The holiday's can be challenging for families living with food allergies. Creating a safe environment, most of the time, means hosting all food events. For my house it also means asking everyone to wash their hands upon arrival and taking off their shoes. There's always that hidden worry that someone ate milk proteins before coming over and there's a morsel lingering on their clothes. But we do what we have to do to keep our family and friend relationships moving on the same path. It's so much easier to isolate your child and yourself but at what cost? Altering family recipes with safe ingredients has to happen because really what's a family recipe when all of the family can't enjoy it? We are so truly blessed to have a family that tries their best and makes things possible for us to be so close. If we can't get through to the one's who love us then how can we expect the rest of the world to listen?
All parent's of young children living with a life threatening food allergy live in a constant, round the clock state of fear. Fear of the unknown, fear that our children cannot communicate their immediate needs and symptoms, and fear of putting anyone else in charge of managing this extremely dangerous allergy. Releasing control and delegating responsibilities is definitely where I struggle the most because, for me, handing that over to another person can be the biggest mistake I make. I'm not at all worried that a caregiver would not follow our rules and feed my darling junk food or too much sugar, let her watch too much TV, not use her manners, or let her negotiate her way on everything--- like most parent's would be concerned with. I'm worried that they might misread an ingredient, and show up at my house with cow's milk proteins lingering on their body or garments. I'm worried that they are oblivious to the MANY different ways that milk proteins are presen...
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