Realities of an allergy mom

http://allergenmenumom.com/2013/08/29/how-to-crush-a-food-allergy-mom-a-satirical-tutorial/

This is great!  While all my friends and family have been incredibly supportive and amazing with this whole thing, it doesn't change the fact that I constantly feel that I am being super anal and obsessive.

Today we fed Kason a peach.  Just an ordinary day- eating a peach.  He broke out in hives all over his back (how many times can I say 'thank god for Benadryl')

Kason breaking out in hives is turning all to ordinary in our lives.

Back to the peaches- kason has been eating peaches since he was 7 months old.  Frozen, canned, fresh.  So we know he isn't allergic to peaches.  

This particular peach was cleaned and in my lunch bag the day before.  Also in my lunch bag were some granola bites in a ziplock bag.  These particular granola bites have a warning on the bag that it may contain tree nuts.  I bought them, promising to keep them separate and only eat them after work. That was bad mom move #1- gotta maintain that peanut free household!!

The granola bites are my prime suspect in this allergy crime!!

While I feel guilty about this experience (but am happy kason was hive and itch free minutes later) this has been, yet another, eye opening experience.  If something like this can happen to an allergy mom (or dad) who are aware, how many times can this happen when someone is not aware!

I have read many blogs of moms who have quit their jobs or hired nannies because this is a problem that they can not control.  Luckily we have a great daycare who is adjusting a lot of things in her daycare just to make sure it is safe for kason.  And I will be bringing lunches for kason to ease both our minds.  But I can't control everything, which is a sickening feeling.  It's also called parenting.... Watching him fall down and learn to get himself back up is what we need to do as parents, but I didn't think parenting was about carrying an epi pen every second, watching everything people put into their mouths when they are around kason and begging them in my brain to please wash their hands, worrying that I am going to have to use that epi pen...

But being a parent to kason is truly some,thing special.  Yes- it does include all those things, but that's what makes kason so perfect in his own little way.  I feel like I love him more and more after he has an allergy outbreak because we get to watch him be brave and endure.  How I wish I could take it for him.