I recently clicked over to a blog I had never read before, Believer in Balance. This mom has just discovered that her daughter has a peanut allergy. I remember feeling overwhelmed at first, so if you live with food allergies, please go offer her some support and tips!  Check out the other great information at the Food Allergy Carnival!

When you first discover a food allergy/Celiac disease, it is so hard to cope with the realization that your child is the 1 in a 1:100 possibility.

We have several of those 1:100 condition here, and each diagnosis took a lot of emotional and practical adjustment. Your heart breaks a bit for the things your child can’t do, and while we all learn to cope, it’s still hard. I can adapt almost any food so my kids can eat it, but that doesn’t always make life easier. There’s a lot of prep work that goes into living with kids who have food allergies, which can turn a simple birthday party into a challenge. Additionally, there’s so much emotion tied to food, visits with grandparents and other relatives can be difficult to navigate.

We’ve been living with food restrictions for about 9 years now. For folks who are new to food allergies, I’d suggest visiting my recipes (of course), which are all allergy friendly. I’d also suggest visiting the The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, there are wonderful books and helpful cards to carry around for checking ingredients grocery shopping. (Their focus is on the top 8 allergens, so not as great a resource for unusual allergies) For personal support, tips, tricks, resources and stories, the folks at Kids With Food Allergies are incredibly helpful and empathetic, and they have some great recipes. You might also want to download this guide to anaphylaxis, as well – keep yourself informed! If you are receiving a Celiac Disease diagnosis, the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness has a lot of information.

We have found two books especially helpful for our family and friends, in addition to the FAAN books.

• Bagels, Buddy, and Me, a wonderful book about Celiac Disease which we reviewed here.
• The Peanut-free Cafe, a great story about peanut allergy which we reviewed here.

If I could give just a few tips to a parent of a child newly diagnosed with a food allergy/intolerance/celiac disease/etc it would be:

• Don’t be shy. Be the parent who asks others to accommodate your child. They may be mildly inconvenienced for a few hours out of their day/week/year, but it’s important for your child. I’ve tried “compromises”, and they either blew up in my face, or my kids got sick. Neither one was pretty. Stick to your guns – keep your kid safe.
• Read every label. And then read it again. Perhaps one last time? Too often product ingredients change (one of the girls’ favorite potato chips now have dairy) or a store’s supplier has changed (the roasted chickens at our store are from a new company which adds dairy) or you might miss a word (when reading “cocoa butter, butter”; I’ve missed the second “butter”).
• Climb every mountain! Or, call every company. The food allergy labeling laws have made life a bit easier, but I’m still skittish about “natural flavors”, unless I know the company’s stance on labeling or if I have called the company for that item.
• Better safe than sorry. If a food’s ingredients are unclear, it’s best to pass up the treat. My kids might miss out on several treats that are labeled “naturally flavored”, but there are plenty of other treats around! They know if they can’t have something, they’ll get something great later.

(At the top left, you can see my girls eating a store-bought pizza! Amy’s Kitchen is now making a larger line of gluten-free and dairy-free products, which is wonderful. Many of their products are free of other allergens as well. More companies are making allergy-friendly foods, which is a good thing for everyone! It’s great for relatives to be able to buy something to have at the house for visiting kiddos with allergies.)

I have a bunch of books in my “to review” stack right now.

As much as I love my current “fun” book (American Gods: A Novel), I want to get back to the review books – there are some really great ones coming up! I just got a copy of a book that isn’t even in book form yet!!! It’s still in the Kinkos-style binding. Swoon… I realize that being paid cash for book reviews is lovely, but being paid in books is lovely, too!

I’m also listening to the audiobook for Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel, written and read by Vanna Bonta. What a fascinating concept!  It would take too long to explain, so this’ll have a lovely review posted later.  Audiobooks take longer for me to listen to than books take for me to read!

Apropos of nothing at all (though it’s harder to read, review, and concentrate when I’ve got a bad headache), I need these blinding headaches to stop, they’ve been happening for over a week now. Sharp shooting pain out of nowhere, and it stays for hours, despite my pain meds. Much worse when I’m moving. There are two major possibilities: 1) now that I’m not pregnant or lactating, I am getting migraines again; 2) Cutting down the Valium (muscle relaxers) is causing muscle spasms and pain in my neck, which is causing the headaches. Now to get the doctors to figure out which one it is… Feh, it’s not like I need any more doctor visits.

Last week we had fevers and tummy bugs in BG and MG. LG was coming through unscathed. Everyone seemed healthy on Sunday, so I sent them off for a visit and overnight with my parents. The snowstorm yesterday meant they couldn’t return until today. While it was lovely to have some quiet, we missed them a lot.

Meanwhile, as I am sitting around reading and reviewing books at my house, the sick fairy was visiting LG at her grandparents house. The same fever and stomach bug hit her, and she didn’t want to play in the snow. This morning, though, she woke up with a reddish puffy face that didn’t get less puffy with Benadryl.

After a visit with the nice doctor, she’s been diagnosed with cellulitis (skin infection), and is on antibiotics. We’re a bit freaked out by cellulitis, because that is what MG had when she was 3 1/2 and was hospitalized for 5 days on IV antibiotics after a dog bite. Apparently it’s a skin infection, and could be from staph or strep. We want to make sure she gets better, having a kid in the hospital was no fun! MG is busy telling LG that even if the medicine doesn’t taste good, it’s much better than shots!

Food allergies complicate everything – we ended up having to go to the compounding pharmacy to pick up her medicine because that antibiotic only came in strawberry flavor. Thankfully we have a compounding pharmacy in town that has completely artificial flavors. And yes, I do see the humor in someone who tries to eat organic and likes all natural products to be excited about artificial flavors! Anything can hide in “natural flavors”, though – it’s a very loose definition.

We’re hoping we can make the sick fairy leave here soon – we’ve been stuck inside for too long! Maybe the cool air will kill the germs? I really want to air out the house. Or bomb it with Lysol! The only ones still standing from this bug are me and B. I’m hoping B’s hardy constitution will save him. Perhaps being on 2 antibiotics will help me… but I know from far too much experience that antibiotics won’t do anything for a virus.

I received an email from the folks who created The Business of Being Born, and clicked over to the site. There’s a beautiful trailer, and I was cautiously hopeful.

My initial perspective was cynical – why would a celebrity like Ricki Lake choose to make a movie about birth? And if she is a person who has the means to buy good medical treatment, would her movie speak to the rest of us? As it turns out, Ricki Lake had a hospital birth for her first child, and a homebirth for her second. That made me stop and look at the documentary again. When I looked at the list of participants, I saw famed midwife Ina May Gaskin. That’s when my cynical thoughts really slowed down. Now I wish that there was a nearby Community Screening or Theatrical Release! (Which is closer to me – Nantucket or NYC?)

I had one traditional, medicated hospital birth, and then two midwife-assisted birth center births. When I was pregnant with #3 (aka LG), my husband and I weighed our options. I wanted a homebirth, he wanted to make sure I had a good midwife. We lived close to a hospital in case of an emergency, so it seemed like a good option. Unfortunately, my husband became unemployed while I was pregnant, so we could only work with practitioners who accepted the state medical insurance. Thankfully, the birth center was one of those practitioners. I had no interest in returning to a traditional hospital birth, but we didn’t have the funds to pay a homebirth midwife, either.

There were so many contrasts between my medical birth and my midwife-assisted births. With a medical birth, I dealt with whichever nurse was on call at that time, and I was alternately ignored and given too much attention (aka technology). With a midwife-assisted birth, the midwife was there the whole time helping, supporting, and chatting with me. While I wish I could have had a homebirth, the birth centers allowed me to labor in a tub or shower, have some snacks and drinks, and hold my baby before she had any kind of bathing or weighing. Those early moments are so precious, and I felt more powerful than exhausted at the end of MG’s and LG’s births!

My memories of each birth are a bit foggy, and unfortunately the server crash and hard drive crashes wiped out their birth stories. However, this quote from The Business of Being Born rang true for me and my experience in the hospital with BG:

Medical decisions are being made for legal and monetary reasons, not because they are good for the mother or the baby

I used to work with a lot of moms and newborns, and this quote also rang true for myself the moms I know:

Nothing compares to the privilege of giving life and the responsibility of that. Nothing.

There is a peace that comes from a birth that is not overly managed, and that peace leaves the mother and baby in a better physical and emotional state. Non-medicated, non-interventionist labors and deliveries can be time-consuming, whereas a planned c-section can be completed in 20-30 min.

I hope I can see the movie in the near future and write review!

We currently have 2 dogs (see pic at right). Harley (right) is a Lab/Australian cattle dog mix. Jack (left) is an ACD.

Harley is 15, and has been wonderfully useful for years, making sure the sock fairies have fewer socks to steal by hoarding them in her crate. She’s also a great foot-warmer, and a wonderful vacuum. Her impression of the kids was raised considerably when they started solids! Harley will bark (sometimes) when someone comes to the door, and will (usually) bark when one of the kids is upset – she would go to the other end of the house to tell us if one of the babies had woken up and was crying.

Harley’s alert-to-door stats were higher when we lived in a house that was laid out differently. She is also right there to protect me by barking at strangers. It almost looks like she’s going to follow through, but then hides behind me. Anyone (friend or contractor) who has been here more than once knows not to worry about her!

Jack is 10, and new to our family. We’ve already ascertained that he’s great for ball, frisbee, and snowball fetch. He’s also very useful as a foot-warmer or warm-up-cold-sheets critter. He will unfailingly alert me if someone is going up or down the stairs, as well as if someone comes to the door. OK, often on that last one, but given the layout of the house, I can understand why he doesn’t always know (we’re upstairs in the kitchen, bedroom, & living room, door is downstairs by the other living room).

Jack’s job since he moved into our home is to follow me. Everywhere. He takes this job very seriously and will sulk in my room if I leave for a while. He gets up when I get up, and goes wherever I go. It’s like having an 18 month old, except that he barks instead of cries, and I don’t have to do diapers.

After falling down the stairs and then slipping and falling in the hallway, and then last night’s excitement of having the world spin while I fell last night, I feel even better about having Jack follow me. We weren’t thinking of him helping me when we got him, but we were grateful he followed me just in case – the combo of meds and clumsiness isn’t always pretty.

ACDs aren’t all that big, but they’re very sturdy. Think the rugby players of the dog world! Jack has been there to help me get up after falling on ice and he can go alert others if I fall. I’ve felt so much safer knowing he was there if I needed him. If he was Great Dane sized, it would be even more help, but I don’t think my house could fit a dog that size!

We had always planned to teach the dogs to find the phone or the remote, but now we have kids! The next step will be teaching the dogs to find things that were dropped – like keys!

Have you ever had one of those days where you think you never should have come out from under the covers?  Yeah, me too.  Today, in fact.  There was a snafu with receiving a gift certificate, so I woke up to find out that 2 minutes after I closed my laptop gmail received the GC.  Of course, Amazon hiked their prices waaaaay up overnight, and all my well-chosen presents in the cart went kablooie.  There are some things I will purchase for $5, but definitely not $32!  Ugh.

The day, sadly went downhill from there.  In computer terms, this is a cascade failure.  Or a cluster f***.  Whichever you prefer.  You can say “cascade failure” in front of kids, though.

Rachel’s tip for the day:  If you were in tears by 8 am, maybe you shouldn’t spend the day running 2 weeks worth of errands.  Just FYI.  We went to several different stores, and I managed to have computers crash at almost every store I visited.  In one it happened 3 times, and I wasn’t even touching it.

On days like this, I feel incredibly grateful for Good Friends who listen and offer helpful suggestions when I’ve started to go over the edge.

 Perfect things today:  The sunset over the frozen salt marsh – it made me think of how I imagine Alaska, a place I’ve always wanted to visit.  The sunset reflected in the sound near our house.  Pity I didn’t have the camera.

Money quote for the day is from LG:,”I finished my treat, but the girls hadn’t finished theirs, so they gave  some to me.   Charity is good.”   Lets remember that she is 4.

Right now I’m waiting for a callback from the doctors office.  For some reason they were having trouble processing a routine prescription refill.  How, exactly, do they expect me to call them back if they leave a message at 7:03 when they close the phones at 5:30?  I would have been home by then if the cascade failure hadn’t continued.  To make things even more fun, when I just got up to eat, the world spun, started to get dark, and I fell down.  I don’t think I’m going to walk much tonight.

Tomorrow is another day.  There’s plenty of room for improvement!    Maybe I’ll be able to get the picture of the sunset.

This post is part of the Food Allergy Blog Carnival

We’ve been on the food allergy/food intolerance/celiac trip for a while, starting with living with dairy alternatives for 9 years. We’ve been living gluten-free due to Celiac Disease for almost 5 years. We’ve been living berry-free for a bit over a year. In the past 9 years we’ve gone through times of needing to avoid citrus, soy, eggs, and corn, and a transition from vegetarian to meat-eating. Not all at once, though! I’ve picked up a few ideas on how to make the transition to a new diet, and/or living with a restricted diet easier, and I hope they’re helpful.

I’ve got a new tip to start us off - my friend has a child who is anaphylactic to almost everything (no, really!). On their front door is a a sign saying “No Food Allowed”, because they live in a neighborhood with a bunch of kids who were coming over with food. If we lived in a neighborhood with a bunch of kids, we might well have a sign like that up, too. It’s a great way to reduce the risk of cross-contamination in your house, though you might have to pay for a bit more food so the neighbor kids have something to eat when they’re visiting!
Read the rest of this entry »

I received a box of BabyGanics organic cleaners without cost from the manufacturer. However, they aren’t paying me for my review, even though this may well sound like it – I just fell in love with their products. Now that many school systems (here’s one example) are eliminating chemical cleaners for the safety of the students, shouldn’t we be using environmentally safe cleaners on our homes as well? Given all the health issues in our family, it made a lot of sense to me!

I was made aware of the Clorox-sponsored What to Expect Guide a Healthy Home, and I don’t think healthy lies with items from Clorox. A healthy home is one without potentially damaging chemicals lurking in the air or on the surfaces you touch. Check out What you need to Know on the BabyGanics site, and then consider what you would like to use while cleaning your home. Read the rest of the review