So much for that fear no one will come to the birthday party. In less than 24 hours I now have confirmed 15 guests -- minus the four of us, sorry, so eleven kids. I have five left to reply. My son informed me this morning that I forgot two friends.
And did I mention? The party is three weeks away! Apparently they are very keen. I am throwing my son the party of the year.
It will be madness! It will be chaos! It will be ... wow. I have no idea how I, a homebodied introvert, decided this was a good idea. I think I will need to lie down in an isolation chamber for most of the next day before I stop vibrating from the over stimulation.
* * * * * * * *
So it turns out that the nut allergy at daycare is NOT as bad as they thought, and we are in fact allowed to bring things that say "may contain nuts" or "manufactured in a facility that also processes nuts". No ACTUAL nuts, of course, which still sucks since I love peanut butter with unparalleled enthusiasm, but this is at least much easier.
One of the things I did when thinking about this was to write to a certain mom's advice column to ask about this -- given how tiny the risk is, with a child who is not anaphylactic, is this actually a reasonable precaution? And I realized two very important things:
1. It's important to stress your reason for writing. I didn't mean to suggest that I wouldn't comply with the rules, what I really wanted to know was how necessary they were. I don't have a kid with allergies, and what I was hoping for were readers to write in and say "actually, the risks are pretty big, there's a lot of contamination" or "no, it's kinda over the top." What I got was instead "Geez, aren't you being kinda petty for choosing granola bars over a kid's health?" I wasn't GOING to choose granola bars. I just wanted to hear from people in the know how risky it actually is.
2. People don't often read the whole way through. I specifically put in that the kid in question did NOT have an anaphylactic response. I don't KNOW what the response is, but I DO know that the teachers don't carry epipens, which they would have to if the reaction were that severe. And there were a bunch of commenters who said "My kid has anaphylactic reactions to nuts and if you've ever seen that you'd never ask this question, you horrible woman." Italics mine, but seemingly implied.
Sigh.
All I wanted was a reasoned discussion of where the line is between one kid's health and the convenience of the 25 other families that are around this kid. And when the kid's health issues are a rash and / or hives, and the risks are already very small, do we need to have that outright ban? Or can we assume the risks of contamination are small, the risks of sharing are small, so perhaps that kid can enjoy his granola bar that he likes?
Bah. Some days, humanity is hard.
And might I just add that I cannot quite believe the intense DRAMA (some of it of my own making, I admit) that this has caused. WOW. I hereby declare never to use the word peanut on this blog ever again.
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I'm heading off with my daughter this week to a pediatric specialist to find out about her oral aversion issues. I wasn't much concerned with her lack of eating until I remembered that at this age my son would voluntarily put things in his own mouth. He didn't have much appetite for real foods, but he would attempt them. Sometimes.
My daughter on the other hand won't put anything in her mouth. Not even her own fingers, for the most part. And those? She'll gag on. She gags on HER OWN FINGERS. Now some might say that she's kinda dumb for triggering her own gag reflex on her own, but I am kinda thinking that perhaps her gag reflex is just BEYOND what it should be, and that's the reason for her food issues.
I still do think that she'll grow out of it on her own, but it is pause for thought.
* * * * * * * *
In other news, my plumbing hates me. In the last 24 hours the shower, the dishwasher, and the toilet have all backed up. I just washed two sinkloads of dishes by hand. I hate doing that. It's why I HAVE a dishwasher. But I'm willing to do it as long as it's just a terrible coincidence and not a sign that the sewage below us is completely backed up and going to explode upwards coating my entire place with feces.
Although given how much I've complained about decluttering and how I'd like to start over again, maybe that wouldn't be so bad ...
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