Allergy News Flash!

Molly had a food challenge at the allergist's office yesterday. This is where she consumes the food that she is allergic to: in her case, milk. We had been to the Mt. Sinai Food Allergy clinic a few months ago, where skin and blood tests indicated that she no longer had an allergy to milk, so this food challenge was the next step. It's the gold standard for allergy testing. To our great excitement and joy, Molly passed the challenge! She consumed a (very small) amount of real cow's milk and did not break out in hives or anything else. The allergist gave us the OK to introduce milk products into her diet.

We're still a bit cautious, because she did get a couple of red spots eventually. And dairy products generally can sometimes be hard on the digestion. Just because she may no longer be allergic doesn't mean that she might not have a lactose intolerance or just generally get gassy with a lot of dairy. We will be trying dairy products this week and observing her before we decide to send plain milk off with her at school. But we are really excited that we no longer have to be totally vigilant about reading every label on every food, no longer have to bring her food with us wherever we go, etc. It's a big relief. I can't wait for her to try cheese, and butter, and ice cream!

Handyman Dad

I just have to tell the world how awesome Daddy is. Ever since we moved, we've been sleeping on our mattress on our floor because we could not get our darned box spring up the stairs. It just wasn't gonna happen no matter how many angles we tried. We were going to give up hope and just buy a new box spring, one of those hinged kinds that cost $400 or something. So we tried a last ditch plan: cutting our current box spring in half. Daddy spent a day working on it, and with a trip to the hardware store and some manly fiddling with tools, we actually got that sucker to work! The box spring made it up stairs and was reconstructed just fine. We now have our real-life grown up bed to sleep on! First super duper handyman homeowner task taken care of! Next up: fixing the door between the house and the garage, which fell off its hinges a week after we moved in.

Home Sweet Home

Well, we moved! It's been a very tough process, and we're still living in a pile of boxes. We're having the floors refinished in one bedroom, and are painting the other bedroom, so the three of us are crammed into the third bedroom. Plus we can't get our box spring up the stairs, so we're sleeping on a mattress on the floor for the time being. And our kitchen is so tiny it's rediculous. But despite all these challenges, we're excited to be in our new home with a real upstairs and downstairs, and a family room, and a beautiful yard, and very friendly neighbors. Molly has had a bit of a bumpy ride, with everything being very disorienting. She hasn't slept in her own crib for over a week now. We can't wait to get her room ship shape so we can get some routine and security back into her life. But really, overall she has been pretty great. We hope to get some photos up soon...!

Molly the Flesh-Eating Monster

Molly has a bit of a biting problem. She went through a phase a few months ago of very aggressively biting Mom and Dad whenever she didn't get her way. We thought she was mostly over it, but today daycare informed me that she had five "biting incidents" at school. Five! I think we have a little vampire/cannibal on our hands. Yesterday she was actually the recipient of a bite. Of course it was photo day at school and she got bitten on the face. But I don't think it will show up in the photo, even though I can see the teeth marks on her forehead. I don't tend to get too upset about such things; kids bite, it happens. But it is distressing to hear about when Molly is the biter, and so much so today!

There is one child in her class at school who she can't seem to get along with. The two of them are like oil and water. As soon as they see each other in the morning they started yelling "Noooooo!" at each other and swatting the air across the room at each other, as if to hit. When they are near each other I have seen them both hit and push each other, and I know they've exchanged a few bites over the months. It's so weird - why do they bug each other so much? And of course, this past weekend when we started our music class on Saturday mornings, which is not affiliated with the daycare, who shows up in the class? This very kid! I was pleased to see that they didn't have a brawl in music class, but we still have nine more weeks, so I imagine there might be a baby cage match sometime in the future.