They're back...

Shelby's food allergies, that is. "What food allergies?" you wonder. Well its been since shortly after her 3rd birthday since we've had to deal with them and at that point we had no reason to believe that we would ever have to deal with them again. But, we do. Long story short, her intermittant abdominal pain that we thought was helped by following a lactose-free diet is really food allergies. Dairy, wheat and soy. We are starting by eliminating the worst one, dairy, right now. Its not much else to remove from her diet as she has not been drinking cow's milk or eating cheese since the spring. Its a matter of a new margerine, reading cereal, cracker, and every other label, but doable. We'll give it 2 weeks and see what her symptoms are like then. If we don't see an improvement, then on to removing wheat from her diet. Yeah, that one I'll have to get back to you on. I'm not sure how to do that one. Yuck. That's a lot of stuff. A lot of expensive foods to buy or to bake. Once again, we'll give it 2 weeks then possibly move on to the soy. That's a BIGGIE. She LOVES her soymilk (me, too!). Tonight we only told her about the dairy. We'll cross each bridge one at a time, thank you very much. Poor kid, she just wants to eat cheetos like her friends. I want for her to eat cheetos, too, but I also want her to be healthy. Feeding this kid really sucks. It always has been a challenge and this won't make it any easier. O.k., pity party done.

One foot in front of the other...and off we go!

(P.S. We will not make a big deal about this, but for a 6 1/2-year-old this IS a big deal. Please pray for patience and understanding for her. She just wants to be like all the other kids.)

Oh, and my college student did it again. Labs, test and homework for this week - he's still 1st in his class :) I'm going to brag as much as I want to!!!