Yes I'm neurotic, now please stop rolling your eyes: A plea from a food allergy mom

This may come as a shock to you, but I am quite neurotic.  While I hate to stereotype, I think it's an unspoken prerequisite of being a New Yorker and (genetically speaking) being a Jewish mother does not exactly help.  And my Upper East Side address gives me bonus points in neuroses.  I am so neurotic, in fact, that even my most neurotic friends feel comfortable leaving their children alone with me.  That's how neurotic I am.

So when I express concern over the tiniest amount of cross-contamination in managing my child's food allergies, I understand the tendency towards skepticism.  After all, it sounds ridiculous to worry about using a particular blender to make soup when my child was only tasting half a bite of the soup anyway and the blender was washed with soap and water earlier that day.  Maybe I was taking it too far?  This was pointed out to me and my worries were dismissed as being overly neurotic.  I fought my instinct to stubbornly put my foot down and felt like crap as I second-guessed myself and wondered whether I needed to seek professional help for my neuroses.

I realized my instinct had been right about 30 minutes later when my daughter was crying from stomach pain and itching a single hive that was covering her entire forearm and getting angrier by the minute.

We were lucky, but I should have known better. 

Now, it sounds worse than it actually was.  We were fortunate that this was extremely mild and after watchful waiting it went away without even Benadryl.  But it just as easily could have gone the other way.  Once you have a reaction, there's no predicting just how serious it will be.  And my imagination instantly wandered to how would the situation have been different if she were in school?  After all, the reaction was so mild, anyone else would likely not have picked up on it at all.  Which means it would have been allowed to progress untreated if it did, in fact, get worse.

It had been a while since her last reaction, and I think it's a little like childbirth in that in hindsight you think to yourself "What's the big deal? It wasn't all that bad."

This incident brought the dangers back to reality.  I was reminded of the time she nearly passed out after eating a bite of pancake in a batch that had one egg in the entire batter.  I remembered the time her whole body erupted in hives after eating cheese that was picked up with tongs that had touched hummus which contained tahini (sesame paste).

But most of all, I was reminded that I AM RIGHT, DAMMIT.

The decision we made to send our daughter to private school after our assigned public school was completely hostile to our requests for epipens/training to keep our daughter safe?  Completely founded.  I remember after months of trying to get them to understand, doing everything the right way, we realize that the little trust we had was eroded so badly that no amount of accommodations they could be forced to make would make us feel comfortable.  There's no scientific way to explain it other than they just didn't "get it".  And in my experience, that is more dangerous than any other risk there is.

After this incident, and after reading about kids in the US and the UK that recently had reactions at school that tragically could have had better outcomes with proper preparation, I'm kicking myself over and over for letting myself get swept away with the skeptics, for starting to listen to the "is that really necessary?" eyerolls I've gotten over the years.  I'm reminding myself that no matter who thinks I'm crazy there's no substitute for maternal instinct.

So, to everyone who needs to accommodate us in one way or another, my message is: just give me the benefit of the doubt.  If it's all the same to you, don't question why I'm asking you to order pizza from one restaurant vs. another when they seem exactly the same to you.  Don't fight back when I ask you to switch your usual rice medley brand with another when they have the exact same ingredients.  Trust me when I say the store brand is not the same when it comes to food allergies.  Indulge me without judgment when I ask you not to use that blender.  Let it go when I politely ask you to buy packaged food instead of baking, no matter how safe you want to make your recipe.  Better yet, let me make it for you.  And to all the school administrators, bureaucrats, and social workers I've had to deal with these past six months, next time a mother raises the red flag and tells you I am scared to death to send my kid to school for even one day, you better damned well listen. 

The bottom line is you may never know whether or not I'm right or need to be committed.  But so what?  Why take the risk?

Just let it go.  Assume I'm right and everyone will be happy.   Come to think of it, think that advice should apply generally to mothers everywhere.




**Post-script: This article is intended for skeptics and even well-meaning people who simply don't understand.  I feel the need to add a caveat here that many people, including our new school, DO get it, and we are always so grateful and appreciative of those that do.   

Why Iphones Should Come With A Warning

Has Angry Birds created way too many sleepless nights around here?  Ahem, mmmmmmaybe?  So it's no wonder Poker Chick was most relieved to see this illustration as it validates that she is not alone (or crazy) in this angry birds addiction.

Social Schmocial, What Does Miss Manners Say?

Quick! Can you identify all these logos?

Recently, a friend of ours had a baby and posted the news on Facebook.   Well, technically his wife had the baby but that's besides the point.  What was notable about this announcement was not so much the post itself but rather the conspicuous lack of "announcement" email that went out.  Think about that.  It was so quickly assumed that Facebook would be sufficient, they didn't even send an email.  Their parents, friends, family, almost all got it.

But a couple of friends who aren't on Facebook were out of the loop and had to find out through the cool people on Facebook others. 

So this leads us to ask:  has Facebook become so mainstream that it's socially acceptable to assume people will read what you write on your status?  What would Emily Post say?

Of course, this begs the larger question of what would Miss Manners say about social media in general?  Is it now assumed that we're keeping up with everyone's status on our network?  What if we're friends with hundreds of people?  What about the friend who posts daily on how many tissues they used that day?  Or the coworker who constantly has something stuck in their teeth?*  Do we have to keep up with all of that?  Are we really expected to know what Aunt Ida ate for dessert every day? 

And while we're at it, let's consider social media in the professional realm, shall we?  Before LinkedIn, it would be unthinkable to not reply to new business opportunities from headhunters and potential employers.  But when these people try and "connect" with you, do they really expect you to add the to your profile for the world to see?   If you don't, you're rude, but if you do accept all of these you end up with a profile that's comprised of all sorts of people you've never met (and who knows what you don't know about them) and what does that say about you when others look you up?  That can't be good, right?  It's analogous to logging into Facebook and seeing a friend request from your father.  Nothing good can come of it.

We did find this one video but it's so...you know, 2009.  It's all different now.

The only thing we know for sure about social media etiquette is that it's not polite to read these posts and not pass them along.  We're just saying.  And while you're at it, if you or someone you know or someone in your network or someone in your friend or coworker's network happens to be friends with Emily Post on Facebook, could you give her a little poke and ask her what the etiquette is for this whole social media thing is?  That'd be swell.

*These are all fictitious examples to make a point, peeps. We're not stupid enough to use actual examples from our network.  After all, wouldn't want to risk being a social pariah. 

Study Shows People Don't Give A Crap About How Much They Eat

According to a recent CNN article, we can post the calories in as many eating establishments as we like,  it's not going to make a lick of difference.

"But Poker Chick", you ask? "You can't possibly mean using guilt as a tactic to remind overweight people how much they're really eating isn't going to bring about a positive change in eating habits?  That we can't heal a nation of obesity with a few easy signs?"

That's exactly what we're saying, as a matter of fact.  Too bad these researchers didn't read this post we wrote in June of 2008.  We'd say "told you so", but that would be smug and immature.  We'll just hope that at the very least, those reading this blog are well-informed enough to understand the concept of moderation.

Oh, and we told you so.

Are Phones Becoming Obsolete?

The other day we checked our voicemail and got an urgent request from Big Boy.  Unfortunately, the message was a few days old and the opportunity to help someone out had long since passed.

Without thinking Poker Chick called him, and told him if something was urgent in the future to email if he didn't get her on the phone.  He replied that someone else told them to do that ("the kids are all on email this day, no one uses the phone...") but he couldn't comprehend that there was a more urgent way to reach someone than the phone.

At that moment it dawned on us: are phones becoming obsolete?  After all, we didn't even blink after ignoring our voicemail for days.  Between texts, emails, etc. are phones even necessary anymore?  And before you stop to say that's ridiculous, do you really want us to believe you can't think of one single occasion in the past few months when someone called and you thought to yourself "that's weird, why are they calling me?"

Face it, phones are going the way of face time -- gone.  It won't be long before they're barely used at all - between facebook, foursquare, text, tweets - phones won't be needed anymore.  We're in the midst of a huge cultural shift, peeps.  As big as the one where people finally realized telegrams would become relics.

Pause ranting prediction to insert moment of hypocrisy:

This moment of hypocrisy sponsored by "The Hallelujah Chorus"

Right now, somewhere near the city of Shenzhen, China, is an iPhone with our name on it.  That's right, Poker Chick was one of the first Verizon customers to have purchased an iPhone and now it's on the way.  Is she excited? In a way she is, in a way she embarrassingly is.

Wait, what gives?  We started writing this post a couple of weeks ago, then a few days later found ourselves waking up at 3am to buy - you guessed it - a telephone.

So it might seem a bit strange when we continue to assert our prediction that soon phones will be obsolete.  Except for accepting food deliveries in a doorman building, they no longer serve a real useful purpsose.

Still don't agree?  Look at it this way.  From the day we get our iPhone, we will no longer have a phone.  We will have a mobile device.  And the bill to prove it.