Dairy and tomato free

I, like every mom out there, have told myself, I would do ANYTHING for my children. I nursed Chey until she was 1. I didn't add foods before I should. I followed the rules to a T. She was perfect. Perfectly healthy...well, besides the random ear infections and severely infected thumb she had when she was 1. At just over 2 she began getting SEVERELY constipated. It was almost all the time. I missed work because it was so bad. She would hide, stiffen up and SCREAM. She was in so much pain. It broke my heart. In August, I decided I wanted to lose some weight and I went on the HCG diet. I cut dairy out of my diet for 3 weeks. With my being dairy free the rest of the family was dairy free for that 3 weeks. Those 3 weeks Chey was regular again. As soon as I added dairy back, she was back to her problems. We cut dairy out for her for another week, she got better. One morning my husband slipped on accident. He was eating a bowl of cereal and Chey asked for a bite, without even thinking about it, he shared. Three bites of cereal later....she was in pain for 5 days. She screamed. She cried. I missed more work.

We had to get special diaper cream only available from compound pharmacies. I got lucky in finding one who worked with me. I had called around and one pharmacy quoted me $60 for a small tub of diaper cream. This pharmacy I found had it for $24.

We realized...we must make her dairy free. Every once in awhile a small amount of dairy baked in something doesn't bother her. But raw dairy (milk, butter, yogurt, cheese) its back to square one.

OK bring it on. I'm ready....or maybe not. I began reading labels. I suddenly felt...LOST. Everything has dairy. Did you know that some chips contain milk? YEP. Diary is in almost everything. There are a lot of dairy free choices...granted most of them cost triple the cost of dairy filled items. Slowly I found ways to bake with dairy free options. I had many baking failures. I slowly got discouraged. I love to cook. I love to bake. I stopped. We ate out...A LOT. I hated feeding my children that food. I hated eating that food myself(I had just lost 24lb). I couldn't cook anymore. I felt like I was 18 again learning how to cook.

Christmas came. I made all of my cookies dairy free. No one could tell. They tasted great. SUCCESS! YAY!

After Christmas I realized I needed to make a change. I did some research. Found new alternatives. I made a new commitment in my life. I WILL do anything for my child. I am going to learn to cook most of our meals dairy free and ALL of hers dairy free. I am going to do my best to document my adventures with it....Here goes nothing.....

ps. Did I mention...she can't have citrus either. No tomatoes, no salsa, no ketchup, no orange juice....the list goes on!!