What is Owen Eating?- Ketogenic Diet Update

Owen choosing what he wants with his pancake.

 I've found that the only way I can accomplish anything during the week is if I prepare as as many of Owen's meals as possible over the weekend. We are getting faster at weighing everything out, but it still takes an amazing amount of time to make one little meal.
 This weekend Rod and I made a weeks worth of yogurt (some strawberry and some plain that we can add other fruit to later), seven cheese sandwiches, 3 meals worth of pumpkin seed muffins, 4 meals of chicken nuggets, and as many macadamia nut pancakes as I could until I ran out of nuts. I need to get more macadamia nuts this week! We already had meatloaf and cereal left over from last week.
 The pancakes are easy to make ahead and store and he can have so many options with them. He ate them 3 times today, once with apples and twice with carrots. It seems really strange to feed him the same thing for 3 meals, but most of what he eats is exactly the same thing just presented differently. Meatloaf is just egg, macadamia nuts, hamburger, and oil. Chicken nuggets are egg, macadamia nuts, oil, and chicken. Muffins are egg, macadamia nuts, oil, and blueberries. Pancakes are egg and macadamia nuts served with butter and whatever fruit or veggie he wants. It's really just all the same thing.

Pumpkin seed mini muffins

 Owen is finally starting to sleep a little better after upping his calories before bed. He's still having trouble falling asleep, but he's not waking up as many times through the night. Supposedly ketosis suppresses the appetite, but Owen's ketones are very high and he still thinks he's starving. We've started giving him MCT oil when he's really complaining about being hungry. He doesn't like the oil, so sometimes he stops whining just so he doesn't have to take it. Other times he complains all day! We get a constant countdown. "The clock says 1:23, Mommy! Now it's 1:24, when is my next meal?"
 The other day one of our hens died. Rod took the shovel out to bury it and Owen wanted to come with him. Rod told him to stay inside so he could take care of the dead chicken, so Owen asked if he could eat the dead chicken. He's gained almost 2 pounds since starting the diet, so I'm pretty sure he's not actually starving. I'm really hoping the hunger settles down soon!

Homestead Happenings

 We got two new kitties this week. With several warm winters in a row, the rodent population has gotten out of control, so we decided we needed a few more mousers. These kitties are from a long line of great mousers. We are keeping them in the house for a while so they can get used to us and grow a little. I think we've decided on Neville for the boy(cream and white) and Guinevere for the girl (grey with white and cream). They've been barn cats their whole life, all 8 weeks of it, so we're working on taming them up a bit. Aren't they adorable?

 We also got 3 geese and 11 ducks this week. Some friends of ours raised them, but decided that they didn't need so many boy ducks. They also thought the geese were getting a little too big to feed and have wandering around their yard. Our friends didn't have the heart to butcher them, so they offered them to us. Two of the ducks escaped overnight and have joined the 7 ducks already on our pond, but the others are now in our freezer. With the house access issues still up in the air and Owen starting the ketogenic diet this summer, we decided not to raise any meat birds of our own. It was nice to be able to put a few birds in the freezer!

 We processed the 9 ducks that were catchable, but we decided to hold off on the geese for a while. They are sharing a pen with our goats at the moment. If they stay as nice as they are right now we may just keep them and use them as breeders for next year.

 The first time we processed birds, we tried to keep the kids away until the killing part was over, but they were too interested and ended up watching the whole thing. Now we just let them help in whatever way they feel comfortable with. Owen helped fill the soaking and dunking tanks. Cameron and Duncan were at my nephew's house, so Connor ended up with little kid duty. Devon did various chores like running to the store for ice.

Killing station

Scalding station

Rinsing and cooling station

Audience

 Morgan was our biggest helper this time. She is probably the biggest animal lover in the family besides me, but she has no trouble at all making meat. She knows that we have some animals as pets and others as food and it doesn't bother her at all to help turn the food animals into meat.I, myself, have problems with the actual killing portion. Once they're actually dead, I'm fine. My main job is plucker. We've done chickens several times, but this was our first time processing ducks. They are a lot harder to pluck than chickens. I think they have three times as many feathers!

 Morgan was absolutely fascinated with the hearts. Being typical homeschoolers, we couldn't let a butchering day go by without turning it into an anatomy lesson! We had to talk about what all the internal organs were and what purpose they served and then dissect a few of them(like the heart).

 At the end of the day, I had this to put in my freezer! One of them will be going back to the family who gave us the ducks in the first place as they wanted to try one too. Now I just need to come up with some great duck recipes.

Mastery or Mediocrity?

Adorable pictures of Brenna that have absolutely nothing to do with this post.

 I have always home schooled our children. My stepdaughters had a few years of public school and several years at a small private school. Due to many, many factors that I'm not willing or able to go into on the blog, I didn't have a lot to do with their schooling. So, home schooling is all I've really dealt with as far as the kids go. I've mentioned before that my own public school experiences weren't exactly satisfactory. I have not modeled our home school after the traditional public school guidelines fro that very reason. With Devon taking classes at the Technical College we are entering a new frontier that in many ways looks a lot like the old frontier I've tried so hard NOT to emulate.

  One of the things I have a problem with when it comes to "traditional schooling" is grade level. I don't believe in putting all kids in a grade and then moving them up another grade each year all based on the age they were when they started the whole process. Pretty much all of the school materials available are geared toward the grade level method of schooling (even ones directed at homeschoolers). When you go to buy a math book, your choices are 1st grade, 2nd grade, etc. sometimes you can find "supplemental" materials geared toward multiple grades like 1st-3rd, but they're still grade based. The assumption is that a 6 year old will be doing 1st grade books and a 10 year old will be doing 5th grade books. The problem is that all 6 year olds and all 10 year olds are not at the same learning level at the same time.

 We have chosen to focus on mastery learning rather than grade levels. My children generally start with a first grade book (Sometimes I get them kindergarten books, but only if they really want one. Most of the items designed for kindergarten are either duplicated in first grade or are things the child learns naturally on their own). When they complete a book, then we go on to the next book that teaches new concepts. This is not necessarily the next book in the series. My kids always get A's. If they don't they re-do the work until they do. I don't believe in moving a child up because it's September and they've put something (however asinine) on each page of the previous book. My kids aren't doing the work to progress a grade level, they are doing the work to master a concept. When a child has true mastery of a particular concept, they don't need the constant review built into typical grade level books. If a child really isn't learning with a certain book, we switch books until we find a match for their particular personality/learning style. We don't pay a lot of attention to the calendar when working through our books. A child might start a 1st grade book in September of 2013 and not finish that book until June of 2015. They don't get "behind" because we simply reject the concept of "behind". They also usually skip several books as we progress through the series. Often we do 1st grade, 3rd grade, 6th grade, and then pre-algebra. this works really well for us and our children always seem to have the skills they need when they need them. Devon starting college level classes made me a little nervous though. Our method seems to be working, but how would it transfer over to traditional schooling? I was very thankful when she placed easily into Math 100 on the college placement tests. She was actually only a couple of points away from placing into Math 101.

 Now that Devon is actually taking her classes, however, we have had to adjust to a whole new (for us) process. And yes, I do mean we. I'm having just as much of an adjustment to make as Devon is. Devon is taking Math, Communications, and Computer Basics. She almost scored into the next highest math class, which means that most of the class is actually review for her. There are only a few topics she hasn't already attained mastery in. Devon has had to adjust to the fact that she gets points for being in class as well as doing all of her assignments. This means that she has to sit through lectures demonstrating how to do things she already knows how to do. This is completely new. My kids have never had to do this before! If they can demonstrate to me that they already know a concept, we skip that section. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing , it's just new for us. I sort of like the fact that she has the chance to get used to turning assignments in on time and doing things according to the teacher's schedule while the work is all review. The few things she's had questions on she's been able to learn from the computer program the class uses. The teacher was surprised that she hasn't had any questions in class. Devon just said that she's always been taught to learn. Then she explained to me that most of her classmates don't know how to find out the information themselves. My children have always been taught how to find out the information they need and to use me as a last resort.
 Devon's communications teacher had the students fill out their own "Learning Contract". They get to decide when their major projects are due, which is nice. They can arrange to not have major projects due at the same time as their other classes. The confusing part is that they also have to decide which grade they are going to try to achieve. That's right, Devon has to decide in the first week of class if she is going to try for an A, B, or C grade. The teacher told them not to stress themselves too much and if they only feel a C is achievable to only try for a C. I'm still wrapping my head around the idea of not trying for an A, but if Devon tries for an A and doesn't make it she could fail the class, not just earn the B or C. There is a chance to revise the initial plan so we're not sure if she should fill out the contract for a lower grade and try to do the work for a higher grade and do a revision if she thinks she'll make it or what. I just can't quite understand what the teacher is trying to do. I mean shouldn't everyone be TRYING for an A, maybe it's not possible for everyone to achieve it. Wouldn't you want them all to try without potentially being marked down more for not achieving their goals than for just not having those goals in the first place. I just can't wrap my head around this.
 Computer Basics is basically the same as math for Devon. There are 3 parts to the class. Devon already has all the skills for the first two parts of the class, but needs to take the third part. It's all or nothing though. She either had to pass the test to skip all three portions or she has to take the full class. She didn't have the option of skipping the first two parts and taking the third section in class, so she has to attend the whole class even though she only needs a third of it. At least this class is fun, so it's not too much hardship to take.

 Like I said, it's just a big adjustment getting used to all the rules and bureaucracy. We've had the freedom in our homeschool to gear all of our learning to each child's specific needs. They've never (or at least rarely) had to do work that wasn't directly helping them achieve their goals. We've always expected that they would gain full mastery of the basics (not be satisfied with learning 70 %). Devon seems to be taking it all in stride since she knows that this is required to get the certification she needs. it's just a little frustrating after having such personalized learning for so long. For me it brings up all the reasons I chose to homeschool in the first place. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not doing my children a disservice by making sure they haven't had to deal with all these frustrating aspects of traditional schooling, but it seems to working all right and Devon is glad that she's had the background we've given her. I never took any college classes because I was so frustrated with school by the time I got to college age, that I simply couldn't bring myself to pay for even more of it. Devon has never had to deal with this type of stuff before so even though it's a little frustrating, she's taking it in strde and willing to get through it in order to achieve her goals.

Gastric Gastropods!

 The kids and I studied Gastropods yesterday as part of our homeschool science. You might know gastropods better if we call them slugs and snails. If you live in the nice damp Pacific Northwest like we do, you might know them very well.
 We learned all sorts of things about slugs and snails today. Like the fact that their slime can protect them from moving over top of razorblades! We also learned that many people eat snails and consider them a delicacy. Okay, the older kids and I already knew this, but the little kids were amazed. "You mean those same snails you let us kill with salt shakers in the garden? People eat those?!".

 A few hours later we went outside. When we came back in, Brenna had something in her mouth. Now, Brenna quite often has something in her mouth. Especially now when she's teething, so Devon reached in and pulled it out. You guys know where I'm going with this by now don't you? That's right, Brenna had a little baby slug in her mouth! Have you ever tried to get slug slime out of a babies mouth? Let's just say it wasn't fun and leave it at that.

Worst Mother in the Whole Wide World!

 I'm the worst mother in the whole wide world. Why?

 Because I won't let my son have all the broccoli, carrots, and celery he wants to eat.

 Because I let him have ONE macadamia nut if he is especially hungry between meals and he can only have it ONCE a day. Not every time he's hungry, no only once.

 Because when his sister tried to eat part of one of his carefully calculated to the nearest tenth of a gram meals, I pried the food out of her mouth and fed it to him anyway.

 Because we instituted a new house rule. Until Owen is off the Ketogenic Diet, everyone is not only allowed, but strongly encouraged to lick their plates.

 Because I am absolutely dreading Halloween.

 Because one of the older kids saw Owen chewing something when it wasn't a mealtime, I panicked thinking it was a piece of paper (he'd been coloring) and then said "Oh Thank Goodness! It's foil, not paper", like chewing a piece of foil is a good thing.

 Some parts of the Ketogenic Diet are becoming a lot easier. We've learned several time saving techniques for preparing his food. I'm not messing with recipes so much anymore since we have a nice variety of things he'll eat now. We've also figured out the easiest ways to get his medication and supplements into him. Some parts are still REALLY hard.

 Like not letting him eat as many veggies as he wants. It's not that hard to tell your child he can't have cake or candy. Not letting him have vegetables just feels wrong.

 Like listening to my son cry for over an hour because he's hungry and not being able to feed him because he's only allowed a certain number of calories and they have to spaced out evenly to prevent blood sugar issues. He's allowed to have one " free" food a day. "free" foods consist of one macadamia, Brazil, or walnut. Three hazelnuts or 3 small black olives. That's not much of a snack if you are really hungry. Next time you feel really hungry, try eating one macadamia nut and see if it helps.

 Like having to feed him every last tenth of a gram of each and every meal even if it dropped on the floor or ended up in his sister's mouth.

 Like learning to ease up on rules. It drives me nuts when the kids lick their plates (come on admit it your kids do that too sometimes). Owen has to eat every last crumb and drop of oil from his meals. We have little spatulas to scrape his plate with, but sometimes that makes him gag, so we let him lick the plate. Some of the other kids wanted to know why they still weren't allowed since we don't want Owen to feel any more segregated than absolutely necessary. So, I made the executive decision to just let EVERYONE lick their plates until Owen doesn't have to.

Like dreading one of my children's favorite holidays, knowing it's not going to be much fun this year for Owen. I'm trying to make sure it's still fun for everyone else, but I really just want to skip the whole thing. I'm setting up some special things for Owen, but I know he's going to want M&M's.

 Like being scared to death all the time that he's going to put some non-food item that isn't allowed in his mouth. Paper is a carb. Normally I wouldn't be worried if a child chewed a piece of paper, but for Owen it could be a huge problem. Foil is not a carb. I'm pretty sure it's a choking hazard, unlike paper, but the paper is a lot worse than the foil right now.

I'm pretty convinced that Owen thinks I'm the worst mother in the world some days. The good news is that the diet is making a difference. We've still had a few seizures, but they've been shorter and milder. He's been a lot less "foggy". Owen is starting to count and say the A,B,C's again. He's not falling as much. His eyes aren't as clouded looking as they were. His fine motor skills are even getting better. I guess I'll just have to keep being the mean mom for a few more years!

Homemade Granola

 Boxed cereal gets really expensive for a family our size, especially considering the fact that most of them are just sugar and fillers. I've mentioned before how we aren't exactly morning people though, so having a box of cereal just needing milk is very convenient. I happen to love granola, however the prices have been creeping up out of range of our budget lately. Homemade granola has been the perfect option! I especially love the fact that I can add or replace many of the ingredients if I don't happen to have them on hand or if we just want a change. I've played around with several recipes and come up with one we really like, so I thought I'd share it.

10c. Uncooked oats (I often replace 2 or 3 cups with a 9 grain mix we get)

1c. wheat germ or sesame seeds (I usually don't have both at the same time for some reason)

2c. sunflower seeds

2c. cashew pieces (or any other chopped or slivered nuts)

3/4c. brown sugar (or maple or date sugar)

1t. salt

2t. cinnamon (or a little more, we like cinnamon)

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.

1/2c. olive oil

2t. vanilla extract

1c. honey

Heat liquid ingredients just until the honey mixes nicely, then pour liquids over top of the dry ingredients and mix extremely well. The kids really enjoy helping with this part!

Spread thinly on baking sheets and bake at 300F for 30 minutes stirring every 10 minutes (or so, It's pretty forgiving if the oven is 300 or less).

Once it's cooked you can add a cup or two of dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, dates, currents, etc) if desired. We usually keep the granola plain and let family members add fruit at serving time since some of us don't really like raisins.

Enjoy!

 

First Day of School EVER! Finally!

 So, I started this post last week. But then, the teachers decided to strike. Devon ended up not starting school last Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday, Or even Friday. Finally, Sunday night the e-mail came down that an agreement had been reached and school would start Monday.

 I can tell you that the extra wait just added to the first day of school jitters. The first day went well however. Devon is taking Business Math which is mostly stuff she has already done before. I asked her how the class went and she said "It's math." Not exactly the answer I was looking for, but I guess we'll see as the quarter progresses. She's also taking a communications class. My poor child has never been in a pre-school or kindergarten class, so the first day of communications was a bit puzzling. The class( of adults, Devon was the youngest person there) had to perform amazing feats like lining up by shoe size WITHOUT talking.  My kids have never been exposed to stuff like that before. Let's just say that Devon is hoping the class improves as the quarter goes on, otherwise it should at least be an easy A. Unless she gets marked down for fighting with the cheerleader. Okay it wasn't really a fight, but another "exercise" the class had to perform was to line up by distance away from the school (words allowed) and the cheerleader insisted that her little tiny town was farther away than our little tiny town. The cheerleader was wrong by the way. Devon will also be taking a computer basics class required for all students, but that class meets today for the first time. The other students have told her that the class is fun so she's looking forward to it.
 The only real complaint so far is that $350 worth of books get awfully heavy to lug around all day!

 Next quarter She will get to take classes directly related to her choice of study, so she's more excited about that. I think this quarter of pre-requisites will be good for her though. I have to say that as her primary teacher for the last 11 years, I'm really curious to see how she'll do in "typical" classes.
 This isn't just Devon's first day of school ever, it's the first time ANY of my homeschooled students have gone to school ever. It feels a little like a test for me.