radical forgiveness

the other day i was reading a book recommended to me by my therapist called "radical forgiveness". now self-help isn't really my bag and this book in particular was a little woo-woo for me, but the guy had an interesting concept. i won't get this exactly right...but the premise was that you should forgive because every wrong done to you is actually a gift. kind of a when one door closes thing. and i like that. of course, liking something and putting it into practice are two completely different things. i think, though, that i can see the logic quite clearly when i look at the food issues in our home.

when the twins were 5 months old, we discovered that one of them had an intolerance to dairy. he wasn't going to die from it, but he had some pretty nasty eczema and blocked tear ducts. so we changed the supplemental formula he was getting and i cut dairy out of my diet. about 6 months later, we realized that the other twin had a gluten issue. again, nothing major...a pinprick rash on his trunk. we decided it would be easiest to cut out dairy and gluten for both of them. somewhere along the line, my husband decided to cut out gluten and just see. guess what? he was a much happier person without wheat! i mean, a different person. and eventually, when our third was not sleeping for shit, i cut out gluten out of sheer desperation. since i was already dairy free, going gluten free felt like quite a sacrifice...but since no one else in the house could eat it...it actually simplified things. and guess what? i have a gluten issue. who knew??!?

now back to the radical forgiveness portion of the show...i honestly feel that my kids' allergies were the best thing that could have happened to our family as far as food goes. people often ask me what on earth i feed them...i feed them food. not edible food-like substances (thank you, michael pollan) but actually whole foods. they eat meat (bacon is a favorite around here!). they eat vegetables. they eat fruit. they eat beans and nuts and seeds. their diet is pretty paleo. and they are pretty hardy! there are days that i long for the convenience of macaroni and cheese (one can eat the macaroni and one can eat the cheese...yuck yuck yuck) or chicken nuggets or pizza. but most days i am happy that i don't have the option to shortcut the food that they put into their bodies. i spend a lot of time in the kitchen and we spend a lot of money on food...but i think that it is all worth it at the end of the day.

is there anything more important than what we choose to fuel our lives with? is there anything more fundamental and primal than food? maybe water and air...but not a lot of choice there, really. the boys eat three meals and one snack a day. i would say that they spend about 3 hours a day eating (and playing with their food and throwing it and...) and that works out to about 30% of their waking hours. i really am grateful that they spend that large chunk of their lives eating high quality fare. i wish i could say the same for myself. i constantly goal myself to eat what the boys eat. and for that matter, to take the time it takes them to eat...instead of wolfing my food down while standing at the island preparing their next meal. i feel like i could be a better model for them. maybe once i am done radically forgiving the universe for their food issues...i can work on radically forgiving myself for not being perfect. i'll keep you posted!