The Pure Baby Loves His Homemade Play Dough!

The Pure Baby (PB) has become a big fan of homemade play dough!  Play dough has become a fun part of PB's mornings, while his brothers do their homeschool work :)


Our Recipe for Homemade Cooked Play Dough:

1 cup flour
1 Tablespoon oil
1 cup water
1/2 cup salt
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
Vegetable-based food coloring, such as India Tree Natural Decorating Colors

1- Mix dry ingredients in a sauce pan.
2- Add wet ingredients (except food coloring) and combine.
3- Cook over medium heat.
4- Stir continuously, until a ball forms.
5- Cool at room temperature.
6- Knead until smooth.
7- After deciding on food colorings, divide play dough into the necessary number of parts.  Put play dough into bowls.  Add chosen food colorings to play dough.  Knead until food coloring is evenly spread.
8- Have fun!

For PB, we divided the play dough into 3 parts, making 3 different fun colors of play dough:  yellow, red, and purple!
With his brothers' old Play Doh tools, PB is having lots of fun with his safe and healthy play dough! 

Going GF/CF!

I'm going GF/CF.  I'm finally giving the diet a try - for me :)

GF/CF = Gluten Free / Casein Free.  Basically, that means avoiding all dairy products as well as certain grains:  wheat, barley, rye, kamut, spelt, and possibly oats.  Thankfully, the oats avoidance is easily remedied by the use of gluten-free oats.

Given that a large majority of autism moms have their own health (often auto-immune) problems, I should really expect to benefit from the GF/CF diet.  And I do see that I am benefiting!  Since starting on Monday, I am already seeing a great improvement in my nasal allergy condition :)

I have FOUGHT hard against doing this diet - for years!  Our oldest son has spent a good number of years on the GF/CF diet.  I've done so much special diet cooking, yet I have really, REALLY not wanted to be on a special diet for *me*. 

Our son's first DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) doc said, based on my testing, I needed to go gluten-free.  At that time, I was way too wound up in being overwhelmed with major behavior problems of a 4-year-old on the autism spectrum.  I just could not and would not address my own health problems.  Since then, I've been to other practitioners who have repeated the same advice - go gluten-free.  So, I just decided to finally do it.  And why not make it more fun by going CF as well, you know?

So far, it really isn't too bad.  Since I am not on the Feingold Diet as well, GF/CF is easier for me than for our oldest son.  I've not delved into lots of baking yet, but I've found the Pamela's GF/CF baking mixes to be quite excellent as well as the Van's GF/CF frozen waffles.  For dairy substitutes, I've used Almond Breeze milk and Earth Balance margarine.  I bought all of this at our local Whole Foods Market, but many large supermakets also have an impressive GF/CF inventory.

Knitting a Wool Soaker for The Pure Baby!

Thanks to an online tutorial from Tiny Bird Organics, I am knitting a wool soaker for The Pure Baby (PB).  A wool soaker is a water-resistant/water-proof wool cover for prefold cloth diapers. 

Since before PB was born, I've heard great reviews of wool soakers.  But, since I did not knit and did not want to pay the hefty price that wool soakers go for, we've not owned any.

A while back, I got a super deal on a basic learning-to-knit kit.  So, a couple weeks ago, I pulled it out and decided to learn to knit!  Through the kit book, as well as a few videos online, I was able to master enough knitting skill to get started on my first knitting project - PB's wool soaker.  I picked up a cute 90% wool yarn at my local chain craft store and got started! 

What you see in the picture will be the front, with the ribbed part at the bottom being the front waist.  I'm about halfway through the project, and wow, I'm amazed that I could do this :)

Homeschool Music Class

The Pure Baby (PB) and his big brother had lots of fun at homeschool music class today!

The Pure Baby Loves SMOOTHIES!

The Pure Baby (PB) greatly enjoys eating and has a new favorite! PB absolutely adores smoothies! I have a lunch-time smoothie each day, and PB's sampling of my smoothie led to his smoothie love :)


The Pure Baby Smoothie

Ingredients:
2 bananas
3/4 cup frozen peaches
3/4 cup frozen berries
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 Tablespoons rice protein powder
3/4 cup milk

Instructions:
Place all ingredients in blender, in order listed - and then blend. Recipe will yield 1 larger mom-sized smoothie and 1 smaller baby/child-sized smoothie :)

First Day of School!

Today was our first day of homeschool!  We're getting an early start, in an attempt to have a year-round school schedule - which will allow us to take time off throughout the year.  We're not big hot weather/summer fans, so we will much more enjoy travel and trips during the cool and crisp seasons :)

Vaccines, Brain Changes, and Autism

Researchers from both the University of Pittsburgh and Texas' Thoughtful House Center for Children have found that infant monkeys who receive the vaccine schedule used in the 1990s have amazingly similar brain changes to those seen in children with autism. 

Through use of scanning techniques that evaluated brain growth and function, the researchers were able to observe distinct differences in the brain development of vaccinated versus non-vaccinated animals. 

Through the entire study, vaccinated animals were found to have an increase in total brain volume.  Interestingly, this is also a common attribute of children with autism.  After the 12 month vaccines, two notable findings were made: (1) the amygdala, the area of the brain associated with emotional response, began to show abnormalities, and (2) extraordinary differences were seen in the brain scans of the vaccinated versus the non-vaccinated animals.

Additionally, the study found that animals vaccinated with hepatitis B on their first day of life had delayed acquisition of vital brain stem reflexes, when compared to non-vaccinated animals.

The findings were recently published in the journal Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis.