Sleep Fighting

Giovanni did not want to go to bed tonight, he kept whimpering for his daddy so I finally went and got Biggy and just as soon as Giovanni laid his sweet little head down on his daddy chest he was asleep. It was so sweet. 

Biggy has always voiced concern that I coddle our son too much to the point where he fears the poor boy won't ever be able to get to sleep without the help of his mommy. We co-sleep with our son, much to Biggy's chagrin but I love being close to Giovanni, I sleep easier. I feel like he's a part of me. 

When Giovanni was a newborn I would just peek over his bassinet and watch him sleep. I was so worried about not being able to be there for him if he needed me. He eventually outgrew his bassinet and moved into our bed even though we had a crib right up against the bed.

 

As he grows, I see Giovanni becoming more of his own person and less dependent on me. It's exciting to see his personality take shape and I got some satisfaction out of Biggy indulging Giovanni the way he always gets after me for. 

Last night Giovanni decided he didn't want me to put him to bed either and he curled up on the floor with his pillow and blanket and fell asleep while his daddy and I watched a boring romantic comedy. I wonder if he will be ready for his own bed soon. 

I Just Paid $5 for Half of a Pound of Butter!

I'm reading this really great book by Dr. Weston A. Price written in the 1930s, it's called Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. It's about how poor nutrition is taking a terrible toll on our bodies, specifically our teeth. Dr. Price traveled the world to some of the most remote places where he could study people living on their primitive diets (the control group) and areas nearby where they had been recently modernized and introduced to white flour, marmalade, and tinned vegetables (the test group). No matter where he went, and he went all over, he always found the same shocking pattern. Where the people lived on their traditional primitive diet they have absolutely beautiful teeth, perfect dental arches, very straight, symmetrical teeth with very few cavities usually below 1% of all teeth studied.


Where the people were newly modernized tooth decay was rampant and the incidence for tuberculosis was much higher. The photos below are typical of what he found and these are remote places where they don't have access to dentists.


The second generation of these people after they adopted the "civilized" diet their children had terribly crooked teeth among many other health problems.


My whole life, I have always believed that crooked teeth are hereditary and there is nothing you can do about it, but these children were coming from parents who had incredibly straight smiles and a long line of straight teeth the only difference was the diet.

It is shocking to me how much of an impact our diet has on our lives. Our diet today is so far removed from the way our ancestors ate. I was watching Food, Inc. the other day, which I highly recommend, and in the intro it said "The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000."

So now I am feeling like I need to change my diet again, last July I went vegan after reading The China Study. I was never a strict vegan, I ate fish and eggs on occasion and sometimes butter too but very rarely and mostly because someone else prepared the food and I didn't want to be rude. I didn't eat a lot of processed food either, but still I got cavities worse than I had since I was a kid.

Last March I stopped eating dairy products when Giovanni had a severely clogged tear duct. He was almost 3 months old and no amount of droplets of breast milk in his eye and gentle massaging would make it go away but as soon as I stopped eating dairy products his eye cleared up so giving up meat a few months later was easy. And I truely believed that these foods were bad.

With undeniable reservation I'm bringing meat and cheese back, but "old school" style. I'll take my butter yellow, please. The richer the color the more fat-soluble vitamins and I'll be eating organs and bones too instead of steak. Hopefully I can get my hands on some grass-fed animal protein sources.

My goal is to heal some cavities that have been causing me some problems and improve my overall health and feed a growing boy the most nutritious foods possible.

I had heard that you can heal tooth decay naturally so I decided to google it and came across Weston Price's book and another book I have yet to start by Ramiel Nagel called Cure Tooth Decay. It's basically based on Dr. Prices findings. I'm excited to try this new diet... I just need to find some affordable sources. I spent $4.83 on half of a pound of butter today! That's almost $10.00 a pound! But look how yellow it is compared to what I already had in the fridge. :)

Dorian Timi Munk

After I went up to Cedar City to see my friend Ada and her newborn baby, I came home with a little ache in my heart. Her baby is so small and so precious and my baby is so... big! It was nice to be able to help her out a little. Ada is a dear friend of mine and our husbands have been good friends since they were kids and it's so fun to see them with a child of their own. Dorian is absolutely adorable, he looks so much like his dad but I see a little of Ada there too. He's a good mix.

This is my first time blogging and I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous, but for some reason the thought of putting my words on the Internet absolutely petrifies me. I'm such a private person even Edward couldn't read my thoughts.

Joking aside, I have wanted to start a blog for a really long time. In fact I set up my blog site shortly after Giovanni was born with all sorts of good intentions of journaling online, but every time I opened it up I would just become overwhelmed at the thought of writing something someone else might read. Well it's been about a year and half (Giovanni is 18 months old) and I haven't gotten over my fears but my curiosity to blog has only gotten stronger, and I've been wanting blog a funny story on Giovanni for over a month!

On the way up to Salt Lake City to spend 4th of July weekend with Thann's family, Giovanni was looking at a picture book of animals and I was showing him some of the ASL signs for the animals that I knew and making animals noises. We saw a spider and I signed and said spider and he pointed to it and said "Bug!" Then I pointed to a lime green python all coiled up and signed a slithering snake as I said "Ssssssnake," and tickled him with the fangs of the snake, he giggled so I did it again and again. When we came to the cat page I started meowing and pulling at invisible whiskers on my cheek and Giovanni just stared at the page. There were many different kinds of cats pictured, including one of those "hairless" Sphinx cats. Giovanni stared at the strange looking cat for a long time then pointed to it and said "Dis?" Meaning, "What's this?" I told him that it was a cat and he looked at it again and then he looked at the other furry cats pictured around it, then he pointed to the naked, alien looking cat again and with a very concerned look on his face said, "Uh-Oh."

I laughed so hard, Biggy turned around and wanted to know what was so funny. We all had a good laugh about it and told Biggy's family later. Giovanni's so much fun, everything he does just tickles me to death. And so as I start to blog, he will be all I can talk about, and that's something I don't mind sharing. :)