Power to the Hippies!

In the last year or so, I have been referred to as a "hippie" many times. If you saw me, I wouldn't look like what you might picture a hippie to look like. I don't have dreadlocks or clothes made of hemp. I am a pretty unassuming person. However, many things that happen within my home have been considered hippie-ish. I cloth diaper, we eat a fair amount of vegetarian meals, I add things to our diets like chia seeds, cacao, and kombucha. We don't eat anything processed (unless you consider pasta processed...I have tried to make my own to no avail.), I only have whole wheat flour in my house, and no refined sugar. We try to conserve energy, shop consignment, shop directly from the farm, and make any products we can (like soap, shampoo, etc.). Am I a little crunchy? Sure! And I'm okay with it. So what's my point?

My point is in the last two and a half months, I have added more raw food to our diets, introduced many of those "hippie" products (such as chia seeds, cacao, and kefir), and eliminated even more things that may be considered processed. In those two and a half months, my daughter has grown two inches, gained two pounds and has added about 30 words to her vocabulary. We have adjusted her diet to accommodate for what we think is wrong with her tummy (fructose malabsorption) and added different products to give her more nutrition.

J gets chia seeds in her smoothies in the morning, which provide five times the calcium of milk and are high in omega-3's. You should see the looks I get when I tell people that we eat chia seeds. You would think I had three heads. J also gets kefir in her smoothies, which is a dairy product, but is 99% lactose free. It's high in calcium, but doesn't cause her the stomach upset that dairy does. We've also introduced kale chips. J LOVES them! I am pretty sure she would eat a whole batch if I let her. They are so good for her too!

We have been down a long road with J's tummy. It's been a heck of a battle to try and figure out what's wrong with her and to make her more comfortable. Now she's a little bit higher on the weight portion of the growth chart and she's really doing great. Do I think that her speech necessarily has to do with her diet? Directly, I can't be sure. Indirectly, definitely. She is going without her pacifier more often, which is encouraging her to talk. She goes without her pacifier because she's more comfortable...she has less belly pain. Would she have grown this much and gained that amount of weight without the "hippie" products? Possibly, but since we've added them, she's jumped more on the growth charts than she had before.

So, all that to say that you can't argue with what I'm doing. If being a hippie gives me a healthy, happy baby girl, then power to the hippies!

You also can't argue with this face:


I would rather see a face like that than the sad, painful face I've seen on my baby girl so many times before. I happen to be a fan of hippies. :)