For the second Monday in a row (what is it about Mondays!), LuLu has decided to consume large quantities of cheese, greatly affecting her behavior (she’s been on an casein-free diet for more than 18 months now, with occasional minor infractions). Last week, while Super Dad and I were at a meeting at church, she downed a whole package of cheese, some cheez-its, and, after attacking her sister who gave up and let her eat what she wanted…some macaroni and cheese.

The results (besides a very ticked-off big sister) were two days of very upset stomach, bloating and bad gas…and some very squirrely, agitated behaviors. By late Wednesday night the casein was clearing out of her system and on Thurs – Sun we had much better days.

So I was a bit surprised that the whole cause-and-effect lesson was lost on my little cheese addict. I was strolling around the house on my cordless, answering countless ATN calls about the upcoming conference when out of the corner of my eye I caught LuLu standing in front of the fridge, shoveling fistfuls of shredded cheese into her mouth.

The results were, once again, very agitated behaviors the rest of the evening and waking at 4 am insisting that she was hungry (probably intestinal discomfort). After she ate at 6 am she promptly threw a fit because we are not able to go to her blood test today (it needed to be fasting, but will have to wait until tomorrow) and she wanted to show her blood test to her day camp teacher today. Oh well…every action causes a consequence.

So, poor Super Dad lost a half-night’s sleep and stumbled off to work this morning with toothpicks on his eyelids. And I thought, foolish me, that LuLu would crash out this morning and enable me to blog and take care of conference details.

Ha, ha, ha…not hardly. She’s still whirling around here changing moods so rapidly that one would think she just became bipolar. Yet, I know what big yellow monster is the culprit!

LuLu had done so well with the casein-free diet and it had become such a part of my daily cooking, that I have indulged the rest of the family by slipping some of the stuff back into the house on occasion. Even though I threw away all cheese after last Monday’s episode, I bought a small package of shredded cheddar for nachos last week (not LuLu’s, of course) and she never said a word about the rest of the family eating a bit at dinner.

But like a drug addict…she was sneaking and shoveling the stuff as fast as possible!

I don’t know who is slower to learn the lesson….LuLu or me. But cheese-free has become the code of the house…today.