food challenges with a 2 year old

are just really really not fun.

however, guess what we passed first thing this morning? GRAPES. he loved 'em. and it was the ONLY thing he would love. all. day. long.

we tried a banana. he asked for a fork. put the banana on the fork. licked it. put it down. and went to play with cars. i tried that for awhile to no avail.

we tried pears. we tried cubed pears. sliced pears. pears cut so small that they looked like rice and put them IN rice pears. and he spit. out. every. one.

we tried strawberries. he picked them out himself. he put one on the end of straw. he thought it was super cool. he then shoved it in MY mouth.

we tried a bell pepper. we cut it up to look like sweet potato fries. he was not amused. "i want rice" was his chant. all day long. more rice. more rice.

poor becky, who is REALLY good at food challenges, was even stumped by this kid. she had so many tricks up her sleeve that i just KNEW would work. but they did not.

by 3:30 i was done, he clearly was not going to try one single new food put in front of him. so we called it a day. i went to a grocery store and bought different varieties of some of these foods so that maybe we can trial them tomorrow. we are doing fritos tomorrow for the corn challenge. that should be interesting. i'm hoping to do soy and oat at some point this week. i told the dr. that i was NOT above squishing the food, putting it in a medicine syringe, holding him down and shooting it into the back of his mouth. i'm really really not.

we did his environmental back prick test as well today, 28 more pricks. 4 less than the ones he had yesterday. he is allergic to cats, dogs, grass and trees. several different types of grass and trees. i figured as much. that was no surprise to me, as his seasonal allergies have been killing him the last couple days. and i can't give him anything at all for it because it interferes with the food challenges. he has been rubbing his eyes and nose, which now i recognize as environmental allergies. he hasn't gone for his hands or legs or ankles ONCE in a few days now. he actually wore a short sleeve shirt for HOURS today without scratching his arms! and people, he is the whitest boy i have ever seen. i mean, get that boy some sun. now that the redness is gone, it's blinding. holy white boy batman.

we also drew blood today. from both of his tiny white arms. he was not a fan. i was not a fan either after watching it squirt everywhere after they pulled the needle out. i could never be a nurse. they did RAST testing to compare it with the skin prick test to see whether or not we will even try to do some of the really bad reactive allergens, such as wheat, milk, beef and several others actually.

our reinforcements arrived safely this evening, courtney, braidyn and mali. and martha (courtney's mom) of course, but she is here on work and staying across town. courtney will watch aislyn during the day while we are at the hospital which is a huge load off. another friend of mine, heidi, watched aislyn today while we were at the hospital. and aislyn had soooooooo much fun. she came back with her nails painted, and diamonds all over them, thanks to her care package from liam. heidi has a one year old boy, but she's one of those girls that would be a GREAT girl mom... so i'm guessing she may have had fun too. ;)

that's all for the day. we got grapes. so all in all, a good day. please please please pray for grayson, that he would eat his food challenges. i'm very frustrated at this point. if he were one, he would try anything, if he were three, i could bargain and at least try to reason. but he's two. and barely two. and he is stubborn. i don't know where he gets that from.

pictures soon. i promise. it just took an hour to get the kids asleep and i have no energy to pull out the camera... but i have lots of fun ones to post soon.