Bizarre Happenings (5 yrs 3 mo!)

CET are 63 months old!

Another cute one 

You may have to click on this pic to see it better but don't you just love the psycho kitty Thomas drew for me, haha!

We were at Costco today and we came upon a digital scale in one of the aisles and I was curious to see what the boys weigh because the last couple of months I can't seem to fill those little bellies. If you remember just three months ago at their 5 year check up all three boys weighed exactly the same 33.1 lbs. Assuming the display scale was accurate, Caleb weighs a whopping 37.1 lbs (can you believe he gained 4 lbs in three months!), Thomas is 36.5 lbs (so he gained a lot too, almost 3.5 lbs), and Eli is 34.9 lbs (he gained of almost 2 lbs). This is pretty impressive considering the boys only gained about 2-4 lbs from age 4 to 5 (C&T 2 lbs and E 4 lbs), oh what 3 months can do!

As I mentioned before the boys have been bottomless pits lately (not something I'm used to at all!). So in an effort to curb their hunger I stocked up on yogurt and string cheese. I figured the protein would help keep them full for longer. Well something bizarre happened that has made me change my game plan when it comes to satisfying their hunger. At one point I noticed that Eli's arm pits smelled really bad. It was just as bad as any man's arm pits if he doesn't wear deodorant! It freaked me out a bit as you can imagine so I "googled" it and come to find out this happens a lot to children that consume a lot of dairy! It's because of all the growth hormones that are given to cows to produce more milk than what's normal. These hormones apparently are similar enough to the hormones we produce naturally when we go into puberty, scary right! And in all the cases I read about, the solution was simply switching to organic dairy products. 

I immediately made the boys avoid any dairy for a couple of days and sure enough the smell went right away! The next time I went grocery shopping I did a price check on organic cheese, milk and yogurt. It is quite a bit more expensive and I'm not sure we can switch over to organic dairy completely. I'm not one to believe that children or adults for that matter, "need" to consume dairy. There are many other things that are just as nutritious that we can consume. Dairy is just so convenient because it seems to satisfy their hunger for much longer (not to mention it's delicious, sigh!). So with that in mind I've switched to boys over to organic rice milk which is what I've been drinking for years (organic milk is about $6/gal vs organic rice milk is about $3.67/gal so a big savings, yay!). I will buy them organic yogurt to have a couple times a week and not everyday like they have been eating. As for cheese I think we'll just eat it in moderation like in sandwiches, pizza or an occasional snack. Although I did see some organic cheese at Costco that wasn't terribly expensive so I may switch as soon as our current cheese stock runs out. 

My last few times at the grocery store I've bought nuts, dried fruit, and more than the usual amount of fruits and veggies to help keep these guys full. They have gone over well and it's relieving to know that we don't have to rely so much on dairy. It's crazy to think something like this can happen. You really do have to be careful what you eat these days! It's just too bad going 100% organic isn't a choice everybody can have. If we had unlimited resources we certainly would!