Friday, January 2, 2009

Chuck E. Cheese and The Great Dairy Experiment of 2009

We live about half a block from Chuck E. Cheese, and we decided that Henry might be old enough to get a kick out of it. He is...he cried as we left.



Remind me to NEVER go up into the tubes again. I just about had a claustrophobic panic attack (they're much narrower than I remember), they were seriously so greasy and grimy from sticky pizza fingers I thought I was going to dry heave in the pink section, and it just stunk in there. I felt like I needed to take a shower in hand sanitzer when i got out of there. Blech. It doesn't help that I did that 11 weeks pregnant, but whatever it was still nasty.



Andy and Henry enjoyed some quality time playing cars.

Henry looks like he's in love. Which is a little creepy.


The toddler slide was a big hit.


You know what's funny? He had no idea this was a phone...I guess since we don't have a landline, he only thinks phones are tiny little things.



And so, I've been planning on trying him out on dairy again. The last time I tried dairy was on his first birthday...his reaction wasn't bad, but he still had a reaction. "They" don't know much about allergies, but one of the common things I hear is that you have to give your kid's system a chance to heal and acclimate...you have to wait a while between testing...kinda like a scab. If you pick at it too much, it doesn't heal. So, I figured I would wait until he was 18 months to try again. What better first attempt than with some pizza? I have to tell you...this was really weird for me. It's been so taboo...dairy has been our nemesis for so long, it was surreal to be feeding him some.

And we waited for a reaction. None. No tummy ache. No diarrhea. No nasal or chest congestion. No face rash. Nothing. Okay...this is looking good...




So, the next day, we tried our hand at some yogurt. Talk about weird. Whew! Kid *loved* the stuff and I could hardly spoon it fast enough. MY stomach was in knots the whole time though. So so so weird.




And we waited. No reaction. He may have had a slight case of "allergy shiners"...which is basically sinus swelling that results in them looking like they have black eyes...but nothing too terrible...and it may have just been me being neurotic and over-analyzing everything. (You can kinda see it in the photo above if you click it and make it bigger). Do you see it? Is it just me?



And so, he's napping right now...but next on the menu is a quesadilla! Holy moly! I'll keep you posted, but so far, so good! I never thought feeding my child a quesadilla would be so terrifying and exciting, but it IS! So weird, so crazy. So promising!


4 comments:

Joanie said...

Wow, what an adventure! I can only imagine how awful you felt in that tube. Great news about the lack of reaction. That makes a lot of sense about healing from an allergy, and why we can sometimes grow out of it. Do the allergy shiners still make it a cautionary food?

Jeannett said...

If he did in fact have allergy shiners, yes, we should continue to stay away from dairy. After his quesadilla, he seemed fine...so I'll have to stay on the look out for symptoms and rashes. But, even if he does get the "shiners", each time I test dairy, the reaction is significantly less...so hopefully he will eventually completely outgrow it! Compared to how bad he got when he was younger, this is all a huge improvement!

tricia said...

good luck! My son has several food allergies, not milk, but a lot....it can make life challenging:) Hopefully he has outgrown it, I'm sure milk is a huge pain to try and avoid.

Mama Mote said...

Oh, yes, Chuck E. Cheese!! Memories. My mother-in-love went crazy in there trying to keep tabs on all the kids (ours and their cousins). We tried to tell her they were fine. Us adults were scattered around and they were having a blast. Good luck with the allergies.