Almonds- Passed!

This week we went on a search for a tree nut that wasn't contaminated with peanuts. We found one. We'd been putting off this at-home trial for almost two years, and it really needed done.

So while I was in New York City having a good time with my girlfriends, my husband was at home meeting out tiny doses of almonds to both kids and monitoring to signs of an allergy.

As it turned out both kids tolerated those almonds very well. That's not to say we're completely out of the tree nut woods, but it is a start in the right direction.

An Update on Preschool Crafts

The craft thing went well. At least health-wise.

Unfortunately I shouldn't have offered to let the class share my kids' supplies. My kids made their crafts first, and then the other kids were allowed to use their food supplies by scooping from the bags with little scoops. This created serious cross contamination issues. The teacher at least did warn me when I cam eto pick up the kids.

I couldn't take that food home, so I tried to get the other parents to take it. None of them wanted any of my "weird" food, which kind of made me laugh because it was in their kids' crafts! The teachers couldn't keep it because they hadn't purchased it, but somehow it was alright to let everyone use it for the craft.

I ended up having to throw it all away, even though it was mostly full boxes of perfectly useful food. I was nauseated and had nightmares about it all that weekend. The guilt was eating at me big time, I do NOT like wasting food.

Preschool Crafts Anxiety

So, my kids are in preschool. They go full day 5 days a week. My daughter's been at this preschool 2 years, and my son one year so far. The teachers are WELL aware of their food allergies. They have "scary" food in the classroom every day, but adding in more to do a craft just seems crazy to me. I know I'm probably over-reacting.

They're doing a Father's Day craft using chocolate chips (nut, milk), butterscotch chips (milk), cheerios (oats, possible nut cross), and M&Ms (nut and milk). The teacher asked if I could supply the kids with their own stuff, and I can. I told her this is completely outside my comfort zone, and she asked what I would do if I were doing this activity, and I told her I wouldn't do it, but if she was confident about it and felt she had a good plan that was up to her.

Meanwhile I'm going to be freaking out at home all day long. Which might be overkill since I know they have milk and dairy stuff and things crossed with nuts and oat-based things every single DAY in the classroom.

BTW- I am sending mini marshmallows, pretzels, raisins, and little teddy bear shaped crackers. If ELF products were sold closer to home I would have picked up their chocolate chips and maybe their "trail mix" if it was safe, I'd have to check.

Is it really that hard to care?

Today my daughter went to a salon party for her girl scout troop. Now, I'm aware we only started girl scouts a few months ago, but I have made it very well known that my daughter is allergic to peanuts.

Sensing some resistance to that, I always bring her food along, just in case. Well, the mother in charge of snacks for this party actually brought every peanut-containing snack *I* could personally think of, and I was pretty upset. Bakery items, cookies with Reese's pieces in them, pretzels make with peanut flour. The woman said "I remembered about her peanut allergy, so I skipped buying the peanut butter cookies." I wish she'd actually looked at what she was buying, but I can't expect that from anyone.

DD was really good about it, but I can tell you she wasn't happy that the only thing she could have that the other girls were having was Sunny D (which she didn't like, poor thing!).

I'm aware that life isn't fair, I'm aware that she needs to get used to being different. But it is still heartbreaking to see my daughter excluded.

So, I share with you the picture of my daughter, sitting at a seperate table with her home made lunch. E-mail me if you want to know where I got the lunch box from!