Allergy FREE

After six months of being on a milk and egg free diet, Zachary went in for more allergy testing on March 4th. We were surprised to hear that he had outgrown his allergies and went back the following week for a milk challenge. He was suppose to drink small amounts of milk in slow increasing increments at the Dr. office to see if he had any reactions. It was a long 3 hours stuck in a room with Lincoln Logs and a T.V./video player when the weather outside was begging for us to come out and play. Unfortunately, Mikie was very sick with bronchitis and on the nebulizer so he just sat and watched 3 hours of Dora, Veggie Tails, and Blues Clues while Zachary screamed about being held captive against his will. How ironic is it that I was at the "Allergy and Asthma Associates of Fredericksburg" for Zach's allergy testing, but Mikie was the one sitting in a chair getting a nebulizer treatment every 4 hours. Everyone looked slightly confused as to whom they were suppose to be treating that day. The nurses truly felt sorry for me and I think they sped things along because they could see how torturous it was on all of us. Of course, just as I suspected, Zachary wouldn't cooperate and drink any of the milk; so, I had to shoot it down his throat with a syringe every 20 minutes. I was honestly suspecting a runny diaper by the time we got home, but alas, he didn't have any reactions and is truly Milk allergy free! Praise God and I am now a huge believer in "probiotics" (HMF powder). Seriously, they have turned little Zach's life around completely...no more ear infections, gaining weight (slowly), and only 1-2 stools a day verses the 6-8 a day that he averaged until he was 18 months old and got the super high dose of the HMF powder.

Immediately I began trying to get Zachary to drink milk to no avail. The 19 pound 20 month old has a will that even a drill sergeant would spend months trying to break before giving in to his inscent crying. He absolutely refuses to try anything new. I did everything I could think of to get him to like milk. Here are a few things I tried: a new sippy cup with Thomas on it, a fun cup with a straw, a cup without a lid, his juice sippy cups switched to milk, fruit smoothies, chocolate milk, 1/2 chocolate 1/2 white milk, organic strawberry milk, milk flavored with Boagie's strawberry jam, milk mixed with his juice, and banana flavored milk....I think that's it....but I could be missing something. And after each and every sip that I actually fooled him into drinking before he wised up and pushed it away, he would say "ick." I really hoped he would like drinking milk (just like his big brother...he copies everything else he does!) so that he could start gaining some weight, but it is NOT going to happen. He avoids anything dairy and even refused to eat his oatmeal that I started making with whole milk instead of rice milk. There may be a small glimmer of hope because this past Monday he had an ice cream cone for the first time in 6 months and seemed to enjoy it (after saying "ick" for the first 3 bites). I also got a tip from a friend (and mother of 4 boys) that perhaps he doesn't like the thickness of whole milk and I should start with skim milk and slowly increase it to whole milk. I plan to try that as soon as I make it to the store. Any other ideas are always welcome! Please post them as a comment.

So, since I was pushing the milk so hard this past week, I had given him 3 crackers and a strawberry for a snack along with 3 types of milk and some water. I was fascinated as I watched him exhibit OCD behavior with the things on his tray (he's his father's son!):

Notice how each snack has it's own cup scooted next to it. Great matching, Zach!

What he lacks in size, he makes up for in his fearlessness and boundless energy. In the video below you can see how he practices his "donkey kick" from gymnastics. (that's my mom's voice on the phone in the background)

He also has a great memory, but just cannot verbalize and articulate very clearly. In this video he names all of his monster trucks (ignore the crying child in the background who is sitting in time out and is ready to: "say my 'apologize', Mommy")

Zachary Says....

On a beautiful day last week, the boys and I were playing in the driveway when Zachary looked up and saw the moon in the bright blue sky. He said: "Ball, Ball" Yep...it did look like a ball was stuck in the sky. I just had to laugh.

On that same day, we were blowing bubbles and the breeze was taking them up over the house. Zachary would run after them and then say "Bubbles Back!" He was a little disappointed that I couldn't make them come back.

Zachary loves to play duck, duck, goose or any game that even closely resembles it. Mikie wanted to play sea lion, sea lion, shark (same game...different words). Zachary was all too eager to play with us and when it was his turn to be the "ducker" he patted Mikie's head and said "Sea lion" then patted my head and said "Sea Lion" then patted his own head and said "SHARK".