What colour are white marshmallows?

Wanting to make some homemade snack bars that the boys love… (made with cereal, granola, nuts, seeds, dried fruit and a few chocolate chips and held together with marshmallow) I picked up some marshmallows at the grocery store over the weekend…

Xavier has been asking me to make them since then…

So this morning I get out a few things and just as I was about to open the bag of marshmallows I noticed the ingredient list…

“colouring”

Why I didn’t check while at the grocery store? I don’t know…

If you have been reading here for a while, or have read the archives a bit we have been avoiding food colouring for the boys for about a year and half… Colin has physical reactions and Xavier has behavioural…

Dr Feingold and the diet he promotes has been telling families with hyperactive children to avoid food colourings (along with other foods and additives) for a long time believing that they are linked to behaviour problems…. and these diets have helped many families dealing with ADHD and an array of other problems… and though I have never read any of the books and don’t follow the diet I do think that there is a lot of truth in his ways of thinking…

however… for many the link between a cracker or a yogourt and behavioural problems is something that is hard to grasp and the fact that food colouring is in so many foods makes it really hard to avoid even when you eat mostly whole foods…

I hadn’t seen but last year there was finally a study…

Though Feingold was proved to be right that food colouring can aggravate the symptoms of ADHD… and that avoiding them can have great effects… the link had never been made officially between “normal” kids and behavioural problems linked directly to food colouring and additives.. until now…

Food additives and hyperactive behaviour in 3-year-old and
8/9-year-old children in the community: a randomised,
double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial

Background
We undertook a randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover trial to test whether intake of artificial food colour and additives (AFCA) affected childhood behaviour.

Methods
153 3-year-old and 144 8/9-year-old children were included in the study. The challenge drink contained sodium benzoate and one of two AFCA mixes (A or B) or a placebo mix. The main outcome measure was a global hyperactivity aggregate (GHA), based on aggregated z-scores of observed behaviours and ratings by teachers and parents, plus, for 8/9-year-old children, a computerised test of attention. This clinical trial is registered with Current Controlled Trials (registration number ISRCTN74481308). Analysis was per protocol.

Findings
16 3-year-old children and 14 8/9-year-old children did not complete the study, for reasons unrelated to childhood behaviour. Mix A had a significantly adverse effect compared with placebo in GHA for all 3-year-old children but not mix B versus placebo. This result persisted when analysis was restricted to 3-year-old children who consumed more than 85% of juice and had no missing data . 8/9-year-old children showed a significantly adverse eff ect when given mix A or mix B when analysis was restricted to those children consuming at least 85% of drinks with no missing data.
Interpretation Artificial colours or a sodium benzoate preservative (or both) in the diet result in increased hyperactivity in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children in the general population.

I know that there are some that brush this off because their kids might not become more active after eating food additives or either don’t believe it or just don’t care… Think if the bad rep that sugar has gotten as parties and how it has been proven to not be the cause for the hyperactivity… what if it was the all of the food colouring and additives that have really been the culprit all along… the fact that food additives that have NO other function than to make a food look prettier and can have such an impact on behaviour is scary at best and I know for sure that I will never be able to turn a blind eye…

and the white marshmallows…. I called the number on the back of the package to ask what colouring was used… they have blue… but couldn’t say whether it was #1 or #2….

Endo appt…

We had the appointment at the Endo on Monday…

and… as I expected and really just knew all along, everything is completely normal with Khéna….

He is a big healthy boy.

Yes, He is very overweight, and off the charts at a bit over 18 kilos or 40lbs… but everything is normal…

They did mention that if he maintains the weight that he has now, he would come into the 97th percentile on the charts at age three… so they do think that he should not be gaining more… but there is nothing they can recomend for him not to gain weight… and because they could not blame overeating, because he really doesn’t eat much…  they did try to hint that my milk might be too rich in calories and that he should be eating more solids… but then didn’t mention it again after they couldn’t explain why that would be when his two big brothers had the same nursing patterns and were/are pretty small..

I also asked if it was OK if ever he lost weight because with the spring and summer on the way and more outdoor play, swimming etc…  and they said that there was no problem with that…

So for those IRL, and who read the blog and have been worried about Khéna’s weight…  don’t worry… he is a healthy, beautiful and yes… big boy…

I am so tired of being sick…

We though we were doing pretty well this year until a few weeks ago… then our systems started to fail us…

colds, coughs, stuffy and runny noses, junky lungs and fevers have made us all miserable in the last few weeks…

during the night, the night before last, I asked Simon to stay home because I was feeling so awful… awful enough that I dreamed that Simon wrote on my blog that I was no longer living… Thankfully, I am still living and Simon did stay home yesterday and helped with the kids even though I was feeling a bit better…

Xavier however was the worse hit yesterday… he stayed on the lounging chair in front of the TV all day, feverish and in and out of sleep only drinking a bit of water, emergen-C and a bit of juice and once in a while shakily walking to the bathroom…

He is still sleeping at the moment, but his fever seems to have broken and hopefully today will be a better day even though we are all becoming a bit stir-crazy…
It seems to fit of course that we are having another winter storm, 25 cm of snow complete with freezing rain to top it off…

sick…

On Monday I was sick… the whole stomach flu feel like you want to crawl under a rock and die… or at least sleep kind of sick….

Simon stayed home and took care of the kids which I am completely grateful for… I slept almost all day and the only parenting I did was to nurse… and by the next morning I was feeling better enough to be a parent again…

I was hoping so much that the boys wouldn’t get it…

well…

yesterday…

Xavier’s nose started to run…

Colin was complaining of a sore tummy and then both of them started to throw up yesterday… and now there are runny noses all around, fevers and icky tummies…

Last night was hard for me…

Colin wanted to nurse all night… Khéna too, but he was too stuffy so he cried alot because he wanted to nurse but couldn’t….

and now I have a stiff back and a stiff neck and I have no energy….

2 days left and then it is the weekend…

Eczema…

Colin has been battling with eczema for a while now… last year his fingers were so dry and cracked he was often crying because of the pain… so we cut a lot of his dairy intake to see if his fingers would get better and they did… however, I didn’t know if was due to the dairy or the season… over the summer he started having more dairy again… he also started to get eczema around his mouth and on his face and his fingers became cracked again and he was again in pain…

So again, we decided to cut down on dairy… this time we are doing it as a family though, cutting out as much as we can and maybe only keeping it for treats… in the 2 weeks that we have cut “most” dairy out of Colin’s diet his rash has started to fade and his fingers are now getting better… we are now finishing up the stuff in the house and I will not be buying anymore for a while… It will probably show quite a bit in our monthly spending also…

I just got back..

Just got home from the hospital and having left the boys with a babysitter for the first time…

The babysitting part went really well… I really like her and the kids had fun with her too….
I had asked how much she charges and she wanted 3$ an hour….  for both kids!!
I gave her 5$ an hour… I think that makes more sense…. and I think that I am going to enjoy having her around… I think that I might even ask her to come over one weekend soon and have her take the kids to the park or something so that we can get some deep cleaning and decluttering done…

As for the blood test… poor Khéna…
they couldn’t find a vein at all… and finally the nurse  thought that she felt something after looking for about 5 min on both arms and hand… and then went in and searched… and then she hit a vein… she said that it was not because she was good… but it was by pure luck… they took 4 vials… The results will be sent to the Ped. here and then he will send them to the endocronologist in Montreal…

owww….

Last night I was making supper (buttercup squash and leek soup) and some of it spattered and burned my hand… I put my hand under a bit of water and continued to do what I was doing… my hand kept on burning though and when I finally looked at it I saw that it was already blistering…

omg… it hurt…

(the soup was good though…. )

I kept a cold cloth on it for about 2 hours and then decided to bandage it up… It was really red and I had two blisters forming… I put some honey on it… bandaged it up and the pain started to go away…

When I woke up this morning most of the redness was gone, the pain is mostly gone…  but it is still there…. I need to finish some sewing for the hallow’een costumes… and I can’t move my hand freely…

I was also planning on going swimming today… we’ll see…

Today…

Colin’s Torso a lot better today… still blotchy but not raised like yesterday…

However… his face and arms and legs are now like what his torso was yesterday…

I few good friends suggested that it looks like fifth disease… and it could very well be… though they do not have the “slapped cheek” or the usual presentation it would fit the timeline and the symptoms…

I need to go to the ped office today to pick up a referral for a blood test for Khéna so I might mention my suspicions to the secretary to pass on to the doctor…

I am going to be so happy if this means no allergies… but of course we will officially see that in a few weeks…

Colin’s Hives…

I got this shot using the kids camera…

This was a few hours ago and now I have trouble seeing any normal skin on his back and his front is full and it has spread to his legs and face also…

He isn’t complaining at all though…

Another cases of hives…

This time… in Colin…

I am starting to wonder if this was all just a Virus or something…

Khéna had hives… then a few days later got croup…

Colin and Xavier both have a something that is cold-like… so there is some kind of virus here…

hmmmm….

i wonder….