Substitutes

I mentioned before that we had talked to Gianna's doctor and had decided to put her on a lactose free diet. I did it for three days straight one weekend when she had an extra day out for school and I thought we saw some improvement in her bloated stomach and overall gassiness (I'm not being crude at all but ever since I can remember Gianna has seemed a little more gassy than I would think is "normal"). But then I found out that the school needed certain paperwork filled out by her doctor and then it had to be turned into the school and then it had to be worked out there, etc. So to make a long story shorter by the time I got the paperwork from the school, got it to the doctor's office, it took them over a week to get it filled out and then I got it to the school and then it had to go through all the channels there.

SO, yesterday I had a meeting with the cafeteria manager and one of Gianna's teachers just to go over everything and sort out the details. Apparently out of the 350 students at the school (give or take a few!) Gianna and one other boy who turned in paperwork around the same time are the only ones who have a lactose issue. So the manager has never had to deal with this before so she's kinda learning too. But luckily she was SO kind about it and is more than willing to try and work it all out. The other little boy is on almond milk but Gianna will be on Lactaid so that puts different limitations on her. I had no idea but schools (at least here) are required to serve each child 24 ounces of milk a day! 8 ounces at breakfast, 8 ounces at lunch and 8 ounces at snack time! Geez. I felt bad because that's a lot of milk and Lactaid isn't cheap.

Speaking of Lactaid, we finally found something Gianna LOVES instead of milk. We tried rice milk and almond milk and she didn't like either so I was really starting to feel nervous and a little upset. I mean, how I was going to substitute some of the stuff she loves without milk? She didn't even like it in her cereal. But I saw a commercial for Lactaid and their big thing is it tastes just like milk. That it's milk without the lactose (I'm not sure how that works but whatev!). So I bought some, a half gallon is $3.50. But luckily Gianna only drinks milk here on the weekends really since she gets plenty at school. I was scared to taste it and made Benjamin taste it first! Lol! He said it tasted just like milk so I tried it and it did taste like milk but with a slight after taste. But Gianna loved it and so I'm happy! And it's great they can provide it at school too.

There are some things the teacher can sub like taking the cheese of the broccoli for her or leaving the butter out of her potatoes or taking the cheese off her taco, etc. But some things she can't like when they have pizza so Gianna will have to eat something else those days. But to be honest I don't think Gianna eats enough or pays attention enough to really care!

I'm going to get some Lactaid yogurt this weekend and see how she likes that because she loves yogurt and I hate for her to miss out on that so we're going to try it. I wonder if they have Lactaid butter?!