itchy feet - day 93

how hilarious is this?!

abbie used the fireplace as her foot scratching post yesterday morning.

back before the food change, abbie would always be suffering from itchy feet.  always.  i totally thought it was some sort of fungus from loving life without socks.  gross.  creams would help a little..but it would mysteriously come and go.

since the food change, she has had only two bouts of itchy feet.  both incidents lasted an hour or two the day after eating something with unknown ingredients.  

food allergy vs intolerance

on saturday, we had a girl's trip to chi-town: abbie's special day for working so hard in school.  

i brought some clean snacks, but ate out at two places for lunch and dinner.  

we kept it gluten free but i know some unknown additives got in there.  i narrowed it down to one of two things, either the box of popcorn she ate with her lunch or the bite of red jello from her dessert plate at dinner.  she was so fast, she grabbed the jello before i could tell her not to eat it:)  she really really wanted to eat it; she wasn't very happy with me when i took it away from her.  

yesterday morning, i asked her at the kitchen island if she thought her itchies came from anything she ate the day before (totally baiting her of course) and she said (with a very serious face), "it was the red jello mom".  now, it was more likely the popcorn i think, but i didn't argue as she furiously itched away.

so here's my take away:  there will be slip ups and i can't keep her in my clean-food-mommy-cave forever.  when she does eat something and has a reaction, we will talk about the connection between her body and the food she eats.  that's really the only way she'll become empowered to make good food choices as she gets older and spends more time away from my nest.  

ps

i did some digging on the computer and it's amazing how many people are trying to figure out why their feet and hands are itching.  did you know that food additives are always on the list of possible causes?  before this experience with abbie, there is no way i would have e.v.e.r paid attention to "food additive".  yea, no way jose.  that would have been just waaaaay too much work to figure out...and mr clark griswold would not have made something that wasn't good for me.

i'll take some cream for those footsies please:)