Allergies

After having had Sofia, her milestones didn’t excite me that much. I remember my husband and I were delighted at every sign of intelligence that Emmet portrayed in his milestones. I guess I just knew what to expect this time around. Unless Sofia starts to read a dictionary tomorrow, I’ll just watch her grow at her own pace.

Getting used to Emmet’s allergies has taken its toll on me. I am paranoid over reading packaging labels especially when buying food for Emmet. Most of the time I prepare his meal. But when travelling, I need to get instant meal and I’ve gotten used to trying out numerous types and brands until I finally settled on pure instant baby rice (read ingredients: rice, thiamine), original nestum and instant oatmeal. He was a happy baby when stuffed those. But Sofia has a different palate.

Now it’s déjà vu all over again when travelling with Sofia. It’s not like she has as many food allergies as Emmet, I was just too afraid to buy anything that Emmet is allergic to. One of the reason is I’m afraid Emmet might get excited over Sofia’s uncommon looking food and touch them, and there will be another episode of clean-up before you know it, I’ll be caught in a middle of a drama.

Oh I will humour you with the whole scenario. Emmet will touch Sofia’s food, he’ll scratch here and there (because he’s always scratching) and he’ll touch his eyes and elbows and the back of his knees as well as neck. Those places will go red. His eyes will be red before they are swollen. He’ll cough and wheeze and on the verge of an asthma attack.

Emmet with swollen eyes and face

I will notice the rashes. Stop feeding hungry Sofia. Grab Emmet to wash all contaminated places with lot’s of water, keeping in mind to scrub my hands first because I might just touch a bit of Sofia’s food just now. A shower for Emmet if necessary. Sofia will be abandoned at last place to be seen, screaming and crying for me or probably tugging on my pants by now. But Emmet is priority at that moment. After washing up, he will get two puffs of ventoline for his wheezing. Wait for 20-30 seconds for him to breathe in the inhaler. Then only I can continue with Sofia’s meal.

If Sofia was in a messy meal, I need to clean her up well as well as the messy area very quickly before Emmet goes touching the contaminated places. Sofia’s hands might come in contact with her mouth too. I need to remember what else she touches afterwards and clean those up too. Emmet loves hugging and playing with her so Sofia being clean from allergens is very essential.

Another dillemma of buying instant food for Sofia is of course the long list of ingredients that local brands (read Nestle) offer. I can only find imported products with the list of ingredients that looks believable (but ouch! Makes a whole in your wallet). Reading Nestle ingredients was a horrific and traumatic experience for me. Too long a list and I don’t even know most of them.

Travelling to Kota Bharu for raya recently was a perfect example on the hardship we endured on this issue. Emmet ended up peeking at Sofia’s instant food every 5 seconds and constantly hovering me with annoying repeated questions about the new discovery. The food we bought were not even to her likings. They ended up in the hotel mini fridge and Sofia ended up with a pair of swollen eyes on the eve of raya. I ended up cooking two batches of Sofia’s meal for 4 days stock at my IL’s.

We didn’t actually know if Sofia is allergic to the instant food since there were too many new allergens she was exposed to. It could be the cat’s hair at my IL’s, or probably the dirty hotel carpet or the heavily bleached linen. But she was put on anti-histamine by the local GP until her eyes were back to normal. The doctor and I agreed we were more bothered by her swollen eyes than Sofia herself. She wasn’t cranky and slept well during the whole night. She even woke me up with her cheerful smile, plus the super sepet eyes.

The sepet Sofia on raya eve

Maybe I need to get a small ice box so I can store Sofia’s frozen food when travelling. But I doubt my husband would favour an extra luggage that’s going to be pretty heavy. Until then, I would continue trying some more instant baby food on Sofia that I find appropriate. Must keep trying...