First..

Hello and salutations!
I have decided after days and days of thinking that I would start a blog. First thing I needed to do was decide what I would blog about which was the hardest part. I have a lot of opinions on different matters; life, religion, war,food; so I thought I'd leave most opinions out and write about something more personal.

I have been a mother for a little over two years now (this of course is not counting the 9 + months I carried my tummy baby around).  I have a wonderful, spontaneous, very free willed 2 year old daughter who makes my life wonderful, exciting, and at times a bit overly frustrating.

In the summer of 2010 I discovered that I had Celiac disease; this is a disease which is classified as an auto immune disease because your body is unable to recognize gluten that is digested so your body ends up attacking its self. This results in damage to your lining of your small intestines there for making your body unable to absorbing the nutrients you need to be healthy.  The only way you can protect your body from further damage is to live a gluten free life.

So after thinking and thinking I decided that I would blog about the two hardest things Ive gone through recently in my life. Trying to live gluten free and raising a child.

I have to be honest when I was told that I needed to live gluten free I was rather happy to hear that all my pain could be solved with a simple change in diet. I thought to myself that this would be such an easy thing. Just cut out the bread, cake, pasta, you know normal things that have wheat in them. No sweat right?

I think I had my first break down a few weeks after I had to go gluten free. When I realized, it wasn't that easy. LOTS of things.. and I do mean LOTS of things that you wouldn't even imagine would contain gluten actually do which caused a lot of frustration trying to cook for a family. How do you tell a 2 year old that you can't have a cookie with them because Mommy can't eat wheat? You can't. It's the same as trying to go to a restaurant that doesn't even know what gluten is and trying to order. It's on the lines of impossible if they don't understand or if you don't give them step by step instructions on how to do it with out getting cross contamination. It was rough trying to change habits, giving up food that I've eaten since I was a child. Being born and raised in good ol Missouri, I grew up with some major habits in the drenched with oil and batter dipped/fried department. Not that I'm saying these habits were good for me, they were not healthy at all. But you can't beat fresh fried pickles or pan sausage gravy over biscuits :)

So I had to make changes, LOTS of changes. So did my family. My husband had to deal with eating things that he may or may not like and giving up eating some of the things that were major staples in our normal weekly eating habits. I felt so bad for the longest time. Why should my whole family be punished for something that is my problem and my new life style that was thrown upon me. They shouldn't.

I'm lucky that my husband is such an understanding guy.We have been married for almost 3 years and he is very supportive, he stands by me, he helped me try to find things I could eat and even downloaded applications to his phone to help scan labels to see if they contained gluten (this app did not work at all btw). He tried to do everything he could to help make new life change easier for me. And he did, and sometimes he would forget that I couldn't have certain things or he wouldn't read labels. It happens. I still forget from time to time to check labels and I'll end up buying something I can't eat. Something simple like a salad dressing or even dried fruit. (yes, dried fruit can contain wheat).

My husband has 2 sons from a previous marriage. A 5 year old and an 8 year old. He had to explain to them why we couldn't cook certain things and why I couldn't have bread or cake or cookies. Why I couldn't eat their birthday cake with them. Its hard stuff. Explaining gluten to young kids is hard. I have not had my daughter tested because she doesn't show any of the signs of Celiac disease and I hope she never does since it is a hereditary disease.

So as far as first introductions go, I hope that this is a good one. My first blog may be a bit back and forth since it is my first time I'd like to excuse myself and say that I plan to try to make the next one much better.
I hope by blogging to help people understand more about Celiac disease, introduce them to some great new gluten free foods, and just share the awesomeness that is my family.

Thanks so much and can't wait to talk again soon.