Oh My Charming: Babies, allergies and more

Its been a long time since I've written a blog post. Every time I sat down to write a post, I got the feeling it had already been written by someone else. It probably all has been written before by someone much more witty and eloquent but I suppose that's not the reason I have a blog. Blogging is my form of self expression, an easy way to update friends/family, and another way for me to waste a lot of time. So I'm back at it but not sure how regularly I'll post. I switched from Life on Minden to here since we no longer live on Minden and it just felt like time for a change.

Life has been busy with baby girl and work. Now that Isha is in our lives, it feels like life is on fast forward. She is already 10.5 months old and I can't believe my little baby is going to be one so soon. Isha is sweet but really feisty at the same time. She's so smart (I know all parents say that about their kids) and I find it amazing how much she understands. She is funny and makes me genuinely laugh almost every single day. She is also so vocal and talkative - there is almost never a quiet moment with her unless she's really tired. She will fill the room with screams (she does this a lot, especially at/to other kids), giggles and babbles. She is crawling, trying to stand by herself any chance she gets and says "mama".

First family picture. God I look awful. :)

Just born.

1 day old.

2 months old. Can't believe she used to sleep in people's arms like that.

4 months. So looks so young!

5 months and so happy.

5.5 months old on a family vacation to the Cayman Islands.

6 months old. Professional pictures by the lovely Amanda of Doubly Happy Photography

Becoming a parent has been the most dramatic change for everything in my life from personality, beliefs, habits, lifestyle and even relationships. The most recent big change in our lives is finding out that Isha is allergic to dairy, eggs, wheat, peanuts and tree nuts. Her pediatrician recommended she get allergy testing after she had bad allergic reactions (facial swelling, hives, sneezing, etc) to pizza crust, pasta and yogurt. Her doctor says she'll likely grow out of her milk allergy and potentially her egg allergy as well. The rest we'll have to see about. When we first found out I was so sad that my baby girl had to deal with all these restrictions. We were in Children's hospital and I was in full tears after she had to get her blood drawn (and they missed twice ugh). Then I looked around the hospital and realized how blessed we are. Some kids and their families have to deal with such severe illnesses and issues. Though I'm still sad for Isha, it put things in perspective.

Since I'm still breastfeeding, I am also on this restricted diet and it is so hard to follow sometimes. I swear my diet consisted of peanut butter, english muffins and chocolate before we found out. Its amazing how pervasive wheat and dairy are in all foods. There is dairy in almost all bread (not that we could eat that given the wheat allergy but still). Most restaurants and fast food chains have wheat as an ingredient in their french fries. Almost everything is processed in a facility that either has nuts, eggs, wheat or dairy. Whole foods is my best friend these days and makes grocery shopping 3x's more expensive. In some ways its been good for us too. I've lost about 5-8 lbs (don't weight myself so just a guess). We can't eat out that much or eat many processed foods so we eat tons of veggies, fruits and rice. I'm a carnivorous vegan now. I never ate much meat since my husband is vegetarian and rarely cooked it at home. Now I have a lot more chicken and fish and even started given Isha some. We eat a lot of Indian/Sri Lankan food since they rarely use dairy. We are a month in and eating like this is getting easier. Its when we travel that things get much harder. Airports are not really all that friendly to this diet.