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.