I hate hives.

Seriously. I hate hives with a passion.

We were having dinner the other night and Bethany was eating a watermelon slice. She had juice all over her face, and then I started noticing it wasn't just juice. I tried to wipe it off and she had little pinpoint hives all over her face. Argh. Who knows what it was...watermelon? Or reacting to the fact that Matt & I were eating mustard even though we were being super-duper careful?

I was convincing myself it was watermelon, since that is a common one. But we gave her some more yesterday and no hives. BUT...I had just given her Benadryl because she got one big hive while playing at a friend's house and then 30mins later had a bunch of little ones all over her face...so who knows if the Benadryl was masking a reaction to the watermelon?

This stuff really makes one mental some days.

So we have another allergist appointment. Not until July because 1) the doctor is booked out far and 2) I promised her no doctor appointments on this month's calendar.

The allergist wanted us back in, anyway, because she has a constant nasal drip. There were no white blood cells in her nasal mucosa (which I believe would indicate an inhalant allergy??) so we tried a steroid nasal spray for two weeks. She still has the sniffles so back we go. Until then I have a food journal to see if we can figure out these mysterious hives.

No Wheat. I think.

Well, we started off with adding wheat to her diet successfully, I thought. Then I had a couple of days where I wasn't 100% positive. Then I had a couple of days where I caught myself thinking, "Maybe she's just tired," or "Maybe her blood sugar is getting a little low." So we decided to go off wheat and see what happens. Lo and behold she was a darling child again. It's bizarre - she really doesn't have horrible behavior per se, it's just when you take her off wheat it is VERY noticeable how different she is!

So no wheat for now. But wait, there's more...we started tree nuts at the same time as wheat so it could be that instead. I have a book that goes in depth into elimination diets, and even breaks it out to single food elimination diets versus multiple food elimination diets versus rotation diets (whatever that is). So I will read up on that and then try wheat and tree nuts separately.

The Mind Games Allergies Can Play on You

So...after the wheat-breaded fishsticks: 24 hours later, HUGE melt-down. But it occurred to me that fish is another major allergen for many people. So no wheat or fishsticks for 3 days, then we tried some bread. 24 hours later, HUGE melt-down. Is it a mere coincidence or does wheat contribute to her behavior issues? (by the way, I still have to make homemade bread...all commercial breads have soy!)

So we tried noodles. She doesn't want them (they're different). She doesn't want anymore of that homemade bread. She doesn't want any different cereals. FINALLY we get her to eat some tortillas. So far, so good. We'll see what 24 hours shows us.

Everything I've tried making her has been rejected. I'm getting frustrated, but continue to hope that her picky eating has been because eating has made her feel bad in the past .

I also started giving her tree nuts again, since the allergist said she had no signs of being allergic to them (we didn't test them, just from anecdotal evidence). So I worry about if adding tree nuts to her diet at the same time as wheat might be an issue - if she starts having behavioral issues again do I blame the nuts or the wheat?

And then I noticed one of the nut containers said they might be roasted in cottonseed oil. That's a seed, but the allergist said oils are ok. But then I read some oils are ok, some aren't - it depends on if the seed was cold or hot pressed when processing the oil. Huh?? Really??

And then she complained a while back of her mouth itching after playing with some balloons. And after she had a bandaid she had a rather mad-looking rashy area underneath. So now do I suspect latex?

Seriously, your mind can start going overboard until steam comes out of your ears when you deal with this stuff! It is like a "what-if?" game that your mind continuously plays with itself. And then every little behavioral hiccup she has sets my brain off again ("Was it the wheat? Is she just tired?")...some days I wish we could just go back to the allergist and have her tested for ALL major allergens. Just poke her with EVERYTHING. And then I ran into a friend that said the skin tests aren't always 100% reliable - people can have false positives. Honestly.

Let there be WHEAT!!

Well, today was the long-awaited allergist appointment!

We didn't tell Bethany where we were going - she is so freaked out about needle pokes now, and she has been adamant that there were no more doctor appointments on the calendar. So we went to her preschool to do school photos, and then tried to sneak our way downtown to the allergist's office. She did start to ask in the car and we were honest with her, and she just cried and insisted that she was all done with doctor's visits because she went THREE times already and there were only TWO on her calendar! We were able to tell her we were mostly just going to ask questions about what she could eat, and we would ask when we got there if she was going to get pokes...that definitely calmed her down. I'm amazed at how much more she is able to grasp things now - she used to seem so confused by a simple conversation like that.

I saw a 6-month old baby in the waiting room. Poor parents, I should have said hello but was too chicken.

Bethany did great, she was a champ through the whole thing. She was a bit emotional when the nurse brought in the materials for the testing, and Bethany was frantic trying to get her attention: "Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me...um...doctor?? Doctor? I have to ask you something!" She just wanted to make sure she was going to get a band-aid afterward! Bless her heart! This is amazing to me...a couple of months ago and she would have just been whining and wailing (and yes, she got THREE band-aids!).

The good news: we get to reintroduce the foods that she tested super-low for, starting with wheat! WOOHOO! My mind just started reeling with all of the foods I could give her again: chicken nuggets, fish sticks, GOOD bread, noodles, cereals, etc. etc. You probably have no clue how much wheat is in your diet until you try to cut it out.

The bad news: she tested positive - strongly - for all of the seeds we tested. So all seeds and members of the seed family (mustard) are out. But...after hearing I can get wheat back, I can handle seeds!

So the idea is to slowly give her wheat in her diet and wait a couple of weeks to see if we see any behavior changes or reverting back to who she was a couple of months ago. Which can be tricky because if she's having a bad day we'll now wonder, "Is she having a bad day or is it because we fed her wheat?" The mental process of all of this can be exhausting in and of itself. If we see no response, we can try another food she tested low for, probably peanuts next. The allergist wants us to start with the "big" allergen foods first to get them back in her diet if we can.

And my allergist is great. She is like a dream doctor. She sits in there and answers all your questions, chats about things, she is GREAT with kiddos, etc. etc. I love it when I can find a great doctor! She even joked as we left, "Thanks for staying the whole day with me!" It was only an hour and a half, but in the medical world that is a HUGE amount of time for one patient!

Bethany had fishsticks for lunch. :-)

Other Changes

I'm having to adjust my parenting lately. I have mentioned before that Bethany has had HUGE behavior changes...but that's not it! She is doing some things that most kids do around the ages of 2-3 and she never did. She never ran off from us in a public place. She never cared about picking her own clothes out. She does now!

She gave me quite a scare the other day in Target - she ran off and then got lost for a long enough time that we both were quite freaked out and I was 2 seconds away from trying to find a staff person to sound the alarm. Then that same evening we attempted our first restaurant visit (taking her own food with us) and while my husband was walking the girls around with all of their pent-up energy, she ran out of the restaurant! It feels kind of odd having to teach a 4 year old about not running away from her parents! It was never in her nature to do this before, so have never been conscientious about keeping tabs on her before now.

She also has developed a big opinion about what clothes she wants to wear. I know most people deal with this battle daily, and at a much younger age, but I was blissfully dressing my child in whatever I wanted. And...I was the one dressing her! It used to be a daily battle just to get her to put on her clothes by herself. Now she wants to pick them out and put them on without a lick of help. And lately all she wants to wear are dresses. She owned all of ONE dress when this started! And, of course, it is still 40 degrees in the morning when she wants to put on her sundress.

I know some might think this could just be normal developmental changes, but I have a hard time believing all of these behaviors started during the same month...who knows?

The Great Bake-off

Ok, so my breadmaker finally arrived!! I became a bread-making fool. I felt very much like a chemist with flour...mix a little of this, a little of that. I got used to flour everywhere! I thought I was incredibly smart in buying the mini breadmaker, since it would just be Bethany eating the bread and it doesn't last more than a day or two. However, I soon discovered this required creative math since most recipes are for 2 large loaves. Ah well, all worth it to get your child to eat, right?

Unfortunately, we were met with failure after failure. I gave up after 6 loaves. Most of the time the baby would eat it, but one loaf even the dog didn't want.

One of the recipes my husband and I both loved - but alas Bethany did not. Well..she SAID she liked it but we could never get her to eat another bite. I think part of the problem was it had a lot of air pockets and a slightly sour after-taste, which I believe both happen from yeast. So I am going to mess around with the recipe a bit and lower the yeast and maybe add more baking powder. Anybody out there have any ideas?? The other bonus to this recipe was it was the easiest to make!

Also, my picky eater tried EVERY ONE of my breads! Who knew she had no qualms about trying something new so long as it resembled bread?

In any case, the recipe I loved was Mark Engelberg's Gluten-free, Soy-Free, Dairy-Free, Egg-free Vegan bread. Another blogger wrote about it: http://aprovechar.danandsally.com/?p=228 - if you need to know my adjustments for the mini breadmaker, shoot me an email!

Here is the recipe:

Mark Engelberg’s Gluten-Free, Vegan Bread

Recipe for 2 loaves—it is okay to halve the recipe if you want to make just one

Note: If you are using a mixer that doesn’t have a great engine, you may want to mix it by hand at the end to ensure it’s all mixed. Since there’s no gluten to get tough from overmixing, you can mix until you’re confident.

In a large mixing bowl combine:

1 1/2 cups millet flour
1/2 cup teff flour
1 cup sorghum flour
1 cup cornstarch (or double the potato starch if you can’t eat corn)
1 cup potato starch
1 cup tapioca flour
4 tsp xanthan gum
1 Tbsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp active dry yeast (not rapid rise)

Add:

4 tsp olive oil
3 1/4 cup warm water (not hot)

Mix with electric mixer–using paddle attachment, NOT regular beaters or bread hook–for two minutes. The bread dough will be more like cake batter than traditional bread dough.

Two options for the rising:

For the best rising: While mixing the bread, create a proofing box from your microwave. Microwave a small mug or ramekin with water until the water boils. Leave the water in the microwave. Pour the bread dough into two nonstick or well-greased pans. Tuck the loaves into the microwave with the water—the container of water should not be touching the pans. (I have to remove the turntable in my microwave to do this.) Allow to rise until batter extends a bit over the top of the pans–generally 30-50 minutes.

Standard method: Pour into two nonstick or well-greased loaf pans, place on a warm surface (such as on top of the pre-heated oven), and cover with a towel. Allow to rise until batter extends a bit over the top of the pan–generally 50-70 minutes. (Batter should take up about half the loaf pan before rising.)

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Remove loaf pans from oven and cover with aluminum foil. Return to oven and bake for an additional 35-45 minutes, depending on your oven. (Insert a toothpick or knife into the center to see if it comes out clean or doughy, if you aren’t sure when you pull out the bread.)

As with most breads, it is easiest to slice if you allow it to fully cool. But who can wait that long? I usually let it cool for a little bit, and then remove the loaves from the pans and place them on a rack to cool more while I slice it up. The bread tastes delicious warm, dipped in olive oil and herbs or spread with honey and ghee. It also works well for sandwiches after it has cooled. If you won’t be eating it within 2 days, after it’s cooled, slice it, wrap it in a couple of layers of plastic wrap, and freeze it. Never refrigerate this or other bread—it will get dry and hard if you do. If you leave the bread on the counter (wrapped), it will be good for all purposes for a couple of days. After that, it will be best used for bread pudding, French toast, croutons, etc.

Enjoy!

Vacation!

It was quite a spur-of-the-moment decision, but my husband packed me off to Southern California for the weekend to visit my brother. It has been fun, although the weather is not cooperating and I caught a cold (maybe the stress of the week catching up?)...but it has been good for all parties involved. Me for getting away from being a Mom for a couple days, my husband for learning to appreciate all that I do, and the kiddos for getting some quality Daddy time.

I was a little nervous leaving Bethany, but I knew my husband could do just fine with her. She is less likely to eat for him than for me (they are both stubborn...such a great combo!), so I made it clear I could care less if she just ate cereal all weekend! It sounds like all is going well.

Bless her heart, too - at one point there were some gluten-free pretzels out that she had been eating when we were initially suspecting allergies. My husband didn't realize she couldn't eat them now - they have soy in them. So he was trying to give her some and she was asking him to call Mommy and ask if it was ok because she said they had soy in them! She gets it on some level!

She did have some wheat a couple of days ago. She inadvertently got some cheezits at a birthday party (who doesn't like Cheezits?) I had to take them away, and I think she was feeling bad about it. Poor thing...that's probably why she was so adamant with my husband that she couldn't eat the pretzels! :-) I know things like this are going to happen a lot, and while I'm not worried about the exposure (wheat is a super low allergen on her blood test), I do feel bad that she notices she can't have other kids' foods.

The birthday party was interesting as well...we had talked about making cupcakes for her to take to the party, but that morning I was short on time so I thought I'd surprise her and make these brownies from a mix that we had found at the store. When I told her about it on the way to the party, she was MAD at me! Oh man, I got an earful! So we stopped by the store on the way and got some ice cream - pink, of course - and that made up for it. The brownies were actually good so I ate them. :-) But that will teach me - cupcakes for parties from now on, check! She didn't want to be different. She also really wanted the juice the other kids were having, not her own...I think she is starting to protest the different-ness her allergies are creating.

Well, back to my vacation. One more week until our doctor's appointment and hopefully we will have some more answers!