Off to a Good Start

Two weeks of school gone; only 37 more to go. Not that my son’s counting or anything. But when his favorite subjects are recess and P.E., and P.E. is only taught once a week, the days get kind of long.

Personally, I’m glad the first two weeks are over. Those are usually the most stressful for me and Kim (the mom of my son’s best friend), because that’s when we make the rounds giving food allergy presentations in school. First, we meet with our boys’ teachers to tell them about their allergies and talk to them about classroom strategies, such as keeping their lunch boxes separate from all the other kids’, identifying a location for their medicine, and so on.

Next, our principal invites us to give a presentation at her staff meeting, so we can tell ALL the teachers about food allergies. Because we give this talk every year, some of the teachers have heard it so many times they joke that they could give the talk themselves. But none of them take me up on my offer to trade places! And they admit the refresher is helpful. Other teachers are new to our school – and some are new to the United States – so the presentation is even more valuable for them. This year, our school has a nursing consultant (a parent volunteer who has officially signed on with our school to be our health official), so she helped with our presentation this year, which was very reassuring.

Finally, Kim and I gave one more presentation – this one to the lunch room staff, several of whom are new this year.

Because Kim and I have done these presentations every year, we no longer have to screw up our courage to go plead to get on their agendas. At this point, it’s an accepted and assumed notion that we’ll be doing these presentations, so the principal and the lunchroom manager actually came to us and asked us when we could come do our presentations.

That’s a great feeling. It shows us that food allergy awareness and precautions are important in our school. It doesn’t mean we never have food issues at school. We do, frequently. But there are precedents, rules, and guidelines, and when a problem comes up, we have those to rely on and to help resolve those issues. We’re not re-inventing the wheel every time a question arises, and we’re not fighting as much of an uphill battle.

So the school year is off to a good start, and the teachers and lunchroom staff are as prepared as we can help them be.

Now, if we can just get through the next 37 weeks...

Lunch Variety, Schmariety

Recently, I was looking at a web site that talked about “bento box” school lunches. The idea is interesting – basically, you use a lunch box with lots of little compartments for different types of food. Supposedly, having mini compartments for mini portions of fun finger foods makes lunch more interesting, so kids eat it. Some suggestions included sandwiches cut into cookie-cutter shapes, veggies with dips, and wraps cut into 1-inch lengths and stabbed through with fancy toothpicks.

It’s a good idea, but it would be wasted on my son (aside from the fact that arming him with fancy toothpicks out of my sight shows questionable judgment).

School lunch at my house consists of three options:

1. Pasta with non-dairy margarine in a thermos
2. Salami sandwich (dry)
3. Sunbutter sandwich (SunGold Foods’ Sunbutter is a peanut butter look-alike that’s made from sunflower seeds. I swear it tastes and feels like the real thing, and it’s completely nut-free. Their web site is www.sunbutter.com, and I promise they don’t know me from Adam, so this isn’t a paid endorsement! But if you’re missing peanut butter in your house, even your non-allergic picky Aunt Freida will love this stuff.)

Of those three options, my son really only wants the noodles. The other two are the emergency “I forgot to buy more pasta” options.

Variety is just not important to some kids. We adults have a hard time accepting that, the same way we insist our child needs a sweater if we happen to be chilly ourselves.

Although my son is only allergic to peanuts and tree nuts, the main reason the selection is so limited is because his best friend is allergic to milk and eggs, in addition to peanuts and tree nuts. My son and his buddy sit together at the “allergy table” at school, and my boy refuses to eat anything at school that might make his friend sick. So that eliminates all cheese, which is his primary staple at home – he’s the only 8-year-old I know who stops at the cheese table at the grocery store and begs for mozzarella balls, brie, gouda, and bleu cheese – yes, he actually likes bleu cheese! It also eliminates most breads. But we have found one brand of milk-free and egg-free bread and a couple of brands of egg-free pasta, so we can do sandwiches and pasta.

He likes grilled meats, such as chicken, pork chops, and steak, but not if they’re cold and sliced on a sandwich. He also hates all sandwich meats except for salami. I used to pack a veggie or fruit in his lunch, but he refuses to waste time eating them, because he wants to get outside and enjoy his recess. So I stopped wasting perfectly good carrots and bananas. I figure the pasta will get him through the afternoon, at least until he gets home and I can feed him something healthier.

So all those great ideas for bento-box variety simply won’t fit into my son’s little mental compartments. The only variety he cares about is the shape of the pasta he picks each week.

Fortunately for me, he views lunch as fuel, not as an event. So while I worry that he’s sick of the same old thing, he isn’t yet. And until he complains, I guess I won’t waste time or energy trying to force more variety into his lunch box. And I sure won’t spend $30 on a cute little compartmentalized Japanese-inspired bento box lunch pail (although my son would think that was WAY cool).

That leaves me extra time to worry about introducing more variety on the dinner table, right?

K.D., Food Allergy Warrior Princess

Much to my son’s surprise, he survived his first week of third grade. What’s more, he didn’t get sent to the principal’s office! I was relieved.

The first day had an interesting element to it, however. My son’s best friend is also food-allergic (to milk, eggs, nuts, and seafood), and they are in the same classroom. This is fortunate, because the friend’s mom, Kim, is also one of my best friends, and this means we can share all the classroom food issues that come up.

The first issue came up surprisingly fast.

After lunch, all the kids started coming back into the classroom before the teacher returned. One girl brought in her little carton of milk from lunch. Now, the school policy is that no food leaves the cafeteria. This is partly for food allergies, but also (perhaps mostly) to keep the carpets clean.

There’s another girl in the class, K.D., who has been a best buddy of my son and the other allergic boy since they were all about 18 months old. She’s grown up understanding food allergies nearly as well as either of the boys, and the three of them have been through thick and thin together. She and my son have always acted like siblings – they are both strong-willed, opinionated, determined to be the leader, and unwilling to back down. In other words, brother and sister in all but blood, and they’ve weathered the fights to prove it (and the teacher has already told them they can’t sit together anymore). But despite that, each of the three of them will defend the other to the death, if need be, and woe be to the person who tries to lay a finger on any of the Three Musketeers.

Guess what happened when the unsuspecting student brought the milk into the classroom. As both boys were apparently looking worried and trying to figure out what to do, their female champion tackled the problem headlong. She began chewing out the hapless milk-girl, telling her she couldn’t have milk in the classroom, demanding that she remove it and go wash her hands, and telling her the damage she could cause the stunned boys. The other girl tried to argue, but she was up against a master.

By the time the teacher returned, it was all over, and none of the kids even thought to tell her about it.

After school, Kim noticed a tell-tale itchy spot near her son’s eye, and the boys reluctantly told us about the confrontation. Kim and I asked both boys what they did while their BFF defended them. They admitted they didn’t do anything. In fact, it was clear they were both intimidated. “Why didn’t you do something?” we both asked, aghast. What had happened to all our counseling about standing up for themselves and letting an adult know when there was a dangerous situation? My son has never been one to back down from a confrontation, and certainly he’s never been shy about informing people of his allergies.

“It was girl talk… a girl argument,” he said, as if that explained it all. “I was staying out of that.” His friend agreed. It was obvious that both boys thought Kim and I were nuts if we expected them to get in between two girls having an argument. Besides, they knew their friend had the situation in hand, and if they tried to jump in, they’d just get hit by nasty female crossfire.

I know adult men who haven’t figured out that lesson yet – proof that our boys are above average in the smarts department, if you ask me.

After Kim and I sputtered maternally for a few minutes about how they need to be responsible for themselves and they can’t rely on their friend to handle every situation, we backed off. After all, an amazing thing had happened that day. Kim and I realized that we aren’t our sons’ only protectors. There are other people in this world who care about them enough to protect them.

They’re called friends.

And even if they’re only 8 years old, they make a huge difference in our lives. And we can’t thank them enough.

Thank you, K.D. We love you.

In a Cooler World

“In a cooler world, I’d be allergic to school,” says my 8-year-old son.

Alas for him, he’s not allergic to school, and today is his first day of third grade. The first day is always a tad traumatic. First, there’s the annual “Dragging him bodily out of bed” ritual, because despite our good intentions we let bedtime slide the last few weeks, and now he’s used to sleeping in.

Second comes the lively “No you can’t watch cartoons, you’ve got to get dressed” debate – a perennial favorite.

Third, of course, is the “Oh, no, look at the clock, we’re going to be late!” dance, which no back-to-school morning is complete without.

Then, once we get to school, I’ve got a whole additional set of annual kick-off traditions, including reminding his new teachers about his food allergies, visiting the lunch lady to make sure she’s got the allergy table set up for all the allergy kids, and asking the principal for a time to demonstrate EpiPen usage to the new staff.

For some of you, those last three annual routines may be really challenging. I am lucky -- I love my son’s school because the administration and staff have been understanding about food allergies since day one. One of the reasons I worked to get my son into this school (it’s a charter school) is because the school has a policy of not allowing food (in other words, candy) to be used as rewards in the classroom. That wasn’t because of food allergies – it’s because we Americans have gotten into the bad habit of rewarding ourselves with food, and the school’s original principal wanted to start kids out with a healthier approach to food. So right way, my son’s already better off in this school.

Then, when I and another mom of a food allergic child approached the staff about accommodating food allergies, they were willing to listen. They set aside a table in the lunchroom for all kids with allergies. Half the table is dairy-free and nut-free; the other half is just nut-free. The kids with allergies are invited (but not forced) to sit there. Other kids can sit there, too, but only if they bring a “safe” lunch and have a note from someone the lunchroom staff trusts saying it’s safe. That way, best friends can join their food-allergic pals for lunch.

The lunchroom staff have a separate bucket and rag to clean the table with, and a sign declares the table off-limits to non-allergic lunch eaters.

The funny thing is, the allergic kids view the table as kind of a club. It’s fun to sit there; they feel special. When a new kid shows up, it’s cause for celebration. If someone tries to sit there with danger foods, the other kids speak right up and let the kid know they need to sit at another table. The allergic kids don’t seem to feel ostracized – quite the opposite. They feel bonded with each other.

So with all the challenges of starting a new year of school, it’s nice to have one small thing going my way. I’ve talked to other parents from other schools who fight constant battles over how to keep their children safe at lunch. I still have to worry about whether my son is swinging from monkey bars smeared with peanut butter from another kid’s hand at recess, but at least I know that for lunch he’ll be sitting at a safe table with kids he knows he can trust.

It may not be a cooler world as far as my son is concerned, but as for me – well, I’ll be adding one more item to my list of back-to-school rituals: making a special point of thanking the folks at my son’s school who go out of their way to keep him as safe as they can.