Update

Diet

I am still on my elimination diet.  It's going very well from a difficulty standpoint.  That is to say, it's not been difficult at all to stay on it.  I'm now confident I can make it all 21 days. For this, I'm am so very grateful.  Attempt 1 felt like I was white knuckling my way through for the three short days I was on the diet.  This time it feels natural and unforced.

One of the changes I've noticed is my hair.  My hair is so freakin' soft.  D was even stunned when I told him to feel it.  Other than that, I haven't noticed significant physical changes with the diet.  I do believe have more energy when I am awake, but again, it's hard to judge since I've also been sick since day 3.

Speaking of sick, the explanation I got from the acupuncturist* is that most people get sick around day three of the diet.  According to her, your body is working at eliminating all the toxins that have built up in your body.  I'm not sure I wholly believe this view, but I do know that I got sick on day three for both diets.

The other thing I find interesting is acupuncture and how it's effect has changed while I've been on the diet.  I've been twice recently.  The first visit I was off Diet Coke and eating very close to the diet, though not officially on the diet.  The point being that I was eating very healthfully.  The second visit was day 6 of the diet.  For both of these visits, after acupuncture, I had so much energy all day.  I'd heard that it's not uncommon for people to experience a sort of high after acupuncture.  I had never experienced that.  For me it was more of a build up over time where I attributed changes to ongoing acupuncture treatments.  Damned if these last two times I haven't gotten that high (of sorts - it's not like a buzz - for me it's just like before the appointment, I'm wearing blinders and slogging around, but after the appointment, the blinders are off and I have a ton of energy).  Anyway, I haven't asked my acupuncturist or naturopath about this, so I have no idea if it means anything, but it's worth noting.

* My naturopath also sometimes does my acupuncture, but since most of my visits are solely for acupuncture, I see another woman who does a vast majority of the acupuncture on me.  Which is good because her needle sticks hurt way less than his.  And for those who've heard acupuncture doesn't hurt, it often doesn't.  It's just that the points that I need done tend to be in my finger tips, wrist, toes, and ankles.  Those points hurt, for me, when the needles first go in.  Once they're in, it doesn't hurt anymore.  

Tea

I went out with The 38* on Wednesday night.  It was just Stacey and Rachele and me.  I decided to eat dinner beforehand so I wouldn't be hungry.  It turned out to be a good thing because I couldn't have eaten even the salads on the menu.  So I went out to dinner and had tea.  It cost me $5 for the whole evening.  And it wasn't difficult to watch the other two eat.  It was a non-issue. Again, I'm so very grateful for that.

* The Yummy Group has officially been renamed The 38. No one in the group was ever fond of the name "The Yummy Group," so when a list of the 38 essential PDX restaurants we published online recently, we decided to rename ourselves The 38.

Busy

D has been working what feels like non-stop in 2011. If he's not at a Trailblazers game with clients, he's at a dinner.  If he's not at dinner, he's working late.  If it's the weekend, he's typically working all day on at least one of the days.  It was starting to wear on him, so he mentioned he just needed a day where he was completely off.  I decided the easiest way to give that to him would be for Avery and I to come over to the G's house on their date night and have me do the sitting for the G's date night by myself. Currently, I'm sitting in RHG's office after the three kids went down oh-so-easily tonight (again, so grateful).  I'll also spend the night and most of the day here tomorrow.  This way D has all night tonight to go out with friends, then can sleep peacefully with no Avery in bed (a common occurence again afte a brief 3-week (ish) hiatus where she just slept in her bed all night), then can sleep in tomorrow morning. 

Dance

Avery is signed up for another month of her hip hop dance class, as well as a pre-ballet class.  She's really, really looking forward to pre-ballet.  She's also doing twice-a-week swimming lessons, so she and I are driving all over the place and keeping busy.  I am not intentionally scheduling a lot of activities, but I think our schedule is now full with the scheduled activities.

School

Bad news: Avery is the fifth girl on the wait list for the preschool we would really like her to go to.  I'd say it's a 50/50 chance she'll get in.  I called the admissions director to ask what, based on her experience, she thinks Avery's odds are at getting in - that's where the 50/50 guess comes from.  There's really no way to predict it.  She said last year, all the boys on the wait list got in, but only two of the girls.  Hopefully it's the reverse this year.

In the meantime, I'm going to refocus my efforts and find a backup school so we're all set in September regardless of what happens with our first choice.  I asked the admin director for a few references.  One of those she gave is the preschool Elise currently attends.  Elise won't necessarily stay in that school next year (for a variety of reasons I'll leave to RHG to blog or not - none are bad or secretive - just logistical and practical), but it would be fun for those two to play together at recess.  If Elise were to stay, and if Avery were to attend that school, I'm not sure what my thoughts are about them being in the same class.  I'm not sure I would even have any say in that, but if I did, I lean toward requesting they be in different classes just because their bond is so tight that I wouldn't want it to throw Elise off her path (she's doing great at school) or to distract Avery.  Maybe that's not even something I should be thinking about for a three-year-old?  Maybe three-year-olds should be distracted by their friends?  I don't know.

Anyway, I'm not too thrown that Avery is on the wait list.  I suppose this is because it's preschool and there are lots of good preschools where I think she'll thrive.  Also, I can't do anything about it.  It is what it is. There's no use getting my panties in a bunch about something I can't change.  I'll just ramp up efforts to find a backup school.