wisdom and humor

The Eldest is home with his brother.

This is as simple as it sounds, and as tricky. When the Toddles wants to play, he plays different games - or the same games, differently. The Eldest, having long since learned that order and chaos can play together for short periods of time, tries to co-exist over the gameboard. It works, somewhat.

The boys are learning to take turns, to be independant and still together, and to need me in shifts. Wait, I'm always telling them, let me do this for your brother first. And they do, although the Toddles will often punctuate his patience by flinging toys. But nowhere does this become more stark than at naptime.

Wait, I tell the Eldest. Read a book or do a puzzle - I'm going to lie down with your brother for a bit. We both know that I will fall asleep, a habit that I've happily encouraged for the past two years. But the Eldest will wait, doing a complicated puzzle (500+ pieces), or setting up a board game, and moving my pieces for me. He's been beating me at Earthopoly all week, and I'm happy to sleep through that - I'm an amazingly poor loser.

When QG came for a first day of two, she found herself overwhelmed. The energy of the boys, together, is more than the sum of its parts, doubling and quadrupling in bursts of boyish laughter and flying objects. The next time she came, the Eldest and I went out alone, having a quiet drive to go and visit a camp that he'll attend next week. We talked on the way, coffee stopped in harmony, and planned how we'd handle a last minute request for a quick hemo/allergy training. I could show them how to use the Epi, he suggested, but I'm not sure I want to. I nodded, familiar with his discomfort with crowds and performing. Fine. You can tell me right then what you want to do. I can show them how to use the Epi if you don't want to do it. He smiled, relieved.

The camp was a small room filled with glue and paper and sand and other wonderfully active, messy things. The Eldest sat down and began filling a paper fish with tiny scales. We worked together on the scales, happy in a simple, wonderful way. Slowly, the room cleared around us, and the Eldest looked up from designing bracelets to find himself the center of attention. The counsellors and camp director smiled at him from their conference table.

let's go tell them about hemophilia and allergies, I whispered to the Eldest, and he nodded. And so I began. (The Eldest, sitting quietly next to me, slid his cap over his nose.) I explained about bleeds, and the different kinds of bleeds. (The Eldest stood on his chair.) I talked about trusting the child to know his body. (The Eldest started making silly faces.) I reviewed food allergy and anaphylaxis. (The Eldest, sensing his moment, starting waving his arms and singing, 'blah, blah, blah poop my poopface.')

From time to time, I put a hand on the Eldest, or whispered a word in his ear. Settle down, now. You are being disruptive, can you try to be a helpful presence? You can go and work with the beads some more if you'd like. The Eldest nodded, listening, and continued. Finally, I gave him a chance.

Can you show these people how to use the Epi? He grinned, enthusiastic. Yep! He held the Epi backwards. You take it like this - OOOOOOOOOOOOps - and then you do this - AWWWWWWWWWWW - and then oh, no, I stuck it in me butt. Giddy with his own wit, the Eldest sat down. I gritted my teeth. Above all, I said sighing, he's an absolutely normal child. Despite all of the medical whatevers.

A table full of women looked at the Eldest, now lounging happily in his chair. Yes, they said. We can see that.
To set things right, the Eldest tried to do a little after-the fact educating. He made a 'How Do You Feel' chart, using the Wong-Baker scale to show anxiety or pain. He made three columns to let child, teacher and parent chime in. At the bottom, he wrote, 'WHAt DO YOu WANt tO DO?' and offered options: Epi, ice, factor, call Mum, wait and see, or a hug. We'll give it to his camp counsellors, as an opportunity for him to show them that he does take this seriously, and that they can trust him. For all of his nervous clowning, he is a wise child who knows his own body - a truth that would have had more impact had he not been sticking markers up his nose when I'd said it.

But this is the process of making things right, and he's done it beautifully. I think his wisdom balances out his jokestering, but man, is it a finely measured balance.

opening a door to summer - and a verdict

Summertime has begun.

The Eldest is now home from school, and we're learning the new pattern of our days. Our first rainy day taught me how important it is that the boys spend hours on a playground or outside, moving fast. Our first playdate taught me much about balancing the boys, an outing oriented slightly more to one followed by an outing oriented more towards the other. The patterns are simple and full, but complex for all of that.

A current favorite outing is strawberry picking, which we have done twice now. We've been to Hanson's Farm, a small but sweet farm, and a perennial favorite of ours, Land Sake farm. The dusty but smiling folks at Land Sake know that the Toddles eats his weight in strawberries, but the field is fresh and bursting with berries, and nobody minds. The boys run races up and down the edges of the field, and the Toddles grins hugely. The Eldest catches the Toddles up at the end of a race, and whirls him around with delight. Despite a cranky morning with horrible footnotes, I turn to the other mother next to me. This is why you have two, I said, pushing aside the morning. She watched the kids run, thoughtful.

The Toddles, his face a wide streak of sticky, dark pink juice, grinned. Have a berry, Mama, he says, and offers to share. It tastes like summertime, and I can feel something in me start to ease.

Tonight, I am packing up strawberries for a treat tomorrow, when we will go and spend another day at the allergy clinic. The Eldest will eat pumpkin, and the Toddles will be skin tested for coconut, banana, flax and blueberry. We will come home, cranky but with some answers - and make strawberry soup.
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We're home from the allergy clinic, having dropped our poor, battered car at the mechanic. The Eldest bravely washed tinny pumpkin puree down with swigs of o.j., and is pronounced pumpkin-ready. So, a pumpkin pie-ish sort of thing is baking in my oven as I type.

In addition to being tested for coconut, flax, banana and blueberry, the Toddles was given the full environmental allergy skin testing, in case one of the local pollens has been exacerbating his reactions. Nope. We learned that he is not allergic to coconut, bananas, blueberries or flax, and he is still very (very) allergic to dust, as well as cats, dogs and feathers. Hmm.

So, still we have nothing. I am going to take the suggestion made by a reader and ask FAAN to have the soy yogurt tested. Maybe a lab can tell us more than the yogurt's customer service.

and...I've got nothing

Not even a fiery blog post.


The soy yogurt folks called us back. No, there is no wheat, rye, barley, spelt, kiwi, egg, coconut, banana or flaxseed in the yogurt that the Toddles ate. No, they won't tell me what vegetable or fruit juices, natural flavors or glucose sources they use in the yogurt, though they will answer a specific, yes/no question. And no, they can't tell me about cross contamination from other yogurts that do have some of the allergens I'd listed. In other words, the chances that a known allergen caused this is now fairly low, and while cross-contamination could have caused the reaction, we'll never know. So, either it was cross-contamination or a new allergen. But which? The yogurt people politely and unemotionally declined to help.

So, we have nothing. No answers, no explanations. I remember a time when this would have had me raging, furious, but curiously I'm not angry. Mostly, I'm tired. I'm tired of allergies, of trying to defend my children without offending others. I'm only half successful at it, anyway, as a group of irked parents proved at the end of the school year. Oh, well. A few weeks ago, this cut into me badly, but now I can't be bothered letting the emotion touch me. Bah.

I think this is what they call 'resignation,' although it's odd to see it sitting so calmly in my psyche.

And the yogurt people? Well, I could be angry that they aren't telling me what I need to know to keep my child safe, but what for? They aren't here to keep my kid safe, they're more interested in turning a profit. So, the Toddles' safety is interesting to them only as a legal or PR issue. Given that they have no legal obligations to me here and the Toddles is fine, they don't need to play ball with me. So they tell me nothing more than they need to, and I'm left no wiser than before.

Can the allergists help us? The only idea they can offer is that the Toddles might have a rare, rare, rare allergy to blueberries. Typically, I can think through the child's eating habits and form an opinion, but I truly don't know. I can see how privileged we've been, where allergies are concerned. Many families are forced to wait months before seeing an allergist, and we've never done that. I've always had too much information at my fingertips, rather than passively waiting for answers from doctors. This lack of knowledge, of forward momentum feels odd.

I dislike this. If I weren't so body and spirit tired, I think I'd be scared and angry. But right now, I'm just going to do a final read-through, send off my article and go to sleep. With, mind you, a small and slightly itchy person curled next to me.

I might have a worrying bupkis where this latest allergy is concerned, but at least I'll have a by-line. And a chance to start in on that long, long list of things To Do.
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In other news, these nice folks won the Ideablob monthly contest for a great business idea. I voted for them with enthusiasm, and you can read about the contest and how it works here.

contemplations and deadlines

Recently, after thinking it over seriously for oh, thirty seconds (we had just laid down dust mite-unfriendly wooden floors and needed the cash), I took a paying writing job. It was a one-off, a single feature for a kindly and desperate editor.

I had seven weeks to do the job, and the Man and I sat down and planned how we'd handle this. I broke the project into stages, set timetables for each stage and set to work. I even built in a little extra wiggle time, for the inevitable procrastination. I was sensible, moderately realistic, and completely bulldozed by what followed.

Here's what I learned:

* the Man does not really enjoy being left to manage the kids for dinner, bath and bed on night after night while I work, and making an especially yummy dinner doesn't seem to help. (Note: as the one working in a cafe, nursing a cup of coffee, it would certainly have helped ME, but hey.)
* panic is not useful
* panic is inevitable
* trying to read absolutely everything on the subject in question is not likely to happen.
* trying to acquire a sufficient quantity of articles, books and various bits of paper to make me a mini-expert is not likely to happen, but it is startlingly easy to acquire more than I can read. It is also amazingly easy to acquire enough to make me panic at the sight of the piles of printout/library books/tagged e-journals. See above re: panic.
* I will not become a statistical wizard overnight, able to analyze the significance of a researcher's findings in a single bound, la!
* the Man, having failed for years to explain math to me, might - but only might - be able to work through the data for an article for a medical journal. But I wouldn't recommend trying for two articles' data. We're so close to our twelfth anniversary, why balls it up now?
* it helps to do a brain dump and write down all of the things I want to do when this project is finished. It's fun to organize these things into three columns. It's annoying to realize how long that list is. Ergh.

* stress eating while researching/writing is not actually helpful. In fact, the after-effects are kind of depressing.
* seven weeks is a really long time to disappear from my friends ('tell me when you exist again, okay?' I will. I promise.)
* I miss having dinner with my kids
* I miss their father - and shudder at the size of the relationship debt that I'm racking up. Unequal as it may be (he doesn't have to make it up to me for going to work each day), I'm going to have to make a seriously hefty deposit in the relationship bank after this. It's still worth it, but I think something special is needed here, possibly involving edible undies.
* the deadline is unlikely to change because of a migraine, bleed, new diagnosis, school stuff, home stuff, broken glasses or anaphylaxis. Although this seems slightly unfair - it's all about me, right? Oh.
* pulling an all-nighter is unlikely to improve the quality of the writing that I get done. Although somehow I was under the impression that this worked for me in college. Hmm.
* doesn't matter how much I have to work, quality writing doesn't happen when steam is coming out of my ears. Down, girl. Steady now, steady..
* whining to the editor is unlikely to improve their opinion of me.
* being late is a reality I can almost accept, since it happens every day when taking the Eldest to school. But I'm throwing fits, should that reality extend to this project. (Note: it certainly does NOT extend to all projects, saith the mama defensively.)
* having the Man say I told you so is an absolutely reliable outcome. See above about upcoming anniversaries and the desire to reach them.
* writer's block is the brain's last ditch effort to weasel out of doing something that it really, really doesn't want to do. Not helpful. Also, to be filed under 'not helpful,' along with calling my mother in a panic over said writer's block ('just imagine that you are in an exam room, and there's only five minutes to go - now, get to work!'), or calling the Man at work ('are we done with the empathy part yet? I'm ready for the problem solving part of this conversation').
* it is entirely likely that the Man experiences this sort of haste and worry over projects on a much more regular basis. Although I'm fairly certain that he rarely types in between Curious George stories.
* being done is the best thing in the world. Now, if only I could get there...

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This turned up in my inbox: It's a little heavy on the sugar, but lots of fun. My favorite bit? the very, very average looking singers.

Then there's this, sadder note...and this more hopeful one. A fine cocktail for a harried writer longing for the finish line!

re-education via yogurt

As a rule, there are a number of things that we do, to (as the Man likes to say) reduce risk. We always have a cell phone (and we were reminded here as to why), we always carry enough epinephrine for two emergency doses per child, and we avoid foods with vague labels. Something with 'spices?' No way - those spices could be anything. Something with 'natural flavors?' Nope. Those flavors can be derived from anywhere, and could contain enough allergenic protein to trigger an allergic reaction - same goes for natural colors, glucose made from grains, and on and on. It's the gray zone, in which you don't know if something is unsafe, but you also don't know if it is. Considering the choices, we choose caution. When we choose otherwise, inevitably one of the boys takes it upon themselves to remind us why we should not. So, then, we're cautious.

But occasionally something goes wrong. A miscommunication (I thought you said that was okay), an assumption that one of us has evaluated an item (oh. I assumed you'd spoken to the company and approved this) - rarely, but sometimes, sometimes this happens. It happened on Tuesday.

A yogurt that I had not explicitly examined or consulted the company over, and which contained three red flags in the ingredients, was offered with the best of intentions. The Man accepted, and fed it to the Toddles. The Toddles ate it, vomited and had his face decorated with hives. Sensing a cue, the Eldest was whisked off to synagogue by a wise grandfather, who walked along mentally reviewing epinephrine use. (Once at services, the grandpapa settled himself and the Eldest right behind a local EMT, and then prayed. Heartily.) Perhaps feeling like he'd understated the matter, the Toddles emphasized the point, improving the size of the puddle, and was taken upstairs to the bath.

My nose is all full! said the Toddles with some annoyance. I smiled at him and his newly congested nose, and rubbed soap into his hair. Noses are small potatoes in the realm of allergic reactions, and I was just fine with this one. Then, my tummy feels sloshy, he told me, and I popped him out of the bath just in time for another wave. This time, the hives renewed themselves on his face, marching south to his groin. We cleaned him up again, mopped another floor and as the Toddles began coughing, I looked at my splashed pajamas and realized that there was no time for a shower.

The Toddles coughed periodically, unenthusiastically while I packed a bag, planning to have the Toddles observed at an ER - biphasic, or two-wave allergic reactions should be observed, saith the allergist - but here we were on grandparental territory and unclear on how to get to a hospital. Thoughtfully, the Man called an uncle with a good mental map and caller ID (and the wits to consider that we'd call only for an emergency on a Jewish holiday). But no sooner had the Man called, than the Toddles' coughing began to escalate. Scared, the Toddles began to wail.

Little bear, little one, I said gently, I'm going to give you the EpiPen. It's going to hurt, but then it will make you feel better. Crying, the Toddles nestled his face into my chest and nodded. One jab later, he raised his head. All done! he informed me, emphatically. No more. I agreed. No more, indeed. Moments later, the uncle arrived. I considered the options, and six minutes later we pulled into the ER, having driven at speeds that left me breathless.

The Toddles, clutching the EpiPen case and merrily offering to poke anyone in need, was admired by the ER staff. When a third wave of hives appeared, the staff was impressed - but I watched the Toddles' calm face and steady breath, and was unconcerned. Four hours later, hyper on steroids, he was released. I crawled into bed to shake a bit, and curled around a tired, sleeping child. Two days later, I sat down to write an email.

To Whom it May Concern,

I am the parent of a child who is allergic to .... On this date, he ate this product, with this serial number, lot number and use-by date. He experienced this reaction, and required this degree of medical care. Can you tell me what, precisely, was in these ingredients?

Time to go back to basics: if you don't know what's in it, don't give it to them. No matter what. Seems simple enough, no?

challenging food

This past Friday, we considered the possibilities of lentils. The Eldest took it so seriously that he asked for seconds, startling the nurse assigned to us. She looked briefly worried, and then turned to me for explanations. The Eldest, his mouth full, looked puzzled. Hasn't she seen a kid eat before? he asked me silently, chewing. I shrugged. Having seen her puzzle over a knot left by a nice fat bruise, I suspected that there was more in this world (o Horatio) than was dreamt of by her philosophy. The Eldest, his mouth happily full, didn't argue.

Food challenges, successful or otherwise, are amazingly boring. In between the carefully masked bouts of adult terror (while the child eats) is the waiting for something to happen - or not (more adult terror). So, it requires entertainment in equal proportion to the boredom and the adult's twitchiness. We Imperfects walked into the windowless little exam room assigned to us for the lentil challenge, and knew exactly what to do. We marched right back out of the room, and headed for the giant basket of crayons in the waiting room.

By the time lentils were approved and the second helpings supplied, we'd created a cosmos on the examining table's paper cover. We had stars, planets, the rainbows, trees and birds of the Earth, and some mysterious hieroglyphics courtesy of the Toddles, who lost interest in crayons when discovered the room's scale and went over to jump on it. (more surprise from the nurse, who by now should have known that we were entirely out of her reckoning.)

The table's paper in hand, we headed off. I was a limp maternal rag, but the boys bounced and grinned over my head, and I grimly set myself to appreciate the Eldest's triumph.

Ah, but I hate food challenges. I'm aware that the Eldest's calm is purely a product of luck thus far - he has yet to fail a challenge, and so has an inflated view of his safety at moments like these. Which I'm not about to disabuse. Gently, we tell him that the doctors are making their best decisions about the allergen, and blithely he recalls past triumphs. But my fears are not really the point. There was laughter today, crayons and storybooks, not to mention an enormous drawing of the universe. So, onwards we go...to pumpkin. The Man offered a juicy, challenge-free alternative,

nonetheless, I think we might just push our luck on this one. But first, a few weeks to let my nerves settle, hmm?

Mi Ani? and being invited to see the answer

I'm writing this with a melting popsicle clenched between my teeth. Dang, it's hot.

This past week flew by, with me continually fretting over my upcoming deadlines. But as worried as I was, the calendar still insisted on pausing on Tuesday. When Tuesday finally turned up, I understood why. Tuesday was Mi Ani? (who am I?) day at the Eldest's kindergarten, a sort of graduation day.

The first sign that Tuesday was coming were the tickets, required for entry to the ceremony.

I was issued mine, and sternly warned to keep them safe. I promised that I would, and enlisted the Eldest's help in outfit design for the ceremony. One slightly outrageous suggestion later (the Eldest has far more avant garde fashion that I do), I warned the Eldest that our habitual lateness did not bode well for the 8 am ceremony, and he made himself a reminder:

Nudged by the sign, hurray on Tuesday it was - and we were even on time. The kindergarteners showed their parents a portfolio of their work, helped their parents tour the classroom and the exhibit of the year's photos. We davened together, watched a video assembled by the teachers, and admired the children doing a song and dance number. The Eldest wore a solemn, slightly worried look during the dance, that I could empathise with entirely.

And, of course, we ate cake. Some of it allergy friendly, some of it not, and I'm grateful and extremely aware of the thoughtfulness of the non-allergy mum who slipped her very pregnant self into the school kitchen to bake a cake for the Eldest and his ilk. (The Man later frosted the cake. Bright green.) The head of the school positioned herself, knife in hand, in front of the allergy-friendly cake, and served the allergy kids first - and safely. Replete with Kermit frosting, the Eldest and I read the poems he'd copied down, admired his artwork (he wants to be an art teacher when he grows up, he tells me, as well as a Red Sox player), and talked about the science experiments that he'd observed. We flipped madly through the giant book of his work, lingering over his handmade siddur, and admiring happily the kiddush cup he'd made.

The Eldest's classroom is a marvellous one, full of the kids' artwork and writing, much of produced with a quirky kid-humor that often escapes me. Happily, the Eldest was there to translate. But there was one sign that needed no translation. The children had traipsed their way through an imaginary Sinai desert, tracing the path taken by the Israelites en route to Sinai and the gift of the Ten Commandments. Their path concluded here:

When I think about the variety of this classroom, whether religious, immunological or philosophical, I have to think that this is a group that is learning to live as a community. Hrrae for them, as the Eldest would say. It's been a busy, challenging year for children and families, but a strong and successful one. Along the way, the kids have not only learned who they are (mi ani?), but who they are as a group (mi anu?). And I like what I see.

On our thoughtful way home, the Eldest contemplated the idea of summer vacation. Can I go back to my school when summer vacation is over? he asked me. I had told him that the first year was an experiment, to see if the school would suit us as a family, and suit him, as a kid. I reminded him of this. I think the experiment worked, I told him solemnly. Yes, you can have another year of school there after the summer is over. Behind me in the car, the Eldest looked pleased.
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A pair of news items that popped up over the past week or so:
from the Hema-Blog, an Australian lawsuit over a child with hemophilia. And from Newsweek,food allergies as a diagnosis requiring a plea. Intriguing, both of them.
Neither things I would have said, written or chosen to do, but I do understand much of what they say..

flaring tempers: experimentally or otherwise

As my most recent deadline approaches, my temper grows shorter. At unexpected moments I look up, see a fairly standard bit of boy chaos, and the little voice saying, steady on old girl gets drowned out by the voice that had been chanting my To Do list (in a nice, upbeat tempo, with a muttering about the Toddles' hives in the background, a chanting of the neglected gardening and a wistful air about school politics, all coming together in a lovely symphony of stress), which is now roaring at the kids.

sigh.

The roaring subsides, and the sensible little voice says ruefully, now, did you really want to go and do that? Well, no, I didn't. And now I feel guilty and bad mom-ish, and that's bound to create a really wonderful feedback cycle that can only improve matters, I snap at the voice. The voice makes a patient sound that reminds me remarkably of my mother, and subsides.

And so it goes.

On Friday, somewhere in the middle of baking, chopping, broiling and stuffing, a little voice spoke up. I'm angry with you, Mummy. I looked down. There was the Toddles, hands on hips. He looked calm. I looked surprised. Are you? He'd been playing with his play stovetop for about twenty minutes, so barring lack of participation, I couldn't think of a maternal crime that I'd committed. (recently)
Yes, he told me firmly. I'm angry with you.
Oh, I said. I'm sorry for making you angry. Would you like a hug?
Yes, he said decidedly. And three kisses.
Hugged and kissed, he looked satisfied. Thank you, he said, and disappeared again.

It is consoling, really. The Toddles - as did his brother before him - was trying out the language of anger, and experimenting with patterns of response. I rather like this pattern, and I do hope that I can settle myself (or get past this deadline) before I teach him a different one.
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So, what was I baking, oh-so-crankily? Ah. Well.
Friday was roll and crumpet day, courtesy of the Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread. We tried crumpets (see middle ground, right), popovers (background, top right corner), and french rolls (foreground, bottom left corner). As the Toddles is currently off banana, coconut and flaxseed (we use ground flaxseed and water or mashed banana to replace eggs), these three recipes offered an opportunity to try egg-free, flax-free options without the risk of collapse from lack of structural support - a constant challenge in gluten-free baking, and one that rolls avoid by being more crust than center.

The popovers, alas, were once again squodgy inside - those lads really need their eggs, I suspect, if they are to pop. The crumpets were too dense, despite my attempts to lighten the texture and flavor. Eventually, I dripped some soy yogurt on them and topped them with fresh raspberries and it was still - still! - tough going. Oh, well.

But the gluten-free french bread was all delicious crust and airy insides, despite (or perhaps because of) the tweaks we'd made to the recipe in making it vegan (no gelatine, no dairy, no eggs). So airy were they, that I could almost see the heat of my internal symphony holding them up...but not quite.

Hot Air Rolls
makes 12 rolls

1.75 cups white rice flour
1.25 cups tapioca
1 Tb guar gum
2.5 Tb Ener-G egg replacer
2 Tb sugar
1 tsp agar agar
1 Tb yeast
6 Tb Vance's Dari-Free powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vitamin C powder (I use this as a dough enhancer, you can skip it if need be)
6Tb + 1.33 cups hot water
2 tsp vinegar
3 Tb vegetable oil

Mix dry ingredients together. The Man does this for me, the night before I bake, and puts the ingredients in an airtight container. In a mixing bowl, combine wet ingredients.Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and turn your cake mixer to a high setting, and beat for about 2-3 minutes. When you are done, the dough should be like a somewhat thick cake batter - you should be able to drop spoonfulls on a tray and not have them run all over the tray.

Preheat oven to 425F. Then, choose: if you have a cupcake/muffin pan, you can spray and use that. If you are so blessed as to have a french roll pan, you can spray and use that. Distribute the dough as you choose, then let it rise on top of your oven (or in some other warm spot) for about 45 minutes or so until double in size. (Check your yeast - fast-acting yeast will rise faster, regular will rise slower.)

Bake for 20 minutes. Let sit in pan for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack. Sniff the most unlikely scent from a gluten-free baked good, and wonder if you haven't somehow used wheat. But you didn't.

Our next baking challenge? Making this Imperfect-friendly.