Changing focus....

I am the mom of two amazing kids, I am truly lucky. Yes, one of them has life threatening food allergies. The food allergies consumes a lot of my time. I have to be diligent to keep her safe and that then affects every aspect of our lives. Food allergies are not however the only thing that happens in my life. This is why I am thinking of changing the focus of the blog. I will of course still discuss food allergies but it will also cover every other aspect of life as a mom.
What do you think?
I am sitting her busily jotting down notes....
I'm excited to share the new blog with you soon!

Then the bottom fell out

The children have been in school for about a month. It has been a relatively quiet month. There's homework, after school activities and so on....pretty typical first month of school.
I have known my youngest child now for 9 years. I'm her mom so I think I know her pretty well. She is the happiest child that I have ever met. It's just her nature. From the time she gets up until she goes to bed, she is happy. She has a huge smile on her face and she is a bundle of energy.  I wouldn't have it any other way. So, when she cries I know something is wrong. She was sitting on the couch and suddenly burst into tears last night.  I couldn't even begin to imagine what was wrong. It turns out that she had been made to sit at the allergy table since the beginning of school. This is not something we asked for, it was in fact the exact opposite of what we asked for.
I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.
My child has never, in 6 years, shown any anxiety about her allergies. Now here she is balling her eyes out because she was shoved at another table.
Fast forward to this morning. My husband sent an email last night and went to the school this morning. The situation was explained. The teacher didn't realize the stress that the table situation had caused. She is going back to a regular table today. Hopefully problem solved.
I think like most situations  you don't really get it until it happens to you.
Do parents of allergic children need to become more vocal? I already feel like all I do is talk about allergies to others. Does anyone here me or do they hear waaa waaa waaa like Charlie Brown's teacher? What else can parents of allergic kids do to make the non-allergic community listen and understand what it's like for our kids?
I don't know but the advocate in my is awake and ticked off today.
Parents of allergic kids-we are our kids best advocate. You have to stand up. You have to shout from the roof tops. You have to raise awareness. Don't wait for someone else to do it for you.

It only took 5 days

On the 5th day of school the phone rang. It was noon and I was relaxed. I had spent the morning with a friend drinking coffee and chatting. Then the phone rang and the school number came up. It's only the 5th day. The 5th day!!!!!!!!!
My youngest was coughing. She was coughing and couldn't catch her breath. She was given water and the coughing stopped. She was then asked, "Does your throat hurt?" "No" "Does your chest feel tight?" "Yes"
Well.....that led to a dose of benadryl and a call to me.
Am I thrilled that the school was on top of things? Of course. Will a dose of benadryl hurt her? No it won't.
I do know that if I was there I would have seen that a cough is sometimes just a cough.
Thank goodness for teachers that care.
Do any of you work full time or even part time out of the house? How do you handle it? I can't imagine what would happen if I did work. How do you handle the stress? I'm home and still stressed out......