Food is Evil

(This is a long post about my frustation with food intolerances/allergies....feel free to just skip to the pictures instead!)
Food and I don't have a very healthy relationship! Since we've been working with all of our food allergies and intolerances, food feels like an enemy. One cheerio that Panda finds on the floor at church can cause a week of pain in her tummy! Because food makes my girls sick, makes Brianna's skin break out into rashes and eczema, and gives me back pain I find food to be evil! The problem is, we're surrounded by food everywhere. We have to eat multiple times a day and try to find a variety of foods that we can eat. Which is hard when you're so limited. (Here's a list of what we can't eat: no gluten, dairy, casein, soy, citrus, eggs, berries, nuts, tree nuts, legumes and beans, onion, tomato, celery, cantaloupe, watermelon, meat (except free range chicken is ok), corn, no grains except brown rice and a few white rices, and chocolate.) That doesn't leave much left that we CAN eat. It gets frustrating. Can you imagine what it's like to go to a grocery store and try to find something we can eat? It's like a hunt and it's difficult to be surrounded by food that looks good, tastes better and is cheaper. Which is why I gave up again this week and started eating normally. ( I kept the girls on the diet though. Brianna is only gluten, dairy, soy and egg free though. She can have organic eggs sparingly now.)
So, I've realized that dairy makes me sick to my tummy, something I knew before this. Gluten seems to be the culprit for all of my back pain for all of these years. My back felt great while I was avoiding these foods. Now that I'm eating "normally" my back aches again. Ahhh, back to the diet I guess.
I have learned a lot since we started some of this eliminating stuff last summer, but I still feel so lost as to what to eat most of the time. We have the same few meals, same snacks, same treats all of the time. Miranda is starting to get really bored with the foods she's eating and is starting to refuse some of the only things she can eat. I'm lost as to what to do?! She wants to eat whatever she sees other people eating and she just doesn't understand why she can't. Brianna is a trooper and has been very relaxed about not being able to eat stuff. She amazes me!
Back to the food as an enemy: We have a few road trips planned this summer and I'm already stressing about the food. We'll be gone for a week on the road and staying up in a cabin like place. I'm going to need to do some research to find a specialty food store where I can purchase foods for the girls that I can't pack for a 2 day car trip. I'm going to need to have foods available for Brianna that are similar to what other people are eating...if they're eating pizza she's going to want some of her "special pizza." I'm suddenly overwhelmed with how I'm going to figure this out.
Lastly, the foods we can eat are soooo expensive. A loaf of "bread" (which is usually nasty) is almost $8.00. Free range chicken for one person/week is $20.00. A HALF gallon if "milk" is over $4.00. Pancake mix for two small batches is almost $7.00. I finally found a cake mix I think Miranda can have for her birthday...it was nearly $6.00 and the "frosting" was $5.00. Can you see why I'm having a hard time following this diet?
Miranda's tummy has been bothering her again and I don't know what I'm feeding her that is causing it! She's not sleeping at night and will scream for 1-4 hours in the night until I get her gas out and she'll go back to sleep! Oh food, how I ate thee!!
I was excited to see Miranda eat one of her old "favorites" that she has been refusing. And she thoroughly enjoyed it as you can see! I was playing around with my camera after being challenged to take pictures of your child in a high chair, no cute outfit, cute hair do, etc. (Notice her "Rooster" hair? She won't keep her pony tails, hair clips or headbands in any more!)