To cookie, or not to cookie, that is the question.

Dave is gone again and that brings with it in inevitable hunger strike from Duncan.  Yes, that's right, I have a two-year-old that goes on his version of a hunger strike when his Daddy leaves town.  As twisted as it is it is sweet to see exactly how much Duncan loves his Daddy in spite of the numerous absences that his job creates.

So, this week I've been doing whatever I can to get Duncan to eat : that includes letting Duncan have bites of cupcakes at all hours of the day and completely unbalanced meals just for the sake of getting him to eat something!  My typical policy with D is that I don't care what he eats as long as he eats.  Because of the nature of his allergies he doesn't really have 'junk food.'  Sure there are a couple of types of ready made cookies that he can eat ~ but they are sugar free.  So ultimately when he's pigging out on junk-food he's pigging out on natural pressed fruit bars and fruit-juice sweetened cookies.

Over the weekend it was clear that Duncan needed a play buddy.  Since a sibling for Duncan is no where in site and there hasn't yet been the invention of robot sibling in a box we took a five minute ride to Duncan's 'cousin's' house.  I say, "cousin" because technically Ethan's Dad was like Dave's uncle growing up even though theoretically he would have been Dave's second cousin.  So, technically his son is our third cousin and Duncan's fourth cousin.  But, cousin none-the-less and Duncan just LOVES him.  :)  It doesn't help either that Ethan's mom and I get along quite well either.  So, Duncan had to rousing days full of playing with his big cousin and I got to have some adult time.  Everybody won.  

Why does all of that matter?  Well, Ethan's mom K makes these amazing amazing truffles!  They are super duper yummy and they type of little chocolate pick me up that you can't just eat one, or two, or three of.  So, while wathcing 101 Dalmations I made that statement that I wanted to start pre-planning holiday treats and I sure would love it if I could find some way to make a version of her truffles that Duncan could eat.  She has a knack for finding and making good recipes, and allergy conducive ones at that, and after a couple of minutes of searching she found a yummy thin mint recipe that should be easily do-able for Duncan's needs.  I'm so excited!  I'm not sure when I'm going to try these ~ but I'm definitely trying them!  What a feather in our hats it would be to have such a yummy creation that no one could tell was allergy friendly.  That is always my goal after-all: to have allergy friendly treats that are so yummy no one ever knows the difference!  Slowly, but surely, I'm getting there.

As for the egg?  Eh, well...I'm not quite sure what to make of it.  Duncan loves the cupcakes though I don't let him have more than half of one at a time.  However, loving something is a big misnomer with allergy children.  They either won't even taste a second taste of something that bothers them or it's like they crave it and want more and more and more of the very thing that's bothering them.  Duncan has had a bit of a diaper rash in precarious places.   It has been consistent since about the second day after trying egg and hasn't let up since. It's by far not the worst rash Duncan has ever had - not even close.  However, if when we stop the cupcakes in the next day or two and Duncan's rash goes away on it's own then we know it was the egg.  He's also had some semi-permanent hives pop-up that just won't seem to easily go away since we've started the egg.  There aren't too many of them and they don't seem to be bothering him, but they are definitely an addition to his skin.  

So, that's how the egg trying is going right now.  Obivously, as I stated before we don't plan on progressing beyond long-bake-baked goods; but it was worth a shot!