Where has the time gone?

It's been three months since I posted here last. Mostly things have been good.

My daughter's Kindergarten teacher has been awesome about her food allergies, and another girl with nut allergies joined our Girl Scout troop, so now I'm not alone.

My son's progressive dairy challenge has been going so well that I think by July I will have to close this blog. It's been a wild ride. He finished up his baked dairy trial the last week of January, and we're on to cooked milk.

The end of this week he'll be doing straight melted cheese in a few foods. I have to admit that I'm still pretty scared. So far he's had milk, butter, and even cheese mixed into things baked, or cooked in a recipe. I will own up to the fact that the first time I sat and watched him like a hawk. It is very surreal to see him eating this stuff.

So, we'll be doing this until his 5th birthday in July, and then move on to regular milk, not-melted cheese, yogurt, ice cream, etc. Scary!!!

Ice Cream Turkies, remix

We went to Girl Scouts with our home made ice cream cake Monday. It was a non-issue. I explained to the girl scout troop leader what I had found out (nothing) and that I'd just made my own instead. I explained it to the woman who was bringing the "turkey". Everyone was cool with it, and DD enjoyed her time! Yay!!

Girl Scouts and Ice Cream Turkies

Girl Scouts is a culinary nightmare.

DD is in girl scouts again this year, despite it being a disaster last year. For our meeting right before Thanksgiving everyone has decided it would be "super fun!" to get an ice cream cake, shaped like a turkey, from Baskin Robbins.

Their website has no information on the cake. They gave me the "anything could be cross contaminated" speech, and I'm not in charge of choosing the flavor, so who knows what is going to happen.

The other moms DO know that DD has a peanut allergy, but they're so sadly uninformed, and every time I try to educate them they look at me like I'm insane. The woman who thought up this idea basically barked at me"It doesn't have peanuts" without showing me a shred of evidence.

So, I'm not skipping this party, DD would be very upset if we did. Now I'm calling Baskiin Robbins tomorrow to be 100% sure, but it looks like I'm going to be trying to make a turkey from ice cream Sunday night....

Cashews- Passed! (and a mini Halloween vent)

I should have posted this a few weeks ago, but it's been hectic!

We trialed both kids with cashews, and it went perfectly!

It seems we're rapidly running out of allergies, but not fast enough. Halloween is right around the corner and I'm gearing up for more tears and frustration and disappointment, especially from my daughter now that she's old enough to care more about what the other kids are doing.

There is a costume party, with food, at Girl Scouts. Plus probably some party at school, and of course traditional trick or treating. I hope those nice elderly people still live in town. Every year they give out apples, chips, and pretzels. Things the kids can eat!!

This is probably the first of several Halloween vents. Tune in next time!

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!

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!