When to Fight and When to Let it Go

When it comes to many things in life, I find myself* frequently debating in my head when to make a big deal of something and when to let it go.  In a weird way, managing food allergies in a child is easy in this way because most times it's not a choice - you can't let go, not even once.

What that in mind I'm finding myself in an odd position where I do have to let some things go for the first time that I haven't before, and it sucks.  While I've recognized that, the hard part is finding that line.

For the first time, mini is eating lunch in her school cafeteria.  It's not what I'd have picked and it makes her mother hyperventilate sometimes. But circumstances have played out such that here we are.  And despite meeting upon meeting starting in May and all of our requests and all the information we provided the chaos we feared is here.

On the plus side: a nut and seed free cafeteria, so concerns about cross contamination are limited to eggs, which is very helpful.  Also in the plus column, epipens everwhere, 1-2 teachers always present, and the entire staff at the school trained on food allergic reactions and epipen use.  Also on the plus column (and no small point as our experience shows that this, more than anything is what ultimately leads to a good result) is a school and kitchen staff whose intentions are good and who do not dismiss our concerns as neurotic, take food allergies seriously, and genuinely wish to do everything they can to minimize a reaction.

I frequently pause to remind myself this, as this cannot be taken for granted.  Loyal readers will think back to when the local public school (who serves pb&j sandwiches and sesame bagels in the cafeteria) wanted mini to eat there with no teacher to supervise, no adult trained to use an epipen, and no full time nurse in the school, not to mention a principal who called us "crazy" and wanted to focus on other kids with "real medical issues".  So compared to that, we are a million miles ahead.

In the minus column, while intentions are good, execution, planning, and communication has fallen short.  Questions have been ignored or dismissed.  There is still no procedure for how we know what mini will be eating.  I have found myself too often emailing at 11pm the night before, extremely frustrated, trying to find out the ingredients for lunch the next day or what mini can eat.

She is frustrated when she asks me in the morning what's for lunch and I don't know.  I am frustrated when we find out at 11am that day, and have to drop everything to email her teachers so she knows the food is safe.  They are frustrated because they don't want to deal with the last minute email.  Mini is anxious if we're at work and can't do it, and then she's told by someone else that we agreed but without having heard from her teachers that her parents said it was fine she's not sure whether or not to eat it (pause to both commend this 7 year old for her maturity and responsibility, and lament the fact that she needs to be this mature at such a young age).  The disorganization worries me and shakes my trust to a degree.  Will they know to re-check labels if vendors of "safe" change? Will they let me know so that I can?  How is the person giving her her food sure that it's the "safe" pasta and how will mistakes or confusion be avoided? These are things I can't let go, so sadly I've had to become more than a bit of a pest, which I hate.  I'm sure other "allergy moms" can relate.  When it comes to food allergies, there's really no room for error.

I continue to voice our concerns and things are slowly improving now that everyone has a few weeks' experience under their belts.  But each day brings new decisions.  What do I do when I find out that day the whole class is getting pizza and come to find out it has eggs? Do I let her sit there with plain bread? Or drop everything at work to get a cab and bring her safe pizza? (which is what her father ultimately did after I cleared it with the school)  Some would say that those are the things that I need to let go.  But then I think about my little girl, watching all her friends eat her favorite food, smelling it, and eating a sad sandwich -- all of which could have easily been avoided with some planning which would have resulted in a solution that didn't exclude her.  That one, I decided, I couldn't let go.

There are some things I let go.  I didn't love the fact that there's an "allergy" seat at the table, which affects her socially, but if the school felt they needed that to properly keep an eye on her then that's that and I haven't even brought it up.  They're not going to do everything the same way I would, and she's old enough to handle feeling a little different sometimes I guess.

What else can't I let go? Unsolicited feedback about how I'm handling it.  You may not agree with having my daughter present during some planning conversations, but aside from the fact that it's my choice and obligation as a parent to do what I think is right, she's going to need to do this for herself one day.  So that one I couldn't let go.  That, and I take criticism of my parenting personally.  That one's black and white, peeps, blame it on the Aquarius in me.  Which brings me to my next point:

Though this keeps me up at night, eventually there will come a time where I can't know or control every single thing that goes into mini's mouth.  After all, I won't be there in college, reading over cafeteria ingredients.  I won't be there when she's out with her friends, judgement impaired from a couple of drinks as the menu comes by.  I won't be there when she has her first kiss, wondering whether or not she was brave enough to ask the other person what they ate that day.  So yes, I need to know that she is prepared and will know what to do when those times come.

I know every parent struggles with this.  As our kids get older, we have to learn to let go, little by little.  But trust me on this one: it's so, so much harder to let go when it comes to this food allergy stuff.  I'll get there eventually.  And the rest of you?  Have a little patience.

*Had to write this one in the first person, peeps.  Sorry 'bout that.

Back To School Stress is a Worldwide Issue

Mel from Pig in the Kitchen recently wrote a piece about what it's like to prep for back to school when your child has food allergies.  What we love about this (other than its humorous tone) is that it illuminates how similar we all really are.

We could have written this ourselves, despite the fact that we're all the way across the Pond.  OK fine, so we might say "expiration" instead of "expiry", but you get the idea peeps.


Thanks for sharing, Mel, and thanks for giving yours truly some content to post in a month with so little free time :)

And how do YOU make school lunch?

Most parents we know are constantly on the lookout for new lunch ideas for school.  Between nut free and needing to be healthy, and (in our school at least) kosher/no meat, it's not easy to figure out a lunch.  Even without those rules most kids we know have a repertoire of about 2-3 lunches tops that they will eat at least a little bit of.

We have yet to see a school year where the parents are asking each other for lunch ideas.  But, how far does one go to get their kid to eat lunch?

Recently, we discovered this Pinterest page of "easy lunch ideas".

Who, who, WHO has this kind of time on their hands?

So we ask fellow parents out there, does this look easy to you?  Because we're wondering who the heck has time for this level of effort?! Not that we don't applaud it, but seriously?  Every working parent we know, or stay at home parent for that matter, simply does not have that much time to devote to lunch.  In this house, "extra effort" in lunchmaking means using cookie cutters on sandwiches to try and make them look cute, and when that doesn't work, resorting to note writing telling mini the minimum she needs to eat.  And yes, perhaps a cute drawn animal face does the telling. But still, that's 30-60 extra seconds, tops.

Have we missed out on some secret? Is every other parent out there spending 30 minutes on gourmet lunches.  We continue to waffle between feeling guilty that our laziness efficient 10 minute lunchmaking is impacting our child's nutrition, and feeling smug that we save the extra time that would be wasted when she doesn't eat it anyway.

Is this a city thing? Are suburban peeps spending this much time on their lunchmaking? We'd love to hear people weigh in on this one.   

So we ask: is our bar too low for "easy lunch"? Are we just inept lunchmakers who would take 30 minutes to put together an "easy lunch?"  Or is the real issue the fact that a real "easy lunch" board would just not be nice enough to look at?

Discuss.

(And while you're at it, if anyone has some actual easy school lunch ideas that don't involve meat or nuts, we're all ears...)

What If We Break Our Own No-Nut Rule?

For years we've lived our lives avoiding eggs, sesame seeds, peanuts, and any and all forms of tree nuts.  No one said it was easy, but since we've been doing this before mini started solids (what we affectionately called the "not so fun yet thank goodness we can still eat frozen yogurt nursing diet") we're kind of used to the drill.  Years of blood tests, skin pricks and food challenges have confirmed that these allergies ain't going away anytime soon.

Mmmmm.......almonds.

Except that a recent food challenge revealed mini is not allergic to almonds!  Not sure if she outgrew them, or if she was never really allergic and we were avoiding it just to be safe, but our world just opened up.  That's right, you heard us, so many foods we could never have before!  The one tiny brand of almond butter that is not made in a plant with any other kinds of nuts!  The cheerios made with almond flour but no other contaminants! The almond hershey kisses!  The....well, actually, that's it.  Maybe "world" is a bit of an overstatement.  But it's still a big change.

Such a big change, we were told mini has to eat almonds at least a couple times a week now to ensure it's safe.  So honey nut cheerios for breakfast it is.  Fortunately for us, it also meets her stringent food criteria as it is non-nutritious and white or brown.

All of this is exciting, but not unexpected.  Her numbers for that nut were borderline for years.  It was time.

So why, you ask, is this even blog-worthy? 

We write because we are humbled.  We write because we did not expect the sudden fear of being a huge-ass hypocrite.  We write because now we have a taste of what it feels like to be on the other side.

Suddenly we were making apple and almond butter snacks like it was no tomorrow, throwing together almond butter sandwiches without thinking about it, and putting together bags of honey nut cheerios as a snack.  It suddenly dawned on us that....it would be so easy for us to forget. 

It would be so easy to throw on almond butter instead of soy nut butter one morning, not thinking, and throw that in the lunchbox.  Imagine, after years of advocating, what a field day people would have if we were the ones putting an almond-allergic child in danger?

Now have we made this mistake yet?  No.  But this actually keeps us up at night.  What if?  What if we're the ones making that awful mistake?  And if it's so easy for us, imagine how easy it would be for people who don't live with life-threatening allergies every day?

So we're cutting everyone some slack in this area.  It is hard to be perfect.  So we sympathize with those of you who have made and will make mistakes.  The ones who are mortified and apologetic when the teacher calls to ask them not to send peanut butter to school anymore.  The ones who stop eating their almonds and slip their bags back into their purses in shame when they see you and realize.  You peeps, when you make a mistake, you get a free pass from this allergy parent.  Honest mistakes happen.

So let's be clear.  It's not you that keeps us up at night.  It's the people that either do it on purpose, or don't care either way.  Because to lack compassion like that, to be that thoughtless, to think your kids' right to a peanut butter sandwich is as important as another child's right to attend school safely, that's not easy. 

So what's our message?  We're saying we acknowledge perfection is not possible.  That's why we carry epipens everywhere.

It's all about the attitude.  The attitude, more than anything is what determines our child's safety.  So if you understand, and you try, but you still forget...we will do our best to understand too.

And to those parents of children who are allergic to almonds? We promise we will do everything in our power not to accidentally send them to school or to the playground or anywhere where we know you might be.  We can't promise we'll never make a mistake, but we can promise to do our best and take painstaking care not to let that happen, because the thought of us making a mistake that could hurt someone terrifies us.  Because we've been there, too.

Food Allergy Policies in Schools

Great article about how to manage food allergies in schools.  If you've read anything about the horrible situation in Florida a couple of months back, this is a fantastic example of schools that actually know what they are doing.  Unfortunately, it took the death of a teenager to initiate the advocacy required to get these policies into place.

Wouldn't it be great if we could institute these in our country before tragedy occurs?  Sadly, New York has a long way to go with this issue.

http://blog.onespotallergy.com/2011/03/the-best-school-policy-for-allergy-and-anaphylaxis-management/

Thanks to Elizabeth for writing this piece.

Walking on Eggshells

We realize the posting's been a bit heavy on the topic of food allergies lately but bear with us.  There will be funnier stuff soon.

This is important because we wanted to write about an incident which is a good example of the type of unpredictable scenario kids with food allergies face every day.

A letter went out to all the kindergarten parents.  They've been studying recycling for a while and have now moved on to composting.  It talked about all the fun kids had bringing in things from home to make the compost, including eggshells.  Now mini, the anti-dirt city girl, is not going anywhere near the compost even if they promised her cake every day.  But still, it's raw egg.  In the classroom.

So we emailed the teachers.  Would they mind excluding the egg from the compost, if it wasn't too much too ask?

Here's where it's important to pay attention.

This type of scenario comes up ALL the time, a random non-food time when food allergies are a concern where you'd least expect it.  For non-food allergy parents, you'd be surprised how often stuff like this is an issue.  You can never foresee every possible scenario, which is additional reason why the teachers need to know what to do when this stuff comes up, not if.  And what they need to do in case of emergency.  Because you can minimize the risk of exposure, but as this incident shows, you can never eliminate it.  Random stuff like this will always come up. 

At this point, the teachers had two options.  Lose the egg, or turn it into a whole thing.  And seriously, is there any reason to fight FOR the egg?  Who cares?  Just lose it, the compost will be fine.  And this is exactly what they did.   They apologized profusely for not catching it and said no big deal - it was thrown out and forgotten.

DONE! Was that hard?  NO!

So Poker Chick has to ask - why why WHY is it the case where in so many other schools, the scenario would have played out differently?  What's so important about fighting for the eggs in that compost?  What are we missing?  Seriously, can anyone tell us?

Poker Chick will never understand why parents often get so much pushback in these types of situations.  But if more people followed the example of these teachers, this debate would simply be over. 

NYC schools have used examples like this as rationale for not going nut free.  They're worried about the liability.  They claim that since they can't guarantee all foods are safe they could never guarantee a nut-free environment.  As such, they serve peanut butter and jelly in the cafeteria.  Every day.  Can anyone follow this logic?  We can't.  Of course you can't guarantee a nut free environment.  As this incident shows, despite best intentions, you can never guarantee no exposure.  But if you can significantly reduce exposure, why the hell wouldn't you? 

So a few lessons here:

1) Education.  For those of you who don't deal with food allergies every day, we hope this will further help you understand what life is like when you have to deal with this.  Perhaps if more people will read it they will be more empathetic and open to learning about what to do.

2) A wake-up call.  For those managing food allergies, you can never be complacent.  There will always be some risk of exposure you can never predict.  That's why it's important to always have an emergency plan - in case.  That's much more important than trying to predict every possible hypothetical.

3) A role model.  This little scenario was no big deal.  In fact, it would probably have been forgotten had we not decided to write about it.  The interaction was easy, stress-free for all sides, and the child was protected.  Hopefully this will remind people that when talking with people managing food allergies you have a choice.  You can make it into a big deal or you can take on a minor inconvenience to protect someone and forget about it.

Think about it.  In the meantime, we'll be busy writing thank you letters to our wonderfully supportive school.  And, of course, updating our school allergy plans to specify "no eggshells in compost".

The $744 Shopping Spree

Ever enter contests, daydreaming about spending like crazy in any store? Ever wonder what it must feel like to buy anything you want without even thinking twice about how much it costs?

Last night Poker Chick got the chance to experience what we'll call shopping euphoria. Here's the story:

Unlike most parents, who purchase back-to-school items before the start of the school year, Poker Chick likes to wait until school's started and scramble at the last minute. That's just the kind of forward-thinking parent she is. On this particular occasion, while purchasing a few basics, she decided to get it all at once and order the winter coat. Last year it took a few weeks to arrive so she gave herself points for not leaving everything until the last minute.

In a rare moment of hyper-responsibility, she went through Upromise (4%!) and even found a strange but valid-looking coupon online. Buy 3 items, get the 4th for $1. Cool. So of course this gave her license to add some things to the order. A cute sweater dress the mini "needs" for all those birthday parties she'll be going to. 4 pairs of tights because she couldn't decide which went with it best. A nightie. And so on until she had spent a couple of hundred dollars or so.

And then a funny thing happened. It looked like she was getting more items for $1 than she should. She experimented, adding a few things to the order to see what happened, removing others. Finally, she figured out that she was getting any item $28 or less for $1. That was some coupon. She stopped trying to figure it out and pressed on. This was the stuff shopping dreams were made of.

So she added. And added. And added.

Seriously, she couldn't believe it. She'd chosen every long-sleeved t-shirt on the site, and they were all $1. That's long-sleeve, peeps. She got more colors. Still, the order just increased by a few dollars. It was unbelieveable. Each time she clicked on the "add" button, she froze in fear, waiting for the "total" to jump to some kind of excessive amount. Each time it increased by only $1.

At this point she had to get creative. She couldn't buy more expensive items, but she could buy every shirt already in her cart in the next size up. After all, the mini will need clothes for next year too.

So she added again. And again. And again.

When she'd added every shirt she moved on to accessories. Socks. Tights. Footless tights. Underwear. Undershirts. Wellies. The order continued to go up by just $1 each click.

When it was time to hit "submit" on the credit card, Poker Chick's heart was pounding. She wasn't sure exactly how many items were on her list, she had stopped counting at 30. The total hadn't changed but she was afraid, very afraid. She clenched her fists and squeezed her eyes shut and clicked.

And then came the order confirmation via email. A couple hundred dollars of big-ticket items and $744 of free stuff. Confirmed. On its way. She could hardly breathe.

Who's gonna be the best-dressed kid in pre-school this year? That's right!

Thanks, magic internet genie! And the free shipping? Nice touch, dude.

-------------------------

Stay tuned to see if we actually get the order. An interesting experiment indeed.