We Worried

CW- disordered eating, drug use

When our daughters skin flared and flaked in her elbow creases along her trunk a small patch the shape of San Juan island on her inner thigh we worried and the naturopathic doctor said to cut out wheat cut out diary pick one first and no that red haired influencer who lives down the road who claims to have healed 1000s of babies from their eczema has no training and isn’t to be trusted is in fact a “charlatan” but still i sneak a look at her instagram on occasion and know she fired her midwives and free birthed her second baby and how bad ass is that especially considering her fist baby was born cesarean section and thanks to her online presence I do know she’s in cahoots with another instagram famous redhead who may or may not be enamored with a certain bearded behatted gentleman i too am quite fond of but i am in the minority when i say i am not fond of this new allegiance as much as everyone else seems to be as on about whatever-chemistry-whatever-so-called-magic they and everyone else say they are making, because frankly dear it all comes down to this for me so much of the time now- i am fucking tired of white lady influencers spouting off things that simply are not true to their thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of followers… but then again i take my kids to a naturopathic doctor so what does that say about me? and yes so in case you are curious we did it- the cutting out wheat cutting out dairy pick one first and so I bought oat milk and earth balance faux butter and "cream cheese” made from soy and coconut yogurt and the toddler cried and she’d ask in the morning when we set out her little stoneware pitcher of milk with the cow painted on in that used to be mine "is this the good milk?” And we’d sadly shake our heads and say "no sweetheart.” And then the two weeks went by and her skin didn’t change and we celebrated our love of cows and bought the full fat golden hued local milk and she drank her small enamel cups worth with gusto drowned her oatmeal with it and then we waited and watched waited and watched for the eczema flare we’d been warned to look for and… nothing happened. while simultaneously the county nutritionist who interviews me via phone for Women infant children food benefits tells me that no research confirms that cutting out foods in children helps with eczema and they still don’t know exactly what causes it. and no daily broth won’t make a difference or not ever eating processed foods or avoiding sugar all the time and some times I am so overwhelmed by what the hell do i feed my children feed myself feed my family and also how the hell did i get so lucky and never starved myself or shoved my finger down into my throat like that girl in college that night we all wondered why she was so long in that bathroom and later on she told me what else she did when we used to do community building workshops where we waited until we were moved to speak and we cried and cried that the reason she kept leaving the room was not to refresh her water bottle or blot her eyes or have a piss but because she was snorting line of cocaine in the bathroom and once again i had no idea because snorting lines is a much more quiet activity than post binge vomiting. that was the community building weekend even in berkeley where George gave me his faded sage green bandana to use (and yes it was snot free and clean)because I couldn’t stop crying and to this day i call this my grief handkerchief and it’s my talisman my lucky charm my medicine pouch and i have taken it to every grief lodge i’ve been too and now let’s get back to the skin of my daughter, the skin health of my offspring, is that the kind and warm county health nutritionist who has a certain amount of training, years of mothering behind her (more than the instagram influencer of course) says research now shows it’s best to include as many known allergens as soon as possible and you are doing great feeding your kids as well as you and the phone interview takes some time and my attention is divided because while i am on the phone in the one and only bedroom we have upstairs, the only closed door we have in our house is on the same day we have friends from ohio in town and our friend from new mexico is only there for a few hours and she was the one who opened up her house her heart to me me when i was homeless and starting graduate school and i cried myself to sleep every single night wondering what the hell i had done…. but you see groceries have gone up by 25% and supposedly the FTC is looking into this- the greed of the grocers, and so I needed to this appointment because i scheduled it long ago and every little bit counts. So now every month I swipe the card and get the foods they tell me we can buy which otherwise some of them I would never buy to begin with- like 1 lb of extra firm organic tofu, and 32 oz of non-organic cheddar cheese or 32 oz of only low fat yogurt but best of all are the frosted shredded mini wheats which i have not eaten since high school b/c obviously that is a health food according to the national food guidelines but sure I’ll take it because it is free food and best of all are the three dozen eggs which we eat in about 10 days and the $78 dollars of produce but i still don’t understand why $78 and not $80 and why poor people have to spend HOURS OF their LIVES CONVINCING PEOPLE WE NEED HELP BUT FOR JUST $497 I CAN TAKE KATE’S COURSE ON HOW TO HEAL MY BABY’S ECZEMA BUT ONLY IF I KNOW I CAN ALWAYS HAVE GRASS FED LOCALLY SOURCED BEEF BONES IN MY FREEZER, WHICH YES I DID ROAST SOME AND I SAVED THE MARROW FOR YOU IN THIS TINY GLASS BOWL ON THE TOP SHELF OF MY refrigerator the other day. BUT i do agree with her that full fat is superior for many people simply because it tastes better and why are so we against that??? And the allotment of milk benefits every month is 7.75 gallons of milk but WIC benefits only allows skim milk or you can get 31 cartons of soy milk. And I cannot help but wonder who in holy hell is drinking 8 gallons minus a quarter of slightly blueish watered down milk every single month and besides i thought toddlers needed full fat to grow their brains? So I cannot use the milk allotment to buy what we actually want, what my family will actually drink which is the $8 a gallon local dairy vat pasteurized golden hued full fat local or the “good milk” as my toddler calls is “yes please” and “thank you.”

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