Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Posted on March 9, 2016 by findingmykid

Because we are thinking about changing Martin’s school placement, Adrian and I decided to order a new neuropsychological educational assessment (a “neuropsych”). Martin also had a neuropsych three years ago, before he entered kindergarten, and last year. Those first two neuropsychs were completed by Dr. DS, a practitioner in Manhattan. This time we switched to Dr. PS, a practitioner in a suburb near ours, who knows our local schools and who had never before met Martin. Dr. DS and Dr. PS are mainstream neurodevelopmental psychiatrists, not biomed practitioners. Before Dr. PS started her testing, I enumerated Martin’s issues at this time: paying attention, sitting still, emotional regulation. I did not say “autism,” though she certainly must have seen that word on the previous neuropsychs and the school records I provided.

We had our parent meeting with Dr. PS last week, after she’d had three lengthy testing sessions with Martin. She told us that Martin’s primary trouble lies in executive functioning. She diagnosed him with ADHD, compounded by social/pragmatic language delays.

She didn’t mention “autism.”

Adrian asked, “You’re saying he has attention deficit and hyperactivity?”

Dr. PS answered, “Really, hyperactivity is a minor part. The primary issue is attention deficit, this inability to focus. That stems from the executive functioning and affects his performance in many areas, including school.”

Adrian is Adrian. He likes concrete, definitive responses. He asked, immediately, “Um, why don’t you think Martin has autism?”—not the question I would have posed. I like to leave well enough alone.

Dr. PS said that different practitioners come at executive functioning in different ways. Martin, she said, presents with “a little bit of this, and a little bit of that,” such that, perhaps, a doctor focused on autism might find a mild spectrum disorder. In Dr. PS’s opinion, however, Martin “does not meet the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder.” He presents much more strongly as a child with attention deficits. True, he retains difficulties with social/pragmatic language, but he is eager to socialize and keenly aware of others. No, she concluded, he doesn’t have autism.

“So,” I said to Adrian as we climbed into bed that night, “we don’t have a son with autism anymore.”

Adrian paused. Then he replied, “I guess we’ve known that for a while.”

I guess we have.

Martin can express himself, now. Martin doesn’t really have repetitive behaviors, anymore. Martin’s perseveration, which once was literal inability to stop speaking, has faded to a penchant for prattling about obscure topics, like marching bands and features of my car’s dashboard. Martin knows exactly what other kids are up to. He won’t let me affix a sport strap to his glasses anymore, because “Zach and John don’t have straps on their glasses.” Martin is awkward, socially, and his attention span has the half-life of hydrogen-7. But “autism”? These days, that seems too harsh.

On the other hand, it feels strange—to say I don’t have a son with autism. We still have a lot of work to do with Martin’s executive functioning, and the spectrum has been a driving component of our life, even of my own identity. We socialize with other autism families. We swap articles about autism. I even pre-board airplanes, on the basis that “my son has autism.” (The pre-boarding will have to stop. I will let airline attendants draw their own inferences, but I won’t lie.) Autism, autism, autism. What do I do now? Find ADHD friends?

Adrian and I have never been public about Martin’s diagnosis. Indeed, we’ve gone to lengths to hide his autism. In part, that’s because “autism” is a scary word. ADHD or ADD, not so scary. People seem to love to self-diagnosis with ADD. Maybe now we can go public with that moniker.

Almost six years ago—the summer that Martin turned two—was when Adrian and I started to realize that Martin had “issues.” Other kids blew out the candles on their birthday cakes. Martin stared into the abyss over his own cake. (We later discovered he lacked the ability to pucker, or to blow.) In the toddler soccer program, when the coach said, “Run and kick a cone,” nine kids ran and kicked a cone. Martin wandered to the next field and tipped over the goal.

By that fall, we were sufficiently concerned to ask a high-school friend of mine, an EI provider, to come take a look at Martin. She did, and she knew immediately that he had autism. The first psychologist, sent by New York City only a couple weeks after my friend saw Martin, said, “It’s autism. You might call it ‘high-functioning autism,’ or, ‘Asperger’s syndrome’.” But though Adrian and I didn’t realize it, Martin was backsliding. He had already lost eye contact and was becoming less responsive every day. By the time the Big Imposing Hospital’s neurodevelopmental team got hold of Martin, several months later, there was no mention of “high-functioning” or “Asperger’s.” They diagnosed Martin with moderate autism and threw in the kitchen sink of co-conditions: delays in every type of communication, low muscle tone and lack of proprioceptive awareness, sleep disorder, possible cognitive impairment, and on, and on, and on.

Let’s call that the low point.

Fortunately, we had already started biomed and the tedious brick-by-brick struggle to free our son from autism.

When he was three, Martin’s special-needs preschool removed him from a self-contained 12-1-1 classroom (12 special-ed students, one teacher, one aide) based on his need for more supervision, and his inability to keep up with the other developmentally delayed three-year-olds. The school placed him instead in an 8-1-2 classroom, in which two other students had 1-on-1 aides (in total, eight special-ed students, one teacher, two classroom aides, and two dedicated aides). Martin was left in that classroom for two years.

When it came time to find a kindergarten—we lived in New York City, where kids don’t just go to the local school, as they might elsewhere—we had Martin’s first neuropsych done. Dr. DS, the Manhattan neurodevelopmental psychologist, confirmed the autism diagnosis as “not a close call.” He told us that our desired elementary school, which has 12-student special-ed classrooms, would not provide enough support for Martin, and would be likely too advanced, academically. He said we were “really looking more at a need for 1-on-1 support” or a six-student ABA classroom.

Forget that, Adrian and I decided. When the desired school, with the 12-student classrooms, accepted Martin, we sent him there. And he excelled.

Two years later, before second grade, it was time for another neuropsych. To get a reasonably comparative assessment, we brought Martin back to Dr. DS.

Dr. DS admitted that he had been mistaken to think Martin wouldn’t make it at our chosen school. In fact, Dr. DS was not so sure Martin still needed all the support the school offered. “I’ve seen some remarkable progress,” Dr. DS said when he presented us with Martin’s report. Martin had moved from the third percentile to the 83rd percentile in receptive language, for example, and though the autism was still prevalent, he had made tremendous gains in other areas, too. What were we doing?

I told Dr. DS about our biomed protocol and nontraditional therapies, like HANDLE and Anat Baniel Method. He listened. At least he appeared to listen. When I finished, Adrian asked Dr. DS what our next steps should be, and Dr. DS said, “Medicate Martin. Now is a good time to start experimenting with medications, so that by the time he reaches third grade, when the curriculum becomes more advanced, you will already know the best combination and dosage of medications, whether it’s depressants, stimulants, or something else.”

Thank you, Dr. DS!

Another year passed, and this time we brought Martin to suburban Dr. PS, who opined that autism spectrum disorder is no longer the correct diagnosis for Martin. She said that her testing revealed an upward trajectory from Dr. DS’s reports. While Martin once had significant delays in all four areas of language, Dr. PS said, he now exhibited delay only in pragmatic/social language. “So looking at his history,” she said, “we can see that Martin was not destined to be a child with receptive or expressive language problems, as those have faded away.”

Destiny? I asked myself. Destiny didn’t resolve Martin’s receptive and expressive language delays. Biomed did.

“What should we be thinking about for next year?” Adrian asked.

Three components, said Dr. PS. First, the choice of school setting. Second, additional therapies and resources. And third, medication. It’s time to start experimenting to find the best medication for Martin’s ADHD.

I’m tempted to write, Thank you, Dr. PS! There’s an addendum, however. I told Dr. PS that we are “hesitant” to medicate Martin because doing so would interfere with our biomed protocol. The progress we’ve made, I explained, has resulted from a restricted diet, supplementation, and constant reevaluation of Martin’s health needs. Dr. PS—remember, she’s a mainstream neurodevelopmental psychiatrist—asked pertinent questions, like what kind of doctor we see and whether the protocol is test-based. (There are charlatans in the autism-recovery universe. I know that.) After I provided sufficient reassurance on those points, Dr. PS said we are probably right not to medicate at this time. If what we are doing biomedically is working, she said, then we should exhaust that route. Experimenting with medication does not have a time limit, and it is okay to start later.

So, actually, really, thank you, Dr. PS. Thank you for listening and reconsidering.

And, for my readers, especially my long-term readers, here’s a special tidbit: Do you remember my lengthy post about Mr. and Mrs. Twice-Exceptional, the Quirky Genius School, and the movie The Imitation Game? You might want to revisit that one.

As she was reviewing Martin’s test scores with us, Dr. PS pointed out a wide discrepancy in the different fields. In many academic areas, including reasoning and some language-based tasks, Martin’s scores were at the top of the bell curve, well above the average range. He uses his formidable intellect and those stand-out skills, Dr. PS said, to compensate for his still subpar executive functioning.

“You see,” Dr. PS told us, “your son is what we refer to as ‘twice-exceptional’.”

Disappointment

Posted on March 1, 2016 by findingmykid

I’d like to write a bit on the topic of disappointment, because disappointment is affecting me this week.

To be honest, disappointment is always affecting me, to some degree. When we started recovering Martin, more than five years ago(!), I thought we’d be done by kindergarten. The mother who launched our biomed journey put that notion into my head, I suppose, because she’d recovered her own son in less than three years. Martin is in second grade now, and if you read this blog, you know that he’s not recovered yet. That disappointments me, chronically.

The fact that the pace of Martin’s recovery disappointments me—that compounds the issue, because I feel disappointed in myself. Think about the son I have today: conversant, joking, getting-healthy, almost-non-stimming, diagnosed ADHD/language delay. Compare him with the constantly stimming, perseveration-stuck, limited-speech son I used to have, diagnosed ASD. What kind of person am I, to let disappointment enter my thoughts?

dis•ap•point

v.tr.

1. To fail to satisfy the hope, desire, or expectation of.

2. To frustrate or thwart.

v. intr.

To cause disappointment.

We are hoping to transfer Martin from his self-contained special-education school to a general-education classroom with an aide. The neurodevelopmental psychiatrist (mainstream) says that Martin is ready. The behaviorist says that Martin could make the leap. Martin’s Sunday-school teacher, who has charge of him along with a dozen typically developing kids one morning per week (and who herself has a son fully recovered from autism), has advocated for general education. Adrian and I, when we see Martin at his best, know that he has outgrown his special-education placement and needs the challenge of general education.

Our zoned elementary school, at Martin’s grade level, has 26-to-28 pupils per class. Even with an aide, that’s too many. Instead, we’ve been combing the local private schools, which average 12-to-15 pupils per class. I’ve met with the admissions directors of more than half a dozen private schools, explaining that we want to transition our son, and that he would likely need assistance, including a classroom aide, for another year or two. One school told me to get lost: They had no provisions to help a child transition to general education, and were not interested in stretching their parameters. Several schools said they had a resource room and/or a special-education teacher on staff and could offer accommodations but would not consider a classroom aide. Two schools, both church-affiliated, said that if Martin was otherwise a good fit, they would consider allowing a classroom aide. One of those two schools currently has two students with classroom aides, and its headmaster is a former special-education teacher. That school soon became my, and Adrian’s, top choice for Martin. When the school agreed to have Martin visit for a day, last week, we were hopeful.

As I wrote above, when we see Martin at his best, Adrian and I know that he has outgrown his special-education placement and needs the challenge of general education. Regrettably, Martin is not always at his best, and for the past month or so, he’s been sensory-seeking, with a diminished attention span. (A limited attention span—an infinitesimal attention span—remains Martin’s greatest challenge. Diminish that? Argh. Martin? Martin? Hello, Martin?) When he visited our top-choice private school last week, Martin was not at his best.

The school promptly turned us down.

What a disappointment.

Disappointment, because although the other church-affiliated school remains in play, our plan to move Martin to general education may be delayed another year. Disappointment, because the school we thought would want our son rejected him. Disappointment, because biomedical recovery is still a fringe movement, so I cannot tell the school, “Two steps forward and one step back. It gets worse before it gets better. The antimicrobials he’s taking for Lyme disease have kicked up a lot. Wait a month or two. He will be a whole different kid.”

The sting of rejection is still fresh, and today Martin’s annual review arrived from his current school. If you have a child with an IEP, you know that annual reviews, and progress reports, and IEP’s themselves, are not drafted to highlight a child’s strengths. They are drafted to justify maintaining services. Martin’s annual review is no exception. He has trouble sitting in his chair properly. He sometimes calls out inappropriately during lessons. (Detoxing. Ever hear of detoxing?) He reacts poorly when he doesn’t earn all his behavior-management tokens. He can’t focus. He needs prompting. He is making progress, but he isn’t ready to leave his supportive setting.

When I was a child, my family had a Magnavox Odyssey² video game console. (Showing my age with that admission.) I remember a game that scrambled words. I just searched online but found no record of this game. (If you, dear reader, happen to be an Odyssey² whiz, or just skilled at finding ancient relics online, please email me at FindingMyKid@yahoo.com, or comment on this post, with some evidence that this word game existed.) I loved the Odyssey² word game. I challenged myself to find words too long to fit on the screen.

I remember distinctly: The longest word my pre-teen mind could conjure was DISAPPOINTMENTS.

Fifteen letters, DISAPPOINTMENTS. Many months passed before I found a better word than DISAPPOINTMENTS.

Today, here, now, I challenge myself to find a better word than “disappointment.”

I challenge myself to find a better emotion than disappointment.

Martin, next to a good friend of mine, checks out the Long Island Sound.

Body Integrity

Posted on February 23, 2016 by findingmykid

Martin’s Lyme treatment makes him sensory-seeking, and I am his target.

He grabs hold and squeezes—puts me in headlocks, wraps his arms around my waste, tugs my arms, hops onto my back and chokes me.

His hands are in my hair—pulling my ponytail, removing the elastic, dividing locks into temporary pigtails, transferring whatever is stuck between his fingers (say, peanut butter, or coconut shreds) to my scalp. I don’t have great hair to begin with. Now it’s a downright disaster.

He headbutts my back, my arms, my torso, even my head when he can. It hurts. Then he rolls his head against me, hard. Back and forth. Back and forth. It is winter, and the air is dry. Sometimes his hair shocks me.

He wipes his nose on me, regardless of whether it needs wiping. I prefer when it doesn’t.

He climbs into my and Adrian’s bed and attempts to burrow. Once he gets part of himself wedged under me, he starts to kick.

He stands atop my feet.

He sits next to me and puts his head in my lap. That is fine, until he starts trying to do a headstand. If I flip him upright, he climbs onto the back of the sofa. From there, he headbutts me. See details, above.

When he does these things, he clenches his jaw, as if he cannot get enough sensory input. Occasionally he raises his arm, tightens the muscles, looks scared and uncertain, and brings his hand down to hit me—not hard, not intentionally, more like a slowed-in-air tap, unable to stop himself. In return, I hug him tightly.

I love my son. I love having him near me. But this is getting old.

(Martin, on the campus of Stanford University, last weekend. Only ten years till he applies for admission.)

(Martin, rocking the spectrum at We Rock the Spectrum training facility in Berkeley, California. He rock-climbs much better when wearing sneakers. Also, I forgot to bring his Cal State Golden Bear sweatshirt, so he was wearing Stanford Cardinal red, in Berkeley. Faux pas!)

Moments

Posted on February 21, 2016 by findingmykid

The moment in a ski lodge when your ASD son—whose Lyme-disease treatment has rendered him so hyperactive that your brother Eddie just had to eat half his dinner holding a squirming boy on his lap, to prevent that boy from ransacking the restaurant—hits the “Floor 1” button in the elevator, then turns directly to three adult men who’ve entered and inquires, “Are you also going to the first floor?”

The moment in the airport security line when your ASD son—whose Lyme-disease treatment has turned him so inside himself that he doesn’t always realize when you’ve started speaking to him—takes his trombone case off his shoulder and holds it proudly in front of him, hinting for the TSA officer to ask him about the instrument, and then answers her question with, “Yes, I am very good at playing the trombone. I even take lessons, every Friday.”

The moment in a Whole Foods Market café when your ASD son—whose Lyme-disease treatment has left him so anxious that he burst into sobs when he lost sight of you, momentarily, in a trampoline center—finds his way to the napkins and silverware, selects the right quantity of each, returns without delay, and sets the table, without being asked.

The moment in a restaurant when your ASD son—whose Lyme-disease treatment has made him so sensory-seeking that he continually puts you in tight headlocks, whenever he’s not trying to wipe his nose on your sleeve—lets you cut his roast chicken, then says, “Thanks! I was getting frustrated with that.”

The moment in the car, in Northern California, when your ASD son—whose Lyme-disease treatment is causing him to perseverate on marching bands and musical instruments, regardless of what conversation is actually happening—calls from the backseat, “I like Southern California better. Uncle Rudy lives there, it’s warmer, and it borders Mexico,” and follows up with, “Why do you say you like Northern California better, Mommy?”

The moment when the new neuropsychologist evaluating your ASD son—whose Lyme-disease treatment has made him so drunken-silly that he interrupted the neuropsychologist’s testing with a giggle fit, and later became infuriated with a challenging exercise and shut off her computer—tells you, “I definitely see issues here. I would say primarily ADHD, and secondarily speech processing delay,” and never once mentions the A word.

Food Porn, Mardi Gras Edition

Posted on February 9, 2016 by findingmykid

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, so this must be Fat Tuesday, the culmination of Mardi Gras. Tuesday afternoons Martin attends the kids program at our church. Last week, our pastor announced that he planned to serve king cake today.

When Samara, who had taken Martin to the kids program, informed me of this king cake development, I was weirded out. This isn’t New Orleans, and my church isn’t Roman Catholic. We are stuffy Northeastern Protestants. The last time I ate a king cake, I was a 22-year-old graduate student dating a Louisianan whose mother FedExed us the delicacy. (I recall that a Jewish friend found the Baby Jesus trinket, which subsequently was stolen by PeeWee the cat, who batted poor Baby Jesus mercilessly about the parquet floor.) On the other hand, Samara—who is not only Roman Catholic and of Latin American origin, but unable to see Martin deprived of anything—jumped all over the king cake idea. By the time I returned home Wednesday evening, from a mediation I was attending in Los Angeles, Samara had downloaded a recipe for “Paleo” king cake, invented her own sweetened cashew cream filling, and spent four hours baking this:

We popped that base in the freezer. Yesterday I moved it to the refrigerator to defrost. This afternoon I created a frosting/glaze. In the Vitamix, I blended 1/4 cup melted coconut oil, 1/4 cup coconut cream, 1/4 cup cashew butter, 1/4 teaspoon sea salt, and 3 tablespoons raw honey. I spread that on the defrosted king cake:

Next, I used an India Tree decorating set to color four bowls of organic shredded coconut:

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Finally, I sprinkled the dyed coconut onto the frosted king cake to replicate the traditional multi-colored appearance:

Martin took the cake to church this afternoon and loved the treat. I’m not sure if I have Samara’s patience to make this every year, but a new tradition just might have been born.

Postscript: Apparently the pastor had trouble finding a local bakery in the business of assembling king cakes this year; by the weekend he had changed course and declared today’s kids program “pancake dinner”—the tradition much more associated with us uptight, Shrove Tuesday types. Of course, the pancakes were not Martin-approved, and the homemade king cake was already in my freezer. So while the rest of the kids had pancakes, Martin ate like a king.

At least he shared.

Easy Peasy, Puddin’ Squeezy

Posted on February 8, 2016 by findingmykid

Martin’s school sent home a note to all parents, asking us to make sure our kids keep sneakers in the classroom, to wear to the gymnasium.

I, of course, could not remember whether Martin has sneakers at school.

So I asked him.

And he answered, with a nod.

“You do?” I asked. “Which ones?”

“The blue ones with the yellow swoosh,” he replied.

“Those old ones? Do they still fit?”

“They fit. I tie them myself.”

I used the italics, above, for the benefit of those readers outside the autism community. The others, like parents with a child on the spectrum, know the import of asking my child a question, expecting an answer, and still more, expecting an accurate answer. Once upon a time (for example, last year or any other time in memory), finding out whether Martin had sneakers at school would have required writing a note to his teachers and awaiting their response. Being able to ask him—that’s way more convenient.

Last Saturday, while Adrian was out of town skiing, Martin “took me out” to lunch. We had just settled into our seats when Martin said he had to go to the bathroom. “All right,” I said, “go ahead.” He left the table. He returned five minutes later, his hands still damp from being washed. As far as I can tell, nothing eventful happened between our table and the restroom. Later, I left the table for a minute. I asked Martin to stay put, and gave him my iPhone to amuse himself. He stayed put. When I returned, our waiter said casually, “Your son told me you’re going to the trampoline place this afternoon. Have fun!”, as if my son telling the waiter our plans were an everyday occurrence.

In fact, even though Martin was hyperactive and off balance from his Lyme treatment (again!), the whole weekend that Adrian was away ran smoothly. Friday evening Martin and I went to meet his new trombone teacher. Remember how disappointed Martin was when he didn’t receive a trombone for Christmas? Since then, he’s persistently asked to start trombone lessons. Finally I called music schools—most instructors weren’t willing to work with a child younger than 10—until I found a jazzy older fellow who said something like, sure, we’ll just find an alto trombone so your son’s arms aren’t too short to reach every position on the slide. We ended up buying an alto “pBone,” which is a real instrument whose exterior is plastic instead of brass (with a resulting price decrease!). The teacher-student meeting went well, and since then Martin has started his lessons.

Saturday morning Martin and I attended a student production of Cinderella at a local school, then went out to that lunch, and then met another family for a play date at the trampoline center. For dinner I made a cashew-carrot soup, which Martin ate with a spoon, instead of the stainless-steel straw on which he used to rely. Sunday we went to church—Martin participates in Sunday school with the other kids—and then to his hockey lesson. He chose to spend extra time on the ice after his lesson ended.

Once upon a time I dreaded weekends without Adrian; activities with Martin were a chore, but downtime at home resulted in stimming and meltdowns. Last weekend, the Lyme treatment had Martin at his worst. (Things haven’t improved much; stay tuned.) His worst right now is so much more manageable than his best used to be.

I’m thinking right now about parents of neurotypical kids. For sure, they have their own challenges. That being said—holy cow, parenting a child who can answer questions, complete simple tasks alone, and amuse himself for a few minutes now and again feels almost like doing nothing at all.

Parents of neurotypicals: Is it always like this?

I know that we have travails to come, as Martin continues to recover. At some point, he will transition from special education to general education, and we will have to worry about bullying and self-esteem. As he understands more about what his friends and classmates want, peer pressure will become an issue. And we have travails now. Martin’s continued perseveration, though milder than it used to be, perversely annoys me even more. The uneven temperament that comes with the Lyme treatment is bewildering. Parenting Martin will never be laissez-faire, at least not for me.

But, actually, maybe it kind of will be easy. If raising Martin had been like last weekend all along, I might just have more kids. Lots more.

Instead of Making

Posted on January 28, 2016 by findingmykid

To the outside observer, I gather, it seems like I do everything for Martin. Food-wise, at least. I prepare three meals a day from scratch. I buy eggs and meat from farms. In the summer I grow vegetables and herbs. I simmer broth, I pre-sprout beans, I soak and dehydrate nuts, I bake magical allergen-free snacks to send to school.

Let me assure my readers, however, that there are foody activities that I forego. That is, as a general rule, if I can buy a food from a source I trust, I do. I could save money—the grocery bill of a biomed family is out-of-control huge—by actually making everything at home, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Examples:

Kombucha. I brew my own kombucha. I have a countertop canister and a strong SCOBY, and each time I harvest, I feed the baby SCOBY to my compost bin. So what’s the problem? Well, I drink a lot of kombucha, Martin drinks kombucha, I don’t harvest my brew as often as I should, and what I make never tastes as good as GT’s or Health-Ade. So I brew kombucha and I also buy kombucha. Bottles and bottles of kombucha.

Nut cheese. Cultured cashew cheese isn’t hard to make. Here’s a recipe. And another. And another. You know what’s even easier than making cultured cashew cheese? Buying it. Here’s a good brand. And another. And another. (Don’t confuse cultured nut cheese, which is probiotic and healthy, with simple “non-dairy cheese,” which is often starchy junk food that, in my opinion, tastes awful.)

Fermented vegetables. I went through a phase of fermenting my own vegetables, in jars in my basement, especially because I wanted more choices than just cabbage sauerkraut. Now there are so many organic brands with non-sauerkraut ferments. BAO makes fermented kale and dandelion greens, beets, and mixed vegetables. Hawthorne Valley Farm, a local brand, has tasty ginger carrots. WildBrine makes smoky fermented kale and red beet sauerkraut, although not all its varieties are organic (I believe they follow the “dirty dozen” list and make those organic) and the Brussels sprout kraut contains soy, making it unacceptable for Martin.

Snacks. Martin prefers commercial snacks. He likes to open colorful wrappers, and he likes eating “store food” like his friends and classmates do. His favorite are Lärabars. I have a tortured relationship with Martin’s Lärabars. First, they are not organic, so I fear pesticide residue. Second, their GMO status is unclear. Third, they are high in sugar, even if the particular sugar is sucrose from dates. Fourth, they contain nuts, so I am not allowed to send them to Martin’s school. Still, Martin loves them, and these days it’s not easy to find a snack he loves. (He has long-since rejected previous choices like Go Raw! seed bars, raw macadamias, and jerky.) I would prefer that Martin pick Simple Squares over Lärabars. Martin picks Lärabars.

Pre-sprouted nuts and legumes. These can be found in the bulk aisles of health-food stores and Whole Foods Markets, and also packaged. My favorite brand is Living Intentions, which supplies a lot of those bulk aisles; I’ve had the opportunity to meet with representatives of the company, and they seem to be producing honest goods for the right reasons. Buying pre-sprouted saves me the trouble of soaking nut and legumes in FIJI Water and then drying them in my dehydrator. I wish more varieties would become commercially available, like navy and cannellini beans, or macadamia nuts and filberts.

As I said above, our grocery bill, for a family of three, is outrageous already; pounds of organic produce for juicing, meat from free-range animals, eggs laid in a yard, sustainably caught seafood, and raw-milk cheese (for when Adrian craves a bit) do not come cheap. Adding these commercial products feels like tacking a custom stereo to the cost of a luxury care—you stop and think, “Have I just gone overboard?” On the other hand, allowing myself the convenience of some prepared foods enables me to work outside the home, some, gets me more sleep, and helps preserve my sanity for the long, long haul that is autism recovery.

I would love to find more time to harvest my kombucha brew and to culture cashew cheese. I’d have to give something up to make that happen, and the thing I would give up would probably be—blogging.

And then what would we do?

Food Porn: Vaguely Asian Green-Bean Peanut Stuff

Posted on January 27, 2016 by findingmykid

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Three apologies.

First, I apologize that this is a peanut recipe; I know peanuts are trouble for a large portion of my readership. Miraculously, Martin has no peanut sensitivity. I reintroduced peanuts to his diet two years ago, with no indications of negative reaction. That being said, if peanuts are banned for your child but almonds are permissible, you can substitute almond butter for peanut butter in this recipe. I know, because I used to do that before I let Martin back on peanuts.

Second, sorry for the picture quality, and the fact that half the dish has been emptied. By the time I thought to snap a picture, Adrian and Martin had scooped servings into their bowls.

Third, I need to imply a vulgarity. Here it is: I serve rice once or twice a month, and when I do, Martin goes absolutely bat-s&*t berserk. He loves rice. I’m not sure whether he craves the carbs or the little sugar high or what, but Martin will do anything for rice.

(Tidbit: My law-school roommate, who is from Japan and ate white rice almost daily, once told me, “Just think of it as brown rice with the nutrition washed off.”)

By the standards of what I usually prepare for family dinner, this recipe is quick and easy. I made it this Monday evening. Martin and I get home late on Mondays, because he has personal training after school, so unless I’ve prepared an advance meal, I have to scramble. Some Mondays that means fermented cashew cheese on seed crackers. This week, however, a blizzard had bungled the roads and train lines, and Adrian decided to work from home in case the Monday commute was messy—which meant I needed a family dinner. I had a big bag of organic green beans from Costco, so I dug out an old peanut-sauce recipe from Smucker’s (from my pre-biomed days!) and adapted it to this:

Set rice to cooked. I used Lundberg organic basmati, which needs only 15 minutes to cook, plus 10 minutes to set.

Slice (I went with one-inch pieces) and steam green beans. I also tossed in three cloves fresh garlic, sliced.

While the rice is cooking/setting and the beans are steaming, prepare the peanut sauce:

1/3 cup peanut butter

1 teaspoon garlic powder (or 2-3 teaspoons crushed fresh garlic)

juice of one small lemon

2 tablespoons coconut aminos

1 teaspoon coconut crystals (omit if you’re super-sugar-restricted)

1/3 cup water

dash of cayenne pepper (optional).

Heat the sauce ingredients over medium-low heat, whisking two or three times until well combined.

In large mixing bowling, combine steamed beans (and garlic cloves, if using) with peanut sauce. I also added a handful of cashews, for extra protein. I wanted to add a handful of peanuts, which would have made the recipe even better, but the natural foods market where Martin and I stopped before his personal training inexplicably doesn’t carry peanuts.

Scoop the rice into a serving bowl and top with green beans.

Quick, easy, and a big hit with both Adrian and Martin.

Food Porn: Weekend Breakfast

Posted on January 14, 2016 by findingmykid

Depending on how much time I have, weekend breakfasts can be extravagant and, because on the volume of organic vegetables involved, expensive. I photographed my way through a recent weekend breakfast, prepared when we were all awake around 7:00 am but no one had to be anywhere before 11:00 am.

Dish No. 1 was sweet potato hash, and Dish No. 2 was vegetable scrambled eggs. First, I diced/processed my veggies and arranged them for those two dishes.

In this photo, the middle mixing bowl contains the veggies for the scrambled eggs: carrots, garlic, red bell pepper, Jerusalem artichoke, and several sorts of mushrooms. Martin has declared that he doesn’t like mushrooms, so I sneak them in wherever I can; in this instance, the pre-cooked mushrooms will reduce enough that he doesn’t notice them in the scrambled eggs.

Also in the photo are—

a small glass of yellow “base,” which comprised onion, garlic, and turmeric root (there’s that turmeric again!), processed into a paste, which I put first into the pan, along with cooking oil (usually coconut);

the diced sweet potatoes, which require the longest cooking time, so I added them as soon as the base became fragrant;

onions and red bell pepper, which I add until well after the sweet potatoes, because they would have burnt before the sweet potatoes were cooked;

and a glass of minced herbs, which on this occasion were parsley and sage, which went in last, just enough to heat them.

When the sweet potato hash was about half done, I set the egg veggies to cook in coconut oil, separately.

While both the sweet potato hash and the egg veggies were cooking, I prepped the vegetables for juice. I am very into juicing right now. Juice does have “all the sugar without the insoluble fiber,” which is not great vis-à-vis Martin’s yeast troubles. On the other hand, juicing is GAPS-approved and makes vitamins, minerals, and even enzymes rapidly available, which is terrific for those times when Martin is not so into eating vegetables. (Yes, even super-healthy-diet Martin behaves sometimes like an American seven-year-old.) On this morning, I made “green lemonade”: collard greens, celery, cucumber, kiwifruit, green and red apples, lemon, and turmeric. (Again with the turmeric!)

Finally I juiced, added eggs and sea salt to the egg veggies, and served. For Adrian’s breakfast, I added a slice of toast, made from Canyon Bakehouse gluten-free bread.

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I think the Canyon Bakehouse product is good-quality, but it’s still too starchy and processed for Martin. So when Martin insisted that he too wanted toast, I substituted a couple Lundberg Family Farms Red Rice & Quinoa Stackers. Not perfect. Still a grain. Still processed to some degree. But these “toast crackers” made Martin happy and brought peace to breakfast.

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I don’t eat eggs. For my breakfast, I ate the sweet potato hash and drank the juice, and substituted the eggs with Fakin’ Bacon, which is spiced organic tempeh. I try not to eat too much soy; when I do consume soy, organic and fermented is the best way to go.

And I almost forgot: There was one more item that brought peace, and for me and Adrian, a lot of joy, to the morning kitchen—

Food Porn: Pasta and Broccoli With “Cheese” Sauce

Posted on January 13, 2016 by findingmykid

I’ve been lax about posting recipes and cooking tips, which is strange because the No. 1 recovery-process question I get remains, “What does Martin eat?” Many people still find it hard to fathom, in this day, a diet of minimally processed foods; focused on fresh and organic; free from gluten, dairy, corn, soy, refined sugar, and most grains or starchy vegetables; that includes daily bone broth and probiotic/fermented foods; with meat (other than broth) limited to one serving daily; and that is prepared 90% from scratch. I don’t blame them. Before I started this journey, I wouldn’t have known how to manage it at all.

Time to post a few examples of how breakfast, lunch, and dinner look for Martin. Exhibit One shall be this relatively simple vegetarian dinner, which our whole family, including pescatarian Adrian and vegan me, can enjoy: pasta with broccoli and “cheese” sauce:

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The “cheese” sauce—you won’t believe me until you try it—is delicious. The recipe does call for potato, which we generally try to avoid; fortunately, the overall potato content ends up being low, on a per-serving basis. I happened upon the “cheese” sauce recipe when a friend posted the link on her Facebook page.

Of course, I make alterations. I generally try to soak and dehydrate the cashews before I use them, though I may not always manage. I like to replace the garlic powder with a clove or two of raw garlic. I also usually add an inch or two of peeled, fresh turmeric, throwing that root into the cooking water at the same time as the potato. (If you read several of these posts, you’re going to uncover a sort of turmeric leitmotif. I add fresh turmeric to almost everything—including (some) desserts and snacks.)

The pasta is Tolerant brand penne, which lists, as its only ingredient, red lentils. I love the idea of one-ingredient pasta, especially when the ingredient is organic red lentils. That being said, I do have questions about Tolerant, especially how exactly the lentils are processed into pasta, i.e., what the lentils undergo and how they eventually stick together. My friend Stacey and I once found Tolerant’s representatives at a food trade show and peppered them with questions about their processing methods; citing trade secrets, they wouldn’t reveal anything, so I still have concerns. Sometimes the best you’ve got is the best you’ve got, and right now, for pasta, I think Tolerant is the best I’ve got.

(Monday afternoons, Martin and I visit the organic grocery. He loves to run to the Tolerant aisle and yell, “Mommy, do we have enough pasta?”, then dump four or five boxes of the penne into my cart.)

Sometimes I add slivered almonds or pine nuts to this dish. In the version pictured above, the final ingredient was steamed broccoli. I cooked the broccoli before the pasta, saved the leftover steaming water, which absorbs some broccoli nutrients, and cooked the pasta in that water, hope to transfer those nutrients to the pasta. Long shot? Probably.

A tasty entrée that paired well with salad? Definitely.

Finding My Kid

A parent's real-time blog of autism recovery. Start-point is a diagnosis of ASD. End-point is unknown.

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