Lately it's seemed like Otter has fallen into a pattern: good night, rough night, good night, rough night, repeat. On Sunday, he and I spent midnight—7am on the couch so he wouldn't wake everyone up; I did get several hours of watching the northern lights out of it, but was very grateful for a good night's sleep on Monday night. Last night wasn't nearly as rough as Sunday, but Otter and I were still upstairs hours before anyone else. Now he's peacefully snoring on my lap as I sit here figuring out breakfast for the rest of the family.
I've come to the conclusion that sensible people do not voluntarily take on elimination diets with a newborn in the house: being so tired has made it difficult for me to make the transition to the new diet easy for the rest of the family. Lunch and snacks are definitely the hardest—supper is easy, breakfast is manageable especially with gluten-free oats, but the kids are not thrilled about eating leftovers every day for lunch and being told "fruit or vegetables" for snacks.
Now, fruit and vegetables are reasonable snacks—it's hard to get five servings a day!—but I want to be able to give them a good variety of types of foods so everyone isn't completely sick of this diet by the end of the first week. My Sunday attempt at baking biscuits with gluten-free flour was a total failure, and Monday I tried a batch of cookies that... Well, they weren't awful. They just weren't much of anything. My banana bread, though, seems to be working well! Maybe we'll just eat a lot of banana bread for the next two months.
I have high hopes for this morning's breakfast: I made Oatmeal Apple Breakfast Bars from Don't Waste the Crumbs (substituting coconut oil and gluten-free oats/flour), but filled it with close to four cups of apples, sliced thinly and tossed with cinnamon, because I already had them prepped in the freezer. It sure smells good! And what's not to like about having basically a healthy apple pie for breakfast? Hopefully the kids agree and it helps get us off to a good start this morning.
Tommy hates most breakfast foods and I'm getting tired of eggs. I am going to have to try making these soon!
ReplyDeleteA proper night's sleep is absolutely essential for our long-term health and mental well-being. But getting enough sleep - and sleep of the best quality - is a requirement we often fail to meet. Taking sleeping pills is both addictive and dangerous, while simple breathing or mental exercises just aren't effective for most of us. Sleep meditation, however, can guide us down to a deep sleep amazingly well because it works in harmony with our natural Sleep Tracker app. The timing of sleep during the day is governed by the circadian rhythm, a kind of natural inner clock which influences hormone levels and body temperature. All too often, it is the process of falling asleep in the first place that is problematic. We just can't seem to switch off, and the difficulty tends to be greatest at stressful times in our lives when we least need to have this problem! Pills and alcohol are two crude ways of trying to fall asleep, but they entail their own long-term effects, and can interfere with our natural sleep number. Nightmares, for example, are much more likely when alcohol is used, as REM sleep is suppressed in the early cycles until the alcohol has worn off; after this, the brain has a lot of "catching up" to do and this tends to result in extremely vivid dream imagery. A well-engineered sleep-meditation recording exposes the brain to periods of each frequency associated with falling asleep, taking you gradually down through Alpha and Theta and eventually into the deep sleep of Delta. It is this Delta state that we most need to reach, for it is here that the body's repair mechanisms kick into high gear, releasing anti-aging and growth hormones and even stimulating the regeneration of cellular DNA. And the first Sleep Tracker - the one we have the most trouble falling into - is where the deepest Delta sleep occurs. While traditional meditation can help you fall asleep, it cannot continue to encourage your brain to resonate at the Delta frequency in the way that a sleep meditation recording can.
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