ZAC CAN EAT!!!!!!!

Today is 7 full days of quinoa, and we are 95% sure that

QUINOA IS SAFE FOR ZAC!!!!

(Cue the angels singing, the birds chirping, the sun shining, and children laughing.)

Or just click here to see how I’m REALLY feeling!

Oh, yeah…it feels SO GOOD!!

So. By Tuesday night Zac made it clear to us that he just doesn’t care for plain cooked quinoa flakes, but he LOVES the crackers! As a result of his particular tastes, he’s been chowing down on quinoa teething crackers all week. I’ve had to make three and a half batches for him!!

After a week of eating them, he still claps his hands and grins when I hand him crackers. When he’s sitting in the high chair at mealtimes, he actually kicks his feet and does a little wiggle dance in the chair when we bring him his food!

And can I just tell you how WONDERFUL it is to have him join us at the table for mealtimes? We have hated – absolutely loathed – the “leave him in the living room while we eat and he stares at us and cries the whole time” thing these many, many months.

It feels like we’re, dare I say it, normal  now.

Or, at least, on the way to normal.

For the first time in his life, he has had solid poop. Solid, fall off the diaper in a clump, no blood, no mucous, normal baby poop.

It’s been glorious.

I’ve taken pictures just to document. I’ve had to fight the urge to post said pictures on social media to share the wondrous, glorious joy that is normal, healthy poop out of my baby. (And aren’t you glad I’ve fought that urge? )

He’s dropped nursing from a ridiculous 5-8 hours a day to a more sane 4-5 hours a day, and the number of nursing sessions has dropped by a third.

I’m feeling confident that I can add back in my morning pumping session again to start stockpiling milk!

Having a safe food brought to light just HOW detrimental the lack of food has been for him.

This week, he has vocalized far more than he has in his entire life. Prior to quinoa, he would go “mamamama”, bleet out an occasional “MA!”, and put some effort into saying ‘cat’, though his version was more “Ca ca ca ca”.

Since Monday, though, he’s babbling in the way most babies are at 10-14 months old, and finally said “Da!”, much to Darrel’s pleasure.

He’s also become a LOT more physical. He’s more confidently running, climbing, and maneuvering around the obstacle course that is my living room. He doesn’t fall down as often.

And quinoa has also, apparently, given him the energy to fully express his personality; something I’m trying to come to terms with.

I’ve always thought of Zac as my “easy-going” boy. He’s always been a lot more go with the flow, take it in stride, “whatever, Mommy!” than Jed ever was.

I think that was just a lack of nutrition, now. Because directly correlating with his quinoa ingestion was a sudden BLOOMING of ATTITUDE.

This child is not a pushover, oh no! Turns out, he has VERY definite ideas about what he likes, does not like, wants, and you know what else? He’s just as (and maybe MORE) mischievous as Jed.

Lord, give me strength! I don’t know how I’ll cope with TWO children with such big personalities!

<you know I love it!>

Anyway, we’re saying only 95% sure it is safe because of two things: one, we haven’t tried whole cooked quinoa seeds yet, and two, he may have gotten a little accidental ingestion exposure to chicken last Thursday.

The kids and I went to have dinner with my Dad, and Jed was eating chicken. Some pieces of chicken fell off his fork onto his chair, and before I realized it, Zac had grabbed some in his hand. He was choking on something when I got to him, and as he had chicken in one hand and a cracker in the other, I don’t know which it was.

Probably chicken, though, because, of course!

Anyway, he was a tad clingy and cranky on Friday, and his poops on Saturday had some mucous in them, but otherwise has been perfectly fine!

So he may have just gotten a little chicken and had an almost non-reaction that gave us some little weirdness, or it might be an early sign that quinoa isn’t working.

I’m voting for chicken, but it does shave some percentage points off the 100% for now.

And since I had read that the whole cooked quinoa seeds are harder to digest, we held off on those until today. We wanted to see how he handled the easiest-to-process version of quinoa before we moved on.

Still, 95% is freakin’ AWESOME! Enough so that I’m going to start eating quinoa, and we are moving on to cooked quinoa seeds today.

We still want to wait at least another week before we start another food trial, though.

Normally, I’m the more hesitant, cautious parent in regards to food trials, but right now I’m chomping at the bit to try something else and Darrel is pulling back on the reins.

He wants to be absolutely sure quinoa is safe before we move on, considering this is the 3rd time we’ve tried quinoa. He doesn’t want to have to re-trial it later, and with that, I fully agree.

So maybe on Thanksgiving we can throw some steamed broccoli at Zac. Or some banana slices. Or…who knows! But it won’t be any sooner than Thanksgiving.

I feel like the most enormous weight has been lifted off my shoulders, y’all! I don’t think I even realized just HOW stressed and worried I was about Zac’s lack of food until he finally had one.

In the last week, I’ve realized I’m not as worried about money. Yeah, things still suck for us, but if Zac can get three or four foods on his safe list, I can go back to work sometime next spring. That would be enough that his breast milk consumption would drop to a rate I could keep up with, so even with no formula, I’d be back to earning a paycheck.

We can figure out how to survive until then, I’m sure.

I’m not as worried about Zac’s speech, or lack thereof. His sudden increase in babbling reassures me that it was, in fact, the lack of muscle development in his throat that was holding him back on that front. I’m sure he’ll be talking in no time!

I’m not as worried about accidental ingestions. With the quinoa crackers, he has NOT been eating things off the floor in the living room. Sure, if you put him within reach of other foods, he’ll grab them and try to snack, but random crap off the floors? Apparently, not nearly as tasty as his crackers!

That means he’ll stay at baseline more easily, and food trials will come quicker and more reliably now.

I’m just not as worried as I was prior to last Monday, and the relief I’m feeling makes it clear to me that I was slowly being buried alive under that worry without realizing the full weight of it all this time.

I feel like I could float right through the clouds!

We’re not out of the woods yet; one food does not a balanced diet make. And every food he gets from here on out will still have to be trialed extensively.

Not much has actually changed. 

Except that EVERYTHING has changed!

At 17.5 months old, ZAC FINALLY HAS A SAFE FOOD!!!!

God Bless Quinoa. 

__________

How did you feel when your child finally got their first safe food? How long did it take before you found the winning food?