And I love learning about words – their origins and historical usage. I like exploring their sounds. Technology has provided one more venue for exploring words. Here are three sites I've been using this winter for modified mental push-ups.

Wordnik.com - I receive the "word of the day" emails.

Visuwords.com - This is an online graphical dictionary and thesaurus. It teases the brain into "seeing" words. Great for kids when they don't understand a new vocabulary word.

Rhymes.net – an online rhyming dictionary that also has a new and terrific Lyrics component. When I'm stuck in my writing, reading lyrics seems to help.

In the years since my son Eden was born and diagnosed with life threatening food allergies there has been a counter trend towards laid back parenting, often called "slow" or "free range" parenting. Lenore Skenazy championed this movement a few years ago when she wrote Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Take The Subway Alone, which turned into a blog, a book and reality show. Free Range parenting backlashed against both the "Tiger Mom" types who bring up protégées first, children second and the new generation of educated, over-aware, anxious parents. Ms. Skenazy is a child-safety myth buster and her central idealogy is that children will gain when parents worry less.

However, when parents begin swimming amongst all these labels the water can get murky and it's difficult to see true wisdom without involuntarily confining oneself. For example, I am vigilant about Eden's allergy safety protocol ... (Over Protective Mom?) and yet I continually teach him allergy self-management techniques ... (Empowering, Free Range Mom?)

Read on at Psychology Today

The photo is a perfect example of how I like to eat my butter...meaning the bread looks great but only because the butter is piled on. I can't remember the last time I ate truly fresh homemade butter. The idea of Eden one day eating butter or seeing how much it can change the taste of food is a definite fantasy for me.

Which is why I wrote Finding the 'Right' Doctor for Your Allergic Child on The Huffington Post, last year. In the past eight years I've come to realize that all newly diagnosed food allergy parents share the same concerns and fears.

Note: The real-time prelude to these Tweets took place a few minutes prior. My daughter had just opened a to-go container of profiterole pastry topped with ice-cream topped with whipped cream that I had allowed her to bring home.  Because of Eden's food allergies we had, as usual, opted to have dessert at home after eating out in our one trusted restaurant. But I was taken by surprise at the extravagance of her dessert and more than a little devastated at Eden's envious gaze. "Bad call," I thought to myself as I prepared his dairy free ice cream topped with powdered sugar (Eden's favorite substitute for whipped cream.) It looked lame.

But his sister instinctively proclaimed, "Eden! Your food looks awesome!!" Eden believed her of course.

I Tweeted:

ME: incredibly beautiful when your un-allergic child tells food allergic sibling that his food looks AMAZING when it truly does not #parenting

AtopicGirl T@susanweissman That's so sweet. Now, my sisters are always genuinely jealous of my allergy-free meals when we eat out together. #parenting

ME: so happy to read it! I hope someday my son's food will look that good. @AtopicGirl

AtopicGirl @susanweissman I know it will. Having multiple food allergies has made me a pretty good cook & I appreciate good food more than most.

I do not "know" AtopicGirl outside of Twitter. But now I know a little something more, something hopeful about my son's health condition. I know that someone like Eden embraces - is proud of -  her food despite her allergies. And that kind of sharing has been happening to me for years. It's a timeless kind of solace experienced while scrolling through time.

This fabulous looking gelato was emailed to me by a reader who wrote: "I was SO psyched to see Whole Foods was still carrying their delicious and inexpensive gelato year-round. I was even more thrilled to find healthy flavors like Vegan Chocolate, so I could feel a little better about the indulgence!"  After some minimal online research it seems that Whole Foods make their own line of sorbet and gelato "in house" so anyone with severe allergies should check with servers about cross-contamination. Otherwise...YUM!

This month in The Gluten-Free Quandary in Foodbusinessnews.net the article points out:

"... even the Food and Drug Administration states on its web site there is no nutritional advantage for those without celiac disease to go gluten-free and it is not meant to be a diet craze... 'Consumers are looking for ways to be healthier and gravitating to whatever they see … but it’s not always driven from a dietitian or a medical perspective'..."

And the article continues to describe the many disadvantages of adopting such a dietary restriction if, indeed it isn't necessary. It seems there is a chicken and egg mentality at play: Consumers may be incorrectly demanding these products, food giants are responding to what they perceive as a lucrative market, and interestedly, grain companies are not "properly educating consumers through effective advertising messaging may clear up consumer misunderstandings...this worked well with educating consumers that high-fructose corn syrup is just as safe as regular sugar, and now consumer concerns about HFCS have been greatly reduced."

Eden, who isn't allergic to gluten, has a cousin who has a gluten intolerance. His mother and I often discuss the difficulties of finding palatable "free-of" products to serve as conveniences and short cuts for parents managing restricted diets. And I'm ever-grateful for any new improvement or addition to the speciality products that address Eden's food allergies. Obviously food companies do provide a tremendous service for consumers with medical needs. But when I serve people my allergen-free home baked goods, I tell the whole truth: "This isn't low fat," I might clarify to a dieter..."I used a cup of olive oil..." Or, "It's dairy-free but rice milk has a lot of sugar!" Why shouldn't our food manufacturers be equally forthright and rely on their real consumer groups instead of creating this gluten free gestalt?

Often I bake the way I write: I consider all the "stuff" around me and the mix in as much as will create something interesting. I can make these muffins from scratch but happened to have an extra box of Cherrybrook Kitchen Yellow Cake Mix in the pantry (meant to buy chocolate.) So I started with that and then added an Arrowhead Mills oatmeal packet (for fiber and whole grains) and few tablespoons of hempseed that my husband eats when he's trying to be virtuous (protein, minerals and healthy fat.) I adjusted the the liquid quantities and mixed up some vanilla coconut milk, rice milk and an egg, instead of the water called for on the cake mix box (calcium protein.) And then I added a bit more olive oil than the cake recipe called for as well. Final additions were Enjoy Life Foods Chocolate Mini Chips and Cascadian Farm thawed frozen blueberries.

The whole she-bang made 18 muffins - enough for breakfast, after-school snacks and desserts all week long.