New outlook on food...

Since Christmas has come and gone (and it was a great one!) Smith decided to start an early birthday wish list.  The first thing he wants is an EpiPen....Oh yes, we have just entered the new and scary world of food allergies.  Complete with a really expensive set of EpiPens that now must accompany Smith wherever he goes.  Thankfully we did not find this out the hard way.  I have long suspected that Smith would be allergic to dairy.  We could never give him formula without him screaming and if it was mixed with his cereal he would have horrible eczema.  Once I stopped feeding him the rice with formula the eczema went away almost completely.  I gave him small bits of cheese a few times and he always broke out in a rash.  So, I was talking to a friend of mine recently, who is an allergist, and she said they could test for allergies at any age.  I thought they had to be one so that's why I was waiting.  Anyway, we went in yesterday and found out he is allergic to dairy, eggs and nuts.  Wow.  I was completely unprepared for her to tell me he was allergic to nuts and had to have an EpiPen at all times.  Where in the world did this come from?  I'm not allergic to anything and Ty is allergic to cats.  I am still in a little bit of shock.  It seems like every food has dairy, eggs or peanuts or peanut products in it.  It is amazing.  Many of the ingredients don't say dairy but there are a million different forms of milk proteins that have weird names.  I bought Smith some soy cheese and only looked at the first few ingredients.  Immediately after he ate it he broke out.  We had to give him benadryl (something else I have to always carry with me).  Then I looked at the package and found it has casein in it.  I mean really, who is the world would buy soy cheese if there weren't allergic to dairy.  It's gross!!  Anyway, I am just now starting to process this and reading up on it.  I am trying to find some recipes and figure out how this is all going to work.  But, we will do it and hopefully Smith will come out unscathed.  For now, I need to figure out how to make a birthday cake with no eggs, haha.