Update on girl scout camp and Family Day at preschool

Well, the update is that we didn't go! Now I have 10 chocolate dairy-and-nut-free cupcakes sitting on top of my fridge not being eaten.

But, I can tell you about "family day" at the kids' school. First of all, I didn't get to attend because Aaron was sick.

Second of all, their celebration really had quite a bit to do with food. More than I realized. The parents arrived, bagged lunch in hand, and ate with the kids. Then they played games and planted flowers, and last they had an ice cream social. All within the span of about 2 hours. Who needs lunch and ice cream inside of two hours? Especially when they're going to be having dinner shortly thereafter?

Anyhow, I had to take Aaron home and missed most of the fun. Rosalie said she played with some other Mommies, and she was happy. Happy, that is, until I picked her up at 1:45, per the preschool director's instruction. That was about 15 minutes before they were going to start the ice cream, and since she's not allowed to have any food that doesn't come from home and isn't approved by me first, she had to come home.

She was a little sad until I told her we could have Popsicles. That cheered her right up, although she's really starting to understand more about how other kids can eat different things than her, and it is bumming her out quite a lot.

Girl Scouts and Peanut Allergies

Rosalie had her first ever girl scout meeting yesterday. I reminded her before we even got there not to eat anything unless I had checked to make sure it was safe first. I was sure that they would have a snack, and I wanted her to be prepared.

She loved her first meeting, and that was encouraging. There was a snack there she could eat too, although I had something in the car just in case. We decided we are going on an overnight with the troop this Friday.

I got a range of responses from mentioning her allergy. The leader knew what I was talking about and understood the severity of it, although the assistant leader had never heard of someone being allergic to food before. We discussed what foods would be at the overnight, and what I would want to bring myself.

Some of the mothers were really sort of nasty about it when I mentioned it. I have yet to really talk to moms about my kids' allergies, so I was a little surprised. It's not like I asked them to do anything different or change anything, but one lady was downright mocking me about it. I used my nasty sarcastic side. She spent the rest of the meeting giving me nasty looks. She's going to be the one who brings peanut butter snacks on purpose to exclude and bully my child. I can feel it coming now.

So, this is what it is like when you branch out and your kids start getting involved in school age stuff. I better develop a tough skin and some better comebacks in a hurry!

Baked-in trial on the horizon

So, Dr. Wood has decided that Aaron might be able to pass a baked-in challenge. I get to call and schedule it Monday. Wish us luck.

What is a baked-in challenge, and why is it useful?

A baked-in challenge is when they feed the allergic person a food with the allergen baked in. First with 1/4 cow milk and 3/4 soy milk in the recipe, and then in increasing amounts until they work up to a whole cow milk recipe.

This test is useful because baking (not cooking, but baking) can denature the milk proteins enough that some allergic people can tolerate them. If the baked-in challenge is passed, most allergic people go on to try cooked-in at home. Things start out slowly, just like the baked in test. According to what I understand about what Dr. Wood said about 20% of allergic people who pass the baked in test can also tolerate cooked in dairy such as pancakes.

If the test is passed baked in milk needs to be added to the diet a specific amount of times per week to build some tolerance (hopefully). If the allergic person does not start showing signs of allergic reaction after a certain (long) period of time, a raw dairy challenge (such as cows milk or cheese) can be tried as well.

So, I'm going to call Monday to schedule it. Dr. Wood wants it done during a "healthy" month, like May or June or July. Months with less allergen stuff going on.

We finally got in!

I just got the call that we finally have an appointment with Dr. Wood! We missed our scheduled appointment because Aaron was in the hospital with antibiotic resistant pneumonia. And that was a month ago!

So, tomorrow we go to Baltimore. I have my list of questions, suspicions, and concerns already written out. I'm all ready to go! Yay!