*edited for privacy OR 2nd grade round 1

I'm glad there was peanut butter in Emily's class on only the second day.  You know, let's knock this out early.  I love Emily's teacher, she was on top of it.  First a parent asked if she could bring cupcakes for her kid's birthday today.  Her teacher said No, because of the food allergy issue.  She said that the birthday mom could bring apples and carrots.  Boom!  So what did birthday mom do? Bring apples with caramel dip.  And when the caramel dip ran out, she whipped out PEANUT BUTTER?!?!!  So, Emily high tailed it and now I'm writing my first letter of the year.  Em's teacher said if stuff keeps happening like this we're going to ban food from the classroom altogether and just have a birthday crown and stickers or something.  My heart sang!!!  If you missed my jubilation a few days ago, there will be no classroom snacks this year already.  So if we can get this birthday crap nailed down, I may just have one school to freak out about instead of two.  That's only half as bad!  Ok, so here's the letter* I'm sending to school with Em tomorrow.  We'll see how atrociously it gets edited and then sent to the parents.  Or maybe, just maybe it really is a new year...

Happy Second Grade!

     I must admit, this letter never gets easier to write.  Due to Emily’s life-threatening nut allergy, I need your help to keep her safe in the classroom.  Peanuts, Tree nuts, basically every nut on the planet could very easily kill Emily if she eats it, plain and simple.  There is also a risk for severe, life-threatening reaction if nut products or particles even get on her skin or if she breathes in too many air particles contaminated with nuts.  Scary stuff.  Emily has also had reactions to Pineapple, Pomegranate, and Asparagus, but none so scary as the reactions she’s had to nuts.  And all it takes is one mistake one time for anyone with a nut allergy’s life to be over, even with all the proper medications and procedures in place.  (Google Natalie Giorgi’s tragic death at a family camp in Sacramento at the end of last month. http://www.sacbee.com/2013/07/30/5607195/years-of-caution-about-peanut.html)

To make second grade safe and awesome, I’m asking for your help in two ways:

1. When bringing food into the classroom for birthdays or other celebrations, please refrain from any Nuts or Nut products of any kind such as peanut butter, trail mix, or nutella.  In the cafeteria there is a “No Nuts” table where Emily and the other nut allergy kids can safely sit. (Last year ours was the smallest school in the district, yet had the highest concentration of nut allergy kids!)  In the classroom, it’s just too closed an environment and it’s also where the students spend all their time together.  
2. If anyone plans on bringing food into the classroom to share for any reason, please let me know via email a couple of days ahead so that I can plan something for Emily since most products from bakeries aren’t safe due to cross-contamination.  Emily has spent the last two years coming home disappointed because someone surprised the class with cupcakes or treats for a birthday that weren’t safe for her to eat, even though it was against class policy to deviate from the birthday celebration schedule, when I would have known to plan a safe snack for her.  That’s life with a nut allergy, but I could very easily just pack her a safe treat if I know ahead of time.  I’m not sure what the class policy on birthdays will be this year, but if there’s going to be food, please let me know so I can be sure to have something for Emily! (:

Thanks for your help Parents!  If you have any questions, please ask.  I may not have covered everything and I love talking about food allergies.  Emily’s younger sister has Wheat and Corn allergies, so we make and eat all kinds of weird food!

Emily’s Mom

Sashily's Kitchen

There are a lot of mile markers in life latey.  All our birthdays are happening, we've been a year and a half without wheat or corn, and we did our first nut, corn, gluten, and dairy-free camping trip. (It was our family reunion, and someone else brought nuts every, single, day.  Don't get me started.) But everything being food related, stresses me out to some degree.  Perhaps it's all exacerbated by the fact that I don't know when/if I'm getting botox again since my insurance changed carriers and I have to change neurologists, and there aren't exactly a plethora of neurologists who do botox and take my insurance.  Botox for migraine is expensive as hell. And let me tell you, hell is expensive.  Right now I'm in the jump-through-hoops-and-wait phase.  Speaking of neurology, Emily has to change neurologists too. Hers left the practice where she went, not sure why.  What's going on man?!?  Emily got a lot of migraines this summer compared to the previous 6 months.  Hopefully things settle down once school starts, and don't get worse before they get better.  Blegh.

Anyway, the beginning of school seems like the REAL New Year to me, possibly because I come from a family of teachers.  My New Year's resolution is to avoid anti-anxiety meds.  I will do this by following Grumpy Cat and Honest Toddler.  Funny thing, for my birthday I want a new pill box, one that is wooden and won't break, and is handmade in Canada.  My mom already bought me a sensible bra.  Can you say #old?!?  Well, Sasha wants a new carseat for her birthday and that's pretty sensible, and she's gonna be 5 and not 34.  Maybe we're just all kinds smart like that.  Maybe we both know that we're not going to get what we really want.  Sasha's not going to get a pet unicorn, and I'm not going to get a personal assistant/food allergy advocate.

But maybe no forgetful parent will bring nuts to class for snack this year.  And maybe no forgetful teacher will actually go so far as to hand them out if nuts actually make it in.  And since I figured out how to sorta make gluten and corn-free paint, maybe Sasha can fingerpaint in Pre-K without getting itchy from all the cornstarch.  And maybe this is the year I'll have the energy to actually make her some rice flour playdough so she can have that to play with as well.  And I can still hope beyond hope  that there won't be food activities every single week at one school or the other.  Maybe anti-anxiety meds aren't a bad idea.  Why did my massage therapist have to move away?

I heard a sermon last week on fear, not long after a bible study question asked me what I feared.  I fear earthquakes and driving a stick shift.  (-;<  But seriously, I dread persistent suffering.  Because that is pretty much my life, and it sucks.  Having no choice but to stand in the kitchen and make things out of weird specialty ingredients with recipes I have tweaked to go from simply Gluten Free to Gluten, Nut, Corn, and Dairy Free WITH a migraine, is what I not so much fear as dread.  Because it will happen, a lot. I also dread having to as politely as possible, communicate the importance of keeping Emily's classroom nut-free.  It sounds simple.  It is not.  And then there will be unforeseen food issues all year, I promise.  So I need to have a freezer and pantry stocked and ready to go and a calm cool head ready to deal.  With a migraine.  Lest Emily die in school or Sasha's hair start falling out again. Iiiiiiiiiinhaaaaaaaale.....Eeeeeeeexhaaaaaaaaale.......

Ok, on a separate but related topic, I would love another title besides [bat-crap-crazy]Food-Allergy-Mom, Musician-Has-Been.  I make kick ass, mostly organic marshmallows.  (I haven't ordered organic gelatin yet, but hopefully it works just the same.)  Now, the problem with me giving music lessons post-children or doing any serious job beside keeping my children alive, is that I barely have the energy to do that.  But in some dream of mine, I have energy to both feed my kids AND make kick ass organic marshmallows in a variety of flavors, and actually sell them to unsuspecting patrons. Then when I introduce myself to people, I wouldn't sound completely pathetic.  Instead of saying, "My ex-husband pays me to keep our children alive, and also I get heinous migraines all the effing time."  I could say, "But I also handmake allergy-friendly kick-ass organic marshmallows, some of which are dipped in fair-trade chocolate.  Here's my card."  And it would look awesome, of course.  Fun to think about at least.  Makes me want my decaf coffee coconut marshmallows. Mmmmm...

Sashily's Kitchen "because eating shouldn't suck"

#sashilyskitchen #becauseeatingshouldntsuck #screwyoufoodallergies