I met with Briana, the director at Brain Balance, on Friday to discuss Kalie's progress for the second month. She is still doing so good. I don't remember if I already said this, but they were thinking of switching her exercises during her time at Brain Balance to target her right side. The reason they were thinking of doing this is because Kalie's behavior was still up and down and they have had to do a stair step method before to balance the brain. Basically, her left side could've been getting hyper stimulated. It seems to have helped because she has been really good. Don't get me wrong, we have had days when she is emotional but there were always other obvious causes. I knew, for sure, that she was extra tired on some of those days. She also complained about being hungry still right after she ate her snack. I found out she hadn't been eating her cashews (I tried a new kind, she didn't like them) so she was having "the crash" from not enough protein.
The other day I was thinking, you know, she is a six almost seven year old. They are going to have attitude at some times. There are times when I think she is going backwards but it could possibly be a typical seven year old behavior. I've seen plenty of kids her age give a little sass and stubbornness at some point. And honestly, the girl has those two traits streaming through her blood so.. too bad for her future husband? No, I'm just kidding.. maybe ; I have just learned to not instantly think the worse possibility.
Kalie has about 5 weeks left of Brain Balance. Now that her behavior has leveled out, we have decided to start her food reintroduction. She has 13 foods to reintroduce. After we have been doing the introductions for a little while, we will also be able to have foods off of her mild list like a normal food (every other day)! We just have to watch to make sure she isn't reacting. Since we have such a short time left with Brain Balance and so many foods to introduce, we are going to do 2 foods a week. One every four days. This is how it works: We give her food, and a lot of it, throughout the day. Then for 3 days after she can't have it again. During those 3 days we are looking for backwards behavior, bad school work. If there aren't any reactions, we can move forward to the next food. If we do notice extreme reactions she isn't supposed to have that food again for another 30 days. Today we started with garlic. If all goes well, we will move on to almond. It's all very exciting to me. I'm really excited for Kalie to have more food in her diet and I'm just hoping that she won't react to anything.
Through this whole process Kalie has been such a trooper, and so willing to follow these diet guidelines. Now that we are so close to the end, I have been noticing (and hearing) that she is wanting what everyone else is eating. I've tried so hard here at home to make things fair as far as eating goes. I've altered tons of recipes, and tried (and failed) tons of new ones. I've learned to make vegan bread, and we call it her "special bread". I just can't seem to figure out other vegan baked goods though. I've tried and failed. She has asked me several times when she is going to get to eat cupcakes or ' I wish I could have a cupcake'. It's just been getting to me lately. Yesterday, at our family dinner, I had to sneak away into the bathroom while everyone was eating dessert. I was helping everyone get their ice cream or cake and I looked over and saw Kalie with her all fruit popsicle, which she really does like, staring at all her siblings and cousins eating their normal desserts. For that one second, I could see in her eyes, the longing to eat what everyone else was eating. I could tell that she wanted it more than normal and she couldn't. I could tell that she felt a little sad, in that one second, but that she knew she had to push that aside and eat her popsicle. So I snuck into the bathroom and took some really deep breaths so that I didn't break down in front of everyone. I'm just ready, not for myself, but for her.
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