Basket of Indulgence

A couple weeks ago I won a basket of indulgence from Free 2 Be Frugal! I've been meaning to take a picture of it to share with you all, but I just haven't gotten around to it.

You can head over to Free 2 Be Frugal yourself, and check out all kinds of deals, freebies and samples there. Maybe you will be lucky enough to win one of her giveaways too! (Thanks Niki!)

Elimination Diet

Allergy progress: On Friday we tried soy milk. A little bit for breakfast, a glass at lunch and one at dinner. It looked like he did fine, though he did have two tiny little red spots at bed time, but I don't think it was related. So, we tried the same thing on Saturday, and all went well. We'll put it on the maybe list (because of the two red spots) and take him back off for now.

Today is officially the start of our new schedule. I will be working a long day in the office on Mondays (while The Husband is home with The Boy), staying home with The Boy the rest of the week, and working from home in the early mornings and evenings. It's a full schedule, and leaves basically no time to play, any free time will be used to do homework. I'm doing all of this to get a handle on The Boy's food allergies.

However, for the start of our "project", The Boy woke up with a rash all over his face! Ugh. And it looks as though The Husband is going to have to go into work. So we aren't really starting off on the foot I had hoped for, the right one.

It's possible that the lunch meat that we got could have been the culprit, though I have doubts. It's an organic product, contains chicken and sodium lactate (my research showed that this was not a potential allergy). The label also said that good practices were used to prevent any contamintation from other allergens. He ate the lunch meat at 5:30pm and at 8:30 when The Husband put him to bed he was just fine.

Is it possible that something in his bed irritated him? I suppose so, so I took everything out and put it in the washing machine with Tide Free again this morning.

Or is it the fact that he has a cold of some sort and is pretty snotty? He potentially slept with snot all over his face during the night. Or maybe it has something to do with cutting his canine teeth.

We are going to do everything we can to get his face cleared up today so that we can try a new food tomorrow.

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to the husband and the daddy at our house!

We took The Boy to see the allergist again on Monday and she decided to do another skin test. During these tests, his skin is exposed to allergy-causing substances (allergens) and then is observed for signs of an allergic reaction. The results came back that we should stay clear of treenuts, he had a reaction to three of the tree nuts that were tested. However, this still does not solve our issue and the doctor wants us to continue to completely limit dairy for the next 6 mos. Dairy is a known allergen for coming up negative in blood and skin tests.

Today and tomorrow are The Boy's last days at childcare. Starting next week I will stay home and keep a close eye on The Boy's diet. The last few weeks now that he has had an allergen free diet he has been doing great! Next week I will start by adding soy back into his diet and see what happens. I am looking forward to being home with him, but am going to have to find some stuff to keep us busy.

Free Children's Museum

On Sunday we took The Boy to the Children's Museum. On the third Sunday of every month the Children's Museum is free, thanks to Target. We got there right at opening time, 9am. I think we were the first ones in the door, which meant we had the water works play area all to ourselves for a good 10 minutes. We roamed our way through the museum until 10:30, and it was only then that I realized it was started to get a bit crowded.

The museum asks guests to leave their strollers in the car, because of the crowds. That note made me a bit nervous about navigating the many kids and parents, but it wasn't bad at all, but leaving the stroller at home would be the way to go, who needs it?!

On the way out of downtown St. Paul we strolled up and down the aisle at the St. Paul Farmer's market. We picked up Honeycrisp Apples, bread and tomatoes for under $10!

What He CAN Eat

Lately, I've been using this blog as a record to keep track of The Boy's food allergies/intollerances. So while some of these posts may be quite boring for you, it's good information for me to have written down somewhere other than on sticky notes on our fridge.

Here is what we know Jackson can eat without reaction:
Oats
Rice
Apples
Pears
Chicken
Hamburger
Gyro Meat
Enjoy life Chocolate Chip Cookies (allergen free)
Rice Krispies
Black Beans
Pinto Beans
Rice noodles
Bananas
Annie's organic fruit bunnies
Peas
Aspagargus
Squash
Sweetpotato
Rice Milk
Potato
Back to Nature Apple Cinnamon granola
Hol Grain Brown Rice crackers
Lima Beans
Spinach
Mashed potatoes (made with rice milk, no butter)
Green beans
Brocolli
Mango juice

Monday Feature: Likes and Dislikes

The Boy's likes and dislikes change so frequently and this feature is such proof of that. It is so nice to see that his likes are always more than his dislikes!

Likes: Caterpillars, driving the bus, puzzles, reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, watching baseball, the farmer's market, Caliou, climbing into cupboards, pushing buttons on the computer, raking and jumping into leaves, singing ABCs, reading books on the LeapFrog LeapPad, animal pajamas, watching the rollercoaster at MOA, taking showers with Mama and rice crackers.

Dislikes: Pumpkin insides, spinach, brushing his teeth, wearing clothes and the scuba diver that talks from the aquarium at the MN Zoo!