Many of you have been wondering where we have been lately and what has been going on, so here is a two part story.  After Jacob turned one in July we were ready to wean him to cow’s milk.  We were very excited to start the process and I think the night we got home from our one year checkup we gave Jake a sippy cup full of it.  He spilled it on himself but drank it down like a good boy.  About 10 minutes later we noticed a rash on his hands, we thought maybe it was the cow’s milk, but we also thought it could be from the chicken pox vaccine he had also had that day.  Then he started getting very fussy so we decided to go on a walk to cheer him up.  About 30 minutes after he drank the milk he threw up.  That is when we really started to suspect he was allergic to it.

I called our pediatrician and made an appointment with an allergist.  Jacob did not get any dairy after our discovery while we waited a month and a half to see the allergist.  When we finally had our appointment, they did a skin prick test for Jacob.  I went by myself because Jeremy had an important meeting that day, and was horrified when not just one of the pricks on his back turned red, but half of his back was welted up.  The allergist came back and read his skin test and told me Jacob was not only allergic to milk, but was also allergic to eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish.

The good news is milk and egg allergies are usually outgrown, the peanut, tree nuts and fish allergies were small reactions and she thought they may not fully develop.  The one that she thought would stick with him for sure was shellfish, but living in Colorado, avoiding shellfish is not too hard.

So now we are just waiting to see what develops and trying to figure things out until then.  This means replacing butter with olive oil, adding cheese last minute to Jeremy and I’s food, and not eating dishes that are centered around dairy or eggs.  We have been avoiding pesto because of the nuts and cheese as well as fish dishes.  We have also been experimenting with various “milks” to give Jacob.  Unfortunately, they are fairly pricey, but he is starting to like some of them.  We buy him a variety of oat milk, soy milk, and rice milk, along with combinations of the three.  The challenge of weaning him with his food allergies and figuring out what to feed him has been taking up a large portion of our time along with some other issues we will tell you about in part 2.

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