"You Don't Have to be Normal"

There were so many good lines from this talk over at TED. Faith shares the story of her two autistic brothers and encourages us to be extraordinary like them.


I really liked that the older of the two brothers had never lied; he had no concept of lying. She ends her talk with, "Please, don't call me normal."  Let's all be as extraordinary as we can be!

Of Dogs and Kids

Is he awake? I want to play!

Ever since Conlan was a wee little bairn, he has loved dogs - and not just our Corgis.

Kisses



At the dog show

When he could barely hold up his head, he giggled with delight each time they ran in a circle around the couch. As soon as he could crawl, he chased them. As soon as he could walk (at 11 months), he tried sitting on them. in case you were wondering, sitting on Corgis doesn't work very well. Because of our housing situations, we had to give the dogs to a family about a year and a half ago. Conlan gets very excited whenever we see a dog whether we're out on a walk or somewhere else. So when we bought our house, I thought we might eventually get dogs. I missed the dogs too. So when his mom asked if we could take the dogs back from the family, I was grateful, excited, and nervous to have them back.

It's been almost two months since we got them back. And they feel right at home. When Conlan gets home from school, he goes straight to the back yard to play and usually with the dogs. The dogs love to play fetch. They could retrieve a tennis ball for hours. Conlan knows this. At school, he likes playing chase with the other kids. It's no different with the dogs. He walks around with a ball in his hand, taunting the dogs. They follow him until he finally throws it (usually because we tell him to). Adara doesn't like following him around as much, but Dewi is always there with him - if he has a ball anyway.

Bread v2 - With Oatmeal Flour

The recipe we've been using was giving us some very dense bread whether we used the bread maker or the oven. So after much googling and weeding through numerous gluten-free sites, I found a recipe and modified it.

1 1/2 C rolled oats flour
1 1/2 C rice flour (brown or white or both)
1/2 C potato starch flour
1 Tbsp active dry yeast
1 Tbsp xanthan gum
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 C warm water
1/4 C oil 1 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
3 eggs
2 Tbsp honey or agave nectar

I've made it both in the bread maker and in the oven. They both turned out fantastic. For the oven, prepare the yeast by combining the yeast, honey, and water. Then let it sit for 10 minutes. Whisk eggs, oil, lemon juice and vinegar. Mix dry ingredients in mixer. When the yeast is ready, mix the egg and oil into the dry ingredients and then the yeast. Put dough into a 9" greased pan. Let it rise for an hour (cover with saran wrap for first 20-30 minutes until bread touches covering). Then bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes. When using the bread maker, use yeast that is made for bread machines. Because of the second cycle on most bread machines (including ours), the bread was more dense than with the oven method.

We finally have a recipe for moist, fluffy, delicious bread that the kids love! And it's gluten- and dairy-free. We made the oatmeal and rice flours using our Vitamix dry blender.  I think we bought the potato flour starch from Whole Foods. We'll have to find something else when it runs out, maybe just more rice flour. Next time I'm going to try it without the xanthan gum since a friend's mom is allergic to it and to guar gum. Rolled oats are naturally gluten-free but often get contaminated with wheat, so make sure the oats are certified gluten-free.

Update, January 19, 2016:
Since posting this recipe, I've changed it slightly.  Since most of the flours I use are heavier than conventional wheat flour, our bread was very dense and wasn't rising as much.  And since we don't have a scale to weigh the flour, reducing it to three total cups really helped.  And instead of using just the two types of flour and potato starch, I use whatever flour we have on hand.  For instance, the last time, I used 1 C rice flour, 1 C buckwheat flour, 1/2 C oatmeal flour, 1/4 C corn flour, and 1/4 C flax meal.  Sometimes I'll use some potato flour (dry shredded potatoes using a dehydrator and then the Vitamix to grind it into flour), almond meal (also made using our Vitamix).  Next I'd like to try some quinoa flour.

Muffins

A friend from our Church family recently gave us a juicer. It's not top-of-the-line or anything but does a pretty good job. Ever since we got our Vitamix blender, we've wanted to add a nice juicer to our already-crowded counter, so this was great. We were surprised by how much pulp resulted from just a couple cups of juice. So just like anything else, we googled it and found a few recipes and other suggestions to use the pulp. The muffins have been a huge hit. Here's the recipe that I modified from one I found on justjuice.org:

• 2 C flour (we used rice flour)
• 1/4 C flax meal
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 C applesauce
• 1 C pulp (or more)
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 C oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp sweetener (we used agave nectar)

Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Sometimes I'll add a little cinnamon, a banana, or whatever sounds good. We ran out of flax meal and liked them just the same without it.

Conlan loves the muffins so much that we have to hide them so he doesn't eat them all. And now we have a way to sneak even more vegetables and fruits into his diet.

 

I told Gavin he probably wouldn't like the muffin mix, but he still wanted it and liked it even.

"Not Even Wrong"

More than a month ago, I started reading Not Even Wrong, Adventures in Autism by Paul Collins. I picked it up from the library during Autism Awareness month and have slowly made my way through it. Slowly, only because I have so little time. I have really enjoyed it so far. The author tells about his and his son's journey as they learn about autism and get diagnosed. At the beginning, his son hasn't been diagnosed. The dad is a writer researching for a book he is writing. He comes across a "wild child" named Peter who lived in the forest all alone until he was found by local villagers in Germany. Eventually, the King of England (also from Germany) adopted him and brought him to London. Throughout history there have been similar children. Peter was nonverbal, lived in his own world and much preferred solitude to the company of friends. As the father continues his research, he and his wife discover that their son, Morgan is autistic. He then focuses his research on other autists and supposed autists from history. It's a very interesting read and describes well how a person with autism functions. As he learns more and more about autism, it becomes apparent that he himself is autistic and probably his parents as well. For a while, I've been planning an entry about movies. Disney movies, autism movies, and movies that Conlan likes. All three of which are not necessarily mutually exclusive. So look for that in the coming weeks.

Pancakes

Ever since Conlan was about 12 months old, he has loved pancakes. We were at a family reunion, known as "The Ranch". As is tradition, we have pancakes for breakfast on the Fourth of July. Pancakes, sausage, bacon, syrup, jam, orange juice, milk, and other delicious foods. Conlan loved the pancakes, then a couple days later at his great grandma's place more pancakes. From that point on, they were a staple in his diet. Pancakes and waffles, usually drenched with syrup.

So when we started cutting sugars and gluten, pancakes and especially syrup were the first things to go. We replaced his breakfast food with corn/quinoa flakes from Whole Foods and other gluten-free cereals. At first we used regular milk. Then we bought rice milk for a while. Then when we got our Vitamix blender, we started making our own rice milk. So much cheaper than both rice milk and regular milk. Sure, it tastes a little different but does the job. And he likes it.

Recently I made rice flour pancakes using milk that was in the fridge (we had friends and family staying with us and bought a half gallon for them). He ate the first one plain. For another pancake we added a limited amount of jam and for another, some pure maple syrup (no added sugar). So this past weekend, I used the same recipe but used rice milk instead. Same result: he ate them just as heartily as though they were "normal" pancakes.

Here's the recipe:

• 2 C rice flour
• 3? tbsp oil
• 1 tsp xanthan gum
• 2 eggs
• milk (rice, hemp, flax, almond, soy, cow - any type should do
• generous sprinkling of cinnamon
• baking powder
• rest later

Sorry, I will look it up later and correct/finish.

Bread

Since we've gone mostly gluten-free, we've started making our own bread. We found a bread maker for about $10 at the local Salvation Army store and have been using it. It's been difficult finding a good recipe to be gluten-, sugar-, and dairy-free.

Here's what we currently use as a recipe.
1 1/2 C warm water
2 eggs
1.5 tbsp apple vinegar
3 tbsp oil
1 tbsp xanthan gum
1/3 C flax meal
3 C brown or white rice flour or a mix of the two
3 tsp sugar
2 tsp bread machine yeast

Sometimes I'll put in a little baking powder as well.

We tried making an extra loaf and freezing it, but it just crumbled upon thawing.

To make the rice flour, we use our Vitamix dry blender.  We also make the flax meal the same way. The flax isn't required but adds texture, fiber and nutrients.

Xanthan gum helps keep everything stuck together, what gluten also does. It's quite costly, at about $12 per 8 oz bag from Whole Foods. We got it once for $10 and should have grabbed a couple extra bags.  Wal-Mart sometimes has little packets costing 0.50 each. Xanthan gum is hard to find at grocery stores. After trying it out, I suggest finding it cheap online.  Bob's Red Mill sells a 5-lb bag for $111. I've seen other brands on Amazon and other places.

We're still modifying the recipe, but this works pretty well in our machine. It comes out a nice golden brown color but is very dense.