Saturday, April 30, 2011

Jake passed corn.

I don't understand it.  But we'll take it.

Did he have a corn intolerance and now he's grown out of it?  Were we duped with the ascorbic acid?  Was it something else that caused that reaction?

I don't know what to think any more.  Meanwhile, Jake will eat his Kix and beg for his TJ's Kettle Corn and I will breathe a sigh of relief. 

The allergist is going to flip when we visit next month.  We've passed dairy AND corn. 

We're going to play it safe with some summer fruits next.  Watermelon?  Cantelope?  Honeydew?  Yes, yes and yes.  Maybe we'll try one of our "shelved" foods again.  Maybe eggs?

One foot in front of the other.  We're moving on. 

Friday, April 22, 2011

Supply down, Confidence up

My supply is going down.  It's obvious.  Jake has stopped nursing at night.  We're down to 4 or 5 times a day now.  At least half of the time he nurses he stops and says "More?" and signs more at the same time.  *sigh*.  Part of me wants to do all the tricks to increase supply again.  The selfish part of me says... finally.  I like nursing, I do.  I like nursing babies.  But he's a toddler.  With really sharp teeth.  It's starting to be really uncomfortable for me.  And he has plenty of dairy now.  I wish I could get him to actually drink regular milk... we're working on it. 

We don't go back to the allergist until June 1st.  I wonder if I should be supplementing?  While his menu is not large, it is well rounded.  I personally am not worried about his food intake right now.  But I am not a doctor. 

Jake's getting two top molars and two bottom incisors.  Ouch.  He is cranky.  Double Ouch. 

After our strawberry fail, I've been thinking a lot about corn.  Yes, corn.  So if strawberries were a fail... which I'm positive that they were... we only had a really bad diaper.  Had we continued, maybe it would get worse, but it was only one bad diaper.  He recouped quickly. 

I've been questioning his possible corn intolerance.  Looking back when I thought he was reacting to corn in my diet, I hadn't eliminated quinoa, which, according to his patch test, was a fail.  Corn was not.  I ate a lot of quinoa at the time.  But what about the ascorbic acid fail?  Was it corn?  The allergist said ascorbic acid could be derived from pineapple?  Gerber never got back to me on what their ascorbic acid is made from.  Was it cross contamination?  Were those pears processed on the same equipment as the oatmeal?  Or the chicken and rice?  So many unanswered questions. 

I've ramped up my corn intake.  No signs of tummy troubles.

Yesterday, Jake had some kettle corn. 

He was happy.  (minus the teething)

Today he will have some kettle corn again.  Maybe I'll pick up some Kix to help us continue this trial. 

I feel like getting aggressive with the FPIES after our minor fail of strawberries and our MAJOR pass of dairy.  Maybe our fails are not going to be as bad now that he's getting older? 

It seems like when I post something like this it bites me in the rear the next day.  I hope this time it doesn't happen.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Failing Strawberries

What a mess, of the diaper explosion kind.  We're talking poop from head to toe.  TJ's freeze dried strawberries are the obvious culprit. About 1/4 cup of them.  No more strawberries. 

The end. 

Friday, April 15, 2011

Dairy - Winning!

I've been waiting to use that one!

I have finally given Jake a full serving of dairy.  No issues.  Nothing.  Nada.  He and dairy are holding hands and singing Kumbaya.

I made organic whole milk yogurt yesterday in my $18 Yogurt Maker.  It worked beautifully!  Perfect yogurt tang.  The face Jake made when trying it this morning was priceless.  It was more tolerable when I added a little sugar and coconut to it.  I have some Mango Sorbet leftover in my freezer.  I think it will be great mixed in with the yogurt! 

Jake ate about half of his little jar of yogurt, so I decided to take the rest and replace the canola oil in our Millet Pancake recipe.  I also replaced the 1/2 cup water with 1/2 cup organic whole milk.  They turned out fantastic!  Jake ate three of them.  Big Bro ate seven of them.  I'm not kidding... SEVEN.  This was after Jake and Big Bro had already eaten breakfast!

We are basking in dairy goodness over here. 

FPIES just got a little easier to tolerate.

P.S. I let Jake taste a little double chocolate frozen yogurt at a school fundraiser last night. 

P.P.S. I tried strawberries again.  He was fine. 

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

New Molars!

Jake has two new molars.  Screaming?  Molars.  Crankiness?  Molars.  I'm going to chalk it all up to molars.  New Passed Food?  Mi...  I don't want to jinx it, so I'm not "calling" it passed yet. 

Jake did spit up last night.  A very small amount.  But he slept WELL. Better than he's slept in a week.  The last week can only be described as the week from HELL.  I've been a walking zombie.  Up every 1-2 hours and FUSSY.  Him, not me.  Well, I might have been a little fussy. 

We've been on the go quite a bit.  He could have picked up anything.

 Last night at big bro's baseball game, in my moment of "must make Jake feel like a normal kid" and "how do you tell a 14 month old NO you can't have a taste of your sisters snow cone, you must sit and watch her eat her cherry/bubble gum flavored yumminess and by the way here have another potato puff".  No, I didn't let him have a taste of hers.  But I improvised.  He got a plain snow cone, with no syrup.  GENIUS!!  However, it did brush against his sisters as she carried it back from the concession stand.  It had a slight bit of cherry/bubble gum yumminess that I tried to brush off.  I doubt I got it all.  He was in heaven with his icy treat. 

Also, we ate out at the only place Jake can eat out.  In N Out Burger.  Thank you founders of the nothing frozen, all fresh ingredient fast food restaurant.  He could have picked something up off the tabletop as he gobbled his french fries (that contain no hidden ingredients and are fried in a fryer that only fries french fries *say that 10 times fast!).  Who knows.  He's happy today, he slept well last night. Perhaps he was just full of snow cone ice and french fries and the breast milk put him over the edge. 

This week we try yogurt.  He's had some tastes of my plain greek yogurt and LOVES it.  I plan to make some in my not so fancy yogurt maker.  It cost me $18 at the big blue box store.  Well worth it if it works.  I will keep y'all posted. 

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Screaming

Middle of the night, and middle of naps.  Screaming.  Where I go rushing in thinking something has got to be wrong.  "His foot must be stuck and he's hanging upside down from his crib" kind of scream.  But he has a quick nurse and goes right back to sleep.  What is it??  Other than the few screams, he has been HAPPY the past two days.  With normal poops, I will add. 

Molars?  They're still coming through.

Powerberries?  I have been eating the most decadent little dark chocolate covered power berries from TJ's.  I checked the ingredients... brown rice syrup.  I'm a bit disappointed, Mr. Joe.  I expected to see just chocolate and dried berries in the ingredients!  So maybe this is our culprit?

Ugh.

Moving on. We're still doing only sips of milk.  I really don't think it's the milk causing the screams.  Otherwise we'd see something in his diapers. 

Onward. 

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Milk Update

So it took me three days to actually GIVE Jake some milk after I posted.  We are now on day three of "sips".  He's probably had one or two teaspoons a day.  Slow and steady wins the race, right?  Did we not learn anything from the Tortoise and the Hare?  Besides, we had a busy few days and I just wasn't ready. 

I thought about doing raw milk, baking the milk in something, cooking it, then I thought... I'm just going for it.  I'm going to give him what I want to buy for him to drink.  I don't want to drive to some dairy farm to buy raw milk for him, unless I thought he really needed it.  Again, he's had ZERO reaction to any dairy in my breast milk.  This is what I'm basing things on.  I really think he's going to pass milk. So our trial is consisting of organic whole milk from TJ's.  

I have a yogurt maker I'm dying to use.  If the sips continue to go well, I may whip up a batch of the yogurt this week. 

I can't believe I just typed those words.

Symptoms? 

Well... Jake is cranky.  He also is having a molar explosion that is erupting in his mouth. 

His sleep is interrupted.  Up every hour from Midnight til 5am last night.  But, I keep going back to the molars.  They look so painful.  So painful, that tonight I may give him some of his infant advil at bedtime, just so he can have some relief.  When he wakes up he's not crying in tummy pain either.  It's different.  It's not a stiff body, arching back, dear God, help me cry.  It's just a fussy cry. 

As for symptoms, that's it.  He had a normal poop yesterday (I know y'all were dying to know).  His tummy seems FINE.  He's just been acting like a two year old the past few days.  Tantrums and such.  Maybe he'll be like his big sis and go through this stage early.  Then Jake will be a wonderful, terrific two year old.  Maybe he'll even be a wonderful, terrific two year old with no allergies.  I'm dreaming.. I know.  I don't know when I'll ever let him try rice or oatmeal again.  Maybe when he's 18 and begging to try sushi like all his friends.  I seriously doubt he'll ever beg for oatmeal.  "But Mom, I don't want Frosted Flakes.  I want OATMEAL!".  Baaahhaahhaaa.. I make myself laugh. 

Goooooooo Milk!