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Now I’ve heard about food coma, but this is a bit ridiculous! No wonder he got so quiet towards the end of dinner…

It’s been a long time coming… We were told that Andrew’s eczyma may be allergy-related, and that he needs to be tested. We had to wait until he got a little older before actually doing the allergy test, since we were told that it’s more accurate after he passes the 12-month mark. The allergist wanted to do a skin test to see how Andrew would react to some common allergens. As you can see in the photos above, it was quite an ordeal… They write on his back to identify the test substance, then poked him with little picks with different substances on them. See below for some explainations.

(H) Histamine [control] Everyone should react to this… this is the positive control.
(E4) Dust Mild reaction – looks like we’re be vacuuming more!
(F8) Shrimp/Shellfish Medium reaction. How sad… both of Andrew’s parents are seafood lovers…
(F2) Eggs Medium reaction. What?!? No more eggs in the fried rice?
(F1) Peanuts Strong reaction! Sigh… now we have to read every label on every food!

Sidebar: When the nurse wrote down “4″ next to “Peanut” on the chart (an indication of the strength of the reaction), I was a little relieved. I figured 4 out of 10 isn’t bad and 4 out of 5 is still not the end of the world, so I asked her what the scale was. She said, “Oh, that’s 4 out of 4.” Dammit!

Some things Andrew is NOT allergic to (yet):
Cat/dog dander
Milk
Soy
Grass
Mold

The good news is that kids sometime grow out of their allergies. The bad news is that they rarely grow out of peanut allergies. Also, kids who are predisposed to allergies usually become sensitive to more and more things as they get older. We’ll change our ways and hope for the best, and in the meantime, it looks like more regular doctor’s visits for Andrew!

We hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house again this year. It’s been four years now that we’ve celebrated Thanksgiving with the our friends, the Chungs. The difference is, now there’s are three little ones running around!

The main attraction!

Stephen Chung is like a surgeon with a carving knife.

Bet you can’t tell that this was a whole bird just minutes before.

Ready to eat!

Andrew and Michael had a great time with each other. Next year, baby Elaine will join in on the fun as well!

Here comes again the annual Fall Festival at Andrew’s daycare. We were thinking, which character would best suit Andrew? Little Devil! When I told my co-worker Brenda that Andrew was going to be a little devil, she said, “oh great, no need to buy a costume, then!” How come I didn’t think of that???

Only if the Devil is as cute as I am…

Mommy’s little Devil.

Give me what I want, crying is only one of my tricks.

Andrew with Ms. Michelle.