Create a Plan before taking Action

If there's one thing we've already learned 5 days into dealing with our daughter's food allergy diagnosis is that we should have developed a plan prior to jumping into this. We should have taken her to the local health food store first, finding the various foods she can eat. Thus, finding replacement foods for the foods she's currently eating - ie, a new cereal for her regular cereal, a new munchie to replace her fave munchie, a new non-dairy milk to replace her regular milk, etc...

Fyi - even if you purchase milk straight from the cow, per se, if you're allergic to casein, you'll still have an allergy to the milk as it's the protein, not the sugar (lactose) in the milk. And Ghee is a wonderful butter replacement as it's casein free. Back to the plan of action -

This would have eased her mind about what she was going to eat next, especially as we found out she was anxious if she'd be able to eat anything the next time her belly rumbled. We did take her to the store yesterday and spent $70 as we purchased everything she thought she might like to try. While this may seem expensive - it is. The gluten-free diet costs nearly 3xs as much as the tradition American diet. However, her choices were very, very limited due to no corn, diary, or eggs as well so I know we could have spent much more if this were not the case. With her allergies, just like mine, we basically need to make everything we eat. There's not a lot of pre-made anything for us. For me, this isn't the end of the world - for a teenager who wants to fit in and doesn't want strange foods in her lunch - it's like the end of the world.

At this point, it doesn't matter if she hates anything we buy or make. We need to her to have the courage to try new things so we can discover what she likes. Once we have that down, life will be a bit easier. I've also purchased two new cookbooks (by the "spunky coconut") as her likes and allergies differ from mine. This will bring provide more variety to her new diet.

While I know exactly how to cook for her (Thank you, God! as that's 75% of the battle), wouldn't you know our 3-yr-old oven's panel control board decided to burn out?! And it quit while I was baking some cinnamon coffee cake for her for breakfast yesterday (she was so looking forward to it). The part alone will be $606 and has to be ordered from TX. The technician said maybe by Monday my oven will be working. Grrrr... But, all things aside, we should have developed a 5-7 day meal plan as well. This way we could have purchased the needed ingredients prior to starting this 'diet/lifestyle overhaul' and been more prepared when she asked, "What am I to pack for lunch?" So, even though we've been through this before - we're still learning and sometimes the hard way.

This is not easy!!! There were a lot of tears and louder voices due to frustration and confusion over the weekend. While it's a good-thing -and will most likely keep us all from contracting an illness later on due to all the bad things in our foods - this is now and today is hard.