Buggies

Spring is really something to a new toddler. We have spend most of our time this week enjoying the weather outdoors. So far, his favorite thing about the park is finding sticks and digging them into the dirt and once in a while finding a good piece to taste. We saw a few boys hitting softballs across the street yesterday and watched them for a long time, giggling after each hit. Marek is still talking about it today, mimicking the batter and giggling. What a world to discover!!

When we're not enjoying nature outdoors, it seems to have found its way into our house. This is bug city! With the windows open, all sorts of insects find their way inside and I spend half my day killing, squashing, and sweeping bugs. Every time I turn around Marek has one in his hands or that he's trying to catch. He especially loves when we use the fly swatter...hilarious! He was laughing even harder before I could grab the camera but if you'll notice a few long pauses in between giggles, that is him grunting. It's hard to laugh and poop and the same time, you know.



I don't know how I did it, but I finally cut my baby's hair! He had been mistaken for a girl a handful of times lately and Daddy did not care for that (I was going to wait until Matt got home to cut it). It was starting to be a tangly mess and even though those ringlets were to die for, it really looked like this most of the time



I think I did a pretty good job, thankfully curly hair is quite forgiving. He held still in the bathtub while I took a scissors to the mop. I can't stop staring at him now, he looks like such a little BOY!! Along with the new 'do is a little bit more 'tude. I think it's because he his finally feeling better after a week of puking but boy oh boy, this boy has some extra spunk this week!



I've lost track of all his new words and "tricks" but I will share a couple wonderful new things. He knows who Santa is and pooches out his lips and says, "ha ho ho." We called Papa to tell him about it and the next day after his nap I could hear him in the monitor saying, "Papa Papa Ha Ho Ho Papa Ha Ho Ho" recounting his conversation. He also holds Momma's hand like a big boy and can walk on his own to and from the car. It takes a little longer but I am so proud of him for not running a way or throwing a fit when he has to hold my hand.

I am so thankful every moment of every day to be able to watch this all happen. I can't imagine missing out on every new thing he learns and discovers. Mama's were meant to be present with their babies, I believe that deep down in my heart!

Reinventing the Wheel

Me? Diet? Ha! I've never had a reason to and it's a good thing because I have never had the willpower to do so. I don't like restrictions, I especially don't like people telling me what to do. I've come a long way...

Matt has gone off and on the "low-carb" diet since college. Every time he jumped back on the bandwagon, he would tell me how he remembers how good he feels when he is eating low/no carb and how crappy he feels when he isn't. He loses weight, has energy, stops snoring, and a long list of other happies. I sure do like me a happy husband but I have always been hesitant of his "diets." Diets to me were fads and I knew just as soon as he started he would stop again. I have always been a proponent of living a well-balanced, moderate, active lifestyle and diets (besides for those who are overweight or have specific health problems) bothered me. Since we have been together, I have been open to eating and cooking low-carb meals but more because they are super tasty and I want to be supportive, not because I am on the diet myself.

It started with the Atkin's diet and slowly Matt came up with other fantastical ideas over the past couple of years. P90X, Insanity, CrossFit, barefoot running; I was resistant to all of them and called him silly. It irritated me how one exercise routine was the best thing ever, he would do it every morning for a week, stop, two months later come up with another next-best-thing, repeat, repeat, repeat. I was resistant just for arguments sake and now I feel bad for not being more supportive and curious about how and why these things might be good for him and for us as a family.

The years of searching for the best diet/exercise routine/way of living for Matt always had the same things in common but he never could muster the motivation to stick with it. Then he found Mark.

"I am going to start sprinting barefoot."
"Ouch."
"Well Mark says...."

"For my workout today, I'm going to just carry these sacks up the hill."
"Uh...?"
"It mimics me carrying home the day's kill for dinner."

"Honey, we should take the nightlight out of Marek's room. We should also let him sunbathe with his shirt off. I think we should let him gnaw on large pieces of meat."
"And why's that?"
"I was reading on Mark..."

Mark, Mark, MARK! It became quite the joke. I don't think he had a unique thought in his head for a month after finding Mark's Daily Apple. He announced to me that once and for all, he was no longer eating grains. I disagreed with him, I thought that moderate amounts of whole grains are part of a healthy diet. When he started to become more interested in doing the grocery shopping (he was already pretty good at being involved in the kitchen) I started to pay more attention. He wanted to buy more organic items. Only full-fat, whole foods. Fresh ingredients, local when possible. He wanted to start canning, freezing, and fermenting. He wanted to eat more parts of the deer that would usually go to waste. He told me about foods that I have never heard of like ghee, kombucha, and kefir. Very slowly, I started to listen to what Mark had to say and I would read the links that Matt sent that would fill up my inbox. What intrigued me the most was the "80/20" rule. Nobody can be 100% one-hundred percent of the time! Do your best and try for 80%, give yourself a break the other 20% and make this your lifestyle and not another diet!

Well, I am happy to say that my husband looks and feels better than he ever has. Eating healthy and getting exercise fits with ease into his day-to-day life. I don't see him falling off the bandwagon any time soon because at this point, that would mean a very drastic shift...he has come that far!

They call this lifestyle "Primal" in that they "live as the cavemen lived." It might all sound silly to you or like just another fad as it did to me at first. That was because I didn't really listen to what they had to say. After I saw how it affected my husband, I started to read more about it and that lead me to this link and that website and honey, have you read what this guy wrote? What have you not sent me this link before!? Have you seen what this study proved!? His response, "Uh, ya...that's what I've been trying to show you!"

I haven't cut out grains but I am in the process. I'm not sure that I will cut them out entirely but I am moving to more gluten-free items as a first step. I have virtually cut out all refined sugars from my diet (yes me...a Dehmer...cut out CANDY!) and you would be hard-pressed to find any prepackaged, processed food in our house. We make our own kefir everyday. Again, I thought Matt was nuts in the head when it showed up on my counter. He got me drinking it starting off in smoothies and now I have a big glass plain every day and I have to stop myself from drinking it more!

I am energized. I feel, like I have said in an earlier post, like I have just discovered food for the first time. What I love even more is how good this is for our family. This whole primal thing (call it whatever you will) is really very intuitive and that is why I am starting to fall for it. It makes sense that we should eat the things that our ancestors knew as food. We should be better stewards of our environment, more active in our communities, and treat our bodies like the amazing miracles that they are! It is starting to affect everything in our lives from the way we want to raise our children to the way we spend our money. It hasn't necessarily changed our point of view, but it has focused it. It has been a fun and exciting challenge to try new things and to try them together.

I think that Matt might be quite surprised by what I am writing right now as I am still in the process of changing my behaviors and habits and I am usually still resistant at first to new ideas that he presents until I can look more into it and come to it by my own accord. I am thankful for him and his motivation and leadership in the health and happiness of our family. I am also thankful for the hippie dippie community that we live in because we have wonderful resources (groceries, farms, coffee, activities, etc., etc., etc.) at our fingertips, usually within walking distance, that make our lives easier and more fulfilling.

Although this is all new to me, I have to remind myself that I don't have to to reinvent the wheel. This has all been done before...and that's the point. It worked, for thousands of years actually, and the way we are currently living is simply not as sustainable. I want to be more self-sufficient. I want to live with more purpose and in turn, more happiness. I have resolved to pull the stick out of my butt and be the type of person that other people want to be around. I feel like this is a journey that I am ready to take and my life will never be quite the same!