First Steps

My parents and sisters came over for dinner last night, and we had a really great time. AJ and M&M helped pick up and did most of the vaccuuming in preparation for the visit. They love to run the vaccuum cleaners and they take the responsibility so seriously.

AJ walked into the kitchen a little later and said, "Mommy, is there anything I can do to help you prepare dinner?" DH and I grinned at her word choice and gave her some yams to peel. She liked that: "Oh, thank you! That's great!"

We all have different food allergies, so that makes it really challenging to cook for the group. Adding wheat, oats, grapes, all nightshades, sulfites, pork and all preservatives to our family's already restrictive dietary limitations (many of which are shared between both branches of the family) doesn't leave much besides chicken and brown rice that we can all eat. Thankfully we all like chicken and brown rice.

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I made oven-fried chicken cooked in a little olive oil with a breading of rice and amaranth flours, unrefined sea salt, black pepper, cinnamon and a touch of unrefined cane sugar. We had a green salad and brown rice cooked with olive oil, sea salt, basil and thyme. For dessert, we had a yam puff made with mashed yams, eggs, salt, turbinado sugar and homemade corn-free baking powder (I'll share the recipe in another post).

Baby E loved the chicken and rice--she ate a whole big chicken thigh all by herself, and kept asking for more. AJ pronounced it "the yummiest dinner ever" and M&M agreed. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food, and nobody had an allergic reaction from it.

After dinner the kids had a blast playing with Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt J and Aunt Amy while we all visited. It was so much fun to have the whole family together again.



Baby E delighted us all by taking her first steps while they were here. She finally decided she was going to start walking, and Aunt Amy had the honor of being the first person she took a real step toward. She also tried to walk toward Aunt J, Grandma and Grandpa. She's wobbly, but she can usually get one or two steps before she falls down.

The older girls learned how to do the wheelbarrow by walking on their hands while someone held up their feet, and M&M impressed us all by wheelbarrowing all the way up the stairs to get ready for bed. Of course, DH ended up holding her by the waist and carrying most of her weight that way so her arms didn't get so tired. :)



After they left I ate some Lindt dark chocolate. I thought it was dairy, soy and corn free, but when it seemed to bother both me and Baby E I realized that the sugar and vanilla were probably contaminated, and it was also processed on equipment used for soy and other allergens.

I'm pretty sure that something else I ate during the day bothered us, too, because we both had pretty severe intestinal discomfort and itchy ears and mouth again later in the evening, after the discomfort from the chocolate wore off. I don't think it was the chocolate itself, though, because plain cocoa powder doesn't seem to bother either of us.

I'm thinking that a lot of the issues I've been having could be actually caused by more unidentified food allergies. I'm going to make an appointment for myself to see the allergist and get some testing done, too.

I gave her simethicone drops, and they only seemed to make the situation worse. Later I looked it up and realized they're made from corn. I didn't dare give her any Tylenol or anything like that, because apparently nearly every medication of any kind has corn in it in some form or another.

Baby E had a lot of her classic food reaction symptoms all night. She was crying, flailing around, pulling at her ears, digging at her mouth. She kept fussing and pulling away while nursing, then cried off and on for a long time, fell asleep briefly, woke up again, finally went fitfully to sleep close to 2 a.m. and woke up every few minutes crying until I finally just took her into our bed after 4 a.m., where she dozed and fidgeted for the rest of the night with both hands wrapped around my elbows.

I'm pretty sure I didn't eat anything containing soy, and neither did she. We were very careful about avoiding most sources of corn. But we did try some foods with added vitamins to see if they bothered her, since many corn-sensitive people can eat them without a problem.

I'm starting to record everything we eat and each reaction or symptom we have now, to try to pinpoint what foods might be problems. For instance, I noticed that my fingers started itching while cutting up a melon yesterday, so I wrote that down. I've had a blistery rash on my scalp for about a week now, too and I think it's from my shampoo or conditioner. I'm going to have to start paying even more attention to topical products, I guess.

I've been reading that most canned or frozen and even fresh fruits and vegetables (baby-cut carrots in particular) can have corn products added to them in the form of waxes, sprays or whatnot. Even corn-fed meat or eggs from soy-fed chickens can be a problem for some highly-sensitive people. Some fertilizers, even organic ones, contain soy or MSG that ends up in the food being grown. How do people manage this type of food allergy? I really hope none of us are THAT sensitive.

Even if it's just a moderate sensitiviey, this is all so frustrating. I finally realized today that, at least for the time being, it's going to be less overwhelming and easier if I make a short list of things we are pretty sure we can eat, and stick to those things.

Meanwhile, Baby E is being excessively cute even when she's not feeling so great. This morning she figured out all by herself (with very close supervision, of course) how to crawl down the stairs backwards. She's repeating so many words and phrases, and learning so many new things each day.

Tonight is an exciting occasion because we're meeting my family for dinner with J's Special Friend from college, who is visiting for a week to meet us all. We're going to attempt to eat at a Sweet Tomatoes restaurant.

This coming week all but one of DH's siblings will be in town. We'll be having a lot of fun with his side of the family (his parents, their 12 children, and well over 50 grandchildren) for the next few days. We're stockpiling food Baby E and I can eat to take along. The girls are especially excited about getting to play with lots of cousins their ages.

I may not get a chance to post again for a few days, so have a great week, everyone.