True confession: I used to sometimes roll my eyes when I had to make my daughter abstain from peanuts to preserve an allergen-free environment for a very allergic kid in her class. But now I'm the one provoking the eye rolling, as my youngest daughter's recent testing has shown that she's allergic to milk, eggs and wheat, making birthday cupcakes and cookies (unless they're made vegan and gluten-free) out of the question.
It's been an exhausting few weeks as we adjust to our new reality—where we're voraciously reading food labels, searching for that elusive halfway-decent recipe for everything-free bread, and forced to BYO to every single event we're going to, to avoid making our hosts hunt down vegan cheese and rice pasta.
Living without all of these things is more expensive (a $5 loaf of bread with nothing but rice, yeast and water, for instance), and not quite as tasty (the "mac and chreese," which my daughters gobble up, tastes evil). So we've taken to serving up two different versions of some meals, and trying to teach our daughter that some foods, like her beloved Goldfish crackers, are simply not allowed.
It's tough to make your little one give up her precious trick-or-treat booty, or to try to socialize when most socializing these days revolves around food, and most of the kid-friendly options simply aren't friendly to my daughter. And it's even tougher to realize that the options available—disappoint your child, or make life difficult for everyone else around you—are no fun either. I only hope that her doctor is right, and that my daughter will grow out of it within the next few years.
