Daily Life

On this day of Thanksgiving I'm of course most thankful for the most precious gifts I have ever been given: my two sons.  They are my world. They are the reason I keep going. They are my everything. From the minute I even learned my first little bundle of joy existed it was pure love. And the moment I actually got to lay my eyes on him was  the.single.BEST.moment.of.my.life ! And all I've fought for ever since is to keep him/them in my life and give them the best lives possible. I read a blog where the author compared a parents' food allergy anxiety to that of a new parent bringing their first child home from the hospital and constantly keeping them within sight and checking to make sure they are still breathing. And that is exactly what it is like! It's like never.  EVER . loosing that feeling! As I sit here watching my baby breathe because he is fighting a food allergy reaction... It's comforting to me. I can see him easily consume air and know for a fact that a

I can still remember the first time we came to look at our house with our realtor. We walked in and immediately the unique layout was like a breath of fresh air saying this is your new home.  As we walked around and dreamt of the future we would build in the dwelling we also noticed some quirks of the current owners. They were labelers - every light switch had a label saying what it turned on and every outlet had a label as to what circuit breaker controlled it. Now this made sense to my OCD mind! I could see myself living here. Therefore it should be no surprise I did a lot of labeling to help manage our food allergies but I haven't done too much in a while because even that wasn't enough to quell my neurosis of the threat of anaphylaxis to my children in our own house.  I instead opted for a complete floor of physical separation between the kitchen where I prepare and store their food from the common foods they are allergic to that their father still stocks for himself.

Today was one of those days where my phone would not stop ringing… fortunately we were not in any hospitals or doctors but the schedulers for all kinds of doctors kept calling in preparation for a few big tests next week as well as struggling to attempt to set up logistics for some future traveling appointments that just aren’t coming together. One of the tasks they added to my to do list is to write the story for each of the boys down in a concise tale enlightening a new team of doctors to the boys’ health struggles over the past two to three years. Until I sat down to write it I didn’t realize how overwhelming and challenging and emotional it would be. I feel such a responsibility as their daily beholder and advocate to make sure I include all of the pertinent details while being brief enough to captivate and sustain their attention and conjure the appropriate level of concern without sounding like an overdramatic frantic alarmist in discussing the medical facts interlaced wit

I have done A LOT of experimenting with allergy-friendly cake recipes and have settled on Crazy Cakes as our standard crowd pleasing indulgence for special celebrations that most closely emulates the typical cake everyone is accustom to. You can see a few recipes and read more about them at this link( http://www.sweetlittlebluebird.com/2013/03/tried-true-tuesday-crazy-cake-no-eggs.html?m=1 ) but it stemmed from the resourceful baking without scarce dairy products during the depression. For additional convenience, the cakes can be mixed up directly in the pan you want to cook them in without an electric mixer and come out tasting like a good regular cake that even my toughest critics can't tell are vegan. We do have to substitute apple cider vinegar for the white vinegar to make them corn-free but I'll leave that rant for another post about how corn is in EVERYTHING and I have been whisked back to square one defining our  safes !! <end rant> On a separate occasion I su

My current song obsession is Jason Gray’s  Glow in the Dark .  It starts with the following verse: Sometimes the world feels like a mess Full of drama, full of stress And life puts a fist right in your ribs You can hide if you choose to And no one would even blame you Or you can let them see how you deal with it I’ve spent a year in a food allergy nightmare! The genesis a year ago was being taken out of Disney World with my son in an ambulance having a reaction to his birthday brownie! It has set off a deluge of unexplained or prolonged reactions, epinephrine injections, frantic rushes to the ER, and even multi-day hospitalizations. And for  BOTH  of my children. My world certainly feels like a huge mess!  Each blow took a little more of our  normal   lives away. And all I want to do a lot of the time is to hide and cry. I started out the year hopeful that I would return to blogging but I thought I would get back with my new attitude and a new year more because I tho

It's been a LONG time since my last post.  I wanted to be one of those happy and helpful bloggers that gave encouragement and helpful information to those dealing with food allergies. However, food allergies and life aren't always happy and sometimes they just plain stink. When your 3 year old has to leave Disney in an ambulance and a month later ended up back in the ER for an unknown anaphylactic reaction - there is nothing happy about that.  It's sad and scary and heartbreaking.  When he tells his grandparents when they are watching him that if he starts coughing in a certain way that they have to take him to the hospital for his allergies you realize the reality of food allergies.  They are a big responsibility and very stressful.  If you feel that way, you aren't the only one.  We've been dealing with this diagnosis for over 2 years now and there were periods where I thought I had things under control or I felt comfortable with the routines and precautions I hav