Literacy Fair - Sant'Anna International School

Many may have seen posts on Facebook regarding this day, but this post focuses on the boys contributions to the fair.

Unfortunately, I was in my own classroom and missed all of Zane's presentation and some of Alden's. Greg was in charge of pictures.

Alden's classroom learned all about Mo Williams and the Pigeon books. His teacher did an interactive reading of the book and the students could share the piggy-back story that they wrote. She also had a craft area set up to create puppets to go with the story.

Alden's 'Pigeon"

His folder with his books in them! Author Alden!

Showing off his art hanging on display. 

The "Walking in My Shoes" display. Students were given the opportunity to bring in an old pair of shoes with a description of something the shoe had been through. Zane decided to participate. 

He wrote that his shoe had been in the United States, Costa Rica and Brasil. A well-traveled shoe. 

Zane's classroom presentation was a video that involved citizenship. There wasn't much to take photos of.

Zane's artwork on display. Can you figure out which one is his?

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is a holiday that falls on the same day here in Brasil as it does in the U.S. Not to complain, but Greg gets to celebrate Father's Day twice. NOT. FAIR. 

It is a stressful time of year for a teacher as the end of the year approaches quickly. In Brasil, this means finals in elementary school! So, I was looking forward to a calm, relaxing, lo-key day. 

The day started with Alden and Greg preparing a yummy breakfast. Then, we hopped in the car, drove to Jundíai (June - Jie - EE) to explore a new park. Parque da Cidade is a huge park! Including an outdoor gym (common everywhere here), a nautical center, Japanese garden, hiking and bike trails, remote controlled airplane area, race tracks, playgrounds and multiple sports areas, it has something for everyone!

Baby capybaras are so cute! But we know to stay away. While these animals typically ignore humans, they will attack to protect their young.

Our exploration began with a three mile walk enjoying the natural beauty of the park. We found rocks to climb, a Japanese Garden to explore, another part of the lake, about every color butterfly that you can imagine, and much more. 

Greg and I tend to point the camera at the boys, so I requested a picture of us together. He stepped in front of me to take the photo! 

Then he allowed a decent one to be taken. 

The boys were searching for lizards everywhere. They seemed to find them every where too! This bridge had many. 

After our walk, we settled down for a picnic...

...under an avocado tree! As the boys ran off to play, we watched the monkeys playing in the trees! 

Google threw in a "Then and Now" for us. A sweet little AWWW moment. 

After the boys played on the playground, we decided to walk the other way around the lake. We found ourselves walking through a pine forest! 

And some amazing trees!

The day ended with dinner grilled on the Traeger! It was the perfect day with my family!

Allergies

From the moment Zane came home from the hospital, he struggled with vomiting issues. At first, he was over-eating, then it was acid reflux.  When he began walking, we noticed balance issues and he was diagnosed with vertigo. This diagnosis came after many CT and MRI scans and the recognition that his ears were not formed correctly, causing them to drain inward instead of out.

This resulted in his sinuses and mastoids becoming impacted due to an over production of mucous. And this, resulted in surgery after surgery.

So many doctor visits and so many times did I ask, "Ok, so what is causing the extra mucous in his body?" I am not one to rely solely on medicine. Obviously something we were doing was increasing the mucous in his body. So, we had allergy testing done. It was a simple Kansas panel and showed an allergy to dairy. For the past 3-4 years, we have been a dairy-free family.

Before we moved to Brasil, the doctor decided to do testing again, because children can outgrown food allergies. The test came back with no allergies. Celebration time! However, we had grown used to our dairy-free diet and did not jump right back on the milk and cheese wagon.

We have been in Brasil for almost a year (can you believe that?!) and our diet is different due the products available, cultural expectations, restaurants, etc. The Brazilian culture eats a LOT of bread and a LOT of cheese. Students from my class buy pão de quejo, pão doce, pão con quejo e presunto, and more multiple times during the day. Zane and Alden were allowed to purchase one item a week from this selection. We were unable to find almond milk, so we tried Lactose free and limited the quantity. Things seemed to be fine. No one was having any major issues, so we did not feel the need to change anything.

*Images from Google Image Search

Then, everything started to change. Zane began to break out in random rashes all over this chest, neck and back. My first thought was food, but WHAT was it??

Then, he became 'lazy'. He would argue with us about not getting enough sleep (10-12 hours every night is his normal). He would get angry at us for waking him on the weekends. He would say things like, 'Why do we have to go some place? I just want to stay home and rest." These were not normal comments from Z. Shortly after, the vomiting started. I was picking him up from school one to three times a week because he was vomiting! Always after lunch...hmmm. He swore that this was not vertigo. He stated he felt just fine and then, all of a sudden, he needed to vomit. When we would get home, he would feel and act just fine. To top everything off, his ears decided to join the party!

Doctors were located, an appointment was set and we found ourselves in the doctor's office. This doctor utilizes a machine that tests different functions of your body organs. After identifying that Z's digestive track was inflamed he ordered allergy testing. He was interested to know why Zane's small intestine was not inflamed, but every other part of the digestive tract was. I informed him that both boys take a probiotic daily due to the lack of dairy. This probiotic works specifically in the small intestine.

When we went for the results of the allergy testing, I was not surprised to find that he had food allergies. I was surprised, however, tfinding out to what!

Having blood taken is stressful

The results showed that he is extremely allergic to cow's milk (leite de vaca) and cashews (Castanha de caju). Well that is new! It showed that he also struggles to handle/digest wheat (trigo) and eggs (ovos). Ok, so time to research. No more excuses for not being able to locate items. They have to be here somewhere! We decided to eliminate EVERYTHING to see what happened. The doctor also put him on three additional probiotics to help his digestive system regulate. He also did Ozone treatments to his nose and ears (sinuses) to help push the mucous out more naturally to hopefully avoid another surgery. He had two treatments on his nose and five or six different treatments on his ears.

Ozone treatment complete

After talking to many people, visiting many stores, attempting recipes (both failing and succeeding), we have found many items. Living in a 'smaller' town, our options are few and the products are small. We are looking forward to heading to São Paulo with friends to see if we can purchase some products in bulk.

Zane has been amazing through this whole process and I am truly grateful he has always been an amazing eater. He is not intimidated or afraid to try anything new. He loves to help me create meals and explore recipes. He also has stated he does not want to feel the way that he was feeling, so he does not even ask for those items that have been taken away. There have been things that he will express sadness or frustration about, but I remind him that we can usually find a way to create it in a Zane friendly way.

Happy boy with more energy!

The hardest meal - Breakfast. These boys LOVE their breakfast (I have NO idea where they get that from!!!) and finding appropriate products to create Wheat Free, Egg Free, Dairy Free breakfast has been the most challenging, but we are getting there.

We all have started eating in this new way and we are eager to see how it affects all of our bodies. I spend most of my free time researching and locating recipes and items. It is fun to learn new things and a new way of looking at food.

Things that we have learned throughout this process. Items that usually have gluten in the U.S. (like regular soy sauce) do not have gluten here in Brasil. On the flip side, Brasil uses cashew in many of their products as a filler. Breads, even the wheat free, will typically have cashew. We have learned quickly the art of reading Portuguese health information labels! Zane is really good at it as well.

Has it made a difference? It has been one month. He has not missed a day of school. I have received no calls to pick him up. He has not thrown up...not once. He gets up early on the weekends without complaints. And he said, "I feel better, like I want to do things now!"

Wheat free, Dairy Free, Egg Free chocolate cake with strawberries!