REAL Milk

So...I think I'm going to by a herd share and start getting Raw Milk for my family. We'll obviously be able to drink this, but something that I find interesting is that raw milk does not spoil - it cultures. Cool, huh?! So we'll drink what tastes yummy and then with the rest we can make kefir and cheese and butter. The place I'm looking at is Pasture Delights. They have a bunch of FAQs that are really informative.
Pasteurization and homogenization kill a lot of the great nutritional benefits of milk, but if you get REAL milk, it's alive with all sorts of good things for you. I got a free sample of it yesterday and have used in in smoothies today. A lot of times when people first transition to REAL milk they experience some indigestion or diarrhea, so it's a good idea to mix the raw milk with the milk you've been drinking, incrementally increasing until you've transitioned completely to the raw stuff.
Here's some info that I got with my raw milk sample. In Pasteurized/Homogenized Milk less than 10% of the original enzymes remain, necessary to digest food. Enzymes are also catalysts for the assimilation of minerals to your body. Speaking of minerals, only 50% of the original calcium is left to be absorbed by the body. Vitamins? Up to 66% of vitamins A, D, and E are lost, more than 50% of the vitamin C is lost, and vitamins B-6 and B-12 are pretty much destroyed. Proteins in the milk are severely altered, leading to allergies and making the absorption of the proteins less available to your body. Lactose is more rapidly absorbed by the body when consuming pasteurized/homogenized milk, leading to lactose sensitivity and intolerance. AND because the processing destroys all bacteria, there is no good bacteria to fight the bad, so any bacteria that grow in the milk are bad and dangerous to consume. You can fix all that by drinking REAL raw milk from a healthy grass-fed cow. Cool, huh!?

Surrounded by Uncertainty

 Originally uploaded to Flickr by Allison Imagining.

So...An Update

Hello internet world! Nice to see you again. Blogging has been put on the back-burner for the past two weeks as I've dealt with the joys and struggles of building a home entertainment computer (or supporting Ev while he builds it), having a father-in-law in the hospital (who is now out of the hospital and gaining some strength back), weeding flower beds (YAY!!!), putting together a business plan (I'm going to tear my hair out soon...it's taking soooo long), and having a little boy with crazy pussy stuff coming out of his eye (poor little guy). But amidst all of this, two very funny things happened yesterday.
First, I went to the eye doctor who asked me if it "messed me up" when they dilated my eyes. I though about it for a second and since it was gross and gray out, I said, "No, it only messes with me if it's really bright." Are you kidding me?! NEVER say that. Who doesn't it mess with to have their eyes dilated?! I mean, they put these drops in your eyes that magically make your pupils like 5 times their normal size for the rest of the day! Of course that's going to mess you up. I thought I was doing fine, until I put my glasses back on to leave and drive to work and my glasses actually made it worse. So I didn't wear any vision correcting apparatus all day, which messed up my depth perception immensely, and probably made people think I had been drinking, which isn't exactly the best impression to give off when you work where I work. It was crazy. The whole time I was driving...in the grayness, mind you...I was thinking, "This would make a really good Seriously Now?!" That's how ridiculous it was. I'm pretty sure that if I would have started howling, any dog could have come up, taken one look at me and been like, "Oh yeah, she's one of us."
Second, my son is warrior! I LOVE IT! Last night was one of the first times I saw this gleam in his eyes. Now, Elliot has been defiant, rebellious and independent before. I've heard those yells, as well as his screams of pain and very loud, "MOMOMOMOM" when something is just not working right. But last night was the first time I heard his warrior cry.
We were sitting at the dinner table and Elliot had finished eating, so I took him out of his high chair and set him on the chair next to me so that he could still talk with us. He grabbed a canister of compressed air (the kind that you clean computers with) and started examining it. Then with a gleam in his eye and a smirk on his face he pointed it at Evan and said, "Eh?" To which of course we asked him what he was doing. This was met by him pointing it at each person at the table, with each person he pointed it at, he would give a little more umph to the pointing of the compressed air and his "Eh?" changed to an "AAh!" and continuously increased in volume. We finally realized he was shooting us with the gun. Evan got another can of compressed air and started shooting back at him. He thought this was absolutely hilarious and started to really get into the whole thing. Then he got that gleam in his eye, tilted back and shook his little head and yelled, "Doe, DIE! AAH!" (for those of you that need translation, this means "Joe, DIE! AAH!") We all died...laughing. And then we went into the living room to continue the battle. It was great! :)
So I get my new glasses and contact next week. It's going to be crazy at work and I got really good news about some friends and their baby that's coming in July! Congrats Heironimi! We love you!

Elliot's Favorite

CRAYONS! Yes, he's fallen asleep with one in his hand on multiple occasions. Crayons are currently his favorite. This child loves to draw...mostly on blank surfaces. I tried to show him an actual coloring page and he looked at me like, "Uh, Mom. In case you didn't notice. Someone already drew a picture on this one." Do you realize how many blank surfaces are in our house? Here are just a few places that we've found Elliot's handiwork - walls, windows, tvs, computers, toolboxes, books, carpet, furniture, pillows, doors, windowsills, the dishwasher, the refrigerator, and the bathtub. Now, I do freak out a little bit about the books, but we have WASHABLE crayons and a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. These two things have been a life saver. I mean if we didn't have the washable ones, I think I'd be repainting parts of my house every night...or I'd get tired of it and just color on the walls with him. Because really...there's only so much space on a little piece of white paper or a cardboard box for that matter....but a white wall! In Elliot's words, "Oh wow!" Now if you give this kid a couple crayons and a box large enough for him to sit in, he will be occupied for nearly an entire day (we're running out of boxes big enough for him to sit in, so if you have some let me know).
Now, some of you might think, "I would NEVER let my kid color on my carpet!" And that might be true, but those of you that have met Elliot know that there is very little that upsets him more than when you take away a DVD case and/or a crayon. Evan says that when I do it, I'm taking away his sense of empowerment. I realize that this is probably true, but what do you do when you tell your kid "no" and they keep doing it? You take away their empowerment. However, I realized that I was taking it away without giving him any choice in the matter. SO...I started to ask him (as he's heading for the wall with a gleam in his eye), "Elliot, where can you color?" He turns around, looks at me quizzically, then his eyes light up, he raises his eyebrows holds up his little finger (as if to say, "I just had an idea") and then says to me "Da Ba!" (this means "the box"). He did this the first few times, to which I responded "Yay!" and gave him high fives and kisses. Now, when I find him standing in front of the dishwasher with a colorful writing utensil in his hand, I say, "Elliot, where can you color?" He sighs, slumps his shoulders and walks out of the kitchen, "da ba." Rarely will he defy me and just keep coloring the dishwasher, and when he does...well, his sense of empowerment disappears. Now, he's at the point that he's getting frustrated because he can't make his marks look like letters or shapes or animals...so I help him. And as we're drawing letters and shapes together, I kiss his cheek and tell him, "You're my favorite, Elliot! I love you."
He teaches me so much every day. Like about how I act when I discover a gift that God's given me. How I initially wield it with such reckless abandon, feeling empowered and independent, and then realize that I can't do it all by myself and I need Him to love me and gently help me hone and practice using my gifts until they yield fruit. The temptation is to then think that my independent wielding meant nothing, that they're just things from my past that should be erased, but that's not true. As I go around with my magic eraser at the end of the day, I'm not frustrated by the pink, orange, purple, red and blue marks on my appliances and walls.  They actually make me smile. Not because I think that Elliot's rebelliousness is funny, but because I know that he's growing. I see that he's not just making straight lines any more, but little swirls and circles that will soon lead to the "O"s that he wants to make so badly. And at times I wonder if that's how my Father sees me too. He doesn't condone my bad behavior, but he sees my growth and it makes Him happy. And it gives Him such great delight, when after patiently waiting for me, I hand Him my crayon and in my own way say, "Peesh" to ask for His help. And as we draw the letters together, He whispers in my ear "You're my favorite! I love you."