Ian's Allergies

Ian had the prick allergy tests done at two different allergists, and both times they said he was allergic to eggs and peanuts. Right before we switched to a local allergist, the first allergist said we could gradually reintroduce eggs. He said to start with baked products that contained eggs. It was a challenge to get Ian to eat a cake at that time because he wasn't chewing yet, but I did put some cake in the blender, and he didn't have any reaction to it. Then we switched allergists a few weeks later, and that allergist didn't agree with attempting to reintroduce eggs. So Ian hasn't had anything with eggs for a year (unless that roll he ate half of at the party yesterday had some egg in it). I've made him a vegan chocolate cake twice, vegan banana bread once, and today I made him vegan lemon cookies. I want to make him some dairy free sugar cookies on Saturday after I get the unsalted Fleischman's from Paul's mom on Friday. I am going to use an egg in those cookies though. I have decided to go back to the first allergist's plan and allow him to have egg in baked products.

 

I'm also tempted to introduce peanuts. He only had a peanut product once in his life - this fall Nadia gave him a cracker that had peanut butter on it, and he had no reaction to it. I'm going to talk with the pediatrician this month at his three year check-up to get his advice before I attempt that. The psychologist wants us to wait on attempting to reintroduce milk and soy, and I'm fine with that because I do really believe he has those allergies. The prick testing indicated he wasn't allergic to cats, and that definitely was innacurate. He's allergic to cats. He's also allergic to cinnamon, but it's just a skin reaction so he can have cinnamon in foods that don't end up on his face (ex. cold cereal is fine). He has some other skin type allergies, but I haven't figured them all out. He gets a rash on his face from ketchup and strawberry jelly. I am not sure if there is a common ingredient in those two or if he has two things in addition to cinnamon that irritate his skin. The rashes fade pretty quickly so I haven't banned ketchup from his diet as he really likes it on his hot dog, but I haven't been giving him strawberry jelly because he prefers grape jelly anyhow.

I also have avoided oats for a long time because at one point my mom figured out they were giving him the runs. Back then I was giving him a LOT of oatmeal. I have decided to see if his GI system can handle just a little bit of oats by making some dairy free oatmeal raisin cookies. The reason I am hoping he can eat those cookies is because most of the cookies I made either have peanut butter or chocolate chips (milk or white) or butterscotch chips, and all those chips have milk in them so it's a challenge to make dairy free, peanut free cookies even if I get some dairy free margarine. It did give me great pleasure to watch him eat a homemade cookie for the first time today. It does break my heart to constantly have to tell him - no you can't eat xyz that he asks me if he can have. Nadia doesn't exactly show him empathy. I keep telling her it's not nice to remind him that she can eat things that he can't. Hopefully he'll eventually outgrow all of these allergies, but if we can shorten the banned list to just milk and soy it will be easier to follow than it is right now.

 

After I put Nadia and Ian down for nap/room time today, I took Oliver with me to run a couple of errands. When we had the snow earlier this week I realized I didn't have any snowboots or snow pants for Nadia. She had to wear the ones from last year, and I had intended for Ian to wear her snowpants from last year this year. She wanted to go in the snow badly enough that she was willing to wear boots that were 2 sizes too small. This morning when I got Ian dressed I realized I didn't have any turtlenecks for him. He had to wear one of Nadia's (too big) white turtlenecks under his vest to church this morning. I stopped at a consignment shop and got Ian three turtlenecks (including the one pictured at right) for $1 each, Nadia some snow pants for $5, a pretty red sweater for Nadia, a green dress shirt for Ian, and a sweater/dress pants outfit for Oliver. You never know exactly what you'll find at a consignment shop, but I did pretty well today. Then I went to Target to get myself a watch battery as mine died yesterday morning. I also got Ian some pirate vitamins. I honestly could have wrapped them up and given them to him for his birthday or Christmas. He was screaming with joy over those vitamins! I wanted to get Nadia some red tights, but Target was out of those. Speaking of clothing, I've been thinking of going through Nadia's clothing that she's outgrown that is stored in the basement and only keeping the outfits I really like the best. First of all we don't know if the FET will result in me giving birth, and secondly even if it does, it might be a boy. Nadia would likely be about 6 years old at that time (if it happened). I am not sure if I want to save that many years worth of girl clothing, especially since we're likely moving sometime in 2013. I definitely don't want to get rid of everything, but I'm thinking of giving away some of her clothing from the past 4 years. Thoughts???