Paul, Ashley, and our monkeys: Allergy Triumphs :)

Since last August we have been learning to live with a set of food allergies that make buying pre-packaged food almost impossible. West is allergic to:
banana, chicken, corn, egg whites, egg yolks, milk, soy beans, strawberries, wheat, oats, peanuts.

Of that list, peanuts (and actually any nuts at this point) are the only ones we need to carry an Epi pen for, his last encounter consisted of the early signs of anaphylactic shock (scary to think of, even a year later). For the most part though he only gets rashes all over his little body, possibly headaches/tummy aches (these ones are hard to I.D. since he can't tell us yet), and either super-hyper or super-emotional. So not fun, but the reactions disappear about 4 days after he eats the offending food, so life goes on. At first this was pretty insane, but we are thankful to know what was hurting our baby. God has taken us through and it's now part of life, and really not too hard to live with.

West helping me make "everything free" pancakes. He actually knows how to carefully pour each measuring cup into the mixing bowl! (Please don't worry about him being next to the stove while I cook- we spend a lot of time with food and he has a very healthy fear of anything I tell him is "hot" or "makes owies" :)

What interests me today is the fact that we are getting some foods back!!! The allergist told us at the time of the blood test that he could, potentially, grow out of all but peanuts by age five (peanuts are for life, lovely right?). So we are to test them every so often by introducing them one at a time and watching for a reaction.

We have been doing this since August, but the results have been disappointing. Sooooo when we tried both bananas and wheat last month with no noticeable reaction it was pretty exciting!!! He can still only have them every 4 days to be sure the reactions don't start again, but I can't tell you how happy it makes me to hand my little boy a banana and see his face light up :) He can also have spaghetti with us (as long as I make his sauce from scratch) which makes him feel so good. He loves being "just like Mommy and Daddy".

So there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and some cute pictures of a happy boy :)

Saying "Yay! Yay! Yay!" while I hand him his banana :)