Food trials (and tribulations)

So this past week has seen the return of the annual temperature inversion season and subsequent poor air quality in Cache Valley. Imagine a bowl with lots of cars and cows in it. Then imagine putting a lid on the bowl. Then imagine all of the people in the bowl getting really tired really fast of breathing the output of their cars and cows and the interaction of the output of their cars and cows. That's us.

On a brighter note, we went skiing again last Sunday. Madi took another lesson. Here she is hanging out with Henry, waiting for her lesson.

Here's Henry in the lodge with our friend Kate, her daughter Maggie, and her son Finnegan. We really enjoy their company. Maggie and Henry share the same birthday. They were so close together, I had to wait on Kate so I could get a room at the hospital!

Finnegan is already a great skier. He skis on a harness. Sort of like skiing on a leash. We plan to try it tomorrow with Madi.

The narcissus bulbs we planted have started blooming.

Ok, so now what you've all been waiting for: the beginning of the food trials. We have started trying to figure out what food Henry is and is not okay with yet. First, here are some photos of him sampling new foods with no suspect ingredients. 

He definitely got into the corn spaghetti noodles.

Fresh spinach was  winner too.

Here, he does his version of the baby sign for 'drink'.

As you may have inferred by now, and from all of my previous posts, he is a bold and adventurous eater. He is done with baby food. That is so yesterday. He wants to eat anything and everything we eat.

So finally we have relented and started letting him eat the things we suspected bothered him before. We were doing this in a semi-orderly fashion to start with. We started letting him eat things with wheat in them, but still no dairy or soy. This seemed to go pretty well for a few days. Nothing seemed to change.

Then one evening this week, he just insisted on trying my garden burger. So I thought, what the heck, I'll let him have a little taste, and I gave him a DIME-SIZED PIECE. Afterwards, I checked the ingredients, and it had a little bit of cheese in it. Well, I thought, no big deal, I just gave him a little nip.

That evening, as I was putting him to bed, I noticed he was getting a diaper rash. Then he got diarrhea. His rash got worse. Blisters developed. His appetite suffered. The second night he didn't really sleep very much at all. The whole family got pretty out of sorts. The diarrhea got worse. The rash got worse ...

At this point, we're about 5 days out from the dairy-eating incident. His rash is slowly starting to fade. He's sleeping soundly again. His appetite is still a little off, but he's teething, so who knows what that is about?

Based on this little trial, we have decided to persist with wheat and hold off on any more dairy until everything (hopefully) clears up. Then we will try a little teeny tiny bit of dairy again. If the same thing occurs, then we conclude there is no need for us to try dairy any more and move on to soy. 

So the good news: wheat is okay (maybe).

The bad news: dairy is not okay (maybe).