My Allergic Valentines

Here is the valentine I made for Mark. I've been looking at a lot of papercrafting blogs lately, and wish I were better at it. Papercrafting can be done so beautifully, maybe I'll get there. But in the meantime, I know my hardworking, exhausted husband will enjoy this effort.

Yesterday I had the kids make Valentines for the party today at Writer's Workshop. It was a long shot that we would attend, but it helped with the grumpiness to have a project to do. The boys pressed designs and did some backwards writing into styrofoam and then rolled and printed it onto paper. Messy and fun. Little Missy wrote individual messages onto strips of paper, then folded and glued them into hearts - like the junk mail hearts I did the other day.

Today they woke and made special valentines for each other. They were shocked to learn that all the kids on the block were in school during such a huge holiday. Things like this make no sense to them, its another one of those meaningless rules. Later they asked to have some of the Sweet Tarts I bought to go with the Writer's Workshop valentines. They had shared a box of them yesterday.

After passing out a box to everyone and putting the rest away in the kitchen, Buddy came running and screaming into the living room to tell us to put them down. The Little Man actually spit his right out of his mouth. There, clearly labled on the individual box was a "made in a facility" message. It included more than just peanuts and tree nuts, also wheat, oats, barley and a whole host of other things my youngest is allergic to. The Sweet Tarts were packaged as twelve individual boxes, shrink wrapped together. On the outside of the shrink wrap was an ingredient sticker - with no warning, no "made in a facility" message. But each box had the message printed on the side. I didn't read the individual box labels.

Now I know that my oldest boy's bad cough yesterday was a result of eating these Sweet Tarts. He told me a couple of times that he needed the nebulizer, but he was able to get out complete sentences and run down the stairs to relay the information. And he wasn't wheezing. I put him under steam and made him rest, but he was still coughing. With hindsight, I can see he was having a reaction to the cross contanimated candy. And I gave him nothing for it, suspecting nothing. Worse than that, we had a heated argument over the need for the nebulizer.

Honestly, I know it would take a superhuman strength and power to keep my kids completely safe from food allergies. The list of foods we avoid for anaphylaxis is long: peanuts, tree nuts of all kinds, all legumes except soy. The list of foods we avoid for severe eczema is even longer: dairy, eggs, wheat and all gluten (oats, barley, rye, etc.), flax, pineapple, mango, papaya, corn starch and syrup, cranberries, blackberries, watercress, cabbage and some other greens. Labels are long and complicated. Some are clear, some are double labled like the Sweet Tarts. Some are over labeled, like every single cut cheese at Whole Foods, because they cannot separate their cheese from their nuts in the back. (The cheese guy cheerfully told me they wash the cutters for different molds on different cheeses, but they can't clean up their act enough to extend to the rest of the kitchen.)

So, the challenge is great. But I cannot stop blaming myself when we are accidentally exposed. Whether the reaction resolves itself in the emergency room or the living room, I still feel completely inadequate and unable to confront the obstacles. I am educated and hypervigilant, and yet my kid can have a reaction without me even realizing it.