Soy cheese sucks

I love cheese! But I love Carter more, so I am not eating any cow's milk products while I'm breastfeeding since this seems to be a source of his irritability and poop issues (see previous poop post). Poor little guy! And I must say, poor me ,too.

It is tough...the sweet joy I got from eating whatever I wanted is gone. I have not yet found a way to replace it, to be honest. So I was really excited when a friend told me about almond milk and soy milk products.

I have been using soy milk on my cereal for a few years, but I had no idea the wide array of non-dairy dairy products that are made from alternative milks. "How cool!" I thought as I strolled the aisles of Whole Foods a few weeks ago. I couldn't wait to get home and start nibbling on some yummy jalapeno almond milk cheese and soy ice cream.

So the good news is that Carter is doing much better since I stopped eating dairy. Here's the bad news...both the soy cheese and the almond milk cheese are horrible. Just disgusting. The texture, the flavor, the melt-ability...it's not like real cheese AT ALL! The soy ice cream was not bad, but the Rice Dream non-dairy frozen dessert was no treat. People rave about that Rice Dream and it is no good, I tell you!

I think the source of my disappointment is that I am expecting these products to be as good as the real thing. My neighbor is a vegetarian. NOT a vegan, because she loves cheese to much. Believe me, I understand her not wanting to give up cheese. She says after a while of not eating the real thing, you start to think that the substitute tastes exactly like the real thing. I find that hard to believe I'll let you know in a few months.

PS - The yogurt made with coconut milk is awesome! You have to try it...it's called So Delicious...and it actually lives up to it's name.

Poop Stories

Talk to a new parent and you're going to hear something about their baby's poop. It's a guarantee folks, since poop is one of the few ways we have of knowing what is actually going on with that cute little screamer. So here's my poop story...

Carter had diarrhea last month and it wasn't going away. He also had a rash, but I was more concerned about, yes you guessed it, the poop. His doctor suspects a sensitivity to cow's milk proteins in my breastmilk, tells me to stop eating dairy (WHAT?!? No cheese?!? More on that in another post.) and asks me to bring in a stool sample. I don't know that I was thinking much about the poop anymore since now I had a bigger problem...no more cheese, ice cream, milk, sour cream, yogurt, etc. So it didn't hit me until I got home.

How the heck do you collect a stool specimen from your 3 month old who has diarrhea?!? I called back to ask the nurse and she said to line his diaper with plastic wrap. That sounds easy, right? Ohhh ho ho my friend. After two attempts with pee and loose poopy all over Carter, myself, the boppy, and the bouncy seat, I cried. All the liquid just shoots right out the sides and up the back of a diaper lined with plastic wrap. It's not pretty. After I finished crying, I made a few calls.

I could not believe that none of the friends I called had ever had to do this! But we all agreed that it is completely insane to ask a new mother to do such a thing, it's probably totally impossible anyway, and that nurse must be smoking crack to suggest such a crazy thing.

Trey and I worked on many different ideas about how to collect this sample and get it to the doctor...we're trying to be good parents and if the Dr wants this specimen we have to get it for him. We did manage to get a very small amount of poo in a specimen cup and off it went to the doctor's office. When I dropped it off the nice nurse said, "Well at least you'll know how to do it next time." "Oh no, I will NOT have to do this again," I thought.

Guess what I'm doing this weekend?!?