Once Again, I Will Not Win the Award For Mother Of the Year

1. So, about that title: earlier in the summer, I decided to relax the restrictions on Miranda's diet concerning her allergies to coconut and palm oil and their derivatives, to see if she still reacted to them. She has refused absolutely to go back to the allergist for a retest (her memories of the scratch test are admittedly bad, so I understand her reluctance) but the occasional exposure didn't seem to cause problems, so I thought, what could it hurt? And then I forgot all about it.

Well, guess what? She's still allergic to coconut and palm oils, which are everywhere in baked goods, granola bars and lots of crackers. How do I know this? To quote Mike Rowe, "There was poo everywhere." You see, her reaction is gastronomic: basically, diarrhea. For the last few weeks, her underwear has been spotted with brown slime and as the trip has gone on, it's become a lot worse. We talked to her about it and she got upset, we got upset, we tried discipline, but nothing helped. Then my mother said, "We haven't prayed about it." And she was right. So, as I set off to the grocery store to buy some pull-ups and other necessities, I prayed on my way there and continued praying while I was in the store. And one word came to me: coconut. And I was, as you may imagine, fairly upset. Because I had made this decision to reintroduce coconut and palm oils and then not monitored the result. So it's good that most of the poo cleanup has been mine because it's all my fault anyway.

I apologized to Miranda and asked for forgiveness, and she forgave me willingly, although it didn't hurt I'd bought her favorite sugar-free popsicles at the store while I was out and could offer her an seemingly unlimited supply. And here we are, 48 hours later, with no more brown slime.

So what have we learned today (again!)?

• God is still good and He gives us real answers when we pray.
• I am still a really imperfect parent (humility is good for me, really)
• The solution has made everyone happy, including Miranda, and there are no hard feelings, which has to be grace.
• She will never get to eat another granola bar, ever. 
• I will still be looking at food labels for the foreseeable future. 
• But, the occasional piece of store-bought-so-it-has-to-have-coconut-oil-in-it-cake at a birthday party won't kill her or me. Just no more than that.

BTW, it is my dear friend Brynn who coined this phrase "I am so not going to win the award for mother of the year;" I stole it from her.

2. So I wrote that last night and now it's late morning and I'm groggy because Alex was up until at least 1 am. Poor boy; insomnia is no fun.

3. I haven't managed to go out and see any movies or read any books. But my husband bought me a really pretty new smart phone, a Samsung Galaxy S3. And I spent almost all of yesterday playing with it. It's very pretty and I like it a lot.

4. On Wednesday, my mom and I went with the kids to the beach in Del Mar. Even though the weather was a bit chill, the water was beautiful and I remembered once again that there's nothing better than jumping through the waves with my son.

5. I want to have another dog someday, especially since my beloved Havoc is gone three years next month, so we've been working with our kids about good behavior with my aunt's dogs. We've made progress, so maybe I can adopt another greyhound next year.

6. I watched Henry IV, Part 1 on Wednesday night and like I expected, Tom Hiddleston was mesmerizing. Jeremy Irons was good too, of course.

7. Jen is really funny today, so don't miss it.