My only “cheat” during the week of my six-year-old’s birthday celebrations was a few pieces of gluten-free pizza, and a taste of the birthday cake (not worth a whole piece, since learning about my horrible sugar crash tendencies). It all went off just fine, and my dye-sensitive child even did pretty well eating mostly her GF cake, dye-free frostings, chocolates, and a few pieces that did have dye (she guiltily admitted to me). She held it all together even though her first/birth mom surprised her (this could’ve been a recipe for an understandable fit of anxiety) with a limo and spent the party with her. It ended up making her super happy! There may still be some emotional fall-out, but it hasn’t occurred yet, and she had a super fun party at her horse stables, with her favorite friends from school and horseback riding, and of course, her big sister.
The only awkward moment was when, after she had asked birth mom about her bio dad (whose whereabouts are unknown), she thought that the limo driver was the dad in question, and burst into the party room exclaiming to me, “Mom! I have a daddy, I do!” I said calmly, “well let’s talk about that in a little while, first we need to have your cake” and she was sufficiently distracted from the topic in front of all 20 something guests! #adoption
Last week I had a lot of potato broccoli soup (recipe in link), and tried out a different local grocery store to see what they had by way of organic stuff. Not much, honestly. We took the only two organic broccoli heads they had, and I was completely unable to find organic rbst-free greek yogurt. The soup was great, though, and if you’re going to follow the recipe above, I’ll just note that I used 4 cups of broth and 4 cups of water (as opposed to bouillon) and there’s no need to blanch some of the broccoli ahead of the soup if you’re ok with the soup just being blended or creamy, as opposed to having solid broccoli pieces. I feel like it just adds an extra step, and I sure don’t have time for that!
Mother of All Things 