to persevere

It’s been a long week, and not much energy to post. I came down with a cold, the Linguist got conjunctivitis, and the Comic caught a cough. This meant that they kids missed much of the last week of school, and we had to start the Linguist on antibiotics and eye drops. Have you ever tried to get eyedrops into a squirmy little girl? It’s not easy, let me tell you. And it is accompanied by very high pitched whining… I can feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it.

Anyway, it’s now Christmas week, and everybody is off this week, so hopefully we can recover from all our sicknesses by taking it easy this week.

Here’s wishing you a very merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday season with family and friends!

It started off auspiciously, this Saturday. This morning we split up, DW went grocery shopping, and I watched the kids at dance class. I brought my laptop to work on some things, but those of you on my twitter know that I had no battery left on my MBP (grrr) and I had to entertain myself with twitter on my cell phone… sore thumbs! The highlight of being there waiting, though, was getting a chance to have a preview of the girls’ ballet routine for the recital in June… so cute.

Our girls were at a birthday party this afternoon, at a play place nearby. The party was drop off (sweet), so DW and I had exactly two hours to relax and shop. And shop we did! We went to Starbucks first, to get our caffeine fix, and then we went to the closeout bankruptcy sale at Linens & Things. Mostly things were 40% off, only a few things were 60%. We did manage to score a set of 3 Green Pan frying pans for $60, which was awesome. I had never heard of Green Pan before, but DW had, and they seem like one of the new wave of environmentally conscious companies.

We also stopped in at the LCBO and picked up some Fresita and a bottle of CHRISTIAN MOUEIX SAINT-ÉMILION 2005 (VINTAGES 979955). This is one of my recent favourites.

We scooted back to the play place to pick up the kids, and thankfully they didn’t make much of a fuss when it was time to go. We had already warned them about it, so it seemed to be alright today. I was excited because their loot bag prize was a webkins doll! (I know, I need a life) Actually I was interested to see what this whole webkins thing was about, since we had never bought them one before. It’s actually pretty interesting to see how complex the whole webkins online component is… you have to earn money for buying stuff for your pet’s room, and feed it treats and healthy food. Visiting every day is touted as being a way to increase your pets happiness (way to feed the addiction to the computer)! I’m keeping my eye on this one, in many ways, it’s like a kids’ version of the SIMS… the girls are not going to be allowed to play this without adult supervision.

The converse may not be true, however…

It’s hard not to love a company that makes dairy-free alternatives to difficult to substitute things like Cream Cheese, or Sour Cream. Tofutti is one of those companies whose items consistently top our shopping list. Not only are they dairy-free, but they also taste quite good, both in consistency and flavour.

But what really seals the deal, and what we first knew Tofutti for, were these:

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That’s right, Vanilla Premium Frozen Dessert. Sounds pretty boring, but this pint sized tub of frozen treat was the thing that allowed our daughter to feel included when everyone else was having ice cream after dinner. It was what saved us when we went out to dinner parties at friends’ houses. So it means a lot to us to have this product available.

As I alluded to, Tofutti also makes “Better Than Cream Cheese”, and “Sour Supreme”, excellent substitutes for Cream Cheese and Sour Cream, respectively. A more recent product which we also love, is their Soy-Cheese Slices. Having bought and tried a number of different soy and rice based cheeses, usually sold in blocks, and invariably having them either taste extremely foul or going bad before our daughter could finish all of it, these individually wrapped cheese slices were amazing. Normally we don’t get processed cheese slices, but I can’t argue with the sheer convenience and the long lasting nature of this product. It comes in two flavours, Mozzarella and “American”, and looks and feels just like a regular processed cheese slice. It’s great in sandwiches made with wheat-free, egg-free, diary-free bread, AND yes, it melts like cheese should melt. Awesome for grilled cheese. Or putting on vegetables.

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The company has a quirky sense of humour too, calling one of its ice cream bars “Marry Me!” bars:

“Tofutti’s Marry Me bars are a match made in flavor Heaven. Fine, full-bodied vanilla made with organic sugar partnered with a rich, deep organic chocolate coating create a classic love story that will leave you feeling happily ever after.
For a healthy, long lasting relationship.”

Hard to argue with that. I think I might just go have one myself. Excuse me…

Note: Not suitable for those with an allergy to soy.

Talking at Age Two from div_conspiracy on Vimeo.

My oldest, when she was two. She talked. A lot.

Oh, boy, I’m excited about this one! We just discovered a big brand oyster sauce that doesn’t have wheat in it! Here are the details:

Lee Kum Kee
Panda Brand Lo Mein Oyster Flavoured Sauce
www.LKK.com
UPC 078895134964

I must say I’m relieved to find this, because the previous brand of oyster sauce that we were using was a vegetarian oyster sauce, which kind of looked like corn syrup. Not only that, but we have had trouble sourcing it at our local Asian supermarkets, so we were going to run out.

Note: This product does contain oyster extract, so it’s not good if you have a shellfish allergy.

vig⋅i⋅lance –noun
1. state or quality of being vigilant; watchfulness: Vigilance is required in the event of treachery.
2. Pathology. insomnia.

Origin: 1560–70; alter. ( -ance for -ancy ) of obs. vigilancy L. vigilantia; see vigilant, -ancy Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

What it means to have a kid with food allergies:

It means that I worry any time I open a packet of instant 3 in 1 coffee, because the fine powder that floats up out of the mug might settle on something I can’t see, and the milk in it will get into her food.

It means that every time I make a breakfast that involves bread or anything that has wheat, I have to wash my hands in between handling our food and her food. And if while I’m eating she needs help, like with cutting her special toast, for example, I have to wash my hands again before I can touch her food.

It means that I’m super anxious about crumbs at the table. I always wipe her spot at the table first when the cloth is the cleanest, then move on to the rest of the table.

It means that anytime we’re serving food, I have to watch to make sure there isn’t any accidental cross contamination into the safe foods. No crumbs, no drips, no using serving utensils for multiple dishes. No touching bowls of plates when serving out the food.

It means that if I’ve been drinking milk or tea, and she needs a kiss, I have to wipe my mouth carefully before I kiss her.

It means that at Halloween, we come home and go through her candy, sorting out all the chocolate and other things she can’t have, and trade her for the bags of chips and the fruit gummies that she can have.

It means that we can only eat out at certain restaurants, and even then only certain menu items are safe. We have pored over many a restaurant’s ingredients list online, and have spoken to many a chef to find out what a certain dish is made with. It means that whenever we find a place that does offer something safe, we make sure we go back there, and often.

It means that I thought about getting a separate toaster for her so that we wouldn’t contaminate it with our bread crumbs. In the end we got a toaster oven that has two racks, and we keep her bread toasting on the top, and ours on the bottom, so the wheat crumbs won’t fall on her special bread.

It means that she wears a MedicAlert bracelet whenever she goes out and she’ll be under someone else’s supervision (at school, playdates, parties, etc.).

It means that for the first three years of her life we’ve had to avoid shellfish (shrimp, lobster, crab) and fish, not because she was allergic to them, but because they are foods that people are commonly allergic to. Since I have a slight reaction to crab and lobster, combined with the fact that she has a lot of other food allergies, we were advised to keep her off fish and shellfish until she was older and could be tested for them.

It means that I go through the ingredients of everything we buy to make sure it’s safe, even those things which we’ve previously vetted, because the ingredients may have changed since we bought them last. It has happened.

It means that she always has two Epi-Pens and a bottle of Benadryl nearby at all times.

It means that at school she has to have her own snacks, her own special cookies and treats, and can’t use certain materials like Play-Doh or egg cartons. It means that I nearly cried when her kindergarten teacher got her whole allergy information from us, and then asked for recipes for wheat-free, dairy-free, egg-free birthday cakes, so that she could make cakes for the monthly birthday celebration not only for our daughter, BUT FOR THE WHOLE CLASS. :*)

When we first found out our youngest had numerous food allergies, we were initially overwhelmed. We found out quite early, pretty much as soon as she started eating solid foods. it started with a strange redness around the mouth and hives on her body, after feeding her baby food that had peas in it. Then we tried a cracker, and the same thing happened. Same with a banana. At that point we took her for an allergy test, and came back with a long list of things she was allergic to.

We made a decision pretty early on that we would try as much as possible to be inclusive rather than exclusive when it comes to food. With an inclusive approach, it means that meals, whenever possible, are completely safe for her to eat. The only exception is breakfast, where we all have our own individual things. And if there is something that she cannot eat, say when we are at a party or out for dinner, we make sure that we bring something that she can have so that she doesn’t feel left out.

Oh, you want to know what she’s allergic to?

• wheat
• dairy
• egg
• peanuts
• tree nuts
• banana
• avocado

This list seems pretty long, but in fact it’s shorter now than when she was first diagnosed. In the intervening 3 years, we’ve tried our best to keep her from any exposure to the things she’s allergic to. The medical advice we’ve been given is that if (IF) the body is not exposed to the things it reacts to, there is a chance that the body will forget the immune response to those allergens, and that when the immune system reaches maturity (around 5 years of age) that it will become permanently forgotten, and she will have ‘outgrown’ her allergies. This theory revolves around the ‘no exposure’ part of it, so it puts the pressure on being vigilant about it.

We have already seen her lose her reaction to peas, green beans, and we are hopeful that she will lose more as time goes on. But if not, we have already developed many strategies to navigate through the allergy maze.

One of the hardest parts for us, being Asian, is in the preparation of dishes that require a sauce, either soy sauce or oyster sauce, or other barbeque sauces and what not. You wouldn’t think that there’s anything in a sauce to be allergic to, but in fact the common ingredient in these sauces is wheat. There is wheat in soy sauce, wheat in most oyster sauces, and so on. But these are the flavours that make Asian cuisine, and it’s hard to substitute them. So we had to find sauces that don’t contain wheat, and that hasn’t been easy.

I’d like to share my discoveries with you, and I’ll be starting a new series of posts about food allergies and strategies that we’ve developed over the last three years with our own children. So stay tuned, and I hope you’ll find something helpful here!