Food

Some of you may know that last month Molly was diagnosed with a number of food intolerances.

Under the guidance of an amazing lady named Paddy O'Sullivan, we've had to completely eliminate these things from her diet for 6 months. We will, at a later stage, re-introduce things and see where we're at, but for now it means some slight inconveniences!

Here's the list of banned foods:

1) Yeast
This means no breads or pastries (unless it's a strange bread-like creation invented by me - I've found that baking powder is quite a good subsitute for yeast, but it's still not quite the same). It also means no Marmite/Vegemite and having to check all labels thoroughly as yeast is hidden in a lot of things. Hellers Bacon for example!

2) Chicken and Eggs.
(Which came first, hahaha!). It's a bummer as eggs are the only thing Jake can cook. Great for him for the next 6 months though.

3) Mushrooms.

4) The entire Nightshade family.
This includes a collection of everyday vegetables that we have always eaten plenty of, eg: tomatoes, capsicum/peppers, potatoes, chilli and other spices.

As a family we're adapting well. Lunch boxes have been hard and I've had to allocate extra time each night for making up no-nightshade salads and no-yeast breads. But I'm getting there.

Parties and events are another story though. Molly's social life is a little bit of a whirlwind and in the last week she's been to a party at a farm - so I had to bake no-egg cupcakes and no-egg cookies and popcorn (she can't have potato chips/crisps) to send along. And also a party at a friend's house where pizza was served for dinner - so I had to invent a yeast free pizza base and a tomato free pizza topping - and then top the pizza with no nightshades!

Anyway, we're doing ok so far, and in 3 weeks here are the benefits:

- She's put on 1.5kgs in weight. (This is more than she's put on in the last year!)
- She's sleeping well, yay!
- Her constant aches and pains are pretty much gone
- She can breathe through her nose for the first time in years! Well, just one nostril, but it's a start!
- She has colour in her cheeks and is noticeably less pale
- And some other stuff which is too personal to discuss here ;)

So, all going well, except I am sick of the kitchen and inventing new recipes. So if you're planning to visit us in the next few months I'm afraid you might be roped into kitchen duties! ;)

Hair!

Thanks to Granny, Molly got a brand new set of hair recently. And doesn't it suit her well? We have all fallen in love with this one! 

There's probably not many grannies out there who can say the best present they've ever bought their grand-daughter is a new head of hair!

Molly is accumulating quite a collection of wigs now. We have them displayed all over the house!

It means we also have to accumulate lots of wig stands. Some of them are cheap plastic heads picked up from school fairs.

But she has a couple of very posh handcrafted ones too. Check out the latest one! (FYI Granny this came with the new wig). Pretty clever stuff huh?

She's recently joined a children's alopecia pen pal club. She's got two pen pals: one from Brisbane and one from Canada, each the same age as her.

So we have a lot of letters, photos and emails going backwards and forwards at the moment, which as far as I can make out, mainly seem to be about Minions (the movie), Taylor Swift and Meghan Trainor (the singers) and gymnastics.

October = Rugby World Cup Month

So October came and rugby mania began. We worked around the small issue of the games being played on the other side of the world and got up at 3.45 am one Sunday to watch the semi finals. We were so pleased with our win but boy were we all wrecked for the rest of the day! 

The following week was a little easier - we didn't need to get up until 4.45am for the final! The ABs played well and ours was a very very happy household by the end of the game!

Mind you, the early start was followed by a hosted breakfast on the other side of town with a colleague of Jake's and then the annual school fair..... which meant we weren't a very happy household by the afternoon. The word TIRED doesn't even begin to describe it!

Alfie still managed to find the energy to "Fight the Knight" at the school fair though!

The following week when the All Blacks brought the cup to Wellington for their official parade, I took the kids out of school for the day (along with most of Wellington - the teachers must've had a very easy day last Friday!). We went into the centre of town, along with around 100,000 other people, and enjoyed the sunshine and the atmosphere - and seeing the players and the cup of course!

This is what Civic Square looked like for the afternoon - we're in the middle of that somewhere! (Crowds like this are pretty rare in Wellington) 

Photo from Stuff.co.nz 

 It was so crowded that Jake had to lift Molly and Alfie up for ages so they could see the team. Go the muscles! ;) And it was so hot and tiring that Molly had to be carried home afterwards - thanks Alfie!