Easter in the Monkey House - Celebrating Allergy Style

Easter - it's a difficult one with allergies.

Part of me thinks that it shouldn't be. After all, we're christians so Easter should be about so much more than chocolate. And it is!

Monkey has been learning about the Easter Story at Sunday School, at ACTS and at Pramtime. She'll be at church on Easter Sunday to celebrate and rejoice.

Learning about Palm Sunday at Pramtime

But still....

Monkey's a toddler! And for most toddlers (and probably most adults!) Easter means chocolate. Everywhere you look at the moment there are chocolate eggs. They're brightly coloured and look like fun. Monkey has been very interested in them.

She can't have them though.

Dairy allergies rule out chocolate. Some supermarkets are offering dairy free eggs. Great! Except it's not so great when they're made from another of your allergens - soya.

I'm determined that the Easter Bunny will visit Monkey though. Allergies might make things more difficult sometimes but I'm never going to let them mean she misses out.

Books are always a hit with Monkey. I found this Veggie Tales Easter book which I think she'll love. Veggie Tales is an american cartoon that retells Bible stories for kids. Monkey has seen it a few times at church and enjoyed it. The book has american spellings which irritates me slightly but Monkey will love the glitter and sparkle on each page.

I also ordered a very cute dressing up outfit. The idea was that she could wear it for her baby ballet Easter party tomorrow but unfortunately it hasn't arrived in time. She's going to look majorly cute in it when it arrives though. We'll find somewhere to wear it even if it's just to nursery!



Pound shops have been great for little bits like chicks and bunnys. I even managed to find some Easter themed colouring books.

But lovely as all this is, I want my girl to have an egg. A real chocolate egg, just like all her friends will have. Step forward Moo Free! Monkey's had their chocolate before, it's made with rice milk and completely safe for her to eat. They've got three different eggs this year - 'milk' chocolate, honeycombe and chocolate orange - and we've got her one of each.

Hopefully she'll have a really wonderful Easter :-)

New shoes and pizza

Today has been a lovely day. We've taken Monkey into town to buy new shoes. Shoes were a bit of a nightmare when she first started walking. Even taking into account she is small, her feet are tiny!

We eventually managed to get shoes that fit last November. They weren't proper walkers though, we could only get cruisers small enough. Given that Monkey doesn't walk, she runs everywhere, I'm amazed they lasted this long.

Monkey's very first shoes

When we got Monkey measured today her feet had grown. They'd still not grown enough for her to have whatever style we wanted but we could at least get proper walking shoes. They brought out everything they had in her size and Monkey had great fun trying them all on. She's slightly shoe obsessed and is probably going to cost me a fortune when she's older.

The plan today was to get a pair of t-bar type shoes and a pair of more boot type ones. They don't do the boots small enough though. We still needed two pairs though as she's doing so much walking/running these days. I liked them all so let Monkey choose and we came home with these.

All that shoe shopping is hungry work so we went for some dinner with Daddy, Granny and Grandad. Pizza Express might not seem like the obvious choice for someone who can't eat wheat or dairy but they are brilliant for allergies. We were a week too soon for their gluten free dough balls but when they arrive on the 22nd we'll be able to order a full three course meal off the kids menu that is safe for Monkey to eat. As she's getting older she's noticing more and more when her food is different, it's brilliant that her food looks the same as everyone else's. She certainly seemed to enjoy it today!

We're Back!

Well, that went well....

Some of you may remember way back in October 2015 I signed up for the Blogtober challenge. The idea was I would blog every day in October on subjects provided by the challenge.

Some of you may also remember I said I was rubbish at challenges like this. Despite my best intentions I never seem to stick to them. If nothing else, at least I'm self aware. I lasted three days before it all went horribly wrong! I fell behind, and then I didn't want to post until I'd caught up, and then October was over, and then and then and then until here we are six months later and no blogging done.

So Blogtober didn't work for me and I'm never going to catch up but I miss blogging so now I'm back. No crazy promises about blogging everyday, just back to how I was before talking about Monkey, her allergies and all the fun we have together whenever I have something to say - just like I did before.

So what have we been up to over the last six months then? Monkey has grown - a lot! She's still tiny compared to most children her age and following the bottom centiles but she is on the chart and gaining steadily. She's 20 months old now and weighs 19lb 9oz. She's wearing age 6-9 months clothes.

Monkey in the park

Despite her still being small for her age she is definitely not my little baby anymore. She's moved up to the toddler room at nursery and is moving up at ballet after Easter. She's even going into the big pool at swimming in May. Calling her a baby results in me being shouted at and told "No! Me big!"

Health wise she's doing great. We have managed to successfully reintroduce apple and the plan is to do the same with pear. We're still a long way from being able to reintroduce the main allergens of dairy, soya, wheat and egg though. At our last dietitian appointment it was agreed that no reintroduction would be done until she'd had more tests and even then it would be done in hospital. It's a scary thought but I suppose its the best place for her to be if she does have a reaction.

I will talk more about everything in future posts but just wanted to get my first post back done and get back to enjoying blogging.

Look in my letterbox #7

Look in my letterbox is a weekly linky running on Saturdays. It's to showcase everything you've received through the letterbox that week. This could be  competition wins, freebies, review products or even a rant about the bills all posts are welcome as long as the item was received that week:

• Linky runs Saturday to the following Friday
• Link 1 post showcasing either a haul or a singular item you've received through the letterbox this week
• Mention me on twitter @mummysmonkey #LIML for a retweet
• I visit all my linkers and promote during the week, it would be lovely if you could visit your fellow linkers
• Spread the word!

I'm really pleased to be guest hosting again this week. Thanks to everybody who linked up last week and hope to see you again today. Alice Megan will be back next week and we'll be back to normal over on her blog.

I'm sorry I'm so late this week. I've been waiting in for the postman who didn't arrive until well after one. He did bring a letter for Monkey though so she was all smiles.

Most of the post this week has been birthday cards for me. I'm so lucky to have such lovely friends. These didn't all arrive in the post but here's a small selection of the cards I received - they wouldn't all fit on the fireplace.

My Finnish penpal is an extremely talented crafter (check out her blog here!) and she made me this beautiful bookmark as a gift. She also sent me a lovely notebook all packaged up with rare Finnish stamps to help with various charity appeals. 

Stationary has been a bit of a theme this week. People obviously know I'm obsessed! I received a paperchase gift card (already spent!) and this colourful paper from another penpal.

As well as lots of lovely birthday post I've had confirmation of next years voucher order from Park Hampers. This year is the first year I've done it but it was so easy so I'm starting early for next year. I've also had penpal lettters from Leeds, Dublin, the Czech Republic and USA.

What have you had this week?

An InLinkz Link-up

Blogtober day 3 - Everyday Essentials

For some people an everyday essential might be their morning coffee. Or that foundation they simply can't leave the house without. For us it's something slightly different.

If you've read this blog before you will know that Monkey has allergies. She's allergic to dairy, soya, egg, wheat, apples and pears. Everyday essentials aren't just something that makes our day a bit happier. They really are essential to keep Monkey safe and well.

Our day usually starts with this.

Neocate Spoon. It's a specialist prescription food that means despite her limited diet Monkey is getting all the calories, vitamins and minerals that she needs. It's horrible stuff, reminds me of wallpaper paste. It's a powder that you mix with water to make a sticky flavourless goo. You can mix it with other foods to give it more of a flavour but for some strange reason Monkey likes it just the way it is and polishes the lot off for breakfast - along with a banana and cereal or porridge.

Monkey has been having Neocate Spoon since she was 4 months old and it's definitely made a difference. She's always struggled with her weight gain and is still tiny now but is back on the chart and following the 2nd centile quite happily.

Another essential for us is the medicine bag. It comes everywhere with us. Thankfully we've not had to use it very often but it has everything we need to help Monkey if she has a reaction. There's paracetamol for tummy pains and mild reactions. We've also got piriton and inhalers for more serious reactions. She's quite good with medicine but hates having her inhaler. At the moment we don't have epipens although they haven't been ruled out. She is too small to have one at the moment so if piriton doesn't work straight away we have to ring 999.

Oilatum isn't used everyday but it us an essential. Monkey's eczema can flare up as part of a reaction or sometimes just for no clear reason. So far we've been lucky that Oilatum has helped as I wouldn't want to use a stronger, steroid based cream on her face.

Our final essential is a smile. And Monkey is full of them!

Blogtober day 2 - My favourite quotes

Whenever anyone asks me what my favourite quote is, I always give them the same answer. This!

I remember watching it and not having a clue what he was going on about. It didn't matter though. It was Eric and it sounded great!

There have been all kinds of theories since about what he actually meant. I still haven't got a clue though. And while I still love it and it will always make me smile I thought I'd think more about quotes for this post.

I decided I wanted to find quotes about how I feel about being Monkey's mummy and share a few of my favourites. And here they are...

Happy Blogtober!

So today is the 1st of October, a very special day! Not only is it the anniversary of my birth (I hope you're all celebrating!) but it's also the first day of Blogtober - a month long blogging event.

I've signed up to Blogtober because I love this little blog but I know I don't post as often as I should. The idea is that I will post every day in October using the daily prompts.

Today's prompt asks me to tell you 5 things about me, so here goes!

1. Being a mummy terrifies me.
It's the best thing I've ever done and I love it but being a mum is scary! All of a sudden it's not just me I have to worry about. I'm responsible for this gorgeous tiny person. I have to keep her safe and help her grow into the best person she can be. She's still at that age where she thinks mummy can make everything better. I don't ever want to let her down.

2. I was 'that' person.
Every allergy mum has come across one - the person who doesn't believe in allergies. I'm ashamed to admit this was me before Monkey was poorly. Seeing your baby girl looking like this soon changes your mind though.

Now I believe in allergies. We're dealing with them every day. And as much as 'that' person annoys me, it's mainly down to a lack of awareness which is why next month we'll be taking part in Moovember (cow's milk protein allergy awareness month). Look out for more on this.

3. Monkey's my fave but I love giraffes.
I am slightly obsessed with giraffes and I'm passing this obsession on to Monkey. She has lots of toy giraffes and giraffe based books. A VTech Baby Toot-Toot Animals - Giraffe was the latest addition to our collection and of course our favourite book is Giraffes Can't Dance.

4. I am the girliest tomboy I know.
I love my football. And football should be watched properly. Stood up, on the terraces, singing and shouting loudly. I do all that but I like to do it with pretty nails. And dressed in pink :-)

5. I have a habit of starting challenges I don't finish.
I'm determined to see this one through though. If you notice a day in October that I've not blogged please feel free to give me a nudge!