Love-Knowledge Baby

I love my son.  Bailey teaches me more than I could possibly teach him, and every day is one full of wonder and discovery.

My son happens to be severely allergic to many different foods.  We keep him away from his allergens as much as possible, and I exclude those items from my diet in order to make sure that the breast milk he receives from me is safe for him.  Despite these challenges, he is a healthy and strong boy.

Yesterday was the first day of the new year, and my husband baked us a carrot cake with raisins.  We had both read the ingredient list on the cake mix box multiple times to make sure.  My husband worked his magic, and put it in the oven.  When the timer went off, I was so excited, I didn’t even let it cool for very long before turning it over onto a plate and cutting it into smaller wedges, the hot cake clinging to my knife.  I ate a few slices (delicious!), and started to share tiny bits with Bailey who was sitting on my lap.

I fed him bits about the size of my pinkie tip, and he refused the fourth little serving as I aimed it at his mouth.  I immediately asked him, “What?  What’s wrong?”  My beautiful boy pointed at the plate full of cake and very seriously pantomined scratching his face.

Before we knew what Bailey was allergic to, he suffered from allergen induced facial eczema that made strangers recoil in shock and disgust.  My lovely child’s most frequent social interaction with anyone outside the family was, “OH!  What’s wrong with his FACE?!”  Even after the blood test came back, and we eliminated everything from our diets, there were hidden dangers.  Playgroups were rife with snacks, the next forced dose of antihistamine in the crumbs tumbling from between drool-slathered lips, plastic baggies full of emergency room visits, and no-spill containers which invariably spilled.

Not only that, but we found that we could not trust the ingredient lists.  We had to look further down for the small print which states allergy specific information.  Entire sections of the grocery store slammed shut to our perusal.  I came to loathe the mention of “Manufactured/packed in a factory which also–” or “May contain traces of–” . . . Even worse, the products without allergy information and seemingly safe ingredient lists remained a Russian roulette for our son.

So, when Bailey indicated that the cake was making his eczema come back, we immediately stopped eating, and went back to the ingredient list.  We had to hit Google to finally find the culprit.  Apparently, ‘Baking Powder’ has ingredients of its own.  It was the traces of flour that Bailey noticed in time to alert us.  Like I said before, he teaches me something new every day.

Yesterday, he taught me the true importance of communication.  If it had been something worse, or a combination of his allergens in a higher concentration, we could have spent the night in the ER.  Worse, we could have lost our child to anaphylactic shock.

I spent a few moments thinking about our life and how we’ve chosen to raise our child.  Above all, I was thankful for the gift of knowledge.  We started using sign language with Bailey when he was way too young to respond, and he’s surprised us with how early he learned to sign back.  We can’t learn signs fast enough for him, especially now.  It’s wonderful to be able to communicate with an infant, and learn with him as he grows into a toddler.  He has a very large ASL vocabulary, and is working on his verbal English with about 40 (or more) words.

If we hadn’t been a signing family, he couldn’t have told us about the cake.  When we started, I just thought it was a cool thing to do, a convenience for the parent’s sake.  Now when I think of our journey, I see that Baby Sign Language is an invaluable tool which we decided to utilize because of my philosophy that we CAN communicate with our children . . . in the womb, the moment they are born, and every moment thereafter.  If I’d thought him less than able to communicate, we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to avert a disaster.

Still, the trace amounts that he ingested have opened the skin on and around the lobes of his ears, the ragged, seeping wounds a relatively minor price to pay for a really big lesson.

To be honest, I’ve never read a book by Dr. Sears or his wife.  I’m not into Attachment Parenting because the American obstetricians are now saying that you can’t spoil a baby.  I’m far from rich, and I didn’t stand in any lines to get my “official mommy badge” as an ad by Motrin insinuates.  I’m here, doing what I can because I love my son.  I’m here, doing what I do because it’s intuitive for us.  I’m doing it because it’s easy, and now I’m going to keep on going strong with my communicative and natural Parenting . . . because on the first day of 2009, my 16 month old taught me that he could save his own life.

Hug your baby close today, and welcome the new year.