B&S -- your latest show is BS

Why? I asked myself this question several times the other night when I finally watched the most recent episode (Episode 319 "Spring Broken) of the ABC drama "Brothers & Sisters." Why include that line? What did it REALLY do to help the storyline? Not much. But it DID condone lying, being deceptive and putting other people in danger ..... great attributes to teach our children.

What am I talking about? If you didn't catch it, in the beginning of the show the harried, overworked single mother Sarah was making lunch for her kids and told her daughter Paige (who is around 13 years old) that she ran out of turkey, so instead she was giving them peanut butter sandwiches. Paige responds with "MOM! We are a peanut-free school!" And Sarah tells her, "Just tell them it's soy butter."

Nice.

Seriously. WHY?

As I suspected, other viewers picked up on how stupid this was and are talking about it on the ABC message board and so are some columnists.

It is so surprising to me that this liberal show would include this exchange. It's not like peanut allergies aren't well known these days (case in point -- the recent news story on the potential peanut allergy cure). So what dumb-ass wrote this ?!? Oh, I guess it was Brian Studler (according to the B&S writers blog). Well, he is not much a of "stud" to me; he is an idiot. (And evidently, not much of a writer since he couldn't write his own blog entry! Okay, I digress.)

I am fortunate, my boys can be around peanuts, they just can't ingest them, so this faux soy butter sandwich would not be an issue for them. But regardless of if your kids have peanut allergies, we all should find this dialogue shameful because it teaches the child that she is above the rules, should lie to get what she needs, and to not show sympathy and compassion for those with allergies.

Okay, I think I got it all out. Getting down off soapbox now. Thanks for listening.

The outcome of the social experiment

Okay, it was a pretty anti-climactic outcome from my social experiment at Big Guy's school with the cake walk. I asked the mom in charge and she said she didn't stay for the whole thing, so she didn't see if anyone took the allergen-free treats. Oh well!

As I said before, given how hectic it was in the room with the cake walk and given the lack of visibility to these treats (both in where they were placed amongst the other treats and the knowledge that they even existed), I think they weren't taken by kids with food allergies.

But I did get a survey for the overall fun fair and in the suggestions section, I recommended that next year they have an allergen-free section of treats and advertise their existence prior to the fun fair. So, we'll just have to wait and see.

Also, my friend gave me a great idea for an alternate to the cake walk, which would also address the allergy issue ... a Book Walk. Same idea as the cake walk, where you walk around and when the music stops there is one winner, but the winner gets to pick a book instead of a treat. This requires more upfront work since the parents have to get the book donations, but I think it is a terrific idea. It promotes literacy, instead of sugary treats and also helps out the kids with food allergies. Not to mention, the parents who aren't that keen on taking homemade treats from unknown bakers who may not be as diligent as they are in keeping a clean kitchen ... if you get my drift. So, I might try to float that idea out there next year too. Just call me a rabble rauser!! (how do you spell that??)

Any one have any other ideas???

Update on the social experiment

Well, we checked out the Cake Walk** on Friday to see how my mini-social experiment was coming along. As I said, I hadn't taken Big Guy to the cake walk last year because I knew he couldn't eat anything that he might win, so I didn't know what exactly to expect.

When we got in the room, I couldn't believe how many treats were stacked up for people to choose from. And when the kid wins the cake walk, he/she just runs up and grabs whatever looks good. The winner didn't get much time to pick. So, it was nearly impossible for the winner to find my labeled treats.

I quickly realized the problem with my experiment .... lack of visibility. The winner couldn't find my treats and no one knew that non-allergen treats were going to be there. For labeled treats to work people have to know they are there. So, I think next year I would try to work with the parents who organize this part of the fun fair and suggest that 2-5 of us make allergen-free treats (like I did this year), label them and announce the availability of the treats to all parents via the fun fair info sheets that are sent home 2-4 weeks before the fun fair. We would basically have a separate table for those treats and then kids with allergies would know there is something there they can eat if they do win the cake walk.

What do you all think? Would you allow your child to eat something at an event like this? Is it worth it???


** (For those of you who aren't sure what a cake walk is at a fun fair/carnival, here you go. There are a bunch of numbered sheets of paper taped to the floor in a circle. Then a bunch of kids (around 15) walk in a circle while music is playing. When the music stops, you stop on a number and the leader draws a number from a hat, if your number is drawn you win and get to pick a "cake" (in this case, a plate with 2-3 portions of a treat on it).

A new member of the family

Tada! I had a baby!! He was born on Jan. 21 and is a "cutie-pie" (according to Little Guy).

Hanging out today with mom.

Hmmm, now that the baby is here I guess I can't use the term Little Guy for my second son. But it would be confusing to change his nickname now. I guess I'll stick with Little Guy for him and call the baby Littlest Guy (which I'm sure he will LOVE when he is older).

Anyway, it will be interesting to see if he has any food allergies. I've talked to other moms with 3 kids and there are at least 2 families where one of the 3 kids dodged the food allergy bullet. Time will tell for Littlest Guy.

My mini-social experiment

Tonight is the Fun Fair at Big Guy's school. I decided that since I have some more time (being home on maternity leave) I would bake some allergen-free treats for the cake walk.

I made the Cherrybrook Kitchen chocolate cupcakes with Pillsbury frosting (which only contains soy) ....


and dairy-free rice krispie treats with the Miracle Margarine (aka Fleischmann’s Unsalted Margarine, which has no dairy in it.)


As you can see, the treats are clearly marked regarding what allergens they do and do not contain. I am interested to see if ...

(1) parents with kids with food allergies even go to the cake walk (I know I didn't last year because I assumed there would be nothing there that Big Guy could eat)
(2) parents with kids with food allergies are comfortable taking food another parent made
(3) kids without allergies will NOT eat these because they think they will taste gross (which they don't, they are yummy).

So that is why I consider this donation to be a mini-social experiment. The mom running the cake walk has two kids with food allergies, so she'll be paying attention to how this all goes down.

Stay tuned!!

A nod to the difficulties of eating out

I'm a little late posting this, but I thought it was really cool to see a local restaurant acknowledging the difficulties eating out with food allergies. I've blogged about this before and I know other people have too.

I don't think a 5 year old and 3 year old would really dig this posh restaurant, so I hope family-style restaurants consider doing the same thing. It would be so cool to be able to order ANYTHING off the menu at a restaurant, or at least have it CLEARLY marked so we'd know what we could get AND actually have the food contain what the server says it does (or does not).

Here is another idea .... Can you imagine how cool it would be if underneath the description of the food on a menu there was a list of allergens (like we get on food labels) ... for example:

Chicken Fingers Allergens: wheat, soy, egg, dairy

Oh, and it should be in plain English, like that, not "casein, whey, etc."

Is that really so hard??

Wow, what a dream!!

Photo Essay ... enjoying the sun and water

As promised here are the photos from our trip to Florida. We had SO much fun. While today, as I post these, it's pouring rain. Sigh.

Travel tip: Note from the doctor

We recently went to Florida for a family vacation and had a wonderful time. (See photos below!)

As all of you know, traveling with the allergic "rug rats" adds a whole 'nother dimension to getting prepared. Since we went back to an area we had been before I knew there were health food stores nearby if the main grocery stores didn't care some of the products the boys like.

But still I decided to bring the Tofutti soy cheese they like so much since I have a hard time finding it here. I actually brought 2 kinds of cheese -- the soy American slices and the soy cream cheese. I carried both on board so they could eat it en route and so I could keep it cold. I was a little worried about the soy cheese because it could be considered a liquid and is more than 3 ounces. Sure enough, when we went through security they saw the rule-breaking cheese in the x-ray machine and asked us about it. My husband immediately said, "go ahead, throw it out." I immediately started explaining "how my little one has all kinds of food allergies and we can't get that cheese anywhere, blah blah blah."

Now, let me say if there had been a big line at security or we were running late, I would have sacrificed the cheese too, but that was NOT the case. The nice lady from the TSA told me that I should have a note from the doctor re: his food allergies and then they could let it through. (who knew!?!) Instead I got to speak to her supervisor. He was a nice 24-year old kid who looked at me and the soy cheese and said we could take it through. Hurrah!

So, lesson learned: BRING A NOTE FROM YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT YOUR KID'S ALLERGIES WHEN YOU TRAVEL.

Now, on to the fun stuff .... photos! The boys had a great time fishing with their dad, enjoying the beach and the pool.

OKAY, I can't add my photos :-( ... I get the error message below. It happens whether I am in IE or Firefox. I did report it to Blogger and will try again later. So, stay tuned for photos.

Describe what you were doing when you got this error.
Provide the following error code and additional information.

bX-qon7g9