Gluten Withdrawal?

I did great posting 2 blogs in a row so I rewarded myself with a tiny break! Now I must get back on track or a weekend away will turn into a year away and that would not be good. This past weekend was pretty chill really. Did not have many plans and just stuck around the house for the most part. Sounds relaxing, right? It is, except for having no plans and no structure is not a good thing in this house. With no structure comes behavior spiralling downward. Saturday was not so bad to tell the truth. The kids got into it some but that is expected. What siblings don't? Good news was when E would be disciplined he took it very well. No fit throwing or melt downs at all. Just accepted it and then moved on. T on the other hand was very, very whiny most the day. So much so that he was made to go rest for 30 minutes before lunch time. T doesn't nap anymore so being sent to rest/nap is a big deal. After that, things seemed to go much better. So much better that we decided a movie night would be great. I let the kids pick out 2 movies and stay up late. What was I thinking?! I should know better than that.

Sunday dawned with the kids not sleeping in at all! The only saving grace was that I didn't need to be at church until 10:30 for the last service. Most Sunday's we are all there for 2 services and for the tear down of it all. We rent space from a school so we have to put everything back in order each week. This particular Sunday though I wasn't feeling well so we only went to the one service and then left. In that time frame all was fairly normal. E did tell me he was called stupid by a child in his class. He has a hard time with this kid on a regular basis. Apparently E let him know what he thought about being called stupid. Don't blame E at all but we did have a talk about how to handle it better next time. The good thing was he did get a teacher to help him with the situation after he told the kid off. Baby steps, right? Later that day, I was still feeling horrible and very ba humbugish. E started getting crabbier throughout the day and T wasn't far behind him. We made it to bed time though thankfully! Put the kids to bed thinking they would pass out from being up late the night before...yea right! They picked bedtime to start playing nicely together in their room. Finally got them settled around 9pm. Yet another late night.

This morning they decided to sleep in a little thankfully. E seemed very sluggish this morning and slightly crabby but nothing too major. Brian got up and fixed the kids GF french toast for breakfast which was a hit. E scarfed his down like he hadn't eaten in days. As we were getting in the car to leave for school E was being especially ornery and standoff-ish. Brian was trying to tease him out of his bad mood but instead E broke down in tears. Big, old heartbroken tears! It was like our 6 year old boy transformed into a 16 year old girl! At this point, I pretty much told Eric to stay home with Brian for a little bit and go back to bed. E agreed and I took T to school. About 30 minutes later I get a call that E was fine and wanted to go to school. So I made my way back home and picked up my very happy, go lucky child. What in the world just happened?! Apparently 30 minutes of rest and reading cured what ailed him. Took him into school and gave his teacher a warning about what had happened this morning so she would be prepared for any meltdowns. He did get into a scuffle with another child today but was fine other than that.

After coming home from getting T from school, I decided to just google if you could have withdrawal symptoms from going gluten free. Guess what? You can and it is very common! It is especially common in people that are sensitive to gluten. You typically start feeling good right away and then withdrawal sets in a couple of days later. Guess which 3 people are showing the signs of it? Myself, E & T. Brian seems to be fine. Guess I can't blame gluten sensitivity on him. :) In case you are wondering, some of the signs are exhaustion, depression (or ba humbugish in my terms), irritability, stomach pains (T has been complaining about this more than usual), nausea, headaches, and an entire wealth of other symptoms. Read that it can last anywhere from a few days to a couple of months! I sure hope it doesn't last much longer! Along with withdrawal research today, I found some other interesting articles on gluten free that we will be discussing with our doctors. I'm thinking this switch will be amazing for our family, once we get past through this phase, for more reasons than I had imagined from the beginning.

The verses that comes to mind about this phase of it all is Psalm 30:5 "Sorrow may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning." Philippians 4:6-7 says "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus."I love those verses. This isn't a huge trial by any means. We have been through much worse and weathered quite well thanks to God's constant grace, mercy & peace. This will be no exception I'm sure. So here's tomorrow is better for the Lemmon crew. :)