Out with the old, in with the new!

A month!

It's been too long. How are you, blog world? It's nice to see you.

Roman has just been diagnosed with a severe casein allergy.  He is also allergic to eggs.  He is also allergic to chlorine.

How does this affect our family?

Well, for starters, our pool was just finished last week. That's a bummer.

Roman has had these horrible, scaly patches on his feet and legs for 6 months. I was sure he had a soap additive allergy.  Soap is easy to change, right? I thought my trusty Dr. Bronner's soap was working.  But after a week or so, the patches were back, mad as ever.  It seemed that the moment he even entered the bathtub or shower, the patches flared up.  We thought maybe it was residual cleaning products.  But we used only tea tree oil and vinegar.  It couldn't be the water he was allergic to, right? That would be crazy.

It is crazy.  And true! Who is allergic to WATER? Roman Bradley Woodward, that is who.  And how, pray tell, does one avoid water? In Bakersfield? In the summer? With a brand new pool?

Thankfully, the pool will be saltwater.  However, a small bit of chlorine is still necessary in a saltwater pool.  The house will need a filtration system.  I thought we could get away with spigot filters on all the kitchen sink and the bathtubs.  But I realized I wash the kid's clothes in...water.

 "I suppose I could wash his clothes in the bathtub", I told a friend.

"Jennie", she said.  "That's dumb".

Yup.

I wouldn't stick with it anyways.  Come the next round of stomach flu, I would be tossing clothes into my nonfiltered-water happy washing machine with abandon.

I have also been on my nutritional high horse for quite some time.  Eat eggs for breakfast.  They are so sugar free and healthy. 

They are also destroying my kid's intestines from the inside out.  Nice, mama.

Well, there is no place to go but forward! His diet will get a complete overhaul (thank you, family, for your willingness to undergo yet. another. diet. overhaul).  He has eggs and milk for breakfast, yogurt kefir for a snack, meat and cheese for lunch, and something with cheese or eggs in it for dinner. Whoopsie.

Thankfully, as our food gets more GM and processed (oh, he is also allergic to BHT, found in every packaged food out there), more and more children are being diagnosed with allergies such as these.  Which means more and more cookbooks are being written.  So this mama will eventually be armed with plenty of resources to aid her son.  I also have two dear friends who have paved this path before me and are fantastic wellsprings of inspiration and help. 

So, here begins our dairy-free, egg-free journey!