Strawberry Shortcake

Well, we have discovered that Kalista is allergic to strawberries. Many people have asked me why we are just now discovering that my 5 yr. old has a food allergy. The answer is simple. Right around the 11 month mark, Kalista started rejecting food. We suspect many reasons for this: getting four teeth at once, learning she could say no and I couldn't force her, being first time parents and not pressing the issue because we just wanted our tiny daughter to get some calories, etc. . .

So this past year our (or rather Kalista's) eating issues came to a head and we took her to an occupational therapist (see hear for a recap of what we had tried on our own!) We go to Ms. Diana once a month and she and Kalista work on different strategies for trying new foods, we leave with a homework assignment, and do our best to work on at least one new food a week. Kalista has improved so much! If you read my earlier post about this you would know that she never ate bread. Now she eats peanut butter sandwiches and grilled cheese sandwiches. Her only fruit and vegetable was bananas and apples sauce. Now she regularly eats salad (no dressing), apples, corn, and oranges. Her only meat used to be chicken nuggets and now she eats fish sticks, grilled chicken, and steak fingers.

She has tried many other things too: green beans, ham, mashed potatoes, grapes, and a bunch of condiments (ranch dressing, ketchup, mayo, bbq sauce). We are optimistic that these things will get easier over time as well. This week at Ms. Diana's they made a fruit salad with apples, oranges, grapes, bananas, and strawberries. Kalista ate two fairly big pieces of strawberry with pretty little fight. The problems arose later that night at bathtime when Erin noticed she was broken out all across her back and neck. We didn't think too much about it since she said she stated itching at preschool and I thought maybe she had some mosquito bites that she scratched too much. By the morning her rash had spread to her face and was starting down her arms, so I began to suspect that the cause was not bug bites, but something else. We got into the dr. as soon as we could and our suspicion were confirmed -- Kalista is allergic to strawberries! She did get to go back to preschool where they called her Strawberry Shortcake for the rest of the day!

It is now Saturday morning and I can report that her hives are slowly going away. The dr. prescribed allegra twice a day, and one of her preschool teachers suggested oatmeal baths to help with the itching. We are doing both along with some itch cream and it seems to be working. I guess it was a good thing she thought the strawberries were gross!