What I Baked This Week

TGIF! I hope that everyone had a good week. If you follow my blog, instagram or FB posts, it is quite evident that I am super into nutrition and healthy eating. We eat a whole foods diet in our house, and I spend a lot of hours in our kitchen! I like to bake alone early in the morning before anyone else gets up. Over the years I've heard so many people say, I just don't have the time to bake and cook for my family. Taking the time now, not buying anything processed, will buy you and your family more time on this planet, so it's worth every extra second spent soaking beans, baking bread, and buying organic. Unfortunately, the modern family opens bags, eats out, and is missing key nutrients needed for health and not only health, children's development. Developmental delays, sensory processing challenges, allergies, and Autism, are all rapidly on the rise, and I whole-heartedly believe that nutrition is one of the main factors to this increase. 

So, back to the point of this post! I'm sharing some of the recipes that I baked up this week to help you see how easy it can be to bake healthy, gluten free (I think everyone should be gluten free to be honest - but that's a whole other post), refined sugar free goods for you and your loved ones! For baked good, I am a recipe follower, which makes it easy for you! I have my favorites like Against All Grain, Elana's Pantry and Tasty-yummies, but I do stray and experiment from time to time! This week, my kids were the snack helpers at their pre-school, so we made Homemade Bagels, mmmm. The link to the recipe from +Elana's Pantry can be found here. The mini bagel/donut pan can be found on amazon. They also have a large one that I really want to order soon. I love Elana because her recipes have simple ingredients that I always have on hand! Check out her recipe and whip up some bagels this weekend! She has an awesome chocolate donut recipe too :) 

Honeyville Almond Flour

For snack, we sent in Once Again Sunbutter and local apple slices, which are still nice and crisp this time of the year! I have been ordering more and more from Vitacost to save money, and this is where the Sunbutter is from and linked above for you! 

Delicious! 

Next up from Danielle Walker +Danielle Walker and Against All Grain are Grain-Free Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, which actually contain no oats at all. I love Danielle's website, blog and instagram. She healed herself from illness through diet, as did Elana, and she seems like a kind-hearted, amazing woman on a mission that I love! If you haven't checked her out yet, this weekend is the time. I have made tons of her recipes and they are no-fail every time - the whole family devours them from Breakfast to Desserts to Dinners and yours will too! 

Last up, I made Almond Flour Banana Bread. I made this over the summer for my Sensory Camp as well, and the kids absolutely loved it and ate it up without hesitation. Although I didn't this time because there is a no juice and chocolate rule at my kids pre-school, I often add +Enjoy Life Foods mini-chocolate chips to the bread and they make it taste extra yummy! Follow the link here for the gluten-free, dairy-free, refined sugar-free recipe. 

I hope this post is motivating and encourages you to bake for your family this weekend. Children are eating for development; brain development, muscle development, sensory development, bone development, and they need key nutrients in their diet daily. Processed food does not provide them with the ingredients that their little brains and bodies need, and children are taking in way too much sugar in america's diet, impacting their development across the spectrum. Pairing these recipes with fruits and veggies are perfect ways to provide kids with healthy snacks between meals! They are also great treats to have on hand as the holiday season is upon us and visitors are coming and going. In Vermont, I'm lucky enough to buy local eggs and honey from our neighbors, maple syrup from our good friends at Bobo's Mountain Sugar and local, grass-fed meats right in town. If you can buy local and organic to support your local economy that is the best! The dry ingredients I do usually buy online to save money for our family, but I also support our local coops as well! Some food for thought ;)

Have a wonderful weekend! 

Expressions from the Heart

Hi Everyone! It's been a while since I've written. This summer, I had the amazing opportunity to take Levels I - III Radiant Child Yoga training with 2 different, yet equally incredible woman. During my Level III training, we needed to do an activity and write down whatever came to mind for the ages presented. We had a certain amount of time to just write, and write from the heart. Today, I am going to share this with you. So much of what I wrote is so meaningful to me, but I think that it can also be meaningful to others as well! I think I took all of me as a mom, OT, new loving yogini and just went with it, so enjoy! I am typing directly from my notebook as well - no edits :)

0-3 Be calm, motor stages as important as emotional stages! Be more of an example daily. Continue to love, snuggle, bond, and don't let these times go. I am their lifeline while also teaching them to be themselves and become independent and grow. My life is happier and more joyous because of these beings and nursing, snuggling and losing myself during these times has been worth it a zillions times over! Yoga calms me and brings me joy, so imagine what it can do for infants and children.

3-7 Increase independence - let them be. All of the light, love, nursing and snuggles begin to take shape and our children grow independence and respect for life, others, nature and their own inhibitions. Be playful yet a little firmer. Give perimeters but lessen the perimeters. Support and love with positiveness!

7-11 How a marriage works impacts children greatly, especially at this stage. Be mindful of children both with and without both parents home or without both male and female energy in their lives. Allow friendships to blossom and respect desires for playdates, decrease parent/family-time or time altogether with peers and family having fun.

11-18 Limits yet openness ~ Acknowledge ego and needs but teach confidence and respect of self. Work on meditation, mindfulness, breathing and yoga to decrease the ego and improve love for oneself. Allow our children to have autonomy, wants, desires and independence while having them continue to have respect, love and compassion for the ones closest to them.

Enjoy your Thursday everyone! Thanks for reading, and, as always, please contact me with any questions, concerns or needs around your child's development, nutrition, or sensory challenges. I am always available in person and via phone/skype. @pediatricplay

Sensory Camp 2016 Day 2

What a truly incredible morning we had this past Monday! Painting sticks, mud pies, tire towers, nature balancing on trees, yummy organic treats, animal yoga, lions breaths and playground play. These kids are just awesome and not short on smiles by any means! Special thanks this week to Donna Bonang, Eva Morrow, Niki Olesky and Abigail Schmidt - this camp wouldn't be possible without all of the help and support that I have received. 
















We started our morning at our fire pit area built by lbstonework.com, drawing on the stones with chalk and reviewing our day. Next, we painted the sticks that we found during our nature walk in the woods last week. Fine motor, visual motor, bilateral skills and the tactile system were targeted with this activity. Next week, we will complete our nature instruments and have a musical parade with them around the yard (auditory love). Children with sound sensitivities will be able to choose a quieter
way to make their instrument too. The kids had so much fun painting the sticks, and themselves!  Some children even tolerated waiting to have their hands washed until all of our tactile activities were completed, which was awesome to see. It's amazing to watch these kids grow and show improved sensory integration after just 2 camp sessions! My job could not be better, right?!

 












Next up, mud pies, OH MY! We paired mud pie making with tire tower climbing. This way, if children became a little over stimulated or wanted to avoid the messy activity, they had another option! The tire tower is a great activity for building strength, working on balance along with improving proprioceptive and vestibular 
awareness as well. It was also a big hit! 





Well, by this time of the morning the kids were starving.... Off to the fire pit area for some yummy snack! Snack this week included: 'Like a Bowl of Oatmeal' Muffins and Lemon Hibiscus Tea "Juice". I have to give all props for today's snack to my dear friend, PT, Ayurveda trained, Yogi, Nutritionist and health nut (in a good way), Rebecca Davis! Thanks for your ideas, always!

Here are the recipes:
Oat Muffins - made before your oven is even pre-heated! 

• 3c oats
• 2c oat flour - you can just grind the oats in a coffe grinder, Vitamix or I use the cup attachment to my Ninja blender.
• 1 tsp. baking soda or baking powder (I have found them interchangeable altering the taste only slightly)
• 1 egg - to make vegan just substitute in a flax egg (mix 1 tbsp. ground flax seeds with 3 tbsp. water)
• 2/3c maple syrup
• 2/3c coconut oil melted
• 1/4-1/2c chocolate chips, raisins, or currants

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients together while your coconut oil is melting. Then, add in the egg, maple syrup and coconut oil. Fold in raisins (or whatever addition you choose) Mix well. Spoon into mini muffin tins (make sure that you are using pans that are free of PTFE and PFOA).

Mini-muffins - Bake @ 350 degrees for 13 minutes

Regular muffins - Bake @ 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes

Lemon Hibiscus Tea

Boil Hibiscus Tea leaves and let steep for at least 10 minutes. There are many theories on steeping your tea, but I tend to let mine steep hoping for the most benefits of the leaves! Strain the tea into a large mason jar (avoid plastic), add in honey or maple syrup, and squeeze in lemons. Once cooled to room temperature, allow tea to cool in the fridge. It's a healthy delicious "juice" without any of the refined sugars found in all juices on the market, even organic. 

The kids gobbled up everything again this week and loved the tea too. Healthy treats for active campers. I whole heartedly believe that we could avoid many of the sensory, behavioral, developmental and learning challenges seen in many youth today by changing their diets, avoiding wheat, sugar, processed foods and eating a whole foods diet. Snack has been an important part of sensory camp, and again, the kids have gobbled it up the past 2 weeks! You are what you eat!

Off to our Yoga safari in the grass it was - the kids had a blast pretending to be frogs, giraffes, trees for the giraffes to eat, cobras, downward dogs, twice, and more! After yoga we came together for some deep breathing (smelling the flowers and blowing out the candles) and camper requested, lions breath! Yoga is so amazing in a zillion ways, and teaching kids how to access self-regulating tools young, can be key to their lives! 

We have ended each camp session with nice, child-directed free play at the playground. This week, we also had our nature balance trees all set-up. These are so awesome and the campers had a blast walking, balancing and exploring. The playground is also set-up to build strength and allow kids to move their bodies about. Many children chose the monkey bars this week too - love it! Kids need to move and these campers never stopped! 

Thank you, parents, for sharing your little campers with us. 
We can't wait for next Monday! 

Pediatric Play is always available for consultation related to your child's development, sensory needs, lifestyle assessment and basic nutrition. Please feel free to contact Michelle with any of your questions and/or concerns. 

The Importance of Crawling in Infancy

Eight to 10 months is when babies typically begin to crawl. Crawling is the beginning of independently separating from a caregiver, providing a baby a means in which to explore objects and environment with her own volition and self-directed interest. It is a critically important developmental time in which many different sensory systems within the body are stimulated. When crawling, a baby receives tactile input through the many touch receptors located on the palms of the hands, knees, and lower legs and feet. 

A baby can also experience sensations of hot and cold as it crawls towards a heating duct, woodstove, or a cooler area of the room. Proprioceptors, specialized sensory organs located on nerve endings within the baby’s muscles, tendons, and joints, tells the brain information about the baby’s body positioning and movement changes as it crawls. A baby’s developing visual system is stimulated and challenged while crawling, alternating between near and far point distances. As the baby’s gaze shifts from the floor to objects a few feet away, the eye muscles coordinate with the occipital lobe of the brain (primary visual area) to identify and focus on objects in front of the baby, or a parent on the other side of the room. The visual system is also challenged as it communicates with the vestibular system located within the inner ear in order to maintain focus on an object as the head moves in different directions. One such reflex, the Vestibulo-Ocular reflex stabilizes an image on the retina as the head and eyes rotate sideways. This can be observed when a baby is crawling and turns her head to the left or turns her head to respond or orient to auditory or visual stimuli (a dog walking by, or a toy with lights and sounds).

As the baby turns its head to the side, the semi-circular canals and otoliths in the inner ear detect the rotation and change in head position, triggering cranial nerves to communicate with different eye muscles to rotate the eye in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction, compensating for the rotation of the head. These sensory receptors in the inner ear make up part of the human vestibular system, a very important sensory system that detects a person's head position in space, body orientation, movement, balance, and overall body equilibrium.

Read more about it here.

So how does a baby go from a snuggled, swaddled ball of love to locomotion on all fours? Within a few short months, incredible changes are happening within the skeletal system, muscular system, visual, vestibular, and auditory systems that are building the wide range of skills necessary for crawling. Beginning around 5-6 months, when a baby is lying on its tummy (prone), weight is shifted from the belly to forearms, with occasional pushing up and reaching forward on extended arms.

During this time, shoulder strengthening and pelvic stability continues to develop as an important precursor to reciprocal movement patterns needed for ambulation. Legs begin to come closer together with thighs rolling inward toward a more natural alignment. Between 5-8 months, when lying in prone, a baby begins to lift both legs and arms off the floor, strengthening postural extensor muscles, also enabling a pivot in the superman position. This is when the baby spins in one spot on the floor like a compass and may even move across floor in a linear way without use of hands, knees, and feet.

Different pre-crawling skills are developing when the baby lies on its back (supine). Postural flexion begins as the baby lifts its head independently (5-6 months), bringing hands and feet to its mouth, and beginning to reach for toys with one or both hands. These movements facilitate hip flexion greater than 90 degrees, an important precursor to crawling. During this time, segmental movements are also observed (when the baby can separate left and right leg/arm movements or upper and lower body movements).

By 8 months, it is likely that when lying prone the baby can rotate to sidelying, and move into a seated position. Babies at this age are typically sitting with stability for several minutes without support from a caregiver. This type of dynamic sitting gives the baby enough postural stability to reach in all directions, and by 10 months of age, one can easily move in and out of different seated positions. Moving into a seated position from supine (on back) develops a bit later-typically around 12 months.

Although belly crawling (using both sides of the body simultaneously) may be attempted first, pivoting and backward crawling can be seen as early as seven months. Reciprocal movements usually develop soon after as the baby discovers the most effective mode of forward progression. By 11-12 months, (and sometimes earlier) reciprocal hands and knees crawling is typically established, demonstrated by good trunk flexibility and pelvic rotation. Equilibrium responses (reflexes) to quick changes in body positioning are also fully developed at this time. 

In addition to the important benefits of stimulating the different sensory systems, crawling continues to help develop gross and fine motor skills that are necessary throughout one’s lifetime. The reciprocal movements previously mentioned are further developing the neural pathways in the brain that coordinate the left and right hemispheres of the brain. As these pathways continue to form, reciprocal movements become increasingly coordinated with smooth movements leading to greater physical and mental coordination throughout one’s lifetime.

The several arches that form within the hands within the first few years of life (proximal transverse, distal transverse, and longitudinal arch) are essential for in hand manipulation and coordinated tasks such as handwriting, keyboarding, pinching/squeezing, turning a key, holding handles of tools, or picking up small

objects.

As a baby crawls, most of the weight bearing in the hands is on the pinky side of the palm. The pinky and ring fingers typically stabilize the baby’s palm on the floor surface. Whereas the thumb, index, and middle fingers are frequently used for fine precision action, furthering developing the separation of the two sides of the palm, necessary for controlled hand movements. As these muscles (and arches) continue to develop, babies can be observed carrying objects with them as they crawl. This separation of the two sides of the hand continues to represent the power, stabilization, and strength side of the hand (pinky and ring finger side) and the fine motor and manipulation side of the hand (thumb, index, and middle finger) throughout the lifespan.

So go ahead, put that baby down and let them explore their environment from their hands and knees. There is so much important neurological development happening in the central nervous system, the skeletal, muscular, visual, and vestibular systems that is far more important than worrying about the germs being picked up from the ground. Plus, they might even clean your floor for you!

My name is Tamasin Kekic and I am a guest writer for the Pediatric Play blog. I recently completed my level 2 Fieldwork in Pediatrics and School-Based practice with Michelle Bonang, OTR/L. After graduating in May with my Masters in Occupational Therapy, I now look forward to passing my licensing exam this summer and finally beginning my career as an Occupational Therapist!

*Note: Many of the milestones discussed are based on statistical norms, some variation in emerging skill areas is expected. If you are concerned that your child is not meeting established milestones for crawling, speak with your pediatrician or an occupational therapist.