Julia and cake

Half the year has been lived.  Not really wanting to measure progress and projects but all the same, I wonder if I am standing in the same place. Surely, I have moved either by my own energy or the winds of changing times. I can quickly recount gains and losses, some sad, some hopeful, some just as they are. Like the cracks in my porch ceiling that I watch without judgment.

Julia is on a meds vacation weekend for the first time in 6 or 7 years.  When she first started on stimulants for her ADHD, she almost stopped eating and quickly began losing weight, but her behavior in school made the meds indispensable. So, she was medicated on weekdays and crazy on weekends.  She was tough on therapists and in church school on the weekends and she also ate like a starving woman.  During the week, I filled her food with as many calories as possible and there was at least one bottle of Ensure, rebranded dinosaur milk, every day. After a few months, Julia’s eating and weight stabilized and although she has always been in a low percentile on the growth chart, her docs have been comfortable with her progress.  But since the beginning of the year, she’s lost 8 lbs. on a steady decline. I wanted to blame our summer healthy diet—fruits and vegetables, a little protein and dairy and very little starch—but she has been losing since January. Continue reading →