FINALLY

Cheez. I has it.

I went 4 incredibly long months without dairy. It sucked. And now it's over...I think.

Why you ask? Well, because of Ivan. I'm breastfeeding him and he didn't tolerate any of the milk protein that I was eating. I read that most kids outgrow this problem around 6 months of age. I feel lucky that we even figured out the problem in the first place. He screamed a lot for the first six weeks of his life. His pediatrician diagnosed him with acid reflux which I agree he had. However, I disagreed with the solution: medication. There was no way was I going to give a newborn acid reflux medication without first investigating alternative solutions. Thanks to the magic of internet research I decided to eliminate dairy from my diet. 24 hours later we had a brand new baby! He still cried of course but his reflux nearly disappeared altogether.

It was so hard to not eat dairy though. I would be good for a few days and then cheat. I'm human. I ate little bits of chocolate, a splash of real cream in my coffee, a single nibble of Adelle's grilled cheese sandwich, a granola bar with whey protein in it. And I usually paid dearly for my lack of will power. Ivan would, seemingly out of nowhere, start screaming and wouldn't stop for 20 minutes. There was nothing we could do to help him. He was in pain and all I could do was hold him and say, "I'm so sorry Ivan."

Gradually though, the screaming lessened and it seemed that my nibbles of chocolate were no longer having any effect on him. So, yesterday was the big day. I ate THREE pieces of pizza loaded with gooey mozzarella. And then I waited for the s*!& to hit the fan. 24 hours later nothing had happened. Ivan was his usually self. So, I celebrated with 2 more pieces of pizza, some of Jesse's Valentine's Day chocolate, and then a grilled cheese sandwich with as much cheese as I could possibly cram into it. Tonight I'm going to dream about all the cheese I'm going to eat tomorrow.