Elimination Diets.

Here I am. I will apologize yet again for neglecting this blog. I've had a lot going on lately & a lot I think to blog about, but I just never get around to it. Also, Glenn got me a super cool HTC Incredible for Mother's Day so I've mostly been quickly checking things online on my phone rather than sitting down and actually writing. Which also means my articles have gone by the wayside. Poo. Hoping to jump back on that bandwagon because I FINALLY got my first payment from Examiner. Woot! Woot!

Bubby's colic seems to have slowed down. But, at his 2month appt (where he was a whopping 13lbs 1oz and 24" long -- about the same size as Beanie was at 4months old) the pediatrician said she thought he may have a dairy sensitivity. She also said that most babies with a dairy intolerance are also intolerant to soy. I went a couple days without having any soy or dairy (and, holy cow, do you even know that soy is in absolutely everything). After pretty much wanting to pull my hair out, we decided I would go dairy free for 2 weeks, see if that was helping, and then tackle the soy. See, we're not even sure that an intolerance is the problem. Bubby's poos (yes, I'm going to talk about poop here so feel free to skim if you like) were watery, but nothing too bad. For what it's worth, Beanie never had textbook breastmilk poops. He was over the top colicky.  The pediatrician said watery poos could lead to mucousy poos could lead to bloody poos. Well, we don't want any of that so here we go. But, I've been completely dairy free for a week and, if anything, his poos are more mucousy. Or maybe I'm paying more attention? I don't know, but what I do know is that this all is extremely frustrating to me. I just want to be able to help poor Bubby. I wish there was some magic sign that would just tell me what was wrong. Is he just a fussy baby that hasn't completely outgrown his colic yet? Does he just have funny poos like his sister always did? I just have the Mommy gut feeling that there is something else going on.

So, at a time when we're trying to drastically cut our food budget, we are looking at having to go out and buy more specialty type foods. I was really surprised how soy (or soy lechitin or soybean oil or what-have-you) is in everything we eat. One day I thought I was doing all great for lunch with turkey & veggies come to find out the cooking spray had soy lechitin in it. I still haven't found something I care for in my coffee so I've started drinking mango black tea (from Trader Joes -- delicious) in the morning. If anything, I'm sure eating this way is healthier, but it is going to be hard. I'll do it for Bubby though. The pediatrician said that most kids outgrow the intolerance by one year old (I had asked if I'd have to cut it all out for our entire nursing relationship) so I guess I'm looking at 9 1/2 months of it.

Any of you out there dairy & soy free? I'd love some menu tips or just some inspiration. I'm starting to think more & more it's going to come down to at least temporarily eliminating both and seeing how Bubby does and it does seem like a hard task.