Lizard Boy

Francis has terrible eczema, poor thing. Just call him Lizard Boy. We've managed to calm the huge red swarths of scaly, itchy redness down to patches of scaly itchy redness, but as one patch disappears another arrives. I've washed all his clothes and his bedding in sensitive skin baby laundry soap, and we've changed his bath soap. We've tried every cream under the sun, with varying degrees of success. However, I sense that we are just treating the symptoms and not the disease, so to speak. From what I've been able to research, eczema is an allergic reation to something. It's the something that is so elusive. Dairy, citrus, soy, wheat, yeast ... I was hoping that it was soap (even though now we have a super-efficient front-end loading washing machine, too -- you know you are a grown-up when the highlight of your year is a new appliance). So, now I am moving onto foods, beginning with yeast. (We've been eating a lot of bread now that the Urban Baker is up the street, a new artisan bakery. Yum!). I had thought that since Francis was three, we had escaped the dreaded allergies. Poor boy -- he scratches away and looks to me for relief and I just feel like I am failing him. Too bad he wasn't really a lizard boy, and could just shed the itchy skin and start afresh.

In my last post did I mention that it was spring? Did I mention that this is Calgary? And it is supposed to snow tomorrow? Francis' daycare has reminders posted for parents to have both sunhats and mittens available for the children ...