Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Rainbows, Rashes and Rye

Lizzie asked me yesterday in an exasperated voice, “Mommy, where’s that Spring and the rainbows?” She didn’t really believe me when I told her that Spring is on the way especially because I told her the same thing 2 weeks ago and it has snowed 3 times since then. All day yesterday it snowed and rained and then snowed some more.

But we were enjoying the rainbow…

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and the hot chocolate

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and yes, it is the same place.

Now on to the unpleasantness. Rosie has a rash. To be more specific, she has eczema. She first had it as a baby as an allergic reaction to milk – I mean milk that I drank because she was breastfed. The doctor said that she would grow out of it and it seemed that we were able to give her some amount of dairy with no ill effects. Now the rash is back and it keeps getting worse. So much so, that I stopped giving her any dairy products at all. But it is still getting worse, so we have decided to cut out all wheat products for awhile and see what happens. Rosie is so poor scratching her legs at night and saying, “Boo boo, Mommy. Itchy Boo boo.”

What can you feed your kid if you don’t give her dairy or wheat? And she is sick of rice. And she loves bread. And she thinks Danio is one of the major food groups. And she cries, “Mommy daj milk” or “Mommy, kaszka. Rosie baby kaszka” (“baby kaszka” is instant rice cereal for babies). And if you give it to her, she smiles and says, “’kuję Mommy”.

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Here’s my supermarket wheat-free stash. There’s rye flour, rye pasta, beans, buckwheat (which isn’t the same as wheat Misiu assures me), corn meal and corn flour. I don’t know how to make anything from these ingredients, but I am going to try. Even sourdough rye bread leavened with my own sourdough (zakwas). Even a rye cake because Easter and 2 birthdays are coming up. I just have to figure out how to do it.

Wish me luck!

9 comments:

Kasia said...

Oh, poor thing. I've never been allergic to food, but can imagine how it feels - specially for a wee one, who doesn't understand why she can't eat all the nice things. Hope she gets better!

Szeherezada Stiepanowna said...

Powodzenia! Po prostu!
:-)
To nie będzie takie straszne... chyba... :-)

Chris said...

Kasia- You are right. Rosie doesn't understand and she cries and cries. Luckily big sis Lizzie understands and doesn't ask for anything her sister cannot have when Rosie is around.

Szeherezada Stiepanowna- Zakwas is started. According to all info I have gathered, the absolute earliest I will be able to bake anything is Sunday morning...then the bread has to rest before you can eat it. I hope it is worth it.

miss said...

:(
The worst thing is - it may not be food:( but I hope it is, because is still better than allergy for dust.
We had the same problem, but now is almost gone, it seems that it was a lactose, so we are on a lacto-free diet now. And next week I will now how it looks like in Poland, as we travelling home... in Scotland we use lacto-free or soya milk and soya yoghurts (pretty crap ingredints but tasty)- I'll try to find these in polish markets and let you know...(or you will be faster):)
I also read labels carefully - lots of stuff have milk or gluten or other crap inside - you would never belive...
Anyway - fingers crossed for Rosie! And lots of hugs for her lovely sister!

Tabdel said...

hugs hugs

Unknown said...

Homemade sourdough bread is so worth the trouble! You'll see :-)

For gluten-free recipes you can check out this blog: http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/ and look for recipes which do not contain dairy. How about good old chicken soup without noodles of course? Add potatoes or rice instead. I guess Chinese style congee could be nice. I love buckweat an could eat it every day but I'm not sure if 1 1/2 year old kid would agree with me :-)

Anyway good luck with finding what's causing the rash.

Chris said...

Thanks everyone for all the wishes. The rash is getting better and better and no new rash is coming through under it.

Miss, you can buy soya products in a lot of supermarkets. Also look for some "organic shops" at the mall, they have a better selection of brands than tesco or some other market.

Bee- I hope that my homemade sourdough bread will be worth the trouble. I'm not terribly good at bread baking, but the zakwas is kwasing, so we're on the right path.

zuzamoll said...

...something for you Chris:)

http://www.glutenfreemuffin.com/

Chris said...

Thanks zuzamoll. I checked it out and have bookmarked some recipes. We've started introducing eggs so far without rash. Fingers crossed.