Sometimes DNA is a real jerk

My baby.

Last day of school and Johanna is on the couch. She might miss the whole thing.

And it's all my fault.

Johanna has the family stomach--my stomach--and I have a lot of guilt about that. I mean, it's all genetics or whatever (science is boring), and I can't help what I pass on, but still.

We've been watching her diet so carefully. She's missed so much school this year already, because I am slow and it took me a while to link what she is eating with how she is feeling (irony, since that should have been my first thought). We've tried so many diets: Gluten-free, dairy-free. We eat a very natural, mostly organic, really nothing processed except cereal, I guess, and crackers, so it's not like there's a lot of obvious things to cut out. She's not a big meat eater and she mostly drinks water. She'd rather eat a cucumber than anything else in the world. (Weird kid.) But she still has these issues.

It's very frustrating.

So she's on a new diet. I've basically told her that when she's presented with any sort of food situation all she needs to ask herself is, "Can my mom eat this?" And if I cannot, then she can't, either. She's way too familiar with my diet, so it's a good method for keeping things under control.

"I like the Mom diet way better than the gluten-free diet," she announced at breakfast earlier this week.

Awesome. And yet, heartbreaking.

So what pushed her over the edge this time around? The only thing I can think of is that she had a big scoop of peanut butter last night (Skippy, if you must know, which is in the house for Abby. Jo has been eating my bulk, peanut-only nut-butter in her lunch, but she was in the mood for something else and I let her).

Blerg. One more thing to add to the list.

Anyway, though, it's becoming very clear that Johanna has my high-acidic stomach (fun!), except she hates all pills and potions, so it's kind of hard to get a handle on that. My best friend is omeprazole. I wouldn't be able to function without it. We need to find her something she can take, too.

She needs to function. This is a kid who never sits down. The fact that she's on the couch speaks volumes to me about how bad she feels.

It's also clear that she has an intolerance to artificial preservatives. I had a "salt thing" for most of my life--except for some reason when I turned 30, it kind of all went away, just like Ann had promised it would (fellow sufferer)--and I think, in hindsight, it had to be artificial preservatives, just based on when the reactions would happen (hives aren't as fun as you'd think, and dorm food did not help) and how I would feel (pretty damn crappy).

We came to this conclusion, by the way, on the day after she ate a corn dog and a hot dog (without our knowledge, I'd like to point out) and missed two days of school.

Good times.

So I guess best case scenario is that she starts feeling better in the next hour or so (mornings are the worst) and gets to go (finish cleaning out her desk, meet her teacher for next year, say goodbye to her friends), and worst case scenario is that I go do all those things for her before heading to work. (Hey, Grandmas, what you got going on today?)

I don't know, you guys. I'm so ready for summer, to see if we can get her sorted out, with the knowledge that if she has a bad morning, who cares, she's got no where to go anyway. She's too young to have to live on the couch. She's too young to have to be wary of peanut butter.

DNA sucks.