Rejoice and be glad

Hi , I am Patty and I am raising 6 children, three with food allergies...if you have a household with kids with allergies, you know that it is and isn't a biggie, both at the same time. The tricky part is keeping your child safe, as they navigate through the world.

I just got back from dropping my teen off to meet his girlfriend at church, where her mom signed them up for some Pass-It-Along community service ...God blessed my son with a great girlfriend who herself , a vegatarian, understands about making healthy food choices. They are going to paint a mural at in an under-priviledged area. My son and his girlfriend are both artistic.....my son packed his own lunch, so that said, he should have a great day. The joy in the day is the painting of the murals, not the food! He's 16 now, so Mommy had to start letting go and trusting his choices somewhere around middle school...it's all about growing up, and growing up with life-threatening, severe food allergies can be scary for a mom who is 'letting go'!

Oh, but yesterday? At the dentist:? The hygenist ate peanutbutter for breakfast and he started breaking out in welts on his arms, and the his face started to get red and blotchy. Here is where a teen is embarassed to say anything. I asked, 'oh, may I have a wipe? My son has that peanut allergy and maybe the patient before sat in the chair and had eaten peanuts'. Well, the hygenist said she had. Even though she wore rubber gloves, the peanutbutter on her breath, in his face, started a reaction of hives.... I asked my son to take a benadryl. He didn't want to , but he did. I told him it would be a 'bigger' deal, if he didn't.

So, back to today. Now that he is on his way to paint murals, with his own safe lunch packed up, i am heading out with my third-grade son, who, also has food allergies. We are going to his elementary school's fun-fair. His best bud's mom made a cake, and she was decorating it as I talked to her on the phone about a play-date. She told me that she was cutting out the food labels with ingredients that she had used, to display next to her cake.Okay, this may not seem like a huge deal to a non-food allergic mom, but to me, it was like, wow! How considerate!

You have to know that people do care about each other, and that your child's best-friends and girlfriends, are their loyalest advocates.

Have a blessed day! Later on, I am going to begin with a new blog of foods that are allergy-free to make your grocery shopping trips a little easier if you are new to this allergy business!

Patty