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!!!

Movin on up...

DS has completed the first step of his baked dairy challenge- home edition! We're now moving on to 1/2 cup baked dairy per day. What does this mean?

This means he may have cheddar goldfish. *shudder* He may have storebought items where a dairy ingredient is listed in the middle of the ingredients list. He may have up to three servings per day!

So that would be like, a serving of cheddar goldfish and two slices of break with whey in the middle of the ingredient list. Or two servings of cheddar goldfish and two pieces of bread with whey in the bottom 1/4 of the list.

If he does well at this, in FEBRUARY he can try MACARONI AND CHEESE OR PIZZA. (Or doritoes/cheese curls, lol!)

Ok, so I am excited, can you tell?

"That's milk."

My son has a knack for repeating things, and it makes it hard to figure out exactly what he understands.

As far as I can tell he can't tell the difference between soy milk and cow milk, rice cheese and cow cheese, etc. He doesn't ever think to ask before eating anything either. This really frightens me, especially with kindergarten a year away.

The other day we were in a parking lot and he looked down and pointed to a abandoned (litter!!!) coffee cup. He said "That's milk."

My husband happened to be the one holding his hand and he stopped, looked at it for a moment and said "You're right buddy, that cup could have milk in it."

Now...was this a reaction to my constantly telling him not to touch/eat things? Or did he actually recognize that people routinely put milk in coffee? Was he even aware it was a coffee cup? The world may never know, but I feel like it's progress.

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.

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.