Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Lactose intolerance

Even though I just wrote a post about how great Eli has been feeling lately (breaking into song even) it must be said that physically he's had some challenges.  He's been suffering some bowel issues.  He'll love it when he finds out I've written about this.  Anyway- somewhere along the line he did some research (cause that's what he does) on lactose intolerance and then convinced himself that he should cut out dairy.  This causes me some distress as I am a lover of cheese.  And yogurt.  And ice cream.  And anything made with any of these products.  But I agreed to support a trial lactose free diet to test his hypothesis.  Sure enough, a few weeks without lactose and he is feeling better.  I have tried to point out that it's also been during a time when we've upped his fiber and fruit intake as I believe his problem may be more about the amount of starch he consumes, not the lactose.  But he's firm about it being lactose.  At one point I decided to make him re-introduce it.  But that was doomed to failure from the start.  As he drank the cup of milk he started clutching his belly.  And once he starts to think he might be feeling poorly, he feels poorly.  Really, who doesn't?  So I decided the bring back the lactose campaign had to be more secretive.  I've been sticking it into his breakfasts for a while here.  Today I made pancakes with half lactose free milk, half lactose filled milk. If there are no complaints this morning, I will double my efforts this weekend.  I don't want to poison him, just want to make sure we are avoiding lactose for a reason.

Whatever the lactose case may be, we've redoubled the efforts to feed the child early and often.  He's spurting upward but still can't tip the scales at 80 pounds even when his clothes are wet.  By law, he should still be in a booster seat, even though he's just a few years from driving.  The kid is thin.  If he only had my propensity toward snacking, we'd be fine.

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