Thanks to everyone for your concern regarding my last post.

I'm not freaking out too much right now, maybe because I've gotten used to Mr 5 rolling his eyes back, but also I think the .....intensity, for lack of a better word, may have decreased just a little.

The eye rolling was at first being accompanied by a very slight head movement too, which I think is partly why it seemd so odd and scary. Now, as far as I can tell, the head movement is not there. I think. And he's had two pre-school sessions since it started, and they've noticed nothing. I told them specifically what to look out for, and asked them to be aware of any other behaviour changes, but nothing.

I am again thinking it may be just one of the ocd-type little things he sometimes does, perhaps not an involuntary movement, maybe one he feels compelled to do.

We'll keep to the appointments and I'll post any updates.

Thanks to all you lovely people out there in bloggyland!

Ok, this is a weird one.

On Tuesday evening my husband pointed out that our five year old was regularly rolling his eyes right back in his head and off to the left. I think it came on suddenly because pre-school had not mentioned anything and I had not really noticed. I'd seen him do it once and hadn't thought anything of it.

It increased in frequency until his bedtime, eyes flicking up and to the left once, more usually twice, in quick succession . At least once every 10 seconds or so. Very freaky to watch. And it appeared to be involuntary.

Wednesday started off with much less frequency but it was noticeably worse when he watched tv and increased in frequency towards the end of the day. And when we read stories. But not when he played a bit of X-box with hubby.

Took him to the Dr this morning, received a referral to a pediatrician. The Dr bandied around a suggestion of Autism. Hello?!

Took him to our beloved chiro later that morning. She worked on him for about half an hour, straightened him up, his neck and back were out a bit. Yes, that will happen if you dive onto the couch, balance on your head, then flip your legs up and over the back of the couch. And wrestle your mates to the ground after pre-school every day. And and and....

She suggested a neurologist and a ct scan. She couldn't find a particular reason for what's happening but he has another appt with her early next week.

Managed to get an appointment with a pediatrician for two weeks hence. Gee, glad it does not appear to be a real emergency, but the pediatrician did say I can call them if I have reason to believe it's becoming more urgent.

Took him to an optomotrist today just for kicks, they said he's tracking fine etc etc and gave us a referral to a pediatric opthamologist.

Dr Google turns up Tourette's syndrome, magnesium deficiency, epilepsy and autism, and those are the less frightening ones of the list.

I still can't figure out whether it's involuntary or otherwise, but now I sometimes see him rolling his eyes to top left then straight away to bottom right, before coming back to centre. And it's done very fast, flick, flick.

He's rubbing his eyes a lot, and the areas around his eyes, he presses on the areas around his eyes, as if that would make his eyes keep still.

All very freaky. Life goes on though.

Healthy chocolate crackles, with coconut oil

Phew, so I've fiiiinally put a new template in. 

Wow, it's like drawing blood, it takes me ages to find something that suits me, I don't go for bright ones, except on other people's blogs haha, I don't really want graphics, I want two columns, one of them being wider than average, I want a white background for posting, I want decent size headings on my sidebar and I 'spose I'm just extra fussy.

 No kidding, right?

This one's not perfect, the text is a bit light but overall it does not offend me, which is the main thing. 

We'll see how it goes.

Aaaanyway, gotta share a recipe.

Remember chocolate crackles? Oh yeah, mmm mmm mmmmm.

Well, the original recipe contains copha, correct? Or, if you're in New Zealand, it's kremelta.

What is copha/kremelta? 

According to Wiki', it's a form of vegetable fat shortening made from hydrogenated coconut oil.

And, it contains soy.

Both big no nos when it comes to me cooking for my family.
(The hydrogenated part of the coconut oil is what's bad, coconut oil itself is lovely stuff)

So I did some tweaking and here is my version.

Chocolate crackles, done my way.

4 cups of wholewheat puffed rice

 (just plain, puffed, wholewheat rice. Found this in my regular grocery store in the health food aisle)

3/4 cup of icing sugar

(this was cut down from 1 cup, next time I'll try 2/3 cup and use fine ground rapadura)

1 cup of desiccated coconut

5 tablespoons of good quality cocoa powder

250 grams of coconut oil, melted

(I like using coconut oil, you can read about coconut oil on the Weston A. Price foundation site)

Method

Mix all ingredients together and spoon into paper cupcake cases.

Refrigerate till hard.

Store in the fridge or freezer.

And oh my, they are GOOD!

Next time I'll spoon them into my silicone cupcake molds, which I can never get cupcakes out of but these little guys pop out of their papers once they're refrigerated, so I'll save the paper and dump them straight in a box from the silicone molds instead.

Wholegrain puffed rice gives this treat just a little more nutrition than usual, it's a couple of steps closer to a whole food than rice bubbles, that's for sure.

And one more tip, be careful adding extra rice if your mixture appears too 'wet'. I've made this twice now and the 'wetter' mix I had the first time gives a much more melt-in-the-mouth experience, such as that of traditional chocolate crackles.

The second batch I made drier and it's more chewy and also more prone to falling apart, which the first batch did not.

Enjoy!

Ok, wanna see my recipe for coconut oil chocolate? Just as yummy as these chocolate crackles but grain free, great if you're paleo, or primal.


There is a link to it it my side bar or you can find it here: Coconut oil chocolate.

Ooops

Umm, I didn't put a new background up in time and my old one, true to the message posted, disappeared. 

Better get searching for a new one...

Our couch...

...is more comfortable if the cushions sit on YOU, rather than if YOU sit on the cushions.

Ooh, lookey what I got!

The sweetest little hat in the entire world!

Well, technically it's for one of my boys, as you can see:

(Isn't he CUTE?)

This is a pilot hat, from the lovely Cadi over at MaeheGirl.

One more, because I love the way this hat makes my 2 1/4 yr old look like the baby he still really is, at barely 2 years old. 

And another...not sure what that pout was over, but see, he really is just a baby.

 At just 2 years old and all 17 kilos of him, oof.

And the big guy had to try it on too, of course...

It is a beautifully made little gem, and will be one of those things you hang onto once the kids have grown out of it, unless I have a special little person around to gift it to.

Cadi is a very talented knitter and has some amazing projects on her blog, go take a look!

Thanks Cadi, we looove it!

Feeling the love...

Oh yeah, a good trampoline...

How did I let the kids hog this last time we stayed here?

Guess who hogged it this time?

Woohoo, I'm still on a high!

 Ha, bad pun intended.

School holidays are kicking my butt!

Two weeks of school holidays and oh boy, I now see why many parents breathe a sigh of relief when school goes back. Not that my kids are even in school yet, so what hope do I have when they are??

Mr 5 has 12 hours of preschool a week, not a heck of a lot, but just enough to give us some breathing room. Add to that a weekly gymnastics class and swimming lessons and the week starts to actually seem very busy.

And now, two WHOLE weeks of time to ourselves.

Which I thought would be great, the kids seemed a bit over being told to hurry up and get your shoes on/find your hat/go and pee/grab your goggles/where's your drink bottle/I TOLD you to do it five minutes ago/quick/hurry! etc. But the boys (and I) are all getting on each other's nerves, what with too much inside-time due to winter and no other kids his own age/strength for Mr 5 to bounce off.

I actually feel like I've started a new job. This is the first time I've had both kids home ALL THE TIME. Last school hols they were both still in daycare one full day a week. No longer.

So my plan for next school holidays:

Buy (ahead of time) 1 million glue sticks for the hot glue gun.

Buy 10 rolls of sticky tape.

Stock up on cardboard boxes and random sheets of styrofoam. 

Have a few meals in the freezer.

Have cookie dough ready to go, in the freezer.

Have a giant stack of new library books.

Have all bike/pram tires and footballs pumped up.

Fence that darn front yard.

 (Proving to be more difficult than originally thought, due to the planning amendment that needs to be amended...)

That's all that comes to mind right now.

My butt has been saved for next week however, we are again (unexpectedly) house sitting the mansion.

And that follows on from a free weekend (actually last weekend) at the snow!

Ok, so it was just free accommodation, but still, that's usually a very exxcy part of a snow trip.

And it did actually snow, though it was still technically low season by a few days.

Mr 5 was in H.E.A.V.E.N.

We're hoping to get back there this season and up the slopes ourselves, which I haven't done since I was preggers with Mr 5. Yoiks!

Aren't they cute?

So, on the menu for this week is....

a zoo trip (we're 20 minutes closer to the zoo from the mansion, so yay for that)

cookie making

walking the dogs - both kids loooove to do that

a play date or two - all our friends love to visit us at the mansion

orange and lemon gathering, from trees around the border of the mansion property

lots of tree climbing/trampolining/scooter riding/sandpit digging

kumquat wars (the mansion driveway is lined with kumquats that go uncollected)

Deep breath....

See you on the other side!!