookie recipe (the Organic Gourmet). Leslie's original recipe can also be found on the back of Bob's Red Mill whole grain teff flour, which is in stock at Whole Foods and many other natural foods stores. Try not to choke too much when you see the price tag of nearly $9 for a pound of flour. With 13% iron, 4 grams protein, and 4 grams fiber in a 1/4-cup serving, teff flour offers a unique flavor with hints of cocoa.

I modified Leslie's recipe to include olive oil and dark molasses. Molasses is high in iron and B vitamins, something I am working to sneak into Cora's diet whenever possible. The combination of a super nutritious flour with high-iron, high-calcium, high-flavor almond butter means that you don't have to be gluten-free to appreciate these hardy cookies.

Cora enjoyed helping me make these, making it an activity that now ranks pretty high on my list of "fun things to do with a toddler." She measured and stirred and incorporated the wet and dry ingredients. Her favorite part was making the cookie balls. We made these on the kitchen floor, and she crouched over the cookie sheet with greasy hands, forming funny shapes before sneaking a few bites and reluctantly pressing the dough haphazardly onto the cookie sheet.

TEFF ALMOND BUTTER COOKIES
Makes about 24 cookies

1-1/2 cups teff flour
1/2 tsp. ground sea salt
1/2 cup molasses filled nearly to the top, then topped off with a drizzle of maple syrup
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup smooth almond butter

Preheat oven to 350. Combine dry ingredients and set aside. In a food processor, blend syrup, oil, vanilla, and almond butter. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and blend well. Shape dough into walnut size balls. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and flatted gently with your fingers, shaping the cookie edges to form an even circle. Bake about 13-15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Keeps up to a week in a sealed container. Once cooled, the cookies are delicious dipped in yogurt or topped with a layer of vanilla ice cream or non-dairy frozen topping.

IgA and ABCs

As much as I've missed writing here, I've been feeling lost about where to begin.

I'll start with the fact that Cora's test results came back over a week ago. She was diagnosed with an immunodeficiency called Selective IgA Deficiency. According to our doctor, about 1 in 700 people have immunoglobulin A (IgA) deficiency, making it the most common immunodeficiency. Her tests weren't able to detect IgA, the antibody produced by B cells to ward off infection at mucousal sites throughout the body. Basically it means that Cora's nose, eyes, ears, throat, GI and urogenital systems are more susceptible to disease than in people with normal levels of IgA. IgA plays an important role in fighting infection because it is the first antibody to "rise to the occasion" and start battling an invader. It reaches peak levels before IgM and IgG (blood components) take over. Cora's IgG and IgM counts appear to be normal.

(Note: If you're reading this entry, you might be interested in reading this post as well.)

Research shows that 25-50% of IgA deficient people develop an autoimmune disorder (I've read 40% as the average in other sources). Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and other immune disorders seem to be more common in IgA deficient people over time. They are also more susceptible to pneumonia and HIV, can't receive live viral immunizations because they could actually contract the disease, might not produce appropriate antibodies to "take" a vaccination properly, and are susceptible to anaphylactic death from blood transfusions due to a violent reaction to IgA in donor blood. (If necessary, they are often able to receive "cleaned" blood from which IgA has been removed.) Although many people spend most of their lives asymptomatic, they generally just get a lot more runny noses, colds, sinus infections, ear infections, etc., than the common person. Currently, there is no treatment for this deficiency. Antibiotics have been shown to reduce IgA levels.

Concurrent with Cora's test results, we were pretty affected by the H1N1 flu headlines during its initial outbreak. Some people have commented that they didn't pay any attention to the news because it just seemed like a bunch of hype about the typical flu, but I think that if they had read any of the articles they might have felt differently. Avian flu, which is one of the viruses in this strain, has a 60% mortality rate, and the WHO currently predicts that if the H1N1 virus continues to mutate, we might see two billion people get sick, and a number of them die.

These scary statistics unravelled me for a few days. I worried intensely about Cora on several levels; not just about her health, but about her development and childhood happiness, too. It doesn't seem fair to be relegated to a life of careful hand washing and hand sanitizer, to a stream of colds and flus or missed school days, sled days, or sunny adventures.

After a tense week of trying to hold myself together, I took a cue from my daughter: I had a good, long cry. I felt so much better afterward. After it's all out there, it's easier to turn to a more reasonable perspective, to see how tiny our diagnosis is in comparison to what it could have been.

The good news is that Cora is only 16 months old, and the immune system isn't fully developed until age 2, which means there's a chance her body will still develop IgA. Every night as we put Cora to bed, we imagine her whole body lit up with B cells busily creating IgA. We are hoping that she will have a dramatic turnaround and will produce IgA in beautiful amounts in time to retest her after her 2nd birthday.

(If you'd like to imagine Cora's immune system totally intact, feel free to send your wonderfully positive thoughts her way.)

This news has left me frankly bewildered about a few things. I was not familiar with the components of an immune system until I began researching it and talking with Cora's doctor. One major question is why don't doctors regularly test immune system components at an earlier age? If Cora can't tolerate a live vaccine, then why is every child instructed to have the MMR vaccine at 12 months? Or the live polio virus at an even younger age? Or even the live flu vaccine? Why is it OK to proceed with one set protocol when all children are not created equal? I am thankful that we took a slower approach to vaccinations and weren't planning to vaccinate with MMR until 5 years or even older, and chose not to immunize against polio yet, but it's not a universally-accepted approach. Even though vaccinations in general have certainly gained a lot more attention in the past few years, it's a lot easier to feel fine about the whole thing if your kid gets through their vaccinations without any issues, but if you take a good hard look at the possible complications, the vaccine injury hotline, and the potential that your child might have an immune disorder (or, according to some sources, might develop one after an immunization), it starts to feel very clearly like something that should generally be approached with more caution that it currently is.

Update: The US Dept of Health and Human Services's Vaccine Injury Table lists polio and measles infection due to administration of certain vaccinations to an immune-compromised person. See 5B and 6A and 6B. I asked Cora's former doctor to look into the effects of MMR on an immune-compromised (in this case, IgA deficient) child. She followed up with a top immunologist at Seattle Children's Hospital who said that while there isn't any data to show that an IgA deficient person shouldn't receive the MMR vaccine, he said to 'proceed with great caution'. I said to Cora's doctor, "So don't get it." She responded, "right."

I don't care if it's costly, or even unnecessary to test 699 kids, it's the 700th one that I worry about. (Some sources say IgA deficiency is as common as 1 in every 400, making it even more alarming to consider the number of kids who shouldn't receive a live vaccine.)

I am a huge proponent of public health initiatives that protect vulnerable populations, reduce deadly diseases, and result in a healthier population over time. I understand the herd mentality of vaccinations, and in general I believe in their stated benefits. What I have a hard time with is learning about the fact that my child can't tolerate live vaccines, or viral vaccines very well in general, after the age when she normally would have received such an injection. We got lucky. I feel that there is a lot more study and thought that should go into the administration of vaccinations. Who should receive them? Who shouldn't?

How on earth do parents deal with a diagnosis of leukemia? Brain cancer? AIDS? It must feel as if the earth comes to a complete halt, that you are fighting through fog, that all you want to do is run to the highest mountain and hide your child away in a meadow feeding her nothing but the purest air and water and whole foods while searching for the absolute best medical care in the world. I send those parents my heart.

Cora is doing really well, she hasn't been sick for over two weeks and she runs (never walks) full-tilt through the hallways, pitter-pattering her way laughingly through her days. She is obsessed with a big ABC book that we read everyday, and she points to labels now and says "ABCs" in recognition of the words there. She's back to her animated, lively little self.

The summer is ahead of us. We can't wait. We're looking forward to beach combing, swimming in outdoor saltwater pools, having picnics, going hiking, running through the sprinkler, and exploring other classic summer joys.