We made the fairly tough decision this week to take Bear off of gluten for a while. I've been putting it off because the symptoms never really seemed that bad and I didn't want to have to put up with him complaining about his favorite foods.
For the past couple of weeks, it just seems that his stomach is ALWAYS upset. Last night he was even up crying with cramps- my heart went out to him!
So I guess, it's time. It's time to stop putting it off and jump in for a while.
It's so hard because I know EXACTLY what it feels like. After years of being uncomfortable and constantly sick, I cut gluten out of my diet. Who would have thought that little tiny protein could do so much harm! It's been three years and I've never felt better. Even Indie seems to have a hard time with it so we've just kept it out of her diet from the beginning.
Obviously, it's a lot easier when we are used to being GF around here. Dinners are always GF. I bake GF goods. We eat at generally GF friendly restaurants.
But when I told Bear that we were going to make him go gluten free as well, he WAS NOT happy. Not at all.
"NOOOO!!! I can eat wheat! I can. Things that are gluten free make me sick!"
Which is funny, because I'm pretty sure it's the opposite.
I told him that I think it may be making his tummy upset. I told him that I think that it may be making his legs hurt more (eczema since he was little).
He made me call Dad for him to make sure he was on board and felt the
same way as I did. I thought that was pretty cute... always the
skeptic.
I bought some special gluten free dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets to ease the transition. He still wasn't really going for it...
How do you get to that point when they are ok with this new found allergy? He totally understands what it means. He's had friend after friend have some sort of similar allergy. Between Dairy, Nuts, Wheat and Soy this kid knows his allergens. He just never thought it would be him.
So earlier tonight I decided we were going to make it a celebration. We were going to celebrate Bear. It was going to be a fun and exciting night to start off the next two weeks of our "experiment." We made some very yummy GF cupcakes with frosting- you can get the recipe over at Elana's Pantry. We shared them together and got excited about the hopes of feeling better. He kept repeating, "hey! let's celebrate me, gluten free!"
And I love it!
Tomorrow will be a new day and there will always be a touch of mourning for those foods we will always miss. But I'm hoping that this transition goes smoothly for him and that it starts to offer some relief. There is of course the chance it's something else bothering him- but we'll have to wait and see.
Now we just have to get Dad on board... maybe if I made him a cake he'd get excited too :)
-Lauren
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