water buffalo! And some nanny goats! Couple of sheep! But no cows. I have been applying various and sundry principles of elimination diets and allergy foozawhatsis for, oh, a good long while now, and while my applications have been haphazard at best, resulting in a gluten-free dairy-free corn-free Thanksgiving followed by a butter and flour bender the next week, I have slowly, slowly begun to come around to it, the idea that oh just maybe certain staple foods must slip evermore from the rotation. Like dairy, for example. Sophia's eczema and my asthma/allergy/I-can't-believe-it's-not-eczema combo respond with vigor to a half-gallon of Pennsylvania's finest grass-fed whole milk, and that local organic raw cheddar made Phida look a lot like Raggedy Ann about the cheeks. Which is actually kind of fun; older women keep stopping us, either to comment on her storybook looks ("Those beautiful rosy cheeks!") or to exclaim with alarm over the obvious horrifying rash to which I, her mother, am clearly oblivious. Good times all around. I can't complain too much, because goat and sheep and water buffalo don't seem to bother us at all. We eat that stuff all day long without the slightest hint of Sandpaper Flanks, but within two days of the bovine onslaught we were both itchy and patchy-red. It seems like I can handle small amounts -- some milk in my coffee maybe, butter here and there -- but any more than that and I look a little leopardish. Oh, and wheat too. It maketh me to wheeze and drip about the nose. Less obvious effect with Phida, but Trader Joe's makes those teeny rice crackers she loves so well, so why push it? It makes sense, I guess. The Atkins diet worked so well for me not just because of the carbs, but because it cut out pretty much all wheat and dairy (save butter). Without those things in my diet, sugar doesn't have the same insanity-binge-triggering effect it used to. (Yeah, not all that interesting, I know. Esoteric. It's the blogging equivalent of cleaning out your underwear drawer. But it's the time of year for tying up loose ends and clearing out old post topics. Spring is coming!)