Zachary vs. Cow's Milk - Round 2

For anyone still following our blog, I apologize for the lack of updates I've been providing lately. Life's a little hectic for us these days but as summer draws to an end and the days grow shorter, I hope to have more time to sit still and write.

September was filled with beautiful days that allowed us to spend every evening and weekend outdoors.



Zachary started up Daycare again and we got back into a 'routine'. We got one more food on the "yes" list for Zachary which moves us up to 11 official foods that he can eat. However, we're struggling to find creative ways to feed those foods to him. He is getting tired of the same old thing and meal times are becoming more challenging every day. 

September also brought in 2 new teeth, a molar and an eye tooth which were, without a doubt, the most painful teeth to date. It slowed our food trials down to a complete stop for about 3 weeks so we are thankful for the one trial we were able to squeeze in. 

Within the past couple weeks we completely eliminated Zachary's middle-of-the-night feeding and last night marked 5 straight nights of sleeping through the night. Oh the joy! Since he's been sleeping so well and we (hopefully) have a little break before more teeth start cutting through, we decided to give Cow's Milk another try. 

I've noticed Zachary become extremely interested in what Mom and Dad are eating these days... he's insistent on getting his hands on whatever we are eating so we've caved and given him crumb size bites of what we are eating. It breaks my heart to choose between his immediate satisfaction and his long-term health. I have given him bites of bread,  homemade pizza, and enchilada without a single complaint from him. We've also noticed a MUCH happier boy over the last couple weeks. He seems like a whole new man after sleeping through the night and getting fixed onto a regular schedule. I can tell that he feels good. It is for this reason that I am comfortable enough to trial Cow's Milk again. Yesterday was his first day on the trial and he slept through the night again last night. He had milk with breakfast this morning and seems fine today. 

We both are trying not to get our hopes up but the previous milk trial didn't make it past the 2 hour mark before a reaction hit. I can't help but wonder "What if this is all behind us!?" Zachary seems happier than we've seen him in a long time. It's always a huge blessing to have good days with him because of how many bad ones we've suffered through. He is full of joy and energy, two things we have prayed so hard for.

Being 16 months isn't all fun and games though. It can be quite exhausting actually.

Zachary is hard at work learning to runtalk, climb, throw, take things apart and put them back together, recognize objects and animals and relate them to sound or sign language, interact with other kids, communicate what he wants with words or sign language, follow directions, spin in circles, point to body parts, and find different rooms in the house when asked. He enjoys his bed time routine and almost always falls asleep in my arms still. He's down to 1 nap a day that still lasts about two and a half to three hours and falls anywhere between 10am and noon.

He's growing and developing on so many levels. We have much to be thankful for outside of our MPI progress. We're ready for this to be behind us so that Zachary can enjoy eating without pain but we don't know what life without MPI would be like. This is so normal to us now that if Cow's Milk fails, we'll just move on to the next food on our list without hesitation or disappointment. If Cow's Milk passes, we'll completely change what "normal" is and probably throw a party, for every milestone in this journey is worth celebrating. 

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