Food Allergies, they are real and not just something to inconvenience you

As you may, or may not, know Bubbie had SEVERE food allergies for a long time.  Thankfully, he has out grown most of his so we have a mostly "normal" life, now.  But before, my life was consumed with worry and guilt.  Yes, I was THAT mom who caused all the other parents to have to limit what their kids could have for snacks and treats in the classroom.  Of the 8 main food allergens, Bubbie was allergic to six.  At one time he could have no wheat, eggs, dairy, soy, peanuts, or tree nuts.  He also had oral-allergy syndrome, which is when seasonal allergies mimic food allergies (and if you think this sounds easy, take a look in your cabinet at the ingredients in some of the foods you use daily).  During Spring and Summer, he also could have no melon, avocado, banana, apple or pear.  

We found out about his allergies when he was only about 2 months old.  I was still breastfeeding and he was not gaining any weight and started having severe gastrointestinal issues.  Just imagine you go to change your baby's diaper and it is filled with bright red blood.  Bubbie was living in constant pain from the damage what I was eating was passing into his food.  He had serious reflux, and no lie, would spit up so violently that it would hit the wall 3 feet away if he was on my shoulder.  I kept taking him to the doctor, and they were stumped as well.  Finally, they did a scratch test, and found out he was allergic to pretty much everything I was eating "to keep my milk supply up."  Talk about mommy guilt.  You think you are doing the absolute best thing for your child, only to find out that what you are doing has been slowly killing him.  And here's the thing, Bubbie was the happiest baby in the world! Oh, and because he was allergic to dairy and soy, there were no formulas available, so I had to limit my diet of all 6 of his allergens as well.   

When he finally was getting relief from his allergies, he would hit himself.  I asked the doctor why, and she said it was because he had never lived without pain, and to him being in pain was NORMAL.  Sick, no?  I learned more about alternative food sources, reading labels, creative cooking, and recognizing allergic reactions to foods than I ever wanted to.  But it was worth it, because this is what Bubbie looked like 6 months after we figured out a good diet that worked. 

I can't eat many things, but I do eat a lot!



I thought that my coming up with menus and foods that would satisfy and nourish him would be the hardest part of dealing with food allergies.  But it wasn't.  The hardest part was all the other people in the world and their opinion that I was making it all up or overreacting.  Restaurants would not allow me to bring in foods or drinks for Bubbie, so we quit eating out.  Daycare providers would give him things to eat they KNEW he couldn't have because he begged.  But they weren't the ones up all night with a poor child screaming in pain and banging his head on the ground because IT HURT SO BAD.  When Manudo had a birthday party at a very popular kid's venue named after a mouse, they refused me permission bring in a cupcake for Bubbie so he could take part in the celebration too (I did sneak that damn cupcake in anyway). 

Friends and family could be a challenge too.  Bubbie was not anaphylactic in his allergies.  He would suffer mostly through gastrointestinal distress and/or skin rashes.  Many times friends and family would make comments asking if a little bite of cookie/cake/pastry/pasta/etc would really hurt that much...the thing about food allergies is they are not like environmental ones.  You never ever know when your reaction will change in severity or manifestation.  I have a friend who had what he thought was food intolerance to almonds.  He would eat them, and have stomach issues, but nothing really severe.  One day he ate an almond and went into anaphylactic shock and almost died.  Think of food allergies as cumulative and not episodic.  Every time you ingest something you are allergic to your body registers it and adds it to the amount.  Each individual "bite" is not just a bite, it is a bite added to all the other bites you have ever had and you have no idea where your breaking point for severe -v- mild reaction is located.  So yes, just one bite could have hurt him, a lot. 

At the back to school orientations every year, many of the other parents would roll their eyes and complain that they couldn't send peanut butter sandwiches for snacks to school, or cupcakes and cakes for their precious off-springs birthday party in class.  I never spoke out, but inside I was screaming "Is your child's peanuts and sweets more important than my child's LIFE?!?"  Is it really that big of a deal to read a freakin' label and/or be empathetic or even GRATEFUL that you don't have to feed that kid daily?  And, what the Hell is up with birthday parties in school?  We never had them when I was growing up, is it part of societies worship of children and everything they do that we must now celebrate their birthdays 3 times (school, friends party, family party)?



Your kids peanuts are not more important than THIS kid's life!



Anywho, as Bubbie grew older, it seemed like every year he had fewer and fewer food allergens.  Just imagine the look on his face when he got to have his very first piece of cake that was made from real ingredients!  And here is the kicker, he suffered so much pain as a young child that he was AFRAID to try many of the foods that were deemed okay.  We had to go through food challenges where a very tiny bit of the food/allergen was introduced for a week.  The next week you added a bit more, the next week a bit more, etc. until you reach the equivalent of a serving.  Some of the foods still bothered him, even though he wasn't technically allergic.  Those were the days that were tough, here I am telling him "It's okay, the doctor said you can have it," meanwhile an hour later he was curled in the fetal position looking at me with his huge blue eyes like I disappointed or lied to him.  *sniff*

He is now almost 9, and still has oral allergy syndrome and an allergy to tree nuts, but he no longer has to sit at the allergy free table, carry an epi-pen, answer 10000 questions about his medical alert bracelet, or be known as THAT kid.  However, in my mind, I still have intense fear for him and watch out for any type of response he may have to what he is eating.  I know how lucky he is to have outgrown his allergies, as well as to not have the anaphylactic reactions to his allergies that many children and adults suffer. But he could, and the doctors do say that just because he outgrew them for now, doesn't mean he will be allergy free forever.  He could develop them again, or develop allergies to different things.  It is like living with a Jack-in-the-box waiting for the new issue to pop up sometimes.   

I will NEVER stop being an advocate for other parents who are going thorough what I did, and I ask, no BEG, you to please think of your own children/grand-children/nieces/nephews and how you would react if a request was made to help them fit in and/or save their lives.  At the end of the day, we all love our children, but maybe if we loved other people's children a little more life would be easier for ALL children.

I could be your child, wouldn't you
love me enough to protect me?

Until next time,

Nic

p.s. I would love to hear your thoughts/comments/etc regarding this, or any post I write.  Leave a comment!

Dear Dumbass Manager:

Not the actual dumbass, but an actor portraying him

Dear Dumbass at work,
You are a major f-tard.  Just because you screwed up and are now scrambling to find a scapegoat for your misguided actions I will NOT be your punching bag.  In case you didn't notice, you are 6'3" and I am 5'3", so it is probably unlikely that I was bullying you when I pointed out the reality of your lackadaisical actions over the past 9 months.  Yes, now YOU have some 'splaining to do and I am not going to bail you out.  YOU are the one with the 2 fancy lease cars, corner office, and staff.  I am the peon that has been going behind you cleaning up your shit-pile like a street sweeper.  Is it really my fault that now you are being questioned?  Should I just bury my head in the sand  like you have, and pretend that it is all going to work out when clearly you have created a big f'n mess?  I think not.  Oh, and YES I have documented every.single.time you declined to act on the situation, so just try to blame me.

For what it is worth, you may have felt better venting your pedantic frustrations on me, but you looked like a major ass.  All 5 people who witnessed your toddler-like outburst were full of indignation and umbrage after our meeting.  As far as your comment that I was "yelling at you", all the while you were standing over me, projecting spittle in my direction and banging the table, next time I will try whispering.  Pardon me, I didn't realize that you had such sensitive hearing to rational speech.

Can't wait to see how you explain this!

I have decided that passive resistance is the way to go with you.  So even though you deserve to be brought to the carpet for your actions, I will be sitting back and watching you crash and burn.  I am sure the VP will be happy to know your decisions has cost the company a lot of money!  I hope you enjoyed your little venting session, because when you are the PEON next month, I am sure you will be handed your ass to yourself on a shiny platter.  Meanwhile, I will be laughing my ass off!


So, congratulations!  You are the idiot of the year.  Let me know how you like the reward that will be coming to you soon 'cuz I am sure the company will appreciate your attempt to play hide the weeny with their money!

Even David thinks you are an idiot!

My top menus that satisfy almost ALL of my offspring

Being a working mom, I struggle with meals.  One of the big rules in my household is we eat dinner, sitting down at the table, with REAL plates every single night....even if I don't want to!  99% of our meals are home cooked, from scratch.  This mostly started due to Bubbie and his pervasive food allergies, and then just became the way we do things at the House of Chaos.  So, without further ado, here are the top meals that are in my rotation that can either be made ahead, made quickly, or put in the crock-pot while I am gone.  We only have 3 rules at our family dinners.



1.  We eat what we get and we don't throw a fit.

      - I am NOT a short order cook.  I make every effort to prepare meals they will all at least tolerate.  I am also fair in NOT putting things on plates if it is something that they have a real aversion against (Manudo: No food touching, Bubbie: No onions, Princepessa: No tomatoes, HH: Triple servings of everything).



This is wrong in so many ways...electronics AND
elbows on the table????



2.  NO electronic devices allowed....not even for Mom and Dad.  There is nothing so important that means we have to eat meals while our noses are buried into cell phones, iPods, DS's, TV, etc.  No one is going to DIE if they miss a text, I promise.

3.  Family meals are a good time to practice our manners so if mom is nice enough to take us OUT to dinner one day, we won't look like we have escaped a barn.

Those are the rules, and for the most part the kids and HH don't complain about them.  It works for us, so we all make the effort to be sure we are home and present (both physically and mentally) for our daily together time.

I will try to link to recipes if I have them.  If there is a meal you'd like the recipe for, add a comment and I will post it there.

1. Homemade Mac -n- Cheese, Smoked Sausage baked in the oven with green onions and mushrooms and Steamed Broccoli with lemon.  I SWEAR my kids would eat all of these daily.  I know that I am very lucky that they like veggies, and I hope that by typing this, I have not jinxed myself.
2. Breakfast for dinner:  Eggs (okay, I WILL make eggs to order...some like them scrambled, some like them over easy), Bacon or Sausage, and a fresh fruit salad.  Sometimes I will mix it up with pancakes or French Toast.  Let's face it, kids of working mom's don't have the luxury of really good breakfasts on most days, so it is always a treat to have their favorites as dinner.
3. Crock-Pot Roast, Mashed Potatoes, steamed Green Beans.  My kids, and especially HH are huge carnivores.  They love meat, even if I don't eat as much as they do.  I like the pot-roast because it usually leaves left-overs for HH and my lunches.  If I am especially organized, I will pre-boil the mashed potatoes the night before to make it a faster meal.
4. New Improved Joe's, Sweet Potato Fries, Sliced Apples.  I had to stop using almost all pre-made canned items when Bubbie was younger, so I came up with this recipe for sloppy joe's using no canned sauces and with spinach for extra nutrients.  My kids LOVE it!  I have also served it over pasta ala Cincinnati Chili.
5. Salmon Patties, Rice, and Asparagus.  I make the asparagus in a pan on the top of the stove with a pat of butter, splash of soy sauce, and 1/4 cup of water.  I have a rice cooker, and have found it so worth the investment.  Rice comes out perfect every.single.time.
6. Broiled whole pork tenderloin (just baste with a mixture of stone ground mustard and maple), Vanilla sweet potatoes, and spinach salad with orange/balsamic dressing. I bake the sweet potatoes the night before, and keep the dressing for the salad in a cruet in the fridge at all times. 
7. Tacos, Refried Beans, Spanish rice....need I say more?
8. Pasta with Basalmic Puttenesca Sauce, Garlic Bread, and a Salad.  When I serve this, I try to keep the olives out of Bubbie's serving :). 
9. Pulled Pork (whole pork tenderloin, favorite BBQ sauce, diced onions, cook in crock pot all day, shred with two forks), Cole Slaw, Baked Beans.
10. Chili, Homemade Corn Bread, Salad.  I mix it up by sometimes doing white chili, beanless chili, or traditional red chili.  I like to really spice it up, but keep some extra spices on hand to sprinkle on HH's and mine when the kidlets are around who seem to be opposed to anything spicier than a hot dog some days.

What are some of your go to meals?   How do you save time?  I hate feeling like I am in a rut, and I feel that way frequently in the winter when we do not have as many options for fresh fruits and veggies.

How My Kids Break the Rules of Logic and Science!

There are some things that defy all reason and scientific principles.  Most of these are things that have to do with my offspring.  Below is a list of things that make me go "WHUCK?" on a daily basis.

1.  Toothpaste and its ability to travel long distances.

Every single muther furking time I go into the kids' bathroom I find dried crusty toothpaste in the most odd places.  Today, I found it on the windowsill, UNDER the blinds, that is approximately 5 ft from the sink and NO WHERE near the towel, which is also covered in a toothpaste/saliva combo.

2.  Socks and where the Hell do they go?

I swear to all that is holy I have a basket of single socks that contains more socks than the actual pairs that end up in my kids drawers.  Where do the socks go?  Is there a black hole in my dryer that ONLY likes kids socks?  Ironically, I rarely have an issue matching pairs of mine or HH's socks.  So, this black hole is not only a mystery, it is selective!

3.  Pee on the seat

Bubbie is great at lifting and putting down the seat.  It is most likely a long term repercussion (which I am sure will require some sort of therapy when he is an adult) of my fastidious toilet training.  Yes, I did encourage him to "blot the tip" while training, and YES he has the cleanest underwear in the house thank.you.very.much to this day!  This pee on the seat is about the girls.  How in the heck do they manage to get dribble on the seat?  Are they hovering in their own bathroom?  Are they doing jumping jacks?  Did I get confused and encourage them to shake it off while I was teaching Bubbie to blot?

4.  Selective Hearing

How come I can whisper something about one of the kids from 3 rooms away and they can hear it, yet when I am right in front of them asking something they can't?  Should I yell my secret thoughts to HH and whisper my requests to the offspring?

5.  Selective Blindness


Actual sign haning in all offspring rooms



This is the first cousin to Selective Hearing.  I find it usually accompanies my request to fetch some object of theirs they are missing.  For example,  Manudo has selective vision for things as large as her lunch box.  I have packed her lunch and remind her to grab it on her way out the door.  She opens the fridge, stares RIGHT at the damn thing and says she can't find it!  I then will give her detailed directions to the area right in front of her face, and she STILL can't see it!  When I point it out, after stomping to the kitchen from the other room where I was importantly updating my FB status, she is all like "Oh....hahahahah....Sorry mom!"  Google revealed this is a REAL illness!  Refrigerator Blindness.  And we all know, if it is on GOOGLE it must be TRUE!

6.  Ackbassward Sleeping times

The unique phenomena of kids waking up at the crack of dawn on non-school days, yet having to be dragged kicking and screaming from their beds on school days.  Why is it that they go to bed at reasonable times on school days and have a harder time getting up than when they are allowed leniency on the weekends?  Perhaps I will do an experiment and let them stay up as late as they want on school days and make them go to bed early on weekends.  It would only be fair, since I happen to enjoy sleeping in on my few days off of work!

These are just a few....I am sure as time goes on and I enter the realm of parenting a teenager more phenomena will manifest!

Until next time!
Nic

P.S.  Did you know Momginerd has a Facebook page?  If you like the blog, you will love the FB page which is updated almost daily!

I am not playing Hookie...

Hello Momginerd fans,

I have been  remiss in not updating the blog lately, but I PROMISE I have a good excuse.  I have been dealing with some pretty major heath issues.  I feel comfortable posting now, that we have ruled out any life-threatening issues, but I am still searching for answers.

I have RA, and for a chronicle of that please see: My body is trying to kill me, which details some of the trials and tribulations of living with an autoimmune disease.  About 6 weeks ago my rheumatologist increased one of my medications, and either coincidently or as a side effect, I have developed some "interesting" neurological "disturbances."

Including: numbness on the left side of my face, lack of coordination/vertigo, visual halos/auras/floaties, losing my words when speaking, and numbness in hands and arms (mostly concentrated on the left side).  Through process of elimination we do know 3 things:

1.  I have a BRAIN, and she is gorgeous.  I know because the doctor gave me a CD and I can look at her whenever I want!

2.  I do not have lesions, aneurisms, tumors or other brain related abnormalities that could be causing my issues.

3.  I do have some spinal issues with 4 protruding discs, but again they may explain SOME symptoms, but not all.

What we do not know, but suspect, is that I probably have a combination of issues (yeah, yeah, enter complicated woman comment here) that are causing my problems.  We believe the hand issues are caused by the protruding discs, so I am going to physical therapy.  I most likely have Hemiplegic Migraines which explain the other effects, and some residual side effects from the increase in the RA medication, methotrexate. I have had migraines in the past, but never one that has lingered as long as this one. I basically have been living with some level of a headache since the beginning of September.  Most of the time I can power through and move on, but sometimes they knock my flat on my ass.  NOTHING makes it go completely away, and I can now set up a side business dispensing drugs, if needed, since I have been prescribed everything from Imitrex to Vicodin to try and get these headaches under control. 

   

I used to look human, but I have
had 4000 Xrays in 1 month

I am anxiously awaiting yet another call with results of yet more tests to see where the next step will lead.  Most likely that will be to a neurologist and a pain clinic....which I am sure will end up in yet more tests so that I finally cease to look human and more resemble this a halo of myself, and more drugs to take up space in my overflowing aresenal....

Until then, the good news is my doctors (damn, that is scary to have to put the S after it), agree that I am to take it easy and play hooky, I  mean work from home, as much as possible.  Thankfully, I have an awesome team who understands and really do not NEED me daily to do their jobs!

Thank you all for your patience with me, I promise once all this is sorted out, I will be back full of snark and sarcasm per usual!

Lots and lots of  love,Nic