milk!

All of these kinds of milk are currently in my refrigerator:

 Let's see, that's: dark chocolate almond milk, organic skim milk, coconut milk hazelnut coffee creamer, vanilla almond milk, single-serve organic chocolate milk, rice milk, Mayfield 1%, and oh-so-yummy Homestead Creamery chocolate milk (literally THE best milk in the world).   That's a crazy lotta milk. 

The reason for all this variety is my baby Cade.  He's milk and soy allergic, and since he's nursing, mommy has had to remove all milk and soy proteins from her diet.  That's why the almond milk (for drinking), coconut milk (for my coffee) and rice milk (for cooking).  It's been a few weeks now since we got this all figured out (after a trip to the ER for yellow/green bile in his vomit.  I know.  Gross.) and now I can talk about it without getting frantic.  It was a little - or actually a lot - overwhelming at first.  There was even a trip to the grocery store involving almost no purchases and some tears (mine).  Milk allergy is not new to us, but avoiding soy is H-A-R-D.  I spent a couple hungry days eating practically nothing.  But I've been doing my research, and there are great sites out there for folks enduring the same challenges (Intolerant Offspring and MSPI Mama are a couple of my favorites).   And this book is my new best friend. 

Dining out is next to impossible - especially fast food - so I pack my own meal a lot.  Luckily I love to cook and bake though, and once I got my pantry appropriately stocked, modifying some of our favorite recipes became pretty simple.  Quick fix meals are out the window (since pretty much all of them involve cream of chicken soup for some reason), and desserts have to be made from scratch as opposed to boxed mixes, but I'm getting used to it.  On the plus side, the baby weight's making a more rapid exit than predicted.  Maybe those skinny jeans are in my not-so-distant future after all.