I love banana bread.  When I buy a bunch of bananas I secretly hope that no one in the house will finish them off so I can let them ripen and turn them into bread.  It doesn't happen very often, but last night I realized there were two lonely bananas leftover and they had those tell-tale brown spots.  I woke up this morning already smelling the goodness.  Then I realized I couldn't have dairy.  No butter, no milk.  So I pulled up my favorite recipe, tweaked it a bit, and YUMMMMMMM.  It turned out amazing!   I topped it with this new coconut spread stuff I found at the store (margarine made from coconut oil pretty much I guess) and it may just may be better than the original.  Just in case you were wondering, here is the recipe:

1/2 c canola oil
1/2 c maple syrup
1 egg
2 ripe bananas
3 T almond milk
2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder (i know this has corn starch, but I was willing to risk it....)
1 teaspoon baking soda


1.  Whisk oil, syrup, egg, banana, and milk together.
2.  Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl and add slowly to banana mixture. 
3.  Pour into loaf pan (I use silicone bake ware to avoid needing cooking spray), and bake for 45-50min at 350 until done.

It was delicious.  I seriously ate almost half the loaf this morning.  I think next time I'dd add some chopped walnuts and maybe a 1/2 teaspoon or so of vanilla extract or maybe even a pinch of cinnamon.

Dang you Food Labels!!

Today I went to the grocery store.  It *used* to be my favorite day of the week.  I would wander the aisles selecting delicious foods to prepare for my family.  I brought my coupon binder and saved TONS of money and all was great in the world. 

Now it is a lesson in self-control.  I walk the aisles and think "Nope.  Nope.  No.  Nada.  Nyet.  Non.  Maybe?"  It's the maybes that kill me.  I get so excited and flip over the box and start to read.  Nine times out of ten it is a no.  And then once in a while I find something yummy that seems to be okay.  And I get excited.  Then I keep reading and find words like "Modified Food Starch."  WTF?  What in the world is modified food starch and how am I supposed to know if it is safe?   After doing some research tonight, it looks like it could be based out of rice, corn, wheat, pretty much any type of starch.  I know, that answered NOTHING. 

After coming to the conclusion that modified food starch might, in fact, be a bad thing for us.  I looked back at more labels in my fridge and our food journal.  Lo and behold - my favorite salad dressing has it listed as an ingredient AND after studying my food journal it looks like around the same time I thought Cutie Pie was reacting to corn I was also eating a lot of salad.  Now I'm wondering if maybe in fact she was reacting to the salad dressing instead.  I'm half excited, half bummed about it.  On one hand, it might mean I can retrial corn in my diet and I could eat grilled corn on the cob and tortilla chips again.  On the other hand it means my favorite salad dressing goes on the failed list.  I eat a lot of salad.  That would be sad.  I tried to call the 1-800 number on the back of the bottle,  but got no answer.  I guess they don't answer phones on a Sunday night, but you know what I'll be doing tomorrow morning! 

In other news, I'm back on neutral ground for zucchini.  We've been taking a break for the last three days and tomorrow I will reintroduce it to her and see what happens.  She did have a normal poopy diaper on Friday - no mucus, not hard, perfectly normal.  (Never ever ever did I think I'd ever be blogging about my kid's poop....)  I am hopeful tomorrow will go well.  Nervous, but hopeful.

Going slow....

We are on day three of our zucchini trial and I'm starting to get a twinge of a feeling that we might be failing it.  :(  She is still sleeping well and she seems to enjoy eating it, but she hasn't pooped since starting the food and she has been having a TON of hiccups today.  If she was a "normal" baby I wouldn't think twice about it, but we have struggled with severe constipation brought on by trigger foods so the lack of poop is a concern.  And hiccups are common with FPIES kids, so it always makes me nervous when she has a day of constant hiccups.  I just don't know.  We will keep going for now, but I'm not holding my breath that zucchini will be appearing in our summer garden this year....

Zucchini, Day One

We are finally over the sickness.  After blood work and a catheter to check for a UTI our pediatrician thinks it was probably the flu.  Cutie Pie is still holding strong and tolerating the avocados.  Last night she ate almost HALF of one!  She is still pooping normally and is back to sleeping most of the night.  Yay for being in a good place!   We decided it was time to move on to another green vegetable.  After much debate over which one to try next, zucchini came up as the winner.  We ultimately decided we would like to trail as many fruits/veggies that can be grown in our summer garden as possible before it is time to plant.  It would really cut down on our grocery budget if we can grow some of Cutie Pie's safe foods on our own!  Organic produce is so expensive and this new elimination diet (no rice, oats, dairy, soy, corn, peanuts) is reaking havoc on our food budget, so we figured any bit will help.  

Anyway, it has been right at two hours since Cutie Pie ate her first three bites of zucchini.  I steamed it and pureed it in our wonderful Magic Bullet (God's gift to our kitchen!).  It is actually a really light green color and smells pretty decent. Cutie Pie wasn't too thrilled about it.  I guess it is quite a different taste/texture from the creamy avocado she is used to!  So far, so good.  Cutie Pie has been napping for about two hours already and no unusual business going on.  Woohoo! We still have a ways to go before calling it a success obviously but at least I'm not covered in puke yet.... 

Goodbye, Corn.

I will miss you a lot yummy fake-buttery Target popcorn.  Tortilla chips and guacamole.  Fritos.  Yummmm.  

I think Cutie Pie is reacting to corn in my diet now.  Early on in this FPIES game I suspected corn might be a problem but was never sure and (selfishly) didn't want to cut it out of my diet unnecessarily.  Corn is in everything.  But she was doing so well with no dairy or soy in my diet - poops weren't mucusy, great mood, sleeping well.  Then yesterday I had some chips and salsa.  I'll be honest, I pretty much gorged myself on them because they tasted so good.  About an hour later I pumped, and an hour after that she ate it.  About three hours after that was the grossest diaper ever.  GLOBS of mucus.  And the smell was enough to make me gag, which takes a lot.  Poor kid.  But then a little while later she was acting funny and felt really warm - yep.  Her first fever ever.  103.3.  Luckily I had some tylenol on hand - unluckily it contains corn.  Even more unluckily is that daddy is away on a business trip so I had to load the kids up in the car and run to Kroger to get some Motrin (no corn).  It brought her fever down a little bit, but it was back up to 102 by the morning.  ::sigh::  So now I have no clue if the diaper was due to a food reaction or from whatever bug she is battling.  The only way I can really test my theory is to cut corn out of my diet and see if she improves again.  Then maybe in a few weeks if she is doing well I can try to add it back in and watch what happens.  

I hate this!  Grrrr

FINALLY!

WE HAVE A SAFE FOOD!  Or at least, at this point we are pretty sure we have a safe food.  Yay for avocados!  It has been a whole week since we first introduced them to Cutie Pie and as of now we are considering them a tentative pass.  She has been happy, pooping normally, no eczema, no increase in reflux, nothing out of the ordinary.  It feels so good to have something that she can eat.  I've been cutting long skinny slices for her to play with and practice eating on her own while the rest of us eat dinner and it has been so funny to watch her smoosh that miracle food into green gooey mess.  Today by the time we were done eating she smelled like a bowl of guacamole.  She had it caked in her ears and in her hair and all over the place.  She does a pretty good job of getting at least some of it in her mouth as well.  I think she really enjoys feeding herself too.  She's going to be a control freak like her momma.  :)  

In other big news, Cutie Pie is CRAWLING!  FPIES sure isn't going to hold her down!  She mastered the backward crawl last week and then just last night took her first attempt at forward crawling.  After practicing here and there all day she finally has it almost down pat.  She crawled halfway across the living room rug tonight trying to get daddy's cell phone.  Then she proceeded to crawl the other way and steal mommy's newspaper ads.  I did a bit of baby proofing the house this morning, but it is become apparent that she is going to need a lot more careful planning than her big brother did.  Big Brother was so easy as a baby and rarely got into things he wasn't supposed to - Cutie Pie is just flat out trouble all around I guess!

Hello, Avocado!

We started trialing foods again.  Just like the allergist suggested we are pretending like we are starting from square one as if she has never had anything other than breastmilk.  He wanted us to start her on green veggies first because they are least likely to make her constipated, but we opted for avocado instead.  I like how it is full of good fats and oils and can also be a finger food for her.  I also thought it might be a little more filling and give her more of a nutritional boost than other green veggies.  I mean really, who gets full on peas or green beans?  Plus, she had avocado in one of the other attempts at solid foods and did well with them, so I thought it would be at least safe from a major reaction and so far so good!  It's been three days of eating mushed up green buttery tasting goodness.  Cutie Pie isn't too sure about them, but she has been accepting an increasing amount each day.  Day one was just a single bite, but today she had about 5 small bites.  We've also been giving her some small cut-up pieces while she sits in her highchair during dinner.  I'm not sure if any of them actually made it in her mouth, but she LOVES squishing them up in her fingers and spreading them all over.  It is so refreshing to watch her act like a normal almost 8 month old with her food!  Makes me happy to clean off a messy food-covered baby!  :)

The verdict is still out on the effectiveness of the Chiropractor.  We've had several sessions with him now, and I don't think it's making it any worse but I'm not sure she feels any better.  She is so far passing her new food trial - coincidence?  Who can tell.  She is still sleeping HORRIBLY at night though.  What happened to that wonderful sleeper I had?!?!  I think she is waking up hungry though.  Last night I just gave in and warmed her up a bottle, changed her diaper, and got her up to eat.  Wouldn't you know - after her milk she went back to sleep and slept a solid 4 hours.  The last few weeks she has been up almost every hour.  I'm not really shocked though. Cutie Pie is almost 19 pounds now and is starting to crawl.  It takes a lot of calories to keep up that kind of growing/moving!  Plus, she is like her momma.  No way an all liquid diet would ever be satisfying for me! 

Goodbye, Soy.

Dairy has been out for a while now, but Cutie Pie's dirty diapers still look like her butt sneezed into it (completely gross and TMI, I know) so now it's time to cut out soy as well.  I was going to wait until after this weekend because we were SUPPOSED to be on vacation right now, but no vacation = no soy a couple days earlier.  I'm bummed.  And hungry.  And I have NO clue what I am supposed to eat now.  Have you ever looked at food labels and seen how many things contain soy!?!  It's just downright depressing.  I joked with my husband that I'm just going to eat steak for every meal.  I was only half kidding...

In other news, Cutie Pie's chiropractor visit was interesting to say the least.  I told him about why we were there and he asked like a million questions about FPIES.  Then he aligned her spine.  It was pretty interesting and he SAID the areas in her spine that were out of place did in fact connect to her digestive tract as well as her breathing.  However, it seemed like he could be making it all up for all I know.  She did have a major powerful poop about an hour later though and was in a GREAT mood all afternoon.  She even took a 3 1/2 hour nap.  That is unheard of for her!  But then by last night she was back to her normal I only want to be held and be grumpy and not sleep self.  He wants to see her 3x a week for a couple weeks to make sure her spine stays in line.  I think it sounds like a little bit of over-kill, but at least I feel like I am doing something for her.  No one else can *do* anything.  It sucks spending so much time (and money) on doctor visits, but I feel like I should at least give it an honest try.  Like he said - it's not going to cure her most likely, but we can at least stack the cards in her favor so she will have the best chance at overcoming it and finding her some safe foods.  We'll see how this next week goes....