Confused.

I may have been on the wrong track when I decided that tomatoes were causing Ethan's diaper symptoms. He did clear up after eliminating tomato products, Sunbutter crunch bars, Rice Krispies, and strawberries but then we had a weekend of his worst diapers EVER. Now I'm not sure if ANY of those things were causing symptoms. I ate asparagus and zucchini before the worst diapers occurred so maybe they were the causes? I've consumed small portions of both of those vegetables before but didn't connect a reaction to them.

We took a break from trying to give Ethan bottles, sippys, rice cereal, etc. I think the break helped. He FINALLY ate some rice cereal and seemed to like it. His worst diapers also started after introducing the rice cereal though. That has me concerned too. I really need something for him to eat while at daycare.

This detective work is wearing on me. It's been very stressful to schedule my work days around going to the daycare to nurse Ethan, running home to pump or pumping in my car, getting all of my home visits completed, keeping up with paperwork, and making sure that I have enough "safe food" to eat. I feel like I've been I've been less patient and more emotional lately.

On top of the latest reaction, we are realizing that Ethan is showing more symptoms of a cat allergy. I know that the skin test and blood test came up positive but we were hoping they were false positives. We took him off of the Hydroxyzine for two days. Giving him the medication is quite challenging. He clenches his mouth closed then starts spitting as soon as anything comes near his mouth. He does this even when we are lifting his chin to wash his neck, attempting to give him rice cereal, his pacifier, attempting to check for more teeth, etc. So, we're not sure how much of the medication he is actually getting each night. After two days of no medication he started itching his eyes again and slept more fitfully. We're cleaning to limit the cat dander as much as possible and limiting the cats' access in our home. I've been searching for tips online on how to decrease/rid your home of cat dander and read a suggestion to put cheesecloth over air vents. I don't know how much cat dander the cheesecloth is going to catch but we're going to give that suggestion a try. We're waiting on a HEPA filter and we're either going to have the carpeting cleaned thoroughly or replaced.

So that is where we are on the allergy front.