Who Knew Food Could Be Such the Enemy?

I agonize every single day over what to feed Lydia. Its an ongoing process of reading labels and rejecting 99.87% of them because they either contain milk, soy or both. I'm to the point that I make a good deal of her food in the blender.

Anything with bananas in it is a total winner to Lydie Kate!

But that doesn't seem to help me much when we're on the run. And lately that seems to be a lot, between Jer working nights and sleeping days and immediately following the mold find last week, I've done my damnedest to keep the girls out of the house.

I've mentioned before that I try to do all organic foods with Lydia but the only way I can seem to find organic food is in the same 10 jars of non milk/non soy containing baby food and these Baby Mum-Mum (dissolves in your mouth, no effort required) treats.

I've become slightly suspicious that if I were eating these same foods over and over again for 6 weeks strait, I'd be very tired of the damned food by now. But Lydia doesn't seem to mind. Maybe it's because she truly doesn't care, maybe it's because she isn't quite old enough to express her true feeling in word form yet. Either way, I've been trying to branch out and find new things to feed to a child who refuses to take anything that isn't at the exact temperatures of SCOLDING! or FUCKING HOT!

We've dipped her into new temperature ranges slowly. First by offering her green beans strait from our garden. At first she turned up her nose but after a few more offerings (weeks) later, she decided that room temperature food in solid form wasn't, after all, made by the Devil himself.

Next I moved right along to refrigerated foods like organic, all natural, no sugar added because my mother is NEUROTIC about her children ingesting sugar at such a young age, apple sauce. She doesn't like it. No thanks, not for me. Don't every try to shove that horrible shit into my screaming pie hole ever again.

Just over a week ago, she started to teethe again. She's now sporting 4 pearly whites, her top two eye teeth to go right along with her bottom two front teeth. But during the process of cutting these eye teeth, Lydia became, once again, an absolute horrid little monster who was absolutely not going to be put down FOR ANY REASON unless it is for her pure wanting, will and desire and, yes, she holds the right to change her mind at a moment's notice. Also she WILL chew on your finger and if you don't let her chew on your finger she will maim her thumb to the point of puncturing a large hole in her bottom knuckle and make the thing look infected by constantly sucking the life out of the now gaping hole. To combat this lovely change of face, I offered her some frozen green beans to suck on.... and hot damn if she doesn't love them.

I'm sure it's the numbing of the teeth that seems to hold the most appeal.

But now that we're on a teething hiatus, she's back to her normal self. Though she's decided to keep frozen veggies in her diet.

Thing thing I'm getting at, here, is that we're trying new things. And some of these things are blowing up in our faces. Or, to be more specific, its blowing out of her ass and eating the skin around it to shreds.

Case in point.... Kyra was allergic to dairy for 2 years, if you'll remember way back. However, little things didn't seem to bother Kyra's system. She could eat bread that was made with milk and have no problem. She could eat half a breadstick at Pizza Hut with no problem, but if you gave her a whole Pizza Hut breadstick or three slices of lunch meat on whole wheat bread she would, within hours, start with the explosive poo and blistering, bleeding ass and the wails and screams of pain would make me feel like I was the most horrible mother in the whole wide world because I fed this offending food to her.

Going on this whole "a little won't hurt, we just have to find the middle ground" theory, I've starting experimenting with Lydia. Things have not turned out so well. BREAD.... is totally an enemy. Don't even give her a little bit. CHEERIOS... is a total no go. PITA BREAD.... she can do but will only take so much before she wants something with a little more flavor. KICKS CEREAL.... I thought she could do. I tried her out with a little bit yesterday, say, 10 little balls, max. Today? Jer and I collectively fed her throughout the day an entire cup full. This evening, explosive poo, red hiney, screams bloody murder during the clean up, but no blistering.... yet. So I'll put Kicks on the "no go" list.

I feel a bit guilty. She's one of those babies that watches you eat and wants what you have. (something Krya never did and still rarely seems to care) She watches me eat WHATEVER, most of which she can't have thanks to everything in the world being made with milk or soy, and as I offer her another spoonful of pureed mush of the day. I swear she's starring at me, thinking ill thoughts, plotting my death because I will not share my non organic, made with fake, neon orange, powdered cheese and noodle dish. (Also referred to as Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.)

Like I said, I feel a bit guilty. Guilty that I can't seem to find an endless variety of new foods, new tastes, new textures for her to try. To bad I don't feel guilty enough to stop eating a heaping bowl full of ice cream while she sucks on a frozen green bean for the 800th time.

And too bad frozen foods don't travel well in a diaper bag...